JFK Assassination Goes to Court

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Morley v. CIA in Court

Jeff wrote on Facebook:

The hearing at the DC Court of Appeals went very well this morning. Judge Harry Edwards, a liberal, was clearly sympathetic to my case. Judge Stephen Williams, a conservative, was skeptical, though less vocally. Judge Brett Kavanagh, also conservative, didn't say much. I'll have a more detailed take on JFK Facts later today but for now I'm relieved its over. And I likes my chances!

Anonymous report from someone who was there:

     I attended oral argument this morning in the US Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit on the Morley v. CIA case where the issue was whether the district judge abused his discretion in denying attorneys fees.  During the government's argument Judge Edwards gave a strong defense of FOIA researchers and awarding attorneys fees.  He said it is not for the government alone to determine whether a researcher should be interested in a topic or whether the topic is in the public interest.  He said the test under court precedent is a topic/subject test rather than a content of documents test.  It is irrelevant for the government to argue the documents released did not contain important information if the topic or subject was one of public interest- it is not possible for a researcher to know where the research will ultimately lead when beginning a project.  Judge Edwards stated the district judge did not following circuit precedent in the case by not following Davy.  Judges Kavanaugh and Williams remained silent and did not defend the government on this.  Judge Williams had some negative-sounding questions for Jim Lesar during plaintiff's argument.  J. Edwards was so strong on his points that it gave some hope he might carry the day with his colleagues, or if not it would be a split decision. 

Federal judges hear arguments about CIA JFK assassination records

http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/news/federal-judges-hear-arguments-about-cia-jfk-assassination-records/ - more-3206

A three-judge federal appellate court in Washington DC heard oral arguments Monday about the significance of certain CIA records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a rare event in the long-running controversy over the murder of the popular chief executive almost 50 years ago.

While JFK’s assassination in Dallas on November 22, 1963, has been the subject of six governmental investigations, and will be the focus of a dozen new books and at least three major motion movies in 2013, the federal courts have rarely sat in judgment on issues related to the crime. That changed Monday morning when the U.S. Court of Appeals heard two lawyers clash over the public benefits of JFK documents released as a result of Morley v. CIA, a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that I filed in 2003.

The senior jurist on the panel, Judge Harry Edwards, challenged the government’s contention that the records are not related to JFK’s assassination, while Judge Stephen Williams expressed skepticism about my argument that the litigation has been beneficial because it made JFK records more readily available to the public.

At issue in the hearing was a narrow legal question: whether lower court Judge Richard Leon had abused his discretion in a Sept. 2012 ruling supporting the CIA’s refusal to pay my court costs incurred in the course of a decade of litigation. Under FOIA, successful plaintiffs are entitled to have the government pay their court costs. After a three-judge panel from the Court of Appeals unanimously ruled in my favor in December 2007, my attorney Jim Lesar requested the government pay his legal fees, now estimated to be $150,000.

But the broader issue of the significance of the released CIA documents took up much of the hour-long hearing in the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse, located a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol.

“The lower courts erred in three ways. The new documents contain new information. They contain important information, and that information is related to the JFK assassination,” said Lesar in his opening remarks, citing the agency’s 2008 disclosure that undercover CIA officer George Joannides had received a Career Intelligence Medal in 1981, three years after serving as the agency’s liaison to congressional JFK investigators. Lesar argued that Joannides was honored for his JFK-related duties

“Was the information weighty enough to rule in favor of [legal fees for] the plaintiff?” replied Assistant U.S. Attorney Benton Peterson on behalf of the CIA. “The answer is no.” Peterson argued that a civilian review panel, the Assassination Records Review Board, had seen the Joannides records in the 1990s and concluded they were not related to JFK’s assassination.

Judge Williams, a conservative appointed by President Ronald Reagan, opened the questioning by challenging Lesar’s contention that the lawsuit had benefited the public by bringing together all the Joannides records in one place. “Aren’t all these records now available at NARA [National Archives]?” he asked.

Lesar said the documents were not available online as the government contended and were not easily searchable. He added that the document disclosing Joannides’ Career Intelligence Medal was not available before the lawsuit.

“You’re pinning a lot on that one document, aren’t you?” asked Judge Brett Kavanagh, a conservative appointed by President George W. Bush.

“The lawsuit produced other important documents,” Lesar replied, such as a travel expense form showing Joannides’ duties included travel to New Orleans, where accused assassin Lee Oswald lived for much of 1963. Lesar also said that the lawsuit had forced the CIA to acknowledge that it retains 295 documents about Joannides’ career that have not been released in any form.

“That’s an important piece of information we did not have before,” he said.

The sharpest questioning came from Judge Edwards and was directed at Peterson’s argument that the litigation had produced no information of public benefit.

“The law of the circuit is that the test for public benefit is the topic and the purpose of the search, which is appropriate because we don’t have the expertise to assess the significance of the research,” said Edwards, a liberal appointed by President Jimmy Carter. “You’re talking a lot about what’s in the records but that’s not the test. The lower court applied the wrong test.”

“There wasn’t any information requested and received that was weighty enough to benefit the public,” Peterson replied.

“If you use the topic test,” Edwards said, referring to JFK’s assassination, “it is weighty. I think they [the plaintiffs] met their burden in topic and purpose.”

Edwards also questioned Peterson’s claim that the ARRB review of the records settled the question of their relevance.

“A smart researcher might come in and see some connections that the government doesn’t,” he said.

The issue will be decided by a vote of the three judges. A decision is expected in four to eight week.

Holland v. NARA over RFK Papers

JW Sues National Archives Challenging the Withholding of RFK Department of Justice Records

February 25, 2013 | 

BK NOTES: This suit was with drawn by Max Holland after it was learned that many if not most, and possibly all of the records being sought have been released under the JFK Act.

See: Series 2: Records from the JFK Presidential Library...Sub-series 2
cisupa.proquest.com/ksc_assets/catalog/10615.pdf

http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/jw-sues-national-archives-challenging-the-withholding-of-rfk-department-of-justice-records/

1

Kennedy Family Continues to Keep Secret Government Records in Violation of the Freedom of Information Act

(Washington, DC) – On February 12, 2013, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit on behalf of author/historian Max Holland against the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The suit challenges the withholding of Robert F. Kennedy’s records while he served as Attorney General, including “assassination records” relevant to the November 22, 1963 murder of his brother, former President John F. Kennedy. (Holland v. National Archives and Records Administration (No. 13-00185)). These records are currently under control of the Kennedy family under the auspices of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Dorchester,Massachusetts.

Judicial Watch filed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests in fall 2012 with NARA after press outlets reported that the JFK Library was in possession of more than 60 boxes of records from Robert F. Kennedy’s tenure as the U.S. Attorney General. Contained in these boxes are diaries, notes, phone logs, messages, trip files, memoranda, reports, and other records concerning the Cuban missile crisis, the war in Vietnam, the civil rights movement, and law enforcement activities of both the FBI and Justice Department.

Although it has been reported that numerous government archivists and historians believe these records—an undetermined number of which are government records—should be made publicly available, none of the records are available for review and they remain under control of the Kennedy family.

In response to Judicial Watch’s September 26, 2012, FOIA request, NARA produced a list describing a group of records that were referenced by the press reports, including records involving the JFK assassination. Judicial Watch subsequently filed a FOIA request with NARA on December 5, 2012, on behalf of author/historian Max Holland seeking access to the following records:

Copies of the seven records identified in the enclosed “Documents from the Robert F. Kennedy Papers: Attorney General’s Confidential File which have been identified by the JFK Assassination Records Review Board as ‘assassination records.’”

NARA was required by law to respond to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request by January 9, 2013.  However, as of the date of Judicial Watch’s complaint, NARA has failed to provide any records responsive to the request or indicate when any responsive records will be produced. NARA has also failed to demonstrate that responsive records are exempt from production, prompting Judicial Watch’s lawsuit.

November 22, 2013, will mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. The circumstances surrounding his assassination have been a source of controversy and public fascination for decades.

To complete the public record on the Kennedy assassination, Congress established the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), an independent agency, to “gather and open” all “assassination records” concerned with Kennedy’s death, as mandated under the President John F. Kennedy Records Collection Act of 1992, 44 U.S.C.§ 2107 (Supp. V 1994).

According to Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuit, seven records deemed to be “assassination records” by the ARRB, which issued its final report in 1998, remain secret to this day. They include some of the president’s personal records; documents describing Central Intelligence Activities in Cuba; a Cuban Information Service message dated1/26/63entitled, “THE PLANES THAT WERE NOT THERE;” a State Department incoming cable from Mexico; and a document entitled, “Information on Lincoln Bubble Top Automobile sinse [sic] returning from Dallas.” (A Lincoln Continental with a removable bubble top was the presidential limousine used by President Kennedy).

Judicial Watch and its client, author/historian Max Holland have, requested all of these records be disclosed pursuant to FOIA law.  “Over a six-year period in the 1990s, the U.S. government spent millions of tax dollars and untold man-hours in an effort to gather in one place all assassination-related documents,” Holland said. “It was and remains outrageous that relevant government documents in the papers of the attorney general at the time are somehow out of reach.”

“The JFK records are clearly government records and they should be disclosed in accordance with FOIA law,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This lawsuit is about much more than the Kennedy assassination. It goes to the heart of how much control a presidential family may assert over public records. These records do not belong to the Kennedy family – the records belong to the American people.”

Holland, a 1972 graduate of Antioch College, is author and editor of Washington Decoded, an online publication. He is writing a history of the Warren Commission for Alfred A. Knopf publishers, a manuscript which received the J. Anthony Lukas Work in Progress award in 2001. He is a contributing editor to The Nation and the Wilson Quarterly, and sits on the editorial advisory board of the International Journal of Intelligence and Counter Intelligence. Holland is also the author, editor, or co-author of six books, most recently Leak: Why Mark Felt Became Deep Throat (University Press of Kansas, March 2012) and Blind over Cuba: The Photo Gap and the Missile Crisis (Texas A&M University Press, September 2012).

Legacy's Secrets ONI Source

Lamar Waldron’s Secret ONI Source

Legacy of Secrecy – (Counterpoint, Berkeley, 2008)

There is no listing for ONI in the index, rather it is Naval Intelligence, 24, 56, 77, 84, 87, 139, 140-41, 157, 164-166, 168-169, 196, 214, 234, 247-248, 302, 644, 771.

Waldron and Hartman, in their books Ultimate Sacrifice I and II and Legacy of Secrecy, put forth the conspiracy theory that the Kennedys approved a coup plot in Cuba involving some military officers, specifically Almeida, that was supposed to take place on Dec. 1, 1963, but the plot was hijacked by mafia dons who redirected the plan and JFK was killed instead of Castro. While I do think that one of the officially approved plots for a coup in Cuba or assassination of Castro was redirected to JFK, I don’t think that whoever engineered this operation needed the mafia to redirect their target. While the books are written in an biased attempt to support their thesis, some of the data they present can be more accurately interpreted independently apart from their hypothesis.

One interesting aspect of their book “Legacy of Secrecy” is the introduction of an anonymous character who identifies himself with ONI – the Office of Naval Intelligence, and imparts certain information that they use, which might have some real bearing on the ONI records related to the assassination, and the possibility that ONI is still conducting deliberate, offensive actions against targeted researchers who they know are working on certain aspects of the case.

Legacy of Secrecy

p. 24:

“Among the Joint Chiefs, evidence indicates that only Maxwell Taylor and DIA chief Joseph Carroll were fully informed about Almeida. Others, like Air Force Chief Gen. Curtis LeMay, were too hawkish and close to JFK’s conservative adversaries in Congress to be trusted…The DIA was a newly created umbrella organization that supposed to coordinate the activities of services like Army Intelligence and Navy Intelligence, which later Congressional investigations found had been involved in domestic surveillance for many years.” 11

11. (p, 790):  “While General Carroll probably wouldn’t have appreciated knowing his conversations were being reported to the CIA, his own associates were engaged in similar high-level surveillance. Joseph Califano’s recent autobiography, he points to a time in June 1963 when he and his superiors, Army Secretary Cyrus Vance, ‘secretly ran all’ of ‘the White House and Justice Department…communications lines through the Army war room. Sitting there, Vance and I were able to listen to any conversation the President or Attorney General had…Because we assumed Robert Kennedy would have objected to our eavesdropping, we never let him know.”  Joseph Califano, Jr. Inside: A Public and Private Life (NY Public Affairs, 2004, p. 109).

[BK Notes: Califano is a living witness to these events and works out of a non-profit foundation supported think tank at Columbia University, thought the college has stated there is no connection between them.]

p. 24 continued:

“While the CIA had been tasked with getting more US assets into Cuba prior to the coup, some of those assets were current or former US military personnel who were also involved with the CIA. At least one of them was under ‘tight surveillance’ in November 1963, as he had been since his return form the Soviet Union in 1962. As we first revealed in 2005, Naval Intelligence was maintaining phone, mail, and visual surveillance of Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife. Since Naval Intelligence lacked the resources to maintain such surveillance I many areas, they relied on assistance from the FBI and the CIA. Our source, who maintained reports about Oswald and other domestic surveillance targets, sys that Oswald’s folder contained a CIA phone number to call if he were ever involved in any problem. 12

12. Interview with confidential Naval Intelligence investigator source. 10/27/91

p. 56:

“….Banister also had ties to Naval Intelligence through his close friend Guy Johnson…”

p.77:

“By November 1963, Gilberto Policarpo Lopez had eighteen parallels with Lee Harvey Oswald, according to declassified government files…Both men had an unusual involvement with the small pro-Castro FPCC in 1963….Both men were persons of interest to Naval Intelligence in 1963….”

p.84:

“…DeMohrenschildt attended meetings between business associates and the assistant director of Army Intelligence (part of the DIA, as was Naval Intelligence)…”

p.87:

“As our Naval Intelligence source told us, Oswald was under surveillance the whole time he was in Mexico City – something later confirmed by Win Scott, who at the time was the Mexico City CIA station chief. 21

p.139:

“…Oswald had been a Marine, and was (as Helms would later testify to Congress) the responsibility of Defense Department agencies like Naval Intelligence and the DIA.”

p.140:

“…Oswald was a ‘former’ Marine, and thus the responsibility of Marine and Naval Intelligence, and General Carroll’s DIA…”

p.141:

“…Naval Intelligence (along with Marine Intelligence, G2) had been responsible for the ‘tight surveillance’ on Oswald since his return from Russia, while Oswald’s operational activities appear to have involved the CIA. That meant officials at Naval Intelligence would have to cover up as well, as we’ll soon show.

p.157:

“Oswald under tight surveillance”

p.164-66: 

“…Our confidential Naval Intelligence source – who had helped to compile the reports resulting from the ‘tight surveillance’ of Oswald since his return to the US from Russia – said that ‘on the day of the assassination,’ he and a coworker ‘were called back to their office in Washington.’ After receiving orders from their commander, they ‘destroyed and sanitized lots o the Oswald file.’” 41

41. (p.799): Phone interview with Naval Intelligence surveillance source., 10/27/91 and 12/9/91.

“Confirmation for such document destruction comes from FBI memos, which describe their own interviews with Marines who had served with Oswald. Hover, the FBI agents discovered that some of those Naval Intelligence reports were all missing, leading and FBI agent to say in a memo, ‘Perhaps they have been destroyed.’” 42

42 (p. 799) 4-2-64 FBI memo by T. N. Goble, cited in Echoes of a Conspiracy, 7-22-88.

“The Naval Intelligence file our source handled in the fall of 1963 concerned only the close surveillance of Oswald, not any operational duties Oswald might have had. Those were apparently being handled by or coordinated with, the CIA. Our source said there was ‘a note n the top of the file jacket [that] said to contact the CIA if Oswald was arrested or got into any trouble. There was a name and some sort of code given for someone at the CIA.’” 43

p. 165:

“…Naval Intelligence and its close counterpart, Marine Intelligence (G-2), were components of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) headed by General Joseph Carroll…”

“…Even on the day of JFK’s death, a memo shows that Naval Intelligence considered withholding information from General Carroll. Carroll asked to see Oswald’s Naval Intelligence file, but Naval Intelligence was ‘cautious about passing [the] file to DIA.’ Eventually, after Joint Chiefs Chairman General Maxwell Taylor had made a request, General Carroll was allowed to look at the file, but he was not permitted to keep a copy.”

“It’s hard to say if Naval Intelligence was initially reluctant to share the file for bureaucratic reasons, or because by that time it was probably already incomplete….”  

P. 166:

“…it appears unlikely that General Carroll knew about the destruction of parts of Oswald’s Naval Intelligence file….”

p.168:

“…First, the FBI had assisted Naval Intelligence with some of it s tight surveillance of Oswald, especially in landlocked cities like Dallas, where Naval Intelligence had few assets….”

p. 196:

“…something that not only would have been embarrassing for the FBI, CIA and Naval Intelligence if it were revealed, but also could expose the rather large domestic surveillance program those agencies ran, which was technically illegal…”

p. 214:

“…We’ve noted that photos of the real Oswald in Mexico City did exist, as verified by the CIA’s station chief there, Win Scott, and our own Naval Intelligence source, who saw the photos…”

p. 234:

Harry Williams says “Artime and CIA showed him a photo of Oswald going into the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City….

p.247:

“After Oswald’s death, Naval Intelligence’s goals changed radically. On the afternoon of November 24, the organization transitioned from shredding files about its ‘tight surveillance’ of Oswald to conducting its own, secret internal investigation of JFK’s assassination. Also involved were personnel from Marine Intelligence, and the operation was probably known to the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, General Joseph Carroll. Our Naval Intelligence source participated in this secret investigation, aspects of which were later independently confirmed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations and by a former Navy man who was the son of a prominent admiral.”

“Our source ‘became part of a 6-week Naval Intelligence investigation into JFK’s assassination.’ He said ‘their mission was ‘Did [Oswald] do it?’ not ‘Who did it?’ As part of their investigation, Naval Intelligence personnel went to Dallas, but ‘they were forbidden to have anything to do with the autopsy.’ He said, ‘The result of the Naval Intelligence investigation was that [it] concluded Oswald was not the shooter, due to his skills, the gun, etc., [and that] Oswald was incapable of masterminding the assassination or doing the actual shooting.’ The report’s summary was 6-7 pages, with hundreds of supporting documents.’ Our source had ‘some knowledge that the CIA also conducted [its] own investigation,’ a fact that wasn’t widely known when we talked to the source in 1991.”

“Our source ‘signed a disclosure agreement’ after the investigation, and even after almost thirty years he would convey information only through a trusty intermediary.”

“…When we interviewed the US Navy Admiral’s son, he independently claimed to have seen a copy of the Naval Intelligence report while he was stationed at a large US Navy base in the Pacific in the early 1970s. His account of the report’s conclusions matched very closely those of our Naval Intelligence source.”

“The Naval Intelligence investigation and its conclusions make sense in light of both the tight surveillance Oswald was under before JFK’s death and the problems many experts have documents about the shooting skills required to assassinate JFK, and the poor quality of the Mannlicher-Carcano found in the Book Deposiotry. As an internal Navy and Defense Intelligence matter, t was probably important to the officials involved with the surveillance of Oswald, and with whatever operations he participated in after he returned from Russia, to cover themselves with such an investigation….” 

p.302:

“Indications exist that the heads of Naval and Marine Intelligence knew more than General Carroll, but they never testified either…”

p.644:

“As with JFK’s murder – which spawned secret investigations by the CIA, Naval Intelligence, and even Bobby Kennedy – the LAPD did extensively investigate certain conspiracy allegations regarding Bobby’s death…”

p.771:

“Other crucial JFK assassination files still withheld range from the CIA’s and FBI’s files on Harry Williams to the operational files of the multimillion-dollar AMWORLD program, especially those about Manual Artime’s work on the CIA-Mafia plots. The files of other Mafia figures linked to JFK’s murder, like those of Michael Victor Mertz and Charles Nicoletti, should also be released. Naval Intelligence should still have a vast quantity of files about its secret JFK investigation and FBI-assisted surveillance of Oswald…simply enforcing the 1992 JFK Act is the quickest way to make sure that the most crucial information becomes available to the public at last.”

Battle of Dealey Plaza Talking Points

                                               DEALEY PLAZA - 12:30 PM November 22, 2003

COPA Director John Judge appeared on Black Op Radio this week and talked about the upcoming plans for Dallas on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy.

Black Op Radio 

  Show #617

Original air date: February 15, 2013
Guest: John Judge, Jim Douglass, Bill Kelly
Topics: Dallas 2013 / JFK Research

Play John Judge  (44:14)  Real Media or MP3 download

  COPA 50th anniversary JFK conferance, November 22-24, the Aloft Hotel

  COPA Malcom X 47th anniversary conferance, February 21, Howard University

  10 Points of Agreement, 26 speakers, 100 registered attendees already

  Trying to secure a permit for a moment of silence in Dealey Plaza

  Gary Mack obstructionism of the long-standing COPA observance

  The Sixth Floor's exclusive permit, COPA's continuing efforts

  John interviewed in the Wall Street Journal and on Fox News

  COPA met with Dallas' mayor in Washington during the recent inaugural

  Content based denial of free speech

  COPA represents the majority of opinion regarding the facts of the assassination

  According to Rawlings, even Robert Kennedy Jr. would "have to stay on point"

  A designated National Historical Site, protected by the courts

  A perpetuity of silence, John made several suggestions to the mayor's committee

  Serious thought about a legal claim to our First Amendment rights in court

  "50 Years is Enough! Free the Files – Find the Truth"

  The annual "And We Are All Mortal" observance at American University, June 10

  Write of your concerns to Mayor Rawlings 

James Douglas of "JFK and the Unspeakable Fame" and yours truley - myself - Bill Kelly were also guests on Black Op Radio that night.

Black Op Radio
http://blackopradio.com/archives2013.html

Last night live show stats - billkelly3@gmail.com - Gmail

As COPA director John Judge says during the show, when the Mayor of Dallas was in DC for the inauguration he met privately with Judge and Jefferson Morely to discuss the Dealey Plaza event scheduled for 11/22/13. 

After 49 years of conducting a public memorial and moment of silence every Nov. 22nd since 1964, begun by Penn Jones and continued by Judge and others, the City of Dallas has obtained a permit for the event that will exclude the public, and allow only those with tickets into the affair, mainly people from Dallas and those connected to those who are preparing the event, which will include only one speaker - an historian and Yale Scull and Bonner. 

When they met in DC, the mayor explained that they didn't want to be remembered as the City of Hate or rehash the assassination but want to celebrate JFK's life. 

Jeff Morely then asked the mayor if RFK Jr. could attend or speak, and the mayor said if RFK Jr. showed up and wanted to speak, he would be permitted to, "if he stayed on point." The point being not to talk about the assassination or the death of Kennedy. 

The mayor explained that he was only part of a larger committee that was preparing the event, so Judge gave the mayor a letter addressed to the committee that laid out COPA's position on the situation, as well as these talking points of his own. 

COPA will "stay on Point" and these are the points that are to be made: 

·  Dealey Plaza is a public park and national historical landmark It belongs to history and the American people. It has been open and allowed free speech for decades. Attempting to block access to thousands of people who will be coming from all over the world that day to Dallas will cause safety issues and embarrass the City

·  Dealey Plaza is the site a long tradition of commemoration of November 22. Starting in 1964, Midlothian (TX) Mirror editor Penn Jones, Jr. began a tradition of a Moment of Silence on the Grassy Knoll lest history forget the crime of the assassination or the government refusal to solve the murder and bring the perpetrators to justice.. COPA has continued the tradition, now for 49 years. We should be allowed to have our event at that time and place.

·  We are the vast majority. Polls show that 85% of the American people reject the official theory of a "lone gunman." Members of the Kennedy family have now come to Dallas and said the same thing. To try to silence the majority on November 22, 2013 will not work.

·   We will hold a solemn and dignified event that celebrates the life and legacy of President Kennedy. We always have but we also continue to call for resolution of this unsolved homicide. We have no problem with the City's desire to honor the life and legacy of JFK. Frankly, it’s long overdue. However, it is not appropriate to do so at the murder scene. When we honor President Lincoln’s life and legacy, we don’t do it at the Ford Theater on April 14th.

·  The city has failed to follow its own permitting process. We have applied for a permit for three years. We were told permits could only be granted one year in advance. When we applied on November 23, 2012. We were told an exclusive permit for the whole of Dealey Plaza had already been issued in advance to the Sixth Floor Museum. Then, it was discovered that the Sixth Floor never submitted the signed permit application as required and it ultimately abandoned the effort. Our application was the only one submitted timely and properly. This city has not acted in good faith. 

·  First Amendment protections have been violated.. The director of the Sixth Floor Museum was quoted in the Dallas Morning News saying that they applied for the permit to be "proactive" on behalf of the Mayor's office to prevent "conspiracy theory" from being presented. This is why we assert that there has been a content-based denial of our rights to free speech under the First Amendment, which is specifically prohibited in public parks, both local and federal. 

·  The Mayor 's community-based planning committee for the 50^th anniversary has excluded the viewpoint of the majority.  We have asked to be allowed to join the committee or to make presentations to it. We have been denied or ignored at every point. This exclusion created some of the current problems. We should be represented there.

·  There are alternatives that would work better. Open Dealey Plaza to the American people at that critical hour on November 22 and allow free speech and events like the Moment of Silence all day. Move the time and place of the Mayor’s event to JFK Memorial park, City Hall Plaza, as in the past, or have a ticketed event at the Sixth Floor Museum. These alternatives will also obviate the need for expensive security.

                                              COPA at Dealey Plaza - November 22, 1998

                              George Bannerman Dealey - Publisher of the Dallas Morning News

                             JFKcountercoup: George Bannerman Dealey and Dallas Morning News

                                                           BUILD THE NEWS UPON
                                                           THE ROCK OF TRUTH
                                                           AND RIGHTEOUSNESS
                                                           CONDUCT IT ALWAYS
                                                           UPON THE LINES OF
                                                           FAIRNESS and INTEGRITY
                                                           ACKNOWLEDGE THE RIGHT
                                                           OF THE PEOPLE TO GET
                                                           FROM THE NEWS
                                                           BOTH SIDES OF EVERY
                                                           IMPORTANT QUESTION 

MISSING ONI RECORDS NOT MISSING AT ALL

MISSING ONI RECORDS ON JFK ASSASSINATION NOT MISSING AT ALL 

You would think that if the most secret national security records of the United States Navy were really missing, and not just being illegally withheld, there would be a major Counter-Intelligence investigation to determine what became of them, and ensure that they were not in the hands of the Russians, the Chinese or Wikileaks.

But there you have it – the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) seems to have misplaced all of its records related to the assassination of President Kennedy, the records of the Dallas ONI office, the investigative records and reports of the defection to the Soviet Union of former Marine Lee Harvey Oswald, the investigative reports of the assassination and the files of its director at the time – Admiral Rufus Taylor.

Now if any one of these official records were missing it could be dismissed as simple administrative mismanagement, but with all of them missing, it is indeed a suspicious state of affairs, and one that deserves serious inquiry to determine exactly what happened to them. Are they lost? Were they misplaced or misfiled? Were they stolen by a foreign government? Does Wikileaks have them? 

Or are they really just being hidden by the US Navy commanders who maintain them, skirting the law – the JFK Act of 1992?

It was during the life of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) when Fred Reeves, the San Diego based ONI investigator told the Review Board staff to look for “119 Reports,” a suggestion that Doug Horne passed on to LTDR T. Pike, who was subsequently reprimanded for unauthorized travel in relation to her tasking of responding to the requirements of the JFK Act and Review Board requests.

Did her replacement commit perjury by signing off on the ONI response to the JFK Act without locating the relevant records, especially the “119 Reports,” the records of the Dallas ONI office and the files of the director of ONI?  D

If there records were really missing, wouldn’t there be a serious investigation into what became of them?

And since there are no headlines about the missing records, and no serious investigation of what became of them, isn’t that itself an indication that they aren’t really missing at all?   

ONI Records Revisited

                                               

ONI Records Revisited

                                               ONI RECORDS REVISITED

                              The Blind Men, the Elephant and Oliver Stone’s Mercedes

When we first began the lobby effort seeking the release of the government’s records on the JFK assassination, my uncle Stephen “Skip” Haynes, a Catholic priest, gave a sermon on the subject, comparing the secret files to the story of the blind men who tried to describe an elephant, each feeling and describing a different part. I sometimes get the feeling that's what we are doing with the JFK assassination records. 

Oliver Stone, after he became the champion of the JFK Free the Files movement, was asked to testify at a Congressional hearing, where he was asked what he thought he would find in the files, which it was pointed out to him, most certainly had been cleaned out, vetted, some destroyed, others hidden?  

Stone replied that he didn’t expect there to be any “smoking guns” among the government’s records on the assassination, and they certainly will be cleaned out of any compromising documents (and I’m paraphrasing him here), but the government's JFK assassination files were like a Mercedes-Benz left in Harlem for years - decades – now going on fifty years. Stone said it will be stripped of its radio, chrome, tires and engine parts, but its frame would still be there and you would be able to recognize it as a Mercedes. And besides, it’s not necessarily what’s in the files, but the principal of the thing – these records are the history of our country, the death of our president, they were paid for by taxpayers and they belong to the people and not to some secret agency.

                                             The ONI Letter Authenticated

Shortly after the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald - the chief suspect in the murder of President Kennedy, U.S. Navy Commander Robert Steel wrote a letter to Dallas Police Detective Paul Bentley, one of the officers who arrested Oswald at the Texas Theater.

November 24, 1963

Robert D. Steel,

Commander, USNR-R

7960 June Lake Drive,

San Diego, California.

Paul,

Perhaps you are aware that ONI has quite a file on Oswald, which no doubt has been made available on the Washington level. If not, I am certain that this information can be obtained for you through our resident special agent in charge of the Dallas office, A. C. Sullivan, who is a wonderful agent, and whom I hope you know. As a personal friend, I congratulate you, wish you continued success, and pray that your guardian angel will remain close at hand and vigilant, always.

(Signed)

 Robert D. Steel

[1] ONI Letter Steel, Robert D.

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-oni-letter.html

The legitimacy of this document was at one time questioned because it was not among the official Warren Commission or Dallas city records, but was instead located among the private papers of a former Dallas policeman. The letter’s authenticity has now been confirmed by its author Robert D. Steel.

[2] Steel, Robert D. Oral History interview transcript w/Steel. (Attached)

Steel recently reaffirmed the contents of the letter - that he personally knew both Arthur C. Sullivan, whom he identified as the head of the Dallas ONI office, as well as Dallas detective Paul Bentley, and that his agency, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), did indeed have “quite a file on Oswald.”

Paul Bentley, the person the letter is addressed to, was the chief operator of the Dallas police department's polygraph unit and was head of the Texas Association of Polygraph Examiners. Bentley was one of Oswald's arresting officers, sat next to him in the back seat of the police car, searched Oswald's wallet and in his report stated, "On the way to City Hall, I removed the subject's wallet and obtained his name."

Retired Dallas Police Detective Paul Bentley passed away after a lengthy illness on July 21, 2008,

[3] Bentley Background.

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/01/dallas-police-detective-paul-bentley.html

 
A. C. Sullivan - Arthur Carroll Sullivan, Jr. was a 27 year veteran of ONI, had previously worked for the FBI and as an investigator for the Dallas District Attorney and lived in Denton, Texas, where Lee Oswald’s brother Robert Oswald, former USMC, also resided.

[4] Sullivan, A.C. Background.

The Mary Ferrell Files Data Base includes the note: SULLIVAN, ARTHUR C.

Sources: CD 7, p. 150 Mary's Comments: Research Analyst in Charge, Naval Intelligence, 1114 Commerce, Rm. 204, Dallas, TX 

[5] Mary Ferrell Archives  http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=10408&relPageId=157

[Note: This document (copied in full below) makes no reference to 1114 Commerce, but instead is an FBI report on Sullivan’s knowledge about the enlistment of Oswald’s half-brother John Pic in the US Marine Corps. Like Sullivan, Oswald's brother Robert Oswald lived in Denton, Texas, where the company he worked for ACME Brick was also said to be located. The WC and all other reports previously indicated that John Pic had originally served in the US Coast Guard, where he was serving when Oswald and his mother visited them in New York and relocated there for a year. Pic then joined the US Air Force and was stationed at Lackland, AFB in Texas at the time of the assassination. If this document is accurate, then Pic also enlisted in the USMC Reserve, as well as serving in the Coast Guard and the Air Force.]

FBI

Date 11/26/63 

Special Agent A. C. SULLIVAN, Office of Naval Intelligence, advised EDWARD JOHN PIC, half-brother of LEE HARVEY OSWALD, enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, however, he did not actually serve on active duty. He subsequently served two tours in the U.S. Coast Guard, dates not available. PIC enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1956, and gave his address c/o M. OSWALD, 3006 Bristol Road (not sure of original spelling), Ft. Worth, Texas. He listed his wife as MARGARET DOROTHY FUHRMAN, 104 Ave. C., East Meadow, New York, New York (apparently her current address). Captain ROBERT JACKSON, Deputy Director, Naval Intelligence, Washington, D.C., advised Mr. SULLIVAN that this information was furnished FBI, Washington D.C. on November 23, 1963

11/24/63 Dallas, Texas File # DL 89-43

by Special Agent ROBERT P. GEMBERLING 

11/25/63

[6] Commission Document 7,p150 – FBI Gemberling Report of 10 Dec 1963 re: Oswald.
Current Section: D. Background – Relatives.

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/02/john-pic-usmc.html

This note takes on added significance when it is learned that a reported post-assassination investigation by the US Marine Corps was said to have been confused with an actual investigation of Oswald’s half-brother John Pic, who had served in the US Coast Guard and was in the Air Force at the time of the assassination, but according to this memo, had also enlisted in the US Marine Corp.

It may be significant that it appears that the ONI had two official offices in Dallas, one at Commerce Street and the other at the Post Office Annex on the South Side of Dealey Plaza, one possibly a regular ONI office while the other for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (CIS). It’s possible a third Dallas office is referred to in records as the “Dallas Field Office.” 

                                                   Oswald’s ONI File

     The Warren Report mentioned that “….the Commission has reviewed the complete files on Oswald, as they existed at the time of the assassination, of the Department of State, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the FBI and the CIA.” 

Using that reference, Paul Hoch requested and acquired a 300 page ONI file in 1967, which he says is definitely not one of the USMC files that the Warren Commission published (two USMC files, personnel and medical, as the Folsom and Donabedian Exhibits.). The files obtained by Hoch include a reference to Oswald’s Soviet Embassy visit in Mexico and: “Information presently available to the Office of Naval Intelligence does not indicate what significance, if any, this contact may have represented, and no other information on OSWALD was received until 22 November 1963.”

The file also included the Taylor memo to McDonald about Patterson, which establishes the fact that Admiral Taylor, the director of ONI, took a keen interest in the ONI affairs in Dallas immediately after the assassination, and suspected an association between Oswald and Ruby, as indicated in the following memo dated November 27, 1963. 

[7] Oswald’s ONI File  – WR., 433 https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=73857; http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-8.html)

Hoch, Paul. 1988 EOC. 

(http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/10/irregularities-relating-to-naval.html)

                                               THE TAYLOR MEMO

To: Admiral McDonald 27 Nov. 1963
From: Rear Admiral Taylor

Oswald Killing

1. Information from our Dallas office provides names of several persons connected with Ruby and Oswald. Robert Kermit Patterson, admitted 6J (homosexual), contacted resident agent Dallas about 1330 CST yesterday and said he had information in regard assassination of President Kennedy. Patterson said he and one Donald C. Stuart operated Contract Electronics, 2533 Elm Street, Dallas. About two weeks ago, Jack Ruby/aka/Rubenstein and subject Oswald visited Contract Electronics and wanted work done on a microphones at Ruby Carousel Night Club, Dallas. On this occasion Ruby told Oswald to write names of Patterson and Stuart in Carousel guest book. Contract Electronics did the requested mike work at the Carousel and were paid by Negro employee. The Senior Resident Agent at Dallas has taken Patterson to the FBI Dallas for further interrogation. Neither Stuart nor Patterson has discussed above information with anyone else, according to Patterson. The files at DIO 8ND are negative on Stuart.

2. In this office we have a file on Patterson and another person not mentioned in the above message by the name of Tracy Thurio Pope. Pope is the one that first pointed out Patterson. Patterson was in the Navy and is now out. Pope was in the Navy and is out, Service No. 599 29 44, AA, USN. There is no Navy record on Stuart. This morning we had a meeting here to make sure that everybody is informed and that the FBI is getting everything it needs.

3. The above information certainly raises questions as to Ruby’s real motives in killing Oswald. We have all been interested in what seemed to us to be a look of recognition on Oswald’s fact when he spotted Ruby.

4. BuPers is being kept currently informed of information of the sort contained in paragraph 1 and 2 above.

Very respectfully, Rufus L. Taylor

Copy to: REVIWED BY NCIS (ONI) JFK TASK FORCE
On 12-17-93  

RELEASE IN FULL 

[8] Taylor Memo Nov. 27, 1963

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/02/very-respectfully-rufus-l-taylor-usn.html

                   PATTERSON – UNDERCOVER HOMOSEXUAL ONI INFORMANT

It is interesting that they think it worth mentioning that the ONI’s Dallas informant Robert K. Patterson was a homosexual, especially in light of what we know from Donald Norton – that the military targeted homosexuals and got them to inform on other homosexuals in the service, especially officers and those with access to special information.

The case of defectors Martin and Mitchell also comes to mind, as it was suspected that the former Navy officers and National Security Agency (NSA) defectors to the Soviet Union were homosexuals (even though it later was determined that they were not.) Most interesting is the way Martin and Mitchell made their escape - from the United States to Mexico City to Havana and by ship to the Soviet Union, the same odd route that Oswald reportedly spoke about in Mexico City in late September 1963.

[9] Norton, Don:  http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2012/10/mae-judge-and-don-norton.html; Patterson – Homosexual –Martin & Mitchell:

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/02/nsa-defectors-martin-and-mitchell.html

A subsequent FBI investigation of the Patterson allegation – that Oswald and Ruby were pre-assassination associates, positively determined that it was not Oswald who visited the electronics shop with Ruby, but one Lavern “Larry” Crafard, an ex-serviceman and Texas State Fair carnival roustabout who is certainly a person of interest (and is still a living witness/suspect). There are at least three incidents in which Crafard was mistaken for Oswald, one may have been intentional.

[10] Patterson – Oswald – Crafard; Case of mistaken identity.

This Taylor document strongly indicates that Admiral Rufus Taylor, the Director of ONI, took a keen and active interest in the information coming from the Dallas ONI office, where A. C. Sullivan worked closely with J. Mason Lankford.

                                                 J. MASON LANKFORD

In another FBI report it is noted that it was J.M. Lankford who ran Robert K. Patterson:

FBI REPORT: 

At approximately 1:00 PM, on November 26, 1963, J. M. LANKFORD, Special Agent, Office of Naval Intelligence, Dallas, Texas, personally appeared at the Dallas Field Division. Mr. LANKFORD advised SA John J. FLANAGAN that approximately fifteen minutes previously an informant of his had contacted him concerning JACK RUBY and LEE HARVEY OSWALD.

LANKFORD stated that his informant, ROBERT KERMIT PATTERSON, an admitted homosexual, has been furnishing information to ONI for some time. He has, in the past, furnished signed statements to the Office of Naval Intelligence setting forth his homosexual activities with young servicemen….

Patterson, a former Navy man, lived at the YMCA and was an associate Donald C. Stuart and operated a TV and radio repair shop with Charles Arndt, who also lived at the YMCA. Two weeks previous Ruby and a man who appeared to be Oswald visited there shop Contract Electronics at 2533 Elm St. Stuart also worked at KLIF.  END FBI REPORT

In that last sentence we also learn that Lankford’s ONI informant Robert K. Patterson was living at the Dallas YMCA, where Oswald also lived on occasion, and that Patterson was affiliated with Stuart, who also worked at KLIF, the Dallas radio stationed owned by Gordon McLendon, who also had ties to both Ruby and ONI.

John Mason Lankford Jr. (1921-1997), better known as Mason Lankford, Fire Marshal of Tarrant County (Fort Worth), Texas. worked for General Dynamics/Convair Division as Director of Security (from 1948 to 1972), where Robert Oswald was employed at Convair in 1956. Two other GD Security officers were I B Hale, ex-FBI agent whose wife got Oswald jobs (and whose sons broke into the apartment of Judith Campbell Exner) and Max Clark, who knew Oswald. In addition to chief firefighter and Convair director of security, Lankford was the chairman of the Texas Board of Private Investigators and Private Security Agencies, and was probably acquainted with DPD Detective Paul Bentley, who was head of the Texas association of polygraph operators.

As an “old acquaintance” of Texas-based Secret Service agent Mike Howard, Lankford assisted Howard in securing Fort Worth for JFK’s visit and on Sunday morning, November 24th, Howard called him to request that he accompany him as part of the security team protecting Marina and Marguerite Oswald at the Inn of the Six Flags at Arlington. The site was said to have been chosen by Lankford. Also present was Robert Oswald, who refers to Lankford as “Mason,” suggesting the two had known each other, possibly from Convair. Mason Lankford’s father, John Mason Lankford Sr. worked at Temco in the early 1950s and could have known David Harold Byrd, owner of the TSBD building.

[11] Lankford, Mason. Background. 

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/02/j-mason-lnnkford.html

                                             PAUL HOCH and P.D. SCOTT

Harold Weisberg specialized in reviewing FBI records and John Newman and Jeff Morley have focused on CIA records related to the assassination.  The relevant ONI records have been reviewed closely by Paul Hoch and P.D. Scott, both interested in the military and intelligence records. 

Hoch concluded his early analysis with the hope that the outstanding questions could be cleared up by the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB), as recently he wrote, “ One can hope that the ARRB did a (John) Newman-like analysis to pin down the identity of additional files. Not actually that likely, though.”

[12] Hoch, Paul.; EOC Echos of Conspiracy 2 (1988), pp. 1-10:] 

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/10/irregularities-relating-to-naval.html
Comment on Review Board from e-mail of 5 Feb. 13.

Peter Dale Scott addressed the subject of the ONI Records in a 1990 conference presentation in which he wrote and spoke, in part:  

P.D. Scott:

“The special handling of Lee Harvey Oswald by the State Department….swiftly aroused…suspicions of FBI, ONI and Marine Intelligence personnel, and Hoover’s allies (notably Otto Otepka)....We know this chiefly from Oswald’s ONI records, where we also learn that there were considerable ONI messages on Oswald (alias Harvey Lee Oswald), stored in Marine G-2 (intelligence) files that were never seen by the Warren Commission….The charade of Oswald’s discharge from the Marine Reserve in 1960 was an operation coordinated by Marine G-2 and ONI Counterintelligence…”

                     Oswald’s Suppressed ONI and Marine G-2 Records

“Lee Harvey Oswald’s defection to the Soviet Union in 1959 was immediately described as an “intelligence matter’ by the Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence….In the ensuring years the military intelligence agencies continued to collect information about him. Since the publication of the Warren Report we have seen the belated release of documents on Oswald from ONI (the Office of Naval Intelligence), from Army G-2 (Intelligence) and even OSI (Air Force Intelligence), the first of the military agencies to consult Oswald’s security file in the State Department.”

“Oswald however, did not serve in the Navy, Army or Air Force; like his brother Robert he was a Marine. In October 1959, at the time of this defection, he was no longer on active duty, but had transferred six weeks earlier to the Class III Ready Marine Corps Reserve . We shall see that over three years Marine G-2 (Intelligence) both received and disseminated records concerning Oswald, regionally and at Marine HQ. Nevertheless, despite Marine G-2, all unclassified, and presumably a tiny fraction of the whole.  (These large gaps in what is available suggests the existence of a second system of classified records).”

“We know further that the Marine G-2 HQ did receive classified intelligence on Oswald. The CIA on October 10, 1963, sent a Secret cable to the Navy, reporting that someone identifying himself as Lee Oswald had been in contact with the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. Like the first Navy cable about Oswald’s defection, the action copy of this cable was referred to ‘92’ (the Office of Naval Intelligence). Handwritten on this copy are the words, “Passed to G-2 – USMC 10/11/63.”

            ONI and the Deception of the So-Called ONI “File on Oswald”

“In response to the Warren Commission request of February 18, 1964, John McNaughton’s office supplied what it referred to as ‘the complete file of the Office of Naval Intelligence on Lee Harvey Oswald.”  In fact this file was not complete. More importantly, it was only created on November 22, 1963, from Oswald records which apparently were stored earlier in two or three files, some of which possibly had a different subject or subjects.”

“In the Archives version of this ONI file, we find clues to its own creation on November 22, 1963. A memo to file of that date by the duty officer in the ONI Support Center refers to both an ‘ONI investigative file’ … and a ‘supplemental file,’... Later the duty officer learned ‘of a request being prepared from General Carroll of DIA [the Defense Intelligence Agency, a McNamara creation] to see the file on Oswald.’ Advised of this request, ONI Chief Admiral Rufus Taylor gave instructions ‘to prepare a file for him to be passed to General Carroll.”

“Something analogous may have happened at Marine HQ G-2 as well. A House Committee staff report says that the HSCA “contacted Lt. Col. Bill Brewer of the Intelligence Division of Marine Corps Headquarters on August 1, 1977. Brewer had been in charge of compiling the Oswald military file for the use of the Warren Commission” This report adds ambiguously that according to Brewer, “his records check had only individual local records within the individual commands where Oswald had served and did not include records that were classified secret or top secret”

“The details of this file-preparation suggests conscious deception by ONI on November 22, both of General Carroll (The Kennedy-McNamara appointee as head of DIA), and subsequently of DOD General Counsel John McNaughton. It was reviewing the ONI “file on Oswald” that McNaughton requested three documents, referred to in the file, which he never got to see.]…Some of the post-November 22 alteration of this “file on Oswald” appears to be the work of the Archives itself, when the curator of these records was Marion Johnson. This alteration, which even if innocently inspired could be construed as tampering with evidence, should be investigated by the Review Board, and the November 22 file as far as possible.

“As we look more closely at this ONI-G-2 collaboration, we shall see that it has the marks of a counterintelligence operation, indeed of an official ‘deception’ (to use an intelligence term of art) with respect to Oswald. There is of course nothing in this fact per se to link either ONI or Marine G-2 to the assassination.”

“What is more alarming is the refusal by ONI on November 22, to share their actual records with even Joseph Carroll, the Air Force General and former FBI agent who in 1961 was appointed by Kennedy to be the first head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Particularly alarming is the deceitful withholding at the time of three records which (unlike most of the others) constituted strong clues to the existence of the counterintelligence collaboration.”

“In suggesting to their superiors that the three withheld records added no information, senior naval officers were deceptive. Admiral Taylor’s decision to have a file prepared, rather than share raw data, is further evidence that the original files with Oswald records contained truths quite different than those eventually given to the public.”

“In 1963 Oswald’s personnel file was stored at the Federal Records Center, St. Louis; and forwarded to Washington by November 23…”

Like Hoch, Scott also had high hopes that the ARRB would review the matter closely, utilized its subpoena power and determine what was really going on when he wrote:

“The Review Board should also question, and if necessary depose, those in ONI who on November 22 ‘prepared a file’ for DIA and their civilian overseers in the Pentagon. It is unlikely that whatever case existed for secrecy about Oswald on the day of the assassination would still prevail against the standards for release established I 1994 by passage of the JFK Records Act.”

[13] Scott, P.D. OSWALD, MARINE CORPS INTELLIGENCE AND THE ASSAULT ON THE STATE DEPARTMENT  - Peter Dale Scott Fredonia Conference July 1990

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/S Disk/Scott Peter Dale/Item 02.pdf

                                            THE ARRB AND THE ONI FILES   

While the CIA has taken most of the heat for refusing to make public their records on the assassination of President Kennedy, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) has been just as obstinate, not only for refusing to turn over relevant records, but for denying the existence of certain records that are known to exist and skirting the law - the JFK Assassination Records Act of 1992.

With the passage of the act by Congress, the temporary Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) was created, with five non-governmental citizen-academics recommended by national historic and archival associations, and led by Federal Judge John Tunheim. They hired a staff whose job was not to reinvestigate the assassination but to identify and assemble all of the government records related to the assassination in one place – the JFK Collection at the National Archives and Records Administration, which is located at Archives II on the beltway in College Park, Maryland.

Since it was just a temporary organization without any future, and any association with the subject of the assassination was considered toxic to anyone’s governmental career, there was a high turnover of Review Board personnel, including two staff directors and two chief counsels.

[14] Horne, Douglas. Inside the ARRB.

Although the task of the ARRB was not to investigate the assassination but only locate records, before the ARRB (1996-98) there was the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA 1977-78), which was authorized to investigate the assassination, but was also compromised by those who wanted certain information to remain secret, including two reports of official military investigations of Oswald, one before and one after the assassination.

              THE HUFF REPORT ON USMC ASSASSINATION INVESTIGATION 

When a USAF navigator (Lawrence Huff) told the HSCA that he flew  a US Marine Corps team to San Diego and Japan that was investigating Oswald’s military records after the assassination, the USMC claimed that no such investigation occurred and that Huff was confusing it with an actual investigation of Oswald’s half-brother John Pic. Huff denied this and it is very clear from the HSCA reports that there was a post assassination USMC investigation of Oswald, as there should have been.

[15] Huff Report. HSCA, USMC post-assassination investigation of Oswald.

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/01/usmc-post-assassination-investigation.html

Huff Report: POSSIBLE MILITARY INVESTIGATION OF THE ASSASSINATION

Staff Repot HSCA March 1979  Volume XI, p. 539 (MF p. 549) http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=83&relPageId=545

The ARRB Final Report notes: “The question of whether the Marine Corps conducted a post-assassination investigation and produced a written report on former Marine Private Lee Harvey Oswald, circa late 1963 and early 1964, has never been resolved to the satisfaction of the public…. During its investigation the HSCA learned from a former officer (Huff) that the USMC sent a special investigations team to San Diego and Japan. According to an officer who flew on the same plane, they wrote a report on Oswald’s activities when he was there.”

According to Huff the “for USMC eyes only” report concluded that “Oswald was incapable of committing the assassination alone.” But that report has never been acknowledged let alone released, even though the HSCA investigators were supplied with the name of the plane’s pilot, the plane’s tail numbers, flight data and the names of others aboard.

Nearly twenty years later the ARRB Final Report concluded:“The Review Board asked the Marine Corps to search for any records relating to post-assassination investigations that the U.S. Marine Corps might have completed, as some researchers believe.”

[Note: It is not "some researchers" who believe that such an investigation took place, it is the USAF officer, a navigator who held a Top Secret clearance and read the report that concluded that Oswald was not capable of committing the assassination alone. It was not in response to researchers but to the testimony of the USAF officer that the inquiry into the marine Corp investigation was initiated. ]

“The U.S. Marine Corps searched files at both U.S. Marine Corps HQ in Quantico, and at the Federal Records Center in Suitland, Maryland, but the Marine Corps did not locate evidence of any internal investigations of Lee Harvey Oswald, other than correspondence already published in the Warren Report.”

[16] ARRB Final Report on USMC post-assassination investigation of Oswald. Also note that FBI Agent in Charge of the Dallas FBI office for many years, Oliver "Buck" Revell, was a young USMC officer stationed at the New River MAS, North Carolina at the time of the assassination and worked closely with the FBI agents who investigated Oswald in the wake of the assassination, confirming the report by L. Huff (USAF), that there were such post-assassination investigations of Oswald's military background.  

                          REEVES REPORT ON ONI DEFECTION INVESTIGATION

The Final Report of the ARRB also notes that:  “….many have wondered whether the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) conducted a post-defection "net damage assessment" investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald circa 1959 or 1960…”

[Note here too the Final Report of the ARRB uses the wording “many have wondered,” which makes it appear the Review Board staff was responding to the questioning of “many wondering” researchers, when in fact the one person “who wondered” whether the ONI conducted a post-defection net-damage assessment was the Navy officer - Fred Reeves, who oversaw the investigation and read the reports. Commander Steel also confirmed that he worked closely with Reeves and believes he (Steel) may have been the officer who conducted the investigation and wrote the reports.]

ARRB Final Report: “Various former Oswald associates and military investigators have recalled separate investigations…The Review Board became aware of an individual named Fred Reeves of California, who was reputed to have been in charge of a post-defection 'net damage assessment' of Oswald by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) shortly after Oswald's defection to the U.S.S.R. The Review Board contacted Reeves, interviewed him twice by telephone, then flew him to Washington, D.C., where the Review Board staff interviewed him in person. In 1959, Reeves was a civilian Naval Intelligence Operations Specialist. (Reeves served in the District Intelligence Office of the San Diego, California 11th Naval District.)”

“Reeves told the Review Board that a week or so after Oswald defected to the U.S.S.R., two officers from ONI in Washington, D.C. called him and asked him to conduct a background investigation at the Marine Corps Air Station in El Toro, California Oswald's last duty station before his discharge from the Marine Corps. (One of the officers who called Mr. Reeves was Rufus Taylor, who was Director of Naval Intelligence in 1963.)…Reeves said that he went to El Toro, copied Oswald's enlisted personnel file, obtained the names of many of his associates, and mailed this information to ONI in Washington, D.C.”

“He said that ONI in Washington ran the post-defection investigation of Oswald, and that the Washington officers then directed various agents in the field. Although Reeves did not interview anyone himself, he said that later (circa late 1959 or early 1960), approximately 12 to 15 '119' reports concerning Oswald (OPNAV Forms 5520119 are ONI's equivalent of an FBI FD302 investigative report), crossed his desk. Reeves said he was aware of "119" reports from Japan and Texas, and that the primary concern of the reports he read on Oswald was to ascertain what damage had been done to national security by Oswald's defection. Reeves reported that he also saw eight to ten '119' reports on Oswald after the assassination, and that he was confident he was not confusing the two events in his mind.”

“In the spring of 1998, Review Board staff members met with two Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) records management officials, one of whom personally verified that he had searched for District Intelligence Office records (with negative results) from the San Diego, Dallas, and New Orleans District Intelligence Offices in 1996 with negative results. This search included '119' reports from the time period 1959-1964, during an extensive search of NCIS record group 181. The search included any records that would have been related to Oswald's defection. Thus, the Review Board ultimately located no documentary evidence to substantiate Reeves' claims.”

[17] Reeves, Fred Report. ARRB. http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/02/fred-reeves-usnr-on-oni-119-reports.html

             THE ONI FILES & THE RAILROADING OF LCDR TERRI PIKE USNR

Those few paragraphs from the Final Report of the ARRB indicating that they searched ONI files but failed to locate any relevant records belies what actually occurred. The ONI stonewalled the Review Board and blackballed one of its own officers who attempted to cooperate with the ARRB staff and actually tried to conduct a complete search for the relevant records among the ONI files .

[18] See: Railroading of Terri Pike. http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/10/railroading-of-lcdr-terri-pike-over.html

The problem, as seen from the perspective of the HSCA and the ARRB, was the ONI claimed they could find no records of these official investigations in their files, both of which are described in detail by the officers who paticipated. These are official investigations that should have taken place and did take place according to the military officers involved, but for which we now have no official reports or records, other than the recollections and testimony of the officers.

When the Assassinations Records Review Board staff first informed ONI - the Office of Naval Intelligence of the JFK Act and its requirements, the director of ONI simply responded by saying they didn’t have a thing. On Nov 14 1995 the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB) sent the Navy Office of General Counsel a letter outlining the JFK Act law requirements and two weeks later on Nov. 27 1995 the Director ONI responded by letter, stating that “the Office of Naval Intelligence holds no records responsive to the tasking of 14 Nov 1995…..” 

[19] ONI response to ARRB Request.

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/10/oni-response-to-jfk-act-and-arrb.html

Two years later, Christopher Barger of the ARRB staff “met with the ONI team responsible for heading the search for records under the JFK Act,” and noted in his report that, “This team is directed by Lieut. Cmdr. Terri Pike; LCDR Doolittle works in the ONI FOIA office; Pike reports to Capt. Peiaec; LCRD Bastein is the JAG.”  As he noted, “For reasons not entirely clear to either the ONI team or ARRB, the tasking for this project only trickled down to them on Friday, March 7, 1997. They were a little confused as to why they were only being tasked with this now, but expressed a willingness to do everything they possibly could to achieve the objectives of the Act.”

[20] ARRB Staff Meeting Report, March 11, 1997 

For awhile it was “Gung Ho!” and they went all out to find the relevant records. Intended searches would begin at Suitland at the Federal Records Center, but would later include district offices within CONUS (Continental United States) and that, “Pike then presented us a small written briefing package detailing what they had identified that they are required to do and the process they will use to go about the review. She noted that their first priority was to identify the records collections they need to search, then determining the physical location of the records. Most of these will be at Suitland, she said, but there will be others located in district offices round the country in locations like Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco, New Orleans, St. Louis and Boston. They have also identified a need to determine standard subject identification codes which should cause a document to be searched, and she concluded by detailing the records disposition procedures within ONI.” 

“Despite the fact that they had only learned of this tasking on Friday, they had located and designated approximately 125 cubic feet of documents that directly relate to subjects we mentioned in our letter to the Navy. These will be reviewed page by page. She anticipated being able to complete the review by the stated deadline set by the Navy and ARRB of April 30, 1997.”

“In addition, she said that ONI had identified about 950 cubic feet, or approximately 2.4 million pages of records which might be related to the topics we were interested in, but that we had not specifically mentioned…LCDR Pike stressed that she, and ONI, understood that all information, even negative result, is important to our process, and that they will be providing reports on everything they search, whether relevant documents are found within or not. Pike provided us with a ‘flow chart’ documenting the normal records disposition process within ONI, explaining what each step of the process is and where documents go during each phase of the process. The final page of her briefing package was a sample of the ‘clue sheets’ being provided to each reviewer for the April 30 documents. Approximately two dozen subject headings are listed along with ‘clues’ or keywords for each subject, and a time window for each subject….In closing, it should be reported that this team, and LCDR Pike in particular, are very impressive, they appear very much to have their act together on this project. They provided details and planning we have rarely seen from other agencies, yet they have had this project assigned to them for less than a week. They were extremely helpful, and have taken an aggressive and proactive approach to complying with the JFK Act. We can expect more impressive work from this team.”

Another ARRB memo says that, “LCDR Pike is our main point of contact in the ONI records review. She works for the Information Management Department…She said that they have completed their review of about 40 cu. ft. of the 127 cu. ft. ONI has committed to having reviewed for us by the April 30 deadline. She also said that they have found one box based on our SF 135 requests. This box has to do with defections, both Cuban and Soviet; they plan on turning this box over to us 'in toto.' She said that most of the records in that box are CIA originated or have CIA equities, so they will need to be coordinated with CIA. She ended the call by telling me that if we want to come out there at any point and personally review any of their work, we are welcome.”

On April, 21 1997 ARRB staffers met with LCDR Pike and LCDR Doolittle of ONI and reported that, “LCDR Pike stated that review of the first 123 cubic feet of ONI records had been completed, and that as a result .8 cubic feet of records (18 district files) on defectors had been identified as responsive to the CNO tasking; these records were presented to ARRB staffers at the meeting for cursory review. Completion of declassification review and delivery of the original records to the ARRB was tentatively promised within 2 – 4 weeks. LCDR Pike also mentioned that approx. 950 cubic feet of additional records had been identified which –might- be responsive to the topics the ARRB was interested in, and said that review of this material would take approximately 6 months. (ARRB Meeting Report memorializes the result of this meeting.)….Pike explained that most of the relevant records they found were discovered ‘by accident;’ that is to say, they were misfiled in boxes outside where they should have been. This is important for two reasons. 1) If they had been filed where they ‘should’ have been, they would have been routinely destroyed by this point, and 2) as they continue their review of the approximately 900 cu feet of records they have self-identified, they expect they might well continue to discover records of interest to us….There are a total of 18 folders of material which ONI has determined should go into the JFK collection and have earmarked for delivery to us….”

In August, 1997, after learning that Fred Reeves had prepared “119 Reports” on Oswald, ARRB staffer Doug Horne called Terri Pike and requested that she look for “119 Reports” covering an alleged ONI investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald’s October, 1959 defection to the Soviet Union. LCDR Pike accepted the tasking, but according to their reports the ARRB never received any feedback on the results.

In a “Description of the Call: Summary” Doug Horne wrote – “I left a voice mail telling Terri Pike about Fred Reeves and his claim to have conducted a post-defection investigation of Oswald at MCAS El Toro in late 1959 or early 1960 at the request of ONI in Washington (Rufus Taylor); I specifically mentioned ‘119 Reports,’ which Fred Reeves said were filed. I asked her to search for those files or a copy of that investigative report, and also asked her to pass to us the name and phone number of the person at ONI most knowledgeable today about such matters/such records.”

In a Memo to the ARRB Pike eventually reported back that, “…I was relieved from the leadership position on this project in late August (1997) by the ONI Reserve Directorate Head….As you know, it was my responsibility to identify all records required under 44 U.S.C. 2107 (The JFK Act). I felt a personal commitment to ensure this effort was conducted ‘with vigor’ and as thoroughly as possible…”

For her efforts she was charged with “fraudulent” official travel as her “tasking did not say to search regional record centers.” 

T. Jeremy Gunn, the ARRB senior counsel who became Executive Director, took a personal interest in the Pike case, and his notes indicates that he believed she discovered certain special information and wanted to know, “When was she transferred? Who were her superiors? How long after she discovered this info was (she) terminated? What were the reasons given for her termination?” On Dec. 3, 1997, Gunn sent a fax to Pike’s attorney David Sheldon, asking to speak to Pike to learn of, “any discussions she had with ONI officials regarding the content and disposition of records for which she was searching and…any information she might have regarding the location of ONI records and of ONI record-keeping policies.”

In a Jan. 7 1998 Fax and US Mail letter Ex. Dir. ARRB T. Jeremy Gunn wrote to Pike’s attorney. "Dear Mr. Sheldon, I would like to thank you for returning my call and for your willingness to consider our request. As I mentioned, we would like to speak, on an informal basis, with your client, LCDR Terri Pike. We anticipate that the discussion would likely take no more than one to one and one half hours. There are two principle issues that we would like to discuss: first, any records she located or pursued that were relevant to the assassination or to requests made by the ARRB; second, any discussions she had with ONI officials regarding the content and disposition of the records for which she was searching; and third, any information she might have regarding the location of ONI records and of ONI record-keeping policies. We do not anticipate any need to discuss issues other than these with LCDR Pike, although you or she may know of other issues that might be of interest to us. The two people from our office who would meet with her are Doug Horne, Chief Analyst for Military Records (who Ms. Pike knows) and Kim Heard, a Senior Attorney…."

Gunn then heard from ONI, who wrote: “The Department of the Navy strongly objects to LCDR Pike’s cooperation in the investigation being conducted by Mr. Jeremy Gunn of the JFK Assassinations Records Review Board. ONI is unaware of any unauthorized investigation regarding this issue. If Mr. Gunn wishes to conduct an investigation or inquiry, such an effort should be coordinated through the Office of Naval Intelligence.” 

LCDR Pike was brought up before an Article 32 hearing to determine if she should be court-martialed.  [Article 32 (a):  No charge or specification may be referred to a general court-martial for trial until a thorough and impartial investigation of all the matters set forth therein has been made. This investigation shall include inquiry as to the truth of the matter set forth in the charges, consideration of the form of charges, and recommendation as to the disposition which should be made of the case in the interest of justice and discipline. (b) The accused shall be advised of the charges against him and of his right to be represented at that investigation as provided in section 838 of this title (article 38) and in regulations prescribed under that section...]

Just as in the film “A Few Good Men” (“You can’t handle the truth!”) and the TV show JAG, an Article 32 hearing was held in a courtroom in Building 200, Washington Navy Yard, 2nd floor, and commenced at 0900 on Monday, 16, March, 1998, but the results are unknown. It is known however, that Pike’s attorney (Shelton) “wanted to get the Government privilege lifted in order to discuss SCI and Top Secret Materials. Sheldon stated that the prosecutors needed to make this stuff go away because he was planning on dragging it all out and it would hit the newspapers, etc. Sheldon stated that there was some feeling that ONI was trying to shuffle some of the JFK stuff to the side.” 

The case was being made on Pike's behalf that she was being reprimanded, not for fraudulent travel, but because she had found some important records that the ONI wanted to keep from being made pubic.

The JAG officer who was responsible for signing off on the ONI records responsive to the JFK Act was Lt. Commander (LCDR) D. Bastien. In a letter from Doug Horne to LCDR R. D. Bastien, Horne makes note of some of the fires Pike started that Bastien was trying to stamp out:

“The purpose of this letter is to memorialize for the record our meeting….You suggested a correction in my summation of information provided by LCDR Pike…in which I quoted her as saying that ONI searches would include district offices within CONUS. You advised that although ONI had district offices in the past, there are no longer any district offices within CONUS, subsequently to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) splitting away from ONI as a separate entity. You further clarified that the only locations where you would expect to find ONI records today would be at the Federal Records Center in Suitland, at the Naval Historical Center, or at Archives II in College Park….You were confident that ONI had searched for and had not located any files for the Director of ONI,…Although LCDR Pike had promised delivery of the originals of those documents, ….the Review Board was still not in receipt of these documents….LCDR Pike had recently mentioned to our staff that she had located Naval Attache Records responsive to the JFK Act during her searches of RG 289, and had placed them in a box that she had labeled ‘44 USC 2107.’ It was unclear from our conversation with her whether this box was left at the FRC in Suitland, or whether it was located at ONI headquarters…Please confirm for me, in writing, whether….ONI conducted search of records centers in San Francisco, Atlanta, and San Diego, and if documentation exists of the dates and results of those searches….”

An ARRB staffer who dealt with Bastien described him as, “...a real bastard, the nastiest individual I encountered within the military structure. He seemed actively opposed to what we were doing at the ARRB...He was a Navy legal officer, a military attorney, acting as the pit bull guard dog protecting the ONI family jewels.”

[22] LCDR Bastien, R.D. JAG Officer who replaced Pike and signed off on ONI compliance with JFK Act, under penalty of perjury.

After leaving the ARRB under a cloud two months before it was finished with its work, its chief counsel and Executive Director T. J. Gunn began working for the ACLU and now works in Morocco.

In the Final Report of the ARRB, Chapter 8 Compliance with the JFK Act by Government Offices - a. Office of Naval Intelligence: “6. The Review Board pursued the matter of ONI records separately. Accordingly, the Board requested that ONI submit its own certification of its compliance with the JFK Act. In its Final Declaration of Compliance, ONI stated that it conducted an extensive review of ONI records held at Federal Records Centers throughout the country. ONI did not identify any additional assassination records. ONI was unable to find any relevant files for the Director of ONI from 1959 to 1964. ONI also acknowledged that there were additional ONI records that were not reviewed for assassination records, but that these records would be reviewed under Executive Order 12958 requiring declassification of government records.”

So in the end, ONI reported that it could not find any relevant assassination records on the assassination from its Dallas Office(s), no “119 Reports” on Oswald or any pre-assassination, post-defection or post-assassination investigation reports, and that no relevant records whatsoever from the office of the Director of ONI. And there’s some confusion as to whether it turned over the defector records Pike discovered and whether ONI turned over all of its records or kept some back so they can be reviewed under Ex Or. 12958.

The Office of Naval Intelligence submitted its Final Declaration of Compliance dated May 18, 1998, signed by LCDR R. D. Bastien.

The Navy confirmed that it did not locate any relevant 1959-1964 files for the Director of ONI.

[23] ARRB Final Report, Chapter 8, 14. Dept. of Navy 5. ONI. Also see: Railroading of LCDR Terri Pike and related ONI-ARRB Records; Chronology prepared by ARRB Staff.

   ADMIRAL RUFUS TAYLOR – DIRECTOR OFFICE NAVAL INTELLIGENCE

The footnote of the Final Report of the ARRB in the reports on Fred Reeves notes that, “One of the officers who called Mr. Reeves (to initiate the now missing reports on a post-defection inquiry into Oswald) was Rufus Taylor, who was Director of Naval Intelligence in 1964…”

In a March 4 1997 – Meeting Report – Topic – Disposition of ONI, NCIS Records AARC staff “provided extract from HSCA Staff Report regarding alleged Marine Corps CID post-assassination investigation into activities of Lee Harvey Oswald [aka Huff Report], and asked for any advice or assistance they might be able to provide regarding where such records might presently be stored, if they exist. Best recommendation: personal papers of the Marine Corps Commandant, Marine Corps CID records. Subject investigation, if authentic, may have been handled outside normal investigative channels.” 

It is not such a wild idea that the pre-assassination investigation into Oswald the defector and post assassination investigation of Oswald the assassin were ordered and “handled outside normal investigative channels” by those at the very top - the Commandant of the Marine Corp and Director of Office of Naval Intelligence. We know these files were there at one time, and it is inconceivable that ONI has lost the most significant records of its director, and that they have not undertaken the routine CI investigation to determine what became of them and to make sure they didn't fall into the hands of the enemy or opposition - the Russians, Chinese, Wikileaks or the American public. 

Taylor is recognized as the first real intelligence officer to hold the office of Director of Office of Naval Intelligence. Here’s what researcher Mae Brussell has to say about Rufus Taylor: “ Taylor...was a very important witness who died a week before Helms was to testify (before Congress). Rufus Taylor, Annapolis graduate, studied in Japan from 1938 to 1941, was a native of St. Louis, Missouri, and was with General MacArthur after the war in Japan. Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence for the entire Pacific fleet, he was in Japan from 1941 to 1959 and in Navy Intelligence at the time that Lee Oswald was over there in 1959 in the Philippines and at the Atsugi Air base and was involved with the U2. Oswald served in the Marines with top secret security clearance at the time that Rufus was Pacific Intelligence Chief. Oswald went to the Soviet Union and Rufus went to Washington, D.C. Oswald said, 'I'm going to give away radar secrets.' Rufus then became the Director for Foreign Intelligence in the Soviet Union. Rufus was the Director of Navy Intelligence in 1963 up until the time Kennedy was killed - from 1963 to 1966."

During 1967 through 1969, Rufus Taylor was the Deputy Director of the CIA- the number two post under Helms….When Congress questioned former CIA chief Richard Helms about Oswald's intelligence work, he said, "Why ask me? Call Navy Intelligence.”

[24] Taylor, Adml. Rufus – Director ONI. Background. http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/10/rear-admiral-rufus-taylor-records-gone.html

                                        Reconstructing the Oswald ONI File

So it now can be said for certain that the Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence Rufus Taylor took a personal interest in Oswald both before the assassination by personally ordering the investigation of his defection to the Soviet Union in 1959, and after the assassination by suggesting an alleged association between Oswald and Ruby, citing local Dallas ONI undercover agents.

San Diego ONI investigator Commander Robert Steel confirmed that Fred Reeves was in charge of the San Diego Navy CIS office and he (Steel) had probably carried out the actual Oswald investigation for Reeves, as ordered by Taylor, and wrote the “119 Reports” that are now among the missing ONI records.

The missing ONI records may have been destroyed, but more than likely are either misfiled or being intentionally and illegally withheld, in which case it might be possible to persuade ONI to acknowledge them and release them to NARA.

The appropriate oversight committee of Congress should hold hearings on the enforcement of the JFK Act, twenty years after, and obtain the appropriate testimony that establishes the existence or non-existence of certain records, get LTDR Pike and others who had identified requested records to go back through the files and attempt to find them, and ensure that all of the relevant records in existence are located and turned over to the NARA for inclusion in the JFK Records Collection. 

Oswald’s non-classified military file was kept at the military records center in St. Louis, where there was a major fire and many of the military records of those who served in World War II were destroyed. Because these records were necessary for the veterans to receive the GI Bill and medical and insurance service, the destroyed records were “reconstructed” from other files.

Oswald’s ONI file and the ONI records related to the assassination can be reconstructed in much the same way, and while it may have been stripped clean of all incriminating and embarrassing information, like Oliver Stone’s Mercedes left in Harlem for fifty years, we still have the basic skeletal frame and the testimony of those officers who have seen the entire file, or most of it, and we can reconstruct the ONI file from those recollections and the records of other agencies.

[25] Reconstructing the ONI Assassination Files.

Bill Kelly

Bkjfk3@yahoo.com

Notes and Footnotes to ONI Records Revisited

[1] ONI Letter, Steel, Robert D. Nov. 24, 1963 to DPD Det. Paul Bentley, re: Oswald, Lee Harvey; Sullivan, A.C. ONI. http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-oni-letter.html

[2] Steel, Robert D. Oral History Interview transcript. Attached.

[3] Bentley, Paul. Background http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/01/dallas-police-detective-paul-bentley.html

Notes: It is interesting that the New York Times ran three - 3 corrections to Bentley's obituary, including correcting the type of hat typically worn by Dallas detectives - a Resistol, not a Stetson. There is also the question of why Bentley did not mention in his reports the "A.J. Hidell" alias Oswald was reported to have in his wallet that Bentley went through on the ride to Dallas City Hall.

[4] Sullivan, A.C. Background.

[5] Mary Ferrell Archives.  http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=10408&relPageId=157

[6[ Gemberling, Robert P. CD Doc. 7. http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/02/john-pic-usmc.html

[7] Oswald’s ONI File WC. Hoch, Paul. 1967. See: EOC.

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=73857; http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-8.html)

Hoch, Paul. 1988 EOC. 

(http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/10/irregularities-relating-to-naval.html)

[8] The Taylor Memo, Nov. 27, 1963 to Adml. McDonald

[9] ONI Informant Patterson homosexual (Taylor Memo); Norrton, Don  

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2012/10/mae-judge-and-don-norton.html;  

Martin & Mitchell http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/02/nsa-defectors-martin-and-mitchell.html

[10] Patterson – Oswald – Crafard; Case of mistaken identity. Crafard is mistaken for Oswald three times, by Patterson at Electronics Store, at coffee shop next to Vegas Club, and at Texas Employment commission, where he gave his name as Oswald.

[11] Lankford, Mason; Background.

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/02/j-mason-lnnkford.html

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/11/rufus-taylor-dallas-oni-sa-j-mason.html

[12] Hoch, Paul. Echoes of Conspiracy EOC 2 (1988), pp. 1-10.

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/10/irregularities-relating-to-naval.html

[13] Scott, Peter Dale. OSWALD, MARINE CORPS INTELLIGENCE AND THE ASSAULT ON THE STATE DEPARTMENT  - Peter Dale Scott Fredonia Conference July 1990  http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/S Disk/Scott Peter Dale/Item 02.pdf

[14] Horne, Douglas. Inside the ARRB.

[15] Huff Report. HSCA, USMC post-assassination investigation of Oswald.

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/01/usmc-post-assassination-investigation.html

Huff Report: POSSIBLE MILITARY INVESTIGATION OF THE ASSASSINATION

Staff Report HSCA March 1979  Volume XI, p. 539 (MF p. 549) http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=83&relPageId=545

Note: When the pilot of the plane was called to testify before the HSCA he said he wanted to check with the military first, and a military lawyer was apparently permitted to cross examine the pilot when he testified. After the pilot acknowledged the flight took place, and remarked on Huff's outstanding reputation and qualities, the military lawyer asked the pilot a second time about Huff's character, and the pilot reluctantly said that he thought Huff might have been mentally unbalanced. This was clearly an agreed upon and untrue statement meant to undermine Huff's credibility, and reflects on how far the military was prepared to go to keep the report secret. 

[16] Final Report Assassinations Records Review Board (Chapter 6 Part I: The Quest for Additional Information and Records in Federal Government Offices) a. U.S. Marine Corps records of post-assassination investigation of Oswald.

[17] Final Report ARRB on post-defection investigation of Oswald by ONI (aka Reeves Report).  Reeves Report, ARRB.

[18] See: Railroading of Terri Pike http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/10/railroading-of-lcdr-terri-pike-over.html

[19] ONI response to ARRB Requests.

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/10/oni-response-to-jfk-act-and-arrb.html

[20] March 11, 1997 ARRB Meeting Report

[21] Railroading of LCDR Terri Pike and related ONI-ARRB records. Chronology prepared by ARRB Staff

[22] Bastien, LCDR, R. D. JAG officer, replaced Pike and signed off on ONI compliance with JFK Act under penalty of perjury.

[23]  ARRB Final Report, Chapter 8, 14 Dept. of Navy, 5. ONI.

[24 Taylor, Adml. Rufus – Director ONI. Background.

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/10/rear-admiral-rufus-taylor-records-gone.html

[25] Reconstructing the ONI Assassination Files.

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/02/finding-aid-for-nara-records.html

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS - MORE TO COME