Of Plots and Plans - How JFK was Murdered - the MO

Of Plots and Plans - How JFK Was Murdered - the MO 

By William E. Kelly

After decades of study there may not be a consensus as to who killed President Kennedy but we can come to a firm determination as to the mechanism of murder - how it was planned and conducted - the MO - the modus operandi being that of a covert intelligence operation. (1) 

That is a specially designed operation that is meant to remain secret if successful and shield those actually responsible by using certain covert operational techniques such as case officers, cut outs and psychological deceptions.

According to the U.S. Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, "a covert operation (also known as covert ops) is 'an operation that is so planned and executed as to conceal the identity of or permit plausible denial by the sponsor.' It is intended to create a political effect which can have implications in the military, intelligence or law enforcement arenas affecting either the internal population of a country or individuals outside of it. Covert operations aim to secretly fulfill their mission objectives without any parties knowing who sponsored or carried out the operation." (2)

For the law that supposedly governs the use of covert ops by the U.S. government see:

50 U.S. Code § 3093 - Presidential approval and reporting of covert actions 

[ https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3093 ]

The names of those actually responsible for what happened at Dealey Plaza isn't the secret the government is trying to protect, it's the method of their madness that must be kept under wraps, and the mechanism is something that can be exposed - the means by which President Kennedy was disposed of and deposed.

There were plots and there were plans.

The movie "Executive Action" has Texas oil men sitting around plotting to get rid of JFK, Oliver Stone has an odd assortment of covert characters sitting around plotting to kill JFK, (3) and even Matthew Smith - who recognized the second part of the plot to blame the assassination on Castro communists himself speculates about a group of renegade agents and mobsters plotting to kill JFK. (4)

Mobsters are frequently perceived as plotting the Dealey Plaza hit, and the sniper murder of Bugsy Siegel establishes a president, (5) but the FBI's extensive audio surveillance of the suspected mobsters failed to come up with any such plotting or even foreknowledge of the crime. (6) 

The CIA and the Mafia plotted to poison Castro and even put the plot into motion even before the Kennedy administration, (7) but it never materialized and such plotting was cut off after J.E.Hover informed RFK of these shenanigans. (8) 

After William Harvey was removed from the CIA's Cuban operations task force and replaced by Desmond Fitzgerald, some of the earlier plots were kept functioning, and a new round of more serious planning began. (9) 

There were plots that failed, and then there were plans - detailed, prepared, calculated, tactical contingency plans to attack and kill Fidel Castro, spark a full scale invasion and restore some semblance of democratic capitalism to Cuba. 

On September 25, 1963, when Air Force chief of staff Gen. Curtis LeMay was temporarily chair while General Taylor was in Vietnam, Desmond FitzGerald briefed the Joint Chiefs on Cuban operations, including the "detailed study" they were making of the July 20, 1944 Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler to apply it to Castro and Cuba. (10) 

Some of the plans to kill Castro included a psychological warfare ploy - a " Remember the Main," Tonkin Gulf, Northwoods style provocation designed to spark a full scale invasion of Cuba that Operational Plans - what they call 'Oplans" were already in place. (11) 

Some of the plans to kill Castro included planting evidence to implicate Russians and communists in the assassination in order to protect the real assassins, just as the Dealey Plaza operation included the black propaganda provision to blame Castro communists.

Oswald's brother (on Front line) said Lee - the accused assassin, didn't "plot" things, didn't plot with others, that wasn't his style, he "planned" things - planned on defecting to USSR, planned to shoot Walker, planned to go to Cuba, and his plans failed, said Robert. (12) 

But his plan - if it was his plan to kill JFK - succeeded - and if he was solely responsible for the deed, Oswald should be viewed as the world's best Lone Wolf assassin rather than the deranged loser his accusers portray him as.

What happened at Dealey Plaza, regardless of what you believe the details are, was not so much a plot, as it has previously been perceived, but was a plan - a covert operational plan that had the psych war twist of blaming the action on Castro, with the intention of sparking an invasion of Cuba.

The difference between plots and plans is that plots are basically hatched by people sitting around socially or at meetings talking about committing a seemingly worthwhile crime, while a plan is set in detail, engineered, planned and choreographed down to the minute if not second, using trained operatives and specialists who practice in advance and conduct a plan that is approved by higher authority - as they put it, and is financed and then executed to precision, with a cover-story prepared and put in place to protect the perpetrators.

Lots of undocumented plotting went on, but only a few specific plans were prepared, few enough for us to keep track of and concentrate on the most relevant ones.

Since there were too many plots and plans to kill Castro to keep track of we will focus only on the limited number of documented plans. And of them we will be concerned only with the ones that include using a sniper firing at an open moving vehicle. They include the Pathfinder plans for a sniper with high powered rifle with scope to shoot Castro as he rode by in an open jeep, and the Hemingway House plot - not a plan, to get Castro when he visited the Hemingway House, as he was known to have done when Mary Hemingway visited. (13) 

While the Hemingway House plot was almost an afterthought, - an opportunity missed, Pathfinder was a very specific plan for a sniper with a high powered rifle and scope to soot Castro when he rode in an open jeep to or from the DuPont Xanadu estate, as he frequently did. (14) 

We only know about the Pathfinder plan because a number of National Photo Interpretation Center (NPIC) employees assigned to JM\WAVE station in Miami told the Assassinations Records Review Board  (ARRB) that the Pathfinder records were kept in the NPIC section apart from regular office files. The NPIC supplied detailed photos and layouts of the DuPont estate in support of the Pathfinder plan, but it was "Disapproved," and according to ARRB records the NPIC files were then sent after the assassination to the Smithsonian on orders of RFK.

There are also reports that indicate Rolando Cubela (aka AMLASH) lived next door to the North Shore resort, and the CIA did give him a poison pen and offered a high powered rifle to kill Castro.

Cubela’s case officer, Desmond FitzGerald falsely claimed to represent RFK, and was the same officer who briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff (on September 25, 1963) on the detailed study of the 1944 plot to kill Hitler to be adapted and used against Castro.

While Pathfinder was a specific tactical plan that was "disapproved," Valkyrie was a strategic plan to kill Hitler, take over the German Nazi government and end World War II, and included a number of participants that became involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.

Pathfinder - Rosselli & RFK at JMWAVE

As Bill Turner concluded, it is now apparent that one of the CIA plots to kill Castro was redirected to JFK at Dealey Plaza, but it hasn't been determined which plan it was, something that I believe can be done.

David Atlee Phillips even said that what happened at Dealey Plaza was the plan they had devised for Castro. (15) 

John Rosselli, who first revealed the CIA - Mafia plots to kill Castro to Jack Anderson, was talking from personal knowledge when he said that one of the CIA anti-Castro Cuban commando teams, trained by JMWAVE and sent in to Cuba was captured, tortured and sent back to kill JFK at Dallas. (16) 

That RFK or JFK knew of or approved that operation is what Peter Dale Scott calls the Phase Three version of events. (17) 

There were numerous such teams that were trained, armed and dispatched to Cuba.  As Watergate burglar Rolando Martinez, a JMWAVE boat Captain said, he took many such teams to Cuba armed with high powered rifles with scopes, “not to be used to hunt rabbits.” (18)

Most significant is the JMWAVE team sent in on October 31, 1963 - David Atlee Phillips birthday. That team and their weapons were captured and paraded on Cuban TV, and their names are published by Carlos Bringuier in his book, Red Friday. (19) 

That mission also exposed Collins Radio on the front page of the New York Times  as a cover-company for the CIA. (20) 

Rosselli would have first hand knowledge of these affairs because of his close personal and professional association with William Harvey, head of the CIA's Cuban Task Force W until he was replaced by Desmond FitzGerald. Harvey was Rosselli’s CIA case officer and drinking buddy. (21)

Known as "Colonel Rosselli" at JMWAVE training bases in the Everglades and remote regions of the Florida Keys, Rosselli "sponsored" one of the commando maritime teams, as did Clare Booth Luce and William Paley. (22) 

In support of these Cuban operations the Army assigned two US Army Rangers, Captain Bradley Ayers and Major Edward Roderick, to train the Cubans in small boat handling, explosives, firearms and basic sniper techniques. (23) 

Ayers detailed his work at JMWAVE in two books, The War that Never Was and the Zenith Secret. While Ayers as a soldier was exempt from the CIA's publishing review rules, his first book was edited and censored in parts by his publisher Bobs-Merrell, who maintained offices at the Texas School Book Depository, and whose legal attorney was William Harvey after he left the CIA. (24) 

While Ayers trained a team led by Julio Fernandez, one of Clare Booth Luce's "boys," as she put it, Roderick trained Rosselli's team at Point Mary, near Key Largo. While Roderick's specialty was explosives and ordnance, Point Mary was known as the remote range were they trained the snipers. (25) 

Ayers said that he saw Colonel Roselli at a paramilitary training base in Florida, where RFK once visited by helicopter and personally met some of the commandos being trained for infiltration missions. And Ayers says he was personally introduced to RFK at a CIA JMWAVE safe house mixer on a golf course where RFK met some of the senior JMWAVE officials and case officers who were to carry out these plans on infiltration missions. (26) 

While Pathfinder was officially “disapproved,” other missions were approved by the National Security Council, including destruction of industrial economic targets such as oil facilities, missions that Ayer’s teams were trained for. (27) 

Just as RFK’s close association with some of the Bay of Pigs survivors jeopardized his security, so did his meeting Cuban commandos and JMWAVE case officers who supervised them.

At the time of the Garrison investigation in New Orleans, Jack Martin (Scruggs), the first to call attention to Oswald’s association with Guy Banister and David Ferrie, later wrote a series of articles for a Houston, Texas weekly co-authored with David Lewis, who also claimed to have known Oswald. In one of these articles - the other Martin and Lewis wrote about the “Homme Report,” a Congressional Report they said implicated RFK in the CIA plots to kill Castro.

(28) 

The Phase Three scenario, another fall back position, after the Castro Commie Conspiracy and Lone Nut scenarios are dismissed, is that JFK was killed by a conspiracy his brother Robert knew about and approved.

[For footnotes - see below - still in progress] 

The Strategic Plan - Valkyrie II

If Pathfinder was the tactical "off the shelf" sniper plan to kill Castro that was officially "disapproved," and turned on JFK at Dealey Plaza, then Valkyrie was the overall strategic plan that was originally designed by Nazi military officers to kill Hitler, that was studied by the CIA to be used against Castro, but turned up in Dealey Plaza instead.

From what we know happened at Dealey Plaza it fits the Pathfinder tactical plan as a sniper ambush of a target riding in a moving open vehicle, an in the field - on the ground operation that was part of a larger strategic plan to not only kill the president but psychological deceptions to ensure the tactical operators escaped and those actually responsible were never identified or brought to justice.

This overall strategic plan would also see to the takeover of the federal government, control vital  communications and the news and media so in the words of the Valkyrie planners "only the conspiracy speaks."

There were five specific aspects of the Valkyrie plan that appear at Daley Plaza - five aspects that fits like a glove and constitute what Senator Richard Schweiker called "the fingerprints of intelligence."

The five attributes that Valkyrie shares with the Dealey Plaza operation are:

1) There were a number of key characters who were personally involved in the original Valkyrie operation and also with what happened at Dealey Plaza - including Mary Bancroft, best friend of Michael Paine's mother, who Ruth Paine was with when she invited Marina to live with her, Mary Bancroft's lover Alan Dulles who helped design the original Valkyrie plan with Hans Bernd Gisivious, and Volkmar Schmidt, who mentioned the Valkyrie plot to Oswald when he first met him.

2) The operation would piggy back on an already approved operation and be conducted in mutable phases one part of which would be approved by the victim. Just as Hitler approved the Phase One part of Valkyrie for the Home Army to take over the major capitol buildings if foreign slave laborers rioted, JFK, RFK were asked to approve the covert operations against Cuba including Pathfinder and other plans to kill Castro, that would backfire against them. 

3) The operation would utilize the Home Guard in Germany to carry out the original Valkyrie plan while the US Army Reserves units in Dallas would carry out the operations on the ground at Dealey Plaza. Exactly how this was done will be explained in detail.

4) Just as the original Valkyrie plan included a deception plan to blame the assassination of Hitler on the SS and Gestapo, evidence planted at Dealey Plaza would implicate Communists and Castro with the intention of sparking a full scale invasion of Cuba.

5) Unlike the Valkyrie plan that included the takeover of radio and newspapers by the Home Guard,  "so only the conspiracy speaks," this was accomplished on 11/22/63 by the Collins Radio company control of the Air Force One radio communications, and the management of the major media by the CIA's ongoing Mockingbird program.

This fifth attribute comes into play during the flight home aboard Air Force One when the radio communications were controlled by Collins Radio, the same company that provided corporate cover for the CIA radar ship Rex, and after touchdown by LBJ's use of his Executive Office phones to ensure the planed Phase One scenario - of a Cuban Communist conspiracy was replaced with the Phase Two lone but case.

The Phase One deception plan failed to take hold not only because it was clearly transparent and untrue, but it was rejected by LBJ personally because he recognized it would lead to a full scale invasion of Cuba and nuclear missile exchange with the Soviets. This Phase One plan is still brought out and paraded before the public on occasion. 

ACSI - Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence - US Army Reserves

While the use of the Home Guard in Germany as part of the Valkyrie plan is clear, - I can hear the groans of those who are unfamiliar with the role at Dealey Plaza of the officers and men under the command of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence - ACSI. 

Like the CIA and ONI, ACSI is a full-fledged intelligence agency run out of the Pentagon, but unlike the CIA it is not prevented from operating within the USA. 

According to the Church Committee ACSI is also the office where the military's MKULTRA drug testing experiments were conducted. 

ACSI is the intelligence section of the Army Reserves - the weekend warriors who are called up to serve during domestic disasters, civil riots and disturbances, as well as deployed overseas.

ACSI comes into the Dealey Plaza picture multiple times.

1) I wasn't aware of ACSI until I read a book, Our Man in Acapulco, the autobiography of Colonel Frank M. "Brandy" Brandstetter, the Dallas resident and manager of the Havana Hilton when Castro first took over and made the Hilton his residence and headquarters. Brandy was proud of the fact that he was a Colonel in the Army Reserves and the fact he didn't take orders through channels but reported directly to Lt. Colonel William Rose, chief of the Army Reserves intelligence branch - ACSI.

2) I picked up interest in ACSI when I discovered that after George deMohrenschildt visited Oswald, saw the rifle, suspected and joked about Oswald taking a shot at Walker, he left for Haiti. DeMohrenschildtz later found a backyard photo Oswald gave him holding the rifle inscribed "Hunter of Fascists, ha ha." Before going to Haiti DeMohrenschiltz visited CIA officers in New York City and then went to Washington DC where he met with Dorothie Matlack and Colonel Sam Kail of ACSI, Kail had been previously posted to the US embassy in Havana where he worked with Brandy, David Atlee Phillips and David Morales. Did DeMohrenschildtz tell them about Oswald, the rifle and Walker? 

3) While deMohrensciltz went to Haiti, Oswald went to New Orleans where he got an apartment on Magazine Street. A week before Oswald himself knew he would be living there, his future residence would be known by Dr.\Col. Jose Rivera, of US Army Reserves ACSI, who also expressed knowledge of Oswald shooting at Walker. How did he know that if DeMohrenschildt didn't tell them? 

4) Back on the ground in Dallas, a few days before the assassination, on November 19, Ruth Paine and Marina were visited in Irving by Colonel James "JD" Wilmerth, USAR-ACSI, who questioned them for hours.

5) Although he wasn't approved by the Secret Service, the Pilot car that drove a half mile ahead of the motorcade included a backseat passenger Lt. Colonel George Whitmyer, who was responsible for all US Army Reserve operations in that region of Texas, the guy Colonel Brandy didn't report to.

6) The driver of the pilot car, Dallas Police Captain Lumpkin, did report to him, as did most of the DPD Special Services Unit that worked out of a special office at the Texas State Fairgrounds. The Pilot car was responsible for observing the motorcade route to determine if everything was safe and to look for any possible hazards or potential problems. None were seen. When Lumpkin made the turn from Houston to Elm he pulled to the curb in front of the Texas Schoolbook Depository to tell one of the three traffic policemen that the motorcade was a few minutes away, inadvertently informing the Sixth Floor sniper sixty feet above them, rifle in hand.

7) Then in the hours after the assassination, Col. Jack Crichton, 488th Military Intelligence detachment, USAR-ACSI, provided the Dallas Police with an interpreter, who misinterpreted key elements of Marina Oswald's statements. Crichton was also responsible for operating the Emergency Management Command Post that was located in a nuke proof underground bunker at the Texas State Fairgrounds, near the DPD Special Services Unit offices.

8) Another DPD Special Services officer who served in the Army Reserves (Springfellow), based on Marina's statements, sent an official message to the US Air Force Tactical Strike Command in support of the Phase One - Castro Cuban Conspiracy, apparently before LBJ put the skids on it and reverted to the Phase Two lone but scenario.

So while there were many domestic intelligence agencies represented at Dealey Plaza, ACSI was all over the place, and their files and records should reflect the key roles their officers played before, during and after the assassination.

Actionable Intelligence on Valkyrie and Pathfinder Plans 

      1  - Support Jim Lesar's Valkyrie FOIA; maybe use July 20 as a promotional date;

      2 -  Support Tony Bothello's FOIA appeals on Rosselli, et al;

      3 - See that relevant records are included in JFK Collection and review them including ACSI, JMWAVE, Task Force W, JCS, NPIC, Pathfinder, Hemingway House, DuPont Estate, NPIC records at the Smithsonian, etc.;

     4 - File new FOIA requests under the new revised FOIA law for military and CIA records on US Ranger Capt. Bradley Ayers, Maj. Edward Ridderick and all of the ACSI Colonels.

      5 - Get a copy of the so-called Homme Report from Congress; (possibly a Canadian Senate report).

      6 - Get all information available on each of the three dozen or so examples - case studies of the specific attempts to blame the JFK assassination on Castro and apply the STASM formula for detecting and exposing such black propaganda. 

      7 - The co-author of Brandy's autobiographies lives in DC and says that he has boxes of Brandy's papers that could shed some additional light on these matters. 

Footnotes to Of Plots and Plans - Pathfinder and Valkyrie 

(1) See: MO - Modus Operandi 

(2) Covert Op - defined and law 

(3) Executive Action - the movie 

(4) Mathew Smith - The Second Plot 

(5) Bugsy Siegel shot by sniper. 

(6) HSCA testimony of mob expert on FBI tap tapes. 

(7) CIA and Castro under Eisenhower 

(8) RFK and the plots. When he learned of them he said, "I put a stop to it." 

(9) William Harvey replaced by Desmond FitzGerald. 

(10) Desmond FitzGerald briefs JCS - See: Higgins Memo

(11) OpPlans for invasion of Cuba - See: Mary Ferrell 

(12) Robert Oswald - Frontline and book - "Lee" 

(13) Hemingway House plot - See: The Old Man and the CIA - The Nation.

(14) Pathfinder 

(15) David Atlee Phillips on Oswald 

(16) John Rosselli on turned teams.

(17) Peter Dale Scott on Phase III - Blame Bobby 

(18) Rolando Martinez as JMWAVE boat captain.

(19) Bringuier, Red Friday list of commando names 

(20 ) New York Times, November 1, 1963, page 1, article and photo on the Rex. 

(21) William Harvey and John Rosselli - 

(22) Clare Booth Luce and William Pawley as Cuban commando team boat sponsors 

(23) Ayers, Bradley - "The War that Never Was" and "Zenith Secret" re: US Army Ranger Capt. Ayers and Maj. Edward Rodderick assigned to CIA JMWAVE. 

(24) William Harvey at Bobbs-Merrell

(25) Point Mary sniper team training. 

(26) RFK at JMWAVE and Op Training Base in Everglades. Ayers, Bradley 

(27) Pathfinder "disapproved" while others approved by National Security Council. 

(28) Martin, Jack (Scruggs) writes about the Homme Report.