Saturday, December 14, 2013

On the Nature of Evidence

EVIDENCE – On the Nature of Evidence
By William Kelly

When he wasn’t working as a policeman, detective, lieutenant and chief of detectives for the Camden County (NJ) Prosecutors Office, my father enjoyed reading pulp paperback novels – westerns and private eye mysteries, but two of the books on his permanent shelf – behind the glass door bookshelf, were some hardbound police manuals, including a few that I picked up – “The Detection of Murder” by William F. Kessler, MD and Paul Weston (1953 Greenberg), and “Techniques for the Crime Investigator,” by William Dienstein (Charles C. Thomas Publishers,  Ill, 1952, 1965).

Although textbook manuals for “policemen, investigators, detectives, prosecutors, lawyers and judges,” these books read in parts much like the sparse but direct vocabulary of Sam Spade.

In their “Detection of Murder,” Kessler and Weston explain quite clearly that there are four cases of death – natural, suicide, accidental and murder, and “it is the duty of the police to investigate the circumstances attending the death by examination of the crime scene and questioning witnesses.  His object is to explore the events that led up to it and to seek a reconstruction of the last hours spent on earth of the deceased. From this portion of the initial investigation, it is expected that a reasonable conclusion as to the possible mechanism of death can be made.”

“Experienced police officers and medical examiners are astounded by the ease with which the untrained and the incompetent make positive statements at a death scene – statements which are entirely at odds with the manner in which these inexperienced individuals can readily recognize a suicide or an accidental death but have trouble in marshalling the evidence that points to murder.”

“A corpus delici is the essential elements of a crime and the criminal agency. In homicide it is divided into two component parts, the first of which is the death of the person, and the second is that the death is produced through a criminal agency.”

“In this connection the New York Penal Law provides that the following proof of death is required in all homicide cases: ‘No person can be convicted of murder or manslaughter unless the death of the person alleged to have been killed and the fact that the killing by the defendant, as alleged, are each established as independent facts; the former by direct proof, and the latter beyond a reasonable doubt…That someone is dead is directly proved whenever a body is found…However in determining guilt or innocence from circumstantial evidence, there are two general rules to be observed: 1) The hypothesis of guilt should flow naturally from the facts and be consistent with them all; 2) The evidence must be such as to exclude, to a moral certainty, every hypothesis but that of guilt. In other words, the facts proved must all be consistent with and point to guilt, and must be inconsistent with innocence.

In “Techniques for the Crime Investigator,” William Dienstein is more specific and writing directly to the first responding investigator when he writes: “The job of the investigator is to discover…what specific offense has been committed, how it was committed, by whom it was committed, where it was committed, when was it committed and, under certain circumstances, why it was committed.”

The investigator, Dienstein said, “must have the ability to stick to a task in spite of the monotony of it and in spite of many obstacles…. He must have a certain native ability, an intelligence which enables him to acquire information easily and readily and which enables him to use this information. He should have a capacity to think through situations….The investigator must be as intelligent as the offender.”

“A primary factor of personal integrity is a sincere desire to arrive at a conclusion based upon facts. The investigator must be free of bias or prejudice, and cannot let these emotions interfere with his objective efforts to arrive at the facts.”

“Another requisite is an understanding of people and the environment in which they live. It is through this understanding that an investigator is often able to develop leads which might otherwise escape his attention. The investigator must know what prompts people to act as they do in various situations. He must know the weaknesses and strength of people so that he can use them to his advantage, particularly during interrogations. A knowledge of psychology of human behavior is essential to the investigator…He must possess that knack of being able to get along with people, that quality which enables people to confide in him.”

“Investigation requires thinking and acting, acting based on continual thinking. One mistake may make invalid months of tedious effort. An investigator cannot seek personal aggrandizement….does not seek personal credit, but rather seeks to give credit to others who have assisted him…Commendation is due them for their part in the administration of justice.”

“The clues that lead to the solution of an offense lie in the scene of the crime. Therefore, the investigator must be aware of what constitutes evidence, what are the clues, where they may be found, and how they may be produced, collected and preserved.”  

“Evidence is anything that may be presented in determining the truth about a fact in question. Evidence is that which supplies the means of arriving at the truth. Evidence may be a matter of fact from which another matter of fact may be inferred.”

“So far as the investigator is concerned, everything at the scene of a crime that can be used in ascertaining what in fact occurred constitutes evidence.”

“Evidence is obtained through one or more of the five senses – seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling or tasting. It is this evidence, unearthed by the investigator through the use of these senses during the course of an investigation that enables him to reconstruct the happening, to identify the person or person involved, and to destroy the alibi of suspects. From the crime scene, evidence is gathered to establish the fact of the offense and to identity of the perpetrator. To prove commission of an offense, the steps which constitute the crime must be taken. These steps are considered the elements of the crime.”

“The investigator must establish each step of the crime in order to prove the offense, and in order to establish each step, he must be aware of the elements in each offense. The elements of a crime are the aggregate of those factors necessary to constitute the particular offense. Two elements most common to all offenses are the act and the intent. The elements are indicated in the statutory definition of the particular offense.”

“the elements of the crime of murder are that the victim named or described is dead; and the death of the victim resulted from an act or an omission of the accused; that the accused had a premeditated design to kill, or intended to kill or inflict great bodily harm, or was engaged in an act inherently dangerous to others, such as an act which shows wanton disregard of human life. Unless all three of the above elements are established through investigation, the crime of murder is not proved, although some other offense may be proved.”

“Physical evidence found at the scene of an offense may permit the investigator to reconstruct the manner in which the act was committed. Such evidence may also identify the perpetrator. He may have left a personal article which can be traced to him….he may have left his trademark of operation.”

“There are two types of evidence found at a crime scene; fixed or immovable evidence and moveable evidence….If the possession of the evidence is unaccountable for a moment, the evidence is rendered inadmissible. A general rule to be followed by every investigator is: Nothing at a crime scene is too insignificant for proper treatment. Cases are never lost because too much evidence has been gathered and preserved.”

“…Too often an investigator will close a case when he has secured enough proof to convince himself that the accused is guilty…His findings must be such as to convince a court that the accused committed an illegal act. The most common error made by investigators is to pass up evidence as immaterial and unnecessary. Later, the evidence so passed may be of great importance. No investigator can tell what observation will be important in the future.”

“Evidence is always present at the scene of the commission of any crime. Whether or not the evidence is found is another matter. That it is not found, does not prove its absence….The perpetrator of a criminal act must leave traces of his actions. Those traces are part of the crime scene.”

“One person must be in charge of a crime scene. He will direct the protection and search….The names and addresses of all persons found on or adjacent to the scene are obtained…and questioned….and later interrogated….Witnesses should not be permitted to talk to each other and complete statements taken.”

“The first act of the search commander, after witnesses have been detained, is to protect the area not only against curious bystanders but against curious officials….The next step is a preliminary survey of the scene to orient the investigator and enable him to get the whole picture. The investigator will start “cold.” That is, he will have no preconceived notions of what happened, how it happened, and who might have done it. What he finds and where he finds it will be the facts upon which he does his thinking…Starting an investigation with a preconceived notion will lead an investigator into gross errors by causing him to look for those things which establish his preconceived idea and to overlook the things which disprove it. This is usually an unconscious working of the mind…Conclusions must arise from the findings; findings cannot arise from conclusions.”

“Photography plays a very important part in this stage of the investigation….for an accurate and paramount record.”

“The investigator cannot belittle the fact that the actual solution of the offense is in the scene of the crime. It is from the search of the crime scene and adjacent areas that the means of the approach to the scene of the perpetrator is established and the means of escape from the scene is discovered.”

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

“Information is secured from two primary sources: recorded sources and persons. Investigative activity is made up largely of searching records and talking to people. Records are consulted as a means of securing documentary corroboration of verbal information and as a direct means of obtaining information and unearthing leads. People are consulted for the purpose of getting information about the subject and situation under investigation. This information may establish certain suspicions or may direct the investigator along other lines of inquiry. The ability to secure information is the chief asset of any investigator.”

“…When evidence is presented factually and graphically, the judge and jury are in a far better position to arrive at a logical conclusion than if the evidence is indefinite and inaccurate. There is no danger of securing too much accurate and detailed information about a situation that is the subject of an investigation. The trail of a criminal case should not be a guessing match in which witnesses and investigators alike participate. The trial should be an accurate and scientific presentation of the facts. The judge or jury is expected to decide a case on the basis of fact. To do so, the judge or jury must get the facts. Justice is dependent upon the presentation of all the facts. The absence of some of the facts may result in the drawing of unfounded conclusions.”

THRESHOLD TO MURDER

“In trying to arrive at some conclusion as to just what creates the criminal impulse that drives the knife home or presses on the trigger of the murder weapon, two major factors must be considered.

The first factor is the circumstances surrounding the killing. These may involve a period of several years prior to the crime or they may concern only the situation at the time of the murder. Secondly, the natural tendencies of the murderer or the suspects in the case must be considered, as the characteristics of individuals are indicative of the manner in which they will react in most situations.”

“The investigation into the circumstances of a murder will reveal the situation which confronted the individual guilty of the killing, and a knowledge of the characteristics of each suspect will give the investigator some knowledge of how each of them would react to such a situation.”

“Each of us has a ‘threshold to murder,’ a point at which our reaction to a situation may result in a killing. An individual born in the South will seek to avenge a real or fancied insult by the use of arms much faster than one born in the North. Yet there are ‘fighting words’ which may result in an altercation ending in murder in any section of the country. It all depends on the individual and the situation with which he is confronted.”

MOTIVE VS. INTENT

“Motive is that which stems from within the individual, rather than from without. It is that which incites an individual to certain actions. Motive is the ‘why’ of an act, the reason for it. Intent is the result of the motive, and is the bridge between motive and action. Without intent, no action would be taken.”

“When plans are made to do some act then an intent to do that act has been made as the result of some motivation. The intent in murder is to kill. The motive might be anything. Motive or its absence may be of considerable importance in determining the intent of the defendant. Murderous intent may be inferred from motive clearly established, while absence of motive is more than pertinent to the question of intent where it is an issue.”

IMPORTANCE OF MOTIVE

“In securing convictions for first degree murder it is imperative that the correct motive be shown to the jury. Conviction for ‘Murder One’ must be supported by proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the homicide was committed by the accused from a premeditated and deliberate design to the effect the death of the person killed. It must be shown that there was a deliberate premeditated intention to kill, and that the killing followed.”

“Proof of premeditation and deliberation requires proof of some reflection preceding the actual murder. If a killer thinks about the killing and makes a choice as a result of such mental action, then there is sufficient deliberation within the law.”

“If the killer was motivated by any of the motives classified in this chapter, then the possibility of a first degree murder conviction is enhanced.”

CLASSIFICATION BY MOTIVE

“The motivations for murder can be divided into seven definite groups:
1)      Profit 2) Elimination 3) Revenge 4) Jealousy 5) Conviction 6) Sadism 7) Sex

CONVICTION

Anarchists excuse their crimes, their sometimes wanton slaughter of the innocent, because of their political beliefs. It is their fixed conviction that anything, including murder, necessary to carry out their plans for world domination is permissible because of the importance of their plans. ‘Political’ crimes, from single murders to mass murder, are likewise excused by those concerned on the grounds of conviction.”

ELIMINATION

“Removal of the person who happens to be ‘in the way’ is the determining factor in a great number of murders. In the true elimination murder the continued existence of the victim is inconvenient or dangerous to the killer.”

“Lovers remove a husband or a wife who is in the way, a youth kills a former mistress so he may marry the girl of his dreams, and the girl of someone’s dreams may kill an unwanted child in order to smooth the path of a proposed marriage. A blackmailer may be killed as the only feasible method of denying continued demands for money. These, and the killing of professional criminals, are the murders motivated by a desire to eliminate the victim.”

“Professional criminals do not usually kill for any other motive than elimination. Certainly, they may kill in a rage, for revenge, or out of jealousy, but they are a group with a cautious attitude towards murder.”
“And those concerned with organized crime, vice, gambling, and narcotics, will also kill. Perhaps it’s a stool pigeon who is to be eliminated, a business competitor, or the ‘boss’ himself. Murder is the method of discipline among the gangs of the organized underworld. It is also a regular technique of such business.”

“Elimination killings which occur among gangsters and other criminals are truly difficult to unravel. A body is found and police know of several people who would profit from the elimination of the dead man, others who may have threatened to ‘get him,’ and some who may have thought him as a man that ‘had to go.’”

“However, in over 90 percent of these gang killings the persons who have the motive for killing never handle the gun that fires the fatal shots, nor drive the car that may be used in the killing. They are involved in the conspiracy and are guilty of murder because they procured the ‘trigger men’ who did the actual killing, but they have an alibi to prove they were many miles away from the scene of death at the time of the homicide.” 
“There are few witnesses, fewer that are willing to testify, and even this number is reduced by murder when it becomes known they are willing to ‘finger’ a killer.”

MODUS OPERANDI

“Modus Operandi was developed early in this century by Major General Sir Llewelyn W. Atcherley of Yourkshire, England. Modus Operandi means method of operation. The modus operation file consists of records that describe the manner in which a criminal operates. These records are classified and filed in such a way as to assist in identifying the crime as one committed by a known criminal or as one of a series committed by an unidentified criminal.”

“People have a tendency to do particular things in individual ways. They develop habits of action from which they seldom vary – habits in doing their jobs, habits in traveling, habits in the everyday, routine activities…The way in which an offender commits an offense will distinguish him from others committing the same offense…He leaves his calling card at the scene of every offense. The place and method of attack identify him. The modus operandi system is a useful tool in identifying a crime as having been committed by an unknown criminal.”

“The success of the Modus Operandi system depends upon the ability of the investigating officers and the ability of the operator of the file. The investigating officers must be able to discover and report methods and facts essential to the proper classification of the crime. The operator of the file must be able to classify the data secured and to make searches for data already available.”

RECONSTRUCTION OF LAST HOURS

“One of the important factors in an initial investigation is to reconstruct the last hours, even the last days, of the deceased. Who saw him last? With whom did he eat his last meal? Who spoke to him over the telephone in his last hours? Where he went and what he did in the period preceding death are what must be reconstructed. And it is the reconstruction of this period that most often reveals the true facts surrounding unexplained and unexpected death.”

INTERROGATION

“The interrogation of persons concerned in a suspicious death is directed towards exploring the circumstances that lead up to the moment of death, and possibly the facts surrounding the killing. Friends, associates, as well as relatives are questioned. Neighbors are interviewed for what they may know of the victim and for information as to persons who may have visited the deceased. “In some instances a house-to-house canvas of the neighborhood is of value. Someone may have noticed a stranger in the neighborhood or a resident acting strangely. Someone who saw the murderer enter or leave a block may be found. Perhaps a canvas may reveal that the murder is a resident of the neighborhood. Sudden flight, agitation, etc. are warning signs. Photographs, address books, letters, and other personal papers are examined minutely for the names of individuals who may through light upon the case.”

INTERROGATION OF SUSPECTS –

BK Notes: New Yorker Magazine (Dec. 2013) has an article about the nature of police interrogation techniques – and why the procedure practiced by most American law enforcement agencies – by matter of policy, is that called the Reid Technique – by former Chicago policeman John Reid?Sp., which promotes bogus psychological techniques that attempts to obtain a confession from suspects, often obtaining false confessions.

I believe that this technique was practiced by Dallas homicide chief Capt. Will Fritz.

When it was realized – primarily by the British – that the techniques advanced by Reid were based on bad psychology – since proven wrong – they – the British devised an alternative interrogation technique that is more persuasive in obtaining accurate information, develops a personal narrative and is conducive in detecting and unraveling lies.

The Reid technique, according to the author of the New Yorker article and new book on the subject, was written by a lie detector operator – machine technician based on a science that falsely believed that detection could be determined by measuring anxiety and body language, and the subject (suspect) manipulated into confessing to the crime, which they did even if innocent.

Those who were in Captain Fritz’s office when Lee Harvey Oswald was interrogated, all expressed the belief that Oswald was not only a cool and composed customer, but that he had been trained in counter-interrogation techniques.


Accurate Portrait of J. D. Tippit

Dale Myers’ Misleading Portrait of J.D. Tippit 

Dale Myers’ Norman Rockwell portrait of Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit in the Detroit Free Press (November, 2013) may be accurate but is misleading in not presenting all the pertinent facts.

Officer Tippit, whose murder is attributed to the same man alleged to have assassinated President Kennedy less than an hour earlier, was a good cop but not a smart one, and had a peculiar inability to look people squarely in the eyes when talking with them. Now is a time when we have to look into the eyes and square things away to determine the truth and achieve justice, not just get misty eyed over a lost loved one.

Tippit’s usual partner, R. C. Nelson, retired from the Dallas Police, told CBS Miami that Tippit was a “nice, east Texas guy who loved his family and worked hard and did what he was supposed to do, but wasn’t very curious. He liked to write his tickets and go home. He had a bad habit of not looking at you when he was talking to you.”

According to the CBS report, “Nelson said he had actually talked to Officer Tippit before the fateful day in Dallas about his partner’s tendency toward avoiding eye contact with subjects.” Nelson believes that personality querk may have contributed to his death because, “Tippit didn’t secure or guard his pistol and the first shot hit the officer in the temple, suggesting Tippitt was looking away.”
Nelson said he believes that Oswald actually flagged Officer Tippit down because he “can’t imagine Tippit pulling him (Oswald) over and saying ‘come here.’”
It’s certainly true that Tippit is not remembered as he should be and because his murder was not properly investigated allows the allegations of conspiracy to continue, and while they may be painful for family and friends they are not as preposterous as Myers claims.

Among the odd jobs Tippit held to make ends meet was at a barbeque restaurant popular with young people where he struck up an affair with a married and pregnant waitress, thus providing a motive for someone other than Oswald to kill him.

The restaurant Tippit worked was owned by a John Birch Society extremist whose business partner was Ralph Paul, who also happened to be Jack Ruby’s business partner.

While the Tippit family and friends may make the anniversary reflections on the assassination personal, so does every American who was robbed of their democracy that day, when bullets replaced the ballot, truth was lost to government propaganda and those responsible for the crimes never saw justice.

A new book on the murder of Tippit by California journalist Joseph McBride tells us that according to Tippit’s father, Tippit was killed while hunting for Oswald and not just a suspicious person - specifically for Lee Harvey Oswald.  

Myers says that: “At 1:15 p.m. on Friday, November 22, 1963, Officer Tippit spotted a suspicious man walking near Tenth and Patton in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. He stopped his squad car and got out to investigate. The man, identified by eyewitnesses as Lee Harvey Oswald, pulled a gun from under his jacket and shot Tippit in the chest and head, killing him instantly.”

What Myers doesn’t tell you are a number of contributing facts and factors that question the identity and role of Lee Harvey Oswald. Myers doesn’t tell you that Oswald was also seen by eyewitnesses at the Top Ten Record shop in Oak Cliff twice that morning, and that Tippit also stopped there shortly after one o’clock, minutes before he was killed, to make a phone call.

Eyewitnesses also placed Oswald at a nearby convenience store purchasing candy and beer and using a Texas drivers licenses as identification when the historic Oswald was at work at the Texas School Book Depository. Which Oswald killed Tippit, the one at work at Dealey Plaza or the one at the record shop and convenience store?

Two eye witnesses at the scene of the murder say there were two men near Tippit when he was killed, one who ran away and the other who left in an old Plymouth.

Shortly thereafter an eyewitness saw Oswald behind the wheel of a 1957 Plymouth, and wrote down the license plate number of the car that was traced to Carl Mather. When the FBI questioned Mrs. Mather, with the Plymouth sitting in driveway, she told them that on the morning of November 22, 1963, her husband had the Plymouth at his place of employment – Collins Radio Company, where he worked on the radios of the Vice President’s airplane. But in the afternoon they went to the home of their good friend and former neighbor J.D. Tippit to pay their respects to his widow.

So the accused presidential assassin and cop killer was seen shortly after murdering J.D. Tippit riding around in the car of a good friend of the murdered victim?

Indeed, as Myers contends, Tippit’s showdown with Oswald had momentous impact on our nation’s history, and continues to haunt us today, as the government records related to Collins Radio Company are still being withheld from the public for reasons of “national security.”

As Myers suggests, historians should consider the consequences for Dallas and the country had Oswald, framed as the patsy, escaped the city, as he wouldn’t have been murdered while in the custody of the Dallas police and would have lived to tell his side of the story.

Tippit should be remembered as the Dallas policeman whose murder is considered the “Rosetta Stone” of the assassination of President Kennedy, a murder that should be properly investigated today so those actually responsible for the murders of John F. Kennedy and J.D. Tippit can be properly and legally identified and some semblance of truth and justice achieved.

Truth, justice and the law are essential ingredients of our form of government that has been corrupted by the murders of Kennedy, Tippit and Oswald, and corruption continues with the failure of the government to come clean and enforce the JFK Act of 1992. Rather than redact, withhold, lose and destroy the relevant records on the assassination, the records should be immediately released so the citizens of this country can make up their own minds as to what happened in Dallas that day.

William E. Kelly, Jr. is the son of a Camden, New Jersey policeman, independent researcher, journalist and historian who blogs about the assassination at http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com.






Assassination Psychology and the COP Profile

Assassination Psychology 
– By William Kelly

There was a lot of psycho-analysis going on over the course of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy, most coming from those who believe JFK was killed by a deranged lone nut, but instead of trying to figure out how and why Oswald did what they suggest he did – kill JFK without any assistance, they reflect on the mindset of conspiracy theorists and why they think Oswald didn’t kill Kennedy alone.

Rather than review the evidence that convinces nearly 80% of the people that Oswald didn’t act alone in killing JFK, they prefer to psychoanalyze the logic and reasoning of most people everywhere, in every time and generation, to believe conspiratorial forces killed JFK.

But those who believe Oswald killed Kennedy for his own psychological reasons fail to connect to the real motives behind the assassination.

Richard Sprague, a former prosecutor and first chief counsel to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, tasked with investigating the assassination of President Kennedy, and said to be the son of two psychologists, when asked about Oswald’s mental state said, “I am not about to find out if Oswald was nurtured at his mother’s breasts, my approach to evidence is more direct.”

Instead of considering the facts that support the belief of most people hold that Oswald wasn’t on the Sixth Floor at the time of the assassination, wasn’t the sniper in the window who didn’t shoot the fatal shot that came from the front of the president, those radical extremists who stick to the implausible belief that Oswald killed JFK alone want to psychoanalyze the rest of us who don’t see things quite as qurkey as they do.

One of the first books to attack the critics of the official version of events – “The Scavanagers and Critics of the Warren Report” – was co-authored by Lawrence Schiller, who also co-authored Norman Mailer’s book about Oswald, and who has refused to share the KGB files that were provided to them. Why are official records in the hands of private individuals who refuse to disclose their contents or turn them over to the NARA JFK Collection so they can be open to the public?

Schiller was not the first to withhold important and historical official records from the public but he was one of the first to brand critics of the Warren Report irrational “scavangers.”

Marquette University professor John McAdams wrote a book about how conspiracy theorists think and imply their thought processes are illogical. Those who promote the idea that a deranged Oswald killed Kennedy also like to psychoanalyze the logic of so-called conspiracy theorists, like Professor Michael J. Wood, lecturer at the University of Winchester in Hampshire, England, who claims that conspiracy theorists operate under a different set of assumptions than other, more rational people. When it comes to the assassination of President Kennedy Wood parrots Priscilla Johnson McMillen, who has often said, “It was a pretty shocking event on a national scale, and to think it could be the product of just one person is very unsettling.” They say how difficult it is for conspiracy theorists to accept the fact that one lowly little man had the ability to commit such a tremendous act and change the course of history, and how reassuring it is to think that there was something more sinister behind it.

But Professor Wood has it backwards – if Oswald was a deranged psycho-madman, that would be readily apparent and could be understood. What is unsettling is the idea that a crazy Oswald didn’t kill JFK alone and it was a successful conspiracy and coup d’état and our democracy has been robbed of us. And that is the reason why the government today keeps secret records hidden under the guise of “national security.”
Now that’s unsettling. It’s not unsettling that JFK was killed by a deranged lone nut - it’s unsettling that it was a conspiracy that’s still affecting us today.

It’s not the mind-set of the conspiracy theorists that should be studied, it is the mind of the assassin – the man who pulled the trigger – or to flip the coin – the mind set of lone nutters who want us to believe that snipe was a crazy psycho-assassin rather than a political animal who despised and eliminated Kennedy as a threat to national security.

Was Oswald set up as a patsy and fall guy or was he the assassin, and if he was the assassin was he crazy or a professional sniper and assassin politically and professionally motivated?

Before looking more closely at Oswald’s mind set, I think we should look further into the thinking of those who claim Oswald was crazy.

If we must examine what motivates people to believe silly theories, let’s look more closely at the mind-set of the minority - 20% who hold the radical extremist view that one deranged loner killed the Kennedy, a smaller, more easily isolated and studied minority group.

At the 2013 Wecht conference in Pittsburgh Lisa Pease mentioned a formal study of those who espouse such extremist beliefs as Holocaust Deniers, 9/11 Truthers, Obama Birthers and she added Lone Nutters in the JFK case, pointing out that while they all represent a small, similar less than 20% of the population minority viewpoint, only the Lone Nutters occupy important and significant positions in government, academia and the media.

This despite the facts and evidence of the case and that Lone Nutters are totally illogical, as they claim that the alleged assassin sought fame and a place in history, yet this belies the fact that he denied the deed and claimed he was set up as a patsy.

Also illogical is the attempt to portray Oswald as a lonesome loser who couldn’t hold a job and failed at everything he tried to do, yet claim he had the wherewithal to successfully kill Kennedy all by himself. If he did kill Kennedy wouldn’t that make him the world’s best and greatest assassin in history?

And wouldn’t his mind and motives be studied forever by psychologists and psychiatrists as a standard case study of such deranged assassins and included in the same category as other nut case killers?

If Oswald killed Kennedy all by himself, wouldn’t it be of interest to determine exactly how he did it? Where’d he get the bullets? How’d he get the gun in the building? How’d he get down the stairs without anyone on the steps seeing him?

In July 1964, as the Warren Commission was wrapping up its report, Lee Harvey Oswald’s older brother Robert received a telephone call from Warren Commission attorney Wesley J. Liebeler, who was holed up in a remote cabin writing the part of the Warren Report about Oswald’s motive for shooting the President.
According to Robert Oswald, Liebeler, “...had now reached the point in the chapter where he wanted to reveal Lee’s motive for shooting the President, he said, and that was why he was calling me.”

“When you want to know something,” Liebeler said, “you go directly to the man who should know the answer.”

“I was astonished by his question,” Robert wrote. “The Commission had spent months in ‘exhaustive examination of every particle of evidence it could discover,’ as Harrison E. Salisbury wrote. Yet, here suddenly, after taking the testimony of hundreds of witnesses, a member of the Commission staff was asking me to answer during a brief telephone conversation, one of the most important questions about the entire case.”

“I had withheld judgment partly because I expected the vast authority and resources of the Commission to help me and others understand just what led to that moment of violence in Dealey Plaza. The casual call from Liebeler made me wonder whether I had placed too much faith in the Commission. When the report appeared in September, I realized that the Commission had failed completely in its search for the answer to that question.”

“Why? The few paragraphs in the summary report devoted to the subject of motive seemed to reflect the surprising uncertainty I had detected in Liebeler’s voice during our telephone conversation. After offering a few generalizations that could apply to many people who have never committed any serious crime, the Commission confessed: ‘…the Commission does not believe that it can ascribe to him any one motive or group of motives.’”

Why would Oswald kill the President if he sincerely liked him? Why did Oswald deny the deed if he did it to achieve fame and place in history?  Why’d he do it? What was his motive?

Robert Oswald was flabbergasted. Here the US government undertook this giant investigation and concluded Oswald did it alone for his own psychological motives, and they would have us believe they are reasons that we will never know because they were his own personal demons – like Ted Bundy, or John Hinckley, - just plain crazy.

But what if Oswald wasn’t the Sixth Floor Sniper assassin, and was set up to be the Patsy as he claimed – is the mind and psychology of the Patsy worth studying or knowing?

It’s like what Vincent Bugliosi said to John Judge – “I heard you don’t believe Oswald acted alone,” to which Judge replied, “Oh, I think Oswald acted alone all right, I just don’t believe he killed anyone.”

Whether Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin, one of the multiple shooters or a just a mere Patsy, his motivations are worth reviewing, especially if what happened at Dealey Plaza was not the random act of a madman but a well planned and successfully executed covert intelligence operation.

Those who claim a deranged Oswald acted alone can say “case closed” and go home, leaving the psychoanalysis to the psychiatrists and psychologists, but if Oswald didn’t act alone, then there is a big hole in our “national security” shield, a hole that has allowed the intelligence network responsible for killing Kennedy to go on and continue unheeded, and permitted to function within the government from then until now.

There are two types of investigations – criminal and intelligence – with a the purpose of a criminal investigation being the accumulation of evidence that can be presented in a court of law to convict those responsible, while an intelligence investigation tries to determine exactly what happened, how and why it occurred, more so it won’t happen again and not to prosecute those responsible.

When the Secret Service commissioned some psychologists to study the history of political assassinations in the United States and profile those who have attacked the president, both recent and historically, they failed to include one profile that I think is particularly important when it comes to political assassinations – that of what I call the covert operational profile.

Since the Secret Service report didn’t mention it – and being from New Jersey where we have a reputation for developing criminal profiles – I have outlined what I call the COP – the Covert Operative Personality.
And regardless as to whether you believe Lee Harvey Oswald was the Sixth Floor Sniper or was set up as the Patsy, Oswald pretty much sets the proto-type of the COP profile as a former USMC who used aliases, post office boxes and kept safe-house apartment separate from family.

COP – COVERT OPERATIONAL PERSONALITY – Profile

Modus Operandi – Covert operative, trained in intelligence tradecrafts, maintains Post Office box, valid passport, uses aliases, maintains confidential and clandestine communications, uses codes and ciphers, operates on a need-to-know basis under the command of a case officer or military superior.

Knowledge – Of military and government procedures, lines of authority, command and communications.
Specialty – Expert marksman, rifleman and sniper, working closely with spotter in special detachment, primarily overseas duty.

Status – Active duty or active reservists, US military, primarily US Marine Corps, US Navy SEAL or Special Ops detachment.

Type – Fits serial killer profile as a repeat offender, “passive-aggressive” - organized personality, involved in three or more separate events, premeditated, select type of victim, in control.

Examples: John W. Booth, Byron Dela Beckwith, Lee Harvey Oswald, Frank Sturgis, Felix Rodriguez, Gerry Patrick Hemming, Charles Whitman, Michael Townbly, Timothy McVeigh, James Earl Ray, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi.

Type II: (disorganized personality, psycho motivated, mentally deranged, possibly intentionally hypno-drug programmed), Leon Czoigosz, Luis Angel Castillo, Charles J. Guiteau, John Hinkley, Sirhan B. Sirhan, Robert W. Piclett, Jessica Wilcox.





Saturday, December 7, 2013

Grandmother's On the Roof - Head's Up!

                                             “GRANDMOTHER IS ON THE ROOF”

The Carlos Contract – A Novel of International Terrorism (Macmillan, 1978)
by David Atlee Phillips

David Atlee Phillips has long been a person of interest in the assassination of President Kennedy

Besides a number of non-fictional books, including the auto-biographical “Nightwatch – 20 Years of Peculiar Service” and a book about the murder trail of a Texas oil man, David Atlee Phillips also wrote a fictional novel, “The Carlos Contract,” about an off-the-books team assembled to get Carlos, the international terrorist.

While the book is labeled a work of fiction, Carlos is a real person, as are a number of other characters in the book, including my former college mate Glen Gebhard and a few CIA officers thinly disguised behind such nick-names as “Hyphenated Jake” – aka Jack Easterline and William “Mack” McLendon. Easterline was one of the planners of the Bay of Pigs and Gordon McLendon was a Dallas radio station owner who knew Jack Ruby and was a founding member of Phillips’ Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

My college friend Glen went to Europe where his passport was stolen. It apparently ended up in the hands of the real Carlos the Jackal, so when he returned to Europe a few years later with a new passport, he was violently interrogated at a border post. Phillips uses Glen’s name as one of the aliases of Carlos, so there are some doses of reality in Phillips’ fictional work. This book also details how to set up a special operations team that can do something like locating a specific terrorist, and it should be applied as one way to discover the real killers in the assassination of President Kennedy.  

As the story goes, “Mack” McLendon is called out of retirement from a long career in the CIA to go after Carlos, so he assembles his team and, as Phillps writes:

“In addition to questioning the wisdom of involving friends, Mack questioned his own actual ability to outwit Carlos. Had his professional talents and determination atrophied? Would he be a fool to enter the arena again?”

“And, more importantly, did he still have the gift of perceiving when grandmother was on the roof?”

“Mack had once been given a memorable bit of advice by a senior CIA officer and veteran Latin American hand: ‘An important part of intelligence work is sensing, before you have hard proof, that a critical development will occur. Call it professional intuition, the conviction that a number of pieces, when eventually assembled into enough of the entire puzzle, will constitute a revelation that is vital. I always try to think of it in terms of knowing when grandmother is on the roof.’”

As a way of explanation, “the older officer then launched into a story which he identified as Brazilian folklore, a ‘Portuguese story’ somewhat on the order of yesterday’s Irish and today’s Polish jokes.”
 
“A Portuguese man living in Brazil, Mack’s mentor had said, received a cable from his cousin in Portugal, announcing the death of the family cat, a pet the immigrant had been especially fond of. ‘Our beloved cat,’ the message said, ‘fell from our roof to her death in the street below.’”

“The immigrant wrote to his cousin in Lisbon: ‘Do not send such a message again. I am a sensitive person; I can’t stand shocks. Should such a thing happened again consider my temperament and let me know gently, in stages. For example, you should have sent a message saying, ‘The cat went up on the roof.’ Then, a few days later another, saying, ‘The cat went to the edge of the roof.’ Then, finally, a letter with the bad news: ‘The cat fell off the roof and died.’”
 
“Some months later the immigrant in Brazil received another cable from his cousin. This time it read: ‘Grandmother just went up on the roof.’” 

“`So that’s what you must look for,’ Mack’s friend had told him. ‘That one new piece of information, perhaps a single line in a report, some awareness which gives you a funny feeling at the back of the neck – the suspicion which suddenly becomes a conviction that something important is in motion, that grandmother is on the roof.’”

Personally I have had a number of “Grandmother is on the roof” moments – reading news reports of the Watergate burglary, the March 12, 1981 “Castro Plot To Kill Reagan” article by R. H. Boyce, seeing the twin towers burning on 9/11 and most recently, when I read of the self-immolation of a young man in Tunisia.

PAUL LINEBARGER – TRACING THE BLACK OPS COVER STORY

One of David Atlee Philip’s mentors, especially in regards to psychological warfare and black propaganda operations, was Professor Paul Linebarger of the School for Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins University.

Now John Hopkins is a good medical school which I believe is based in Baltimore, but Linebarger conducted his classes at his Washington D.C. home every Friday evening, educating more than one generation of spies in the black arts. Among his students were Joseph B. Smith, David Phillips, Ed Lansdale and E. Howard Hunt.

In order to get to his class Linebarger required his students to take precautionary, evasive measures before arriving and after leaving the class.

That’s why I got off the train suddenly outside Baltimore, because I want to check out two places – Fort Detrich (MKULTRA) and Fort Meade (NSA), which I unobtrusively cased out from a distance.

In any case, Linebarger wrote the textbook, “Psychological Warfare – International Propaganda and Communications,” (Arno Press, 1948, 1954, 1972, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, N.Y.), which sets the tone for controlling the minds of the masses by simply using the right message.

According to Linebarger: “Psychological warfare, in the broad sense, consists of the application of parts of the science called psychology to the conduct of war; psychological warfare comprises the use of propaganda against the enemy, together with such military operational measures as may supplement the propaganda. Propaganda may be described, in turn, as organized persuasion by non-violent means. War itself may be considered to be, among other things, a violent form of persuasion….War is waged against the minds, not the bodies of the enemy.”

The term “propaganda” stems from the department of the Vatican which had the duty of propagating the faith.

Specifically defined, “propaganda consists of the planned use of any form of public or massproduced communication designed to affect the minds and emotions of a given group for a specific purpose, whether military, economic or political. Military propaganda consists of the planned use of any form of communication designed to affect the minds and emotions of a given enemy, neutral or friendly foreign group for a specific strategic or tactical purpose.”

Linebarger: “Propaganda is directed to the subtle niceties of thought by which people maintain their personal orientation in an unsuitable interpersonal world. Propaganda must use the language of the mother, the schoolteacher, the lover, the bully, the policeman, the actor, the ecclesiastic, the buddy, the newspaperman, all of them in turn. And propaganda analysis, in weighing and evaluating propaganda must be even more discriminating whether the propaganda is apt to hit its mark or not.”

Using what Linebarger called the STASM formula for spot analysis, propaganda can be distinguished by the consideration of five elements : 1 – Source (including the media), 2 – Time, 3 – Audience, 4- Subject, 5 – Mission.

“This formula works best in the treatment of monitored materials of which the source is known. First point to note is the character of the Source – the true source (who really got it out?), the ostensible source 9whose name is signed to it?); also the first use source (who used it the first time?) and the second use source (who claims to be using it as a quotation?). It is soon evident that the mere attribution of  source is a job of high magnitude. A systematic breakdown of the STASM formula produces the following analysis outline: applicable to any single propaganda item, civil or military, in war or peace, spoken, visual or printed.” 

            There are five types of propaganda: 1 – Defensive, which maintains an accepted form of social action, 2 – Offensive, which interrupts social action not desired, 3 – Conversionary, which challenges allegiance, 4 – Divisive, which splits aparts opposition components, and 5 – Consolidation, which insures compliance of target community.

            White propaganda is a press release, Light propaganda is attributed to a friendly source, Medium to a neutral government, and so on.

            Black Propaganda, as compared to White, Light, Medium and Dark-Grey propaganda, is by defination, specifically attributed to the opposition and allegedly supports the oppossition’s position.

            “Black Propaganda is a fundamental intelligence operation,” notes Linebarger, “because…it never identifies its real source, and pretends to originate within or close to the enemy.”

            At the end of one of his classes, Joe Smith quotes Linebarger as saying, “I hate to think what would ever happen if any of you ever got involved in U.S. politics. These kinds of dirty tricks must never be used in internal U.S. politics. The whole system would fall apart.”

The principles of Black Propaganda and psychological warfare were applied with much success in “Operation Success” in the Guatemalan coup in 1954, which was a blatant interference by the USA and CIA on behalf of American corporate business interests, specifically United Fruit.

Then “the Guatemalan Model” was unsuccessfully, almost disastrously applied to Cuba, using many of the same personnel – including David Atlee Phillips.

These same principles of psychological warfare were also applied to the assassination of President Kennedy, where the original cover-story that Castro Communists were behind Kennedy’s murder, was surplanted by the equally implausible substitute Lone-Nut Scenario, in the interests of national security and world peace.

            Since such black propaganda operations as the ones used at Dealey Plaza, can be traced to their origin, using Linebarger’s formula, it is possible to trace it back to its sponsors, who must be very close to those who were behind the assassination of President Kennedy.

As an opening example of the application of the STASM formula for the analysis of propganda, I will provide what I immediately recognized as a Black Prop Op in action when I read the headline of the March 12, 1981 Philadelphia Daily News: “Castro Plot to Murder Reagan.”


Black Prop Ops at Dealey Plaza

Jeff Morley wrote:   "...We can likewise treat with skepticism the CIA's latest interpretation of Kennedy's murder, proposed by Brian Latell, a former Cuba specialist at the Agency. In a new book, Latell has updated and modified the unconvincing "Fidel Castro did it" theory that was that was first put forward by the CIA within hours of JFK's death."


John McAdams asks: "Where did Morley get the CIA "put out the Castro did it" theory?"

I have been writing about this subject for years. Here's a few of the articles: 




Black Propaganda & the JFK Assassination
THE PROOF IN THE PROPAGANDA – Black Prop Ops and the Assassination of JFK
By William Kelly

            Actually there were two conspiracies associated with the assassination of President Kennedy – the first was the arrangement of his murder, the second concerns the cover-up and thwarting of justice. The second conspiracy continues today.

            The evidence in both cases is in the form of fingerprints – the fingerprints of distinct intelligence techniques at work. Evidence of the first conspiracy comes in the form of foreknowledge, individuals who had knowledge of the assassination before it occurred and expressed this knowledge to others.


            Fifth century Chinese philosopher and author of the classic manual “The Art of War” said that foreknowledge cannot be elicited by spirits or obtained by magic but rather can only be acquired from an operational network of spies. “Foreknowledge,” he said, “is the reason the enlightened prince and the wise general conquer the enemy whenever they move.”

            Proof of the second conspiracy stems from the fact that black propaganda operations were utilized before the assassination, and continue to operate today to maintain security and protect those responsible for the first conspiracy.

            That people had foreknowledge of the assassination before it occurred and black propaganda operations were conducted in concert with the murder indicates that the assassination was carried out by trained covert intelligence operatives and not by a lone, deranged nut case or the Mafia. This does not preclude however, members of organized crime or crazy people from being involved in the operation.

            That Fidel Castro and Cuba were behind the assassination is disinformation and the deception plan behind the black propaganda operation conducted in concert with the President’s murder. Over a dozen incidents, most if not all of which can be traced back to the same source, attempt to portray the assassination as the work of Castro or his G2. [See: List – Below]

            Tracing the deceptive disinformation back to its source should also give us the source of the operation that resulted in what happened at Dealey Plaza.

            Since disinformation, propaganda and psychological warfare operations utilize explicit techniques, they can be identified, isolated and studied as to their content, intention and source, and thus provide a window into the nest of the responsible party.

            According to Ladislas Farago such, “Black Propaganda is a fundamental intelligence operation,…because it never identifies its real source and pretends to originate within or close to the enemy.”

            Paul Linebarger, a professor at the School for Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins University, also taught the black arts of propaganda and psychological warfare operations at his Washington D.C. home. Every Friday evening student spys and would be spooks took a round-a-bout means to unobtrusively get to his house where they learned the secret techniques of propaganda and deception.

            One of his students, Joseph Burkholder Smith (“Portrait of a Cold Warrior” G. Putnam/s Sons, N.Y., 1976), relates how Linebarger explained that Black Propaganda is “carefully labeled to be acts of the enemy.”

            Not a subject found in the curriculum of most colleges, the textbook is rare, Linebarger’s “Psychological Warfare – International Propaganda and Communications” (Arno Press, 1948, 1952, 1972, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, N.Y.) is a still used by today’s psychological warriors. According to Linebarger, “Psychological warfare, in the broad sense, consists of the application of parts of the science called psychology to the conduct of war; psychological warfare comprises the use of propaganda against the enemy, together with such military operational measures as may supplement the propaganda. Propaganda may be described in turn, as organized persuasion by non-violent means. War itself may be considered to be, among other things, a violent form of persuasion. War is waged against the minds, not the bodies of the enemy.”

            The term propaganda stems from the name of the department of the Vatican which had the duty of propagating the faith.

            Specifically defined, propaganda consists of the planned use of any form of public or mass produced communication designed to affect the minds and emotions of a given group for a specific public purpose, whether military, economic or political. Military propaganda consists of the planned use of any form of communications designed to affect the minds and emotions of a given enemy, neutral or friendly foreign group for a specific strategic or tactical purpose.

            Note that if the communication is not planned, it cannot be called propaganda, and that if does not originate from an intelligence agency or service, it is not disinformation.

            Linebarger developed the STASM formula for spot analysis, in which propaganda can be distinguished by the consideration of five elements – 1) Source, 2) Time, 3) Audience, 4) Subject, 5) Mission. According to Linebarger, this formula works best in the treatment of monitored materials of which the source is known. First point to note is the character of the source – the true source (who really got it out?), the ostensible source (whose name is signed to it?); also the first use source (who used it the first time?) and the second source (who claims merely to be using it as a quotation?).

            It is soon evident that the mere attribution of source is a job of high magnitude. A systematic breakdown of the STASM formula produces the following analysis outline: applicable to any single propaganda item, civil or military, in war or peace, spoken, visual or printed. There are five kinds of propaganda: Defense – maintains an accepted form of social action; Offensive – interrupts social action not desired; Conversionary – change allegiance; Divisive – split apart enemy compoents; Consolidation – insure compliance of occupied civilians; Counterpropaganda – refutes.

            Security is designed to deep useful information from reaching the enemy, while propaganda operations are designed to get information to him.

            According to Smith, “Linebarger’s two leading operational heroes whose activities formed the basis for lessons he wished us to learn and whose examples he thought we should follow were Lt. Col. Edward G. Lansdale and E. Howard Hunt,” who had what Linebarger called “black minds.”

            Besides his own textbook, Linebarger used another book in his classes, “The Big Con” by David W. Maurer (Pocket Books, N.Y., 1949), which is the story used as the basis for the screenplay of the movie “The Sting.” Maurer, a Kentucky linguistics professor, began to study the unique slang of confidence men, but developed that interest into a unique analysis of the Big Con confidence games that proliferated during the early part of the last century.

            Linebarger says that book, “gives ideas on how to recruit agents, how to handle them and how to get rid of them peacefully when they’re no use to you any longer.” As Linebarger concluded, “Believe me, that last one is the toughest job of all,” as David A. Phillips learned with Antonio Vechina.

            “The big time confidence games are in reality, only carefully rehearsed plays in which every member of the cast EXCEPT THE MARK knows his part perfectly,” wrote Maurer.

            “Propaganda is directed to the subtle niceties of thought by which people maintain their personal orientation in an unstable interpersonal world,” wrote Linebarger. “Propaganda must use the language of the mother, the schoolteacher, the lover, the bully, the policeman, the actor, the ecclesiastic, the buddy, the newspaperman, all of them in turn. And propaganda analysis, in weighing and evaluating propaganda, must be even more discriminating whether the propaganda is apt to hit its mark or not.”

Black Propaganda Operations affiliated with the Assassination of JFK:

1)      A leaflet was distributed to the Florida Cuban community in November, 1963 that warned of an “Act of God” that would put a “Texan in the White House.”

2)      Lee Harvey Oswald’s Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities in New Orleans in the summer of 1963.

3)      Oswald’s visit to the Cuban and Russian embassies in Mexico City in Sept., 1963.

4)      The photographs of Oswald brandishing a rifle and pistol and copies of two leftest but contradictory magazines in his back yard.

5)      The last two issues President Kennedy dealt with before leaving the White House for Texas concerned his backchannel negotiations with Fidel Castro at the UN and the discovery of a cache of weapons in Venezuela that appeared to have come fromCuba. The weapons story was later discovered to be over a year old and planted by the CIA to falsely implicate Cuba.

6)      Julio Fernandez, one of three anti-Castro Cubans whose boat was financially supported by Clair Booth Luce, called Luce, wife of the publisher of Time-Life on the evening of the assassination to report information on Oswald’s activities in New Orleans.  Fernandez, a former Cuban publisher, was married to an attorney who worked for Catholic Welfare Services in Miami.

7)      In Miami, shortly after the assassination, Dr. Jose Ignorzio, the chief of clinical psychology for the Catholic Welfare Services, contacted the White House to inform the new administration that Oswald had met directly with Cuban ambassador Armas inMexico.

8)      In Mexico City, David Atlee Philips of the CIA debriefed a Nicaraguan intelligence officer, code named “D,” who claimed to have seen Oswald take money from a Cuban at the Cuban embassy.

9)       In New Zealand, U.S.A.F. Col. Fletcher Prouty read complete biographies of Oswald in the local papers hours after the assassination, indicating to him that a bio of Oswald was pre-prepared.

10)  Brothers Jerry and James Buchanan, CIA propaganda assets, began promoting the Castro-did-it theme immediately. According to Donald Freed and Jeff Cohen (in Liberation Magazine), the source of the Buchanan’s tales was the leader of the CIA supported International Anti-Communist Brigade (IAB). “Back in Miami,” they wrote, “a high powered propaganda machine was cranking out stories that Oswald was a Cuban agent…” Sturgis is quoted in the Pampara Beach Sun-Sentinel as saying that Oswald had talked with Cuban G-2 agents and fracassed with IAB members in Miamiin 1962.

11)  Jack Anderson used Sturgis and mobster John Rosselli to keep the Castro plot propaganda story going well into the 1970s.

12)   The same “propaganda machine” was still pumping out the same lines in 1976 when Gaeton Fonzi interviewed Sturgis, who said that he had recently ran into a friend who worked for the “company” who reminded him of an incident he had completely forgotten about. Sturgis suddenly recalled, “that he had heard about a meeting in Havana about two months before the Kennedy assassination. At the meeting there were a number of high-ranking men, including Castro, hs brother Raul, Ramiro Valdez, the chief of Cuban intelligence, Che Guevara and his secretary Tanya, another Cuban officer, an American known as ‘El Mexicano,’ and,…oh, yea; Jack Ruby. And the meeting dealt with plotting the assassination of President Kennedy.”

13)   Seith Kantor, a Scripps-Howard News Service Reporter inDallas during the assassination, couldn’t understand why his telephone call records from Parkland Hospital were being withheld because “disclosure would reveal confidential source of information.” When Kantor checked his own records he discovered his editor had told him to call another reporter inFlorida or some deep background on Oswald. The reporter inFlorida had everything on Oswald, FPFCC, Russian defection, New Orleans radio debate, etc., but instead of using it himself, fed it to Kantor. The reporter was Hal “the Spook” Hendrix, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Cuban Missile Crisis and earned his nickname when he “reported” on the Dominican Republic Coup on September 24, 1963, the day before it happened. His CIA affiliations became better known when he went to work for ITT in Chile and was found guilty of withholding information from a Congressional committee concerning his role in the Chilean coup.

14)   While other major news organizations have been exposed asCIA media assets, such as CBS News, Life Magazine, the North American Newspaper Alliance and the Copley Newspaper chain, the Scripps-Howard News Service (SHNS) stands out not only because of the Kantor-Hendrix connection, but because of the March 12 news report out of Washington. An obvious black propaganda operation that stems from NSA intercepts (note that the NSA does not issue press releases), and continues to implicate Castro in not only the assassination of President Kennedy, but in the planning of an assassination on President Reagan. This story is remarkably similar to the one that Sturgis tells [in #12] and includes many of the same conspirators. [See: SHNS Story]. Also please note that two weeks after this obvious piece of black propaganda disinformation was published, President Reagan was shot in front of the Washington Hilton by John Hinkley.

Example of Black Prop Op and JFK Assassination.


Why weren’t the records of this incident released by the NSA under the JFK Act?

Scripps-Howard News Service – By R. H. Boyce. Thursday, March 12, 1981

Washington – The National Security Agency has alerted the CIA, the White House and State Department to a Latin American newspaper report saying Cuban President Fidel Castro is plotting the assassination of President Reagan, Scripps-Howard News Service has learned.

            The NSA, which monitors published and broadcast information around the globe, does not makes such “alert” messages available to the press. But SHNS obtained a copy, which was marked “for official use only.” It included the text of the newspaper report as well as a garbled message about the news story directed to the head of Castro’s controlled news agency, Presna Latina.

            Without revealing its sources, the news report, published yesterday in the Caracas, Venezuela, newspaper El Mundo, asserted the assassination plot called for the slaying to be carried out by Illich Ramirez Sancho, an international terrorists known as Carlos the Jackal. Carlos is said to have organized the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, West Germany, and has been involved in dozens of terrorists acts.

            U.S. officials said the NSA’s action in alerting the U.S.intelligence community “suggests that while they are not necessarily ready to believe the report of an assassination plot, nevertheless they (NSA) find it at least worthy of looking into.”

            The Caracas newspaper story said the assassination plan, “was discussed in a meeting of the International Trust of Crime in Cojimar, an exclusive beach club east of Havana, with the participants of Montonero and Tupamaro thugs, Illich Ramirez, Ramiro Valdez, Cuban Police Minister Carlos Rafael Rodriguez and Fidel Castro.”

            No identification was found of Ramiro Valdez. Montonero “thugs” are terrorists operating primarily in Argentina while Tupumaros thugs operate in Uruguay. The article said Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasir Arafat also participated in the plan.

            Presna Latina (Latin Press) often has been used by Castro for political ends. The Pressa Latina correspondent in Caracas, at 9:47 a.m. EST yesterday, began transmitting the El Mundo article by cable to Prensa Latina headquarters in Havana. NSA monitored it. At the close of the text, Prensa Latina Caracas began adding what appears to be commentary on the El Mundo report. It reads:

            “Everything seems to indicate that Fidel Castro is planning the assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan in the same way that he previously ordered the assassination of John F. Kennedy and whose participation the high-ranking U.S. government circles hid…”

            There the Prensa Latina cable transmission stopped. Had it been ordered broken off by the Venezuela government, say U.S officials, NSA would have added the words: “transmission interrupted,” to show Venezuela’s action. There was no such NSA notation. Officials provided no explanation of why the transmission ended in mid-sentence.

Scripps-Howard News Service – By R. H. Boyce. Thursday, March 12, 1981