Matthew Smith - The Second Plot - Brings Dealey Plaza into Focus

JFK - The Second Plot - by Matthew Smith (Mainstream Press 1992)

"Escalante's interest in the Kennedy assassination, I later learned, stemmed from his belief that Oswald's association with the FPCC and his visit to Mexico City to obtain a visa to Cuba prior to the assassination were CIA planned ploys to established a link between the Kennedy murder and Fidel Castro. This false link, Escalante figured, was designed to arrouse the American people to demand retaliatory action against Castro."  - Gaeton Fonzi - 1996

 - And Why, By the away, Is Fidel Castro Still Live? - The Inside Story of Cuban Intelligence -
Mary Ferrell Foundation - Essays 


Castro and JFK - the Second Plot was to blame Castro for JFK's assassination.

There is more at stake in finding Kennedy's killers than the satisfaction of curiosity. It has to do with the power of good and the power of evil. The power of good took a nasty knock on 22 November 1963 in the Dealey Plaza. Evil certainly triumphed that day. But there is something innate in us all which demands this be put right. This, above all, is why the Kennedy conspirators must be unmasked, and this is why those researching and conducting investigations into the assassination will never cease their work until their task is done.

Perhaps the most important feature of my own research has been how clearly it has matched that of researchers in the United States. My own technique, from early days, has been largely concerned with recognizing patterns in the evidence. I drew conclusions which, time after time, were confirmed by my colleagues working close to the scene of things in the United States, which was gratifying since, for so long, I had to be content with being the 'armchair detective'. When my most recent work produced the pattern which advertised the existence of the second plot, it was natural that this should be the subject of a book.

Once I recognized what it represented, a pattern crystallized immediately, and development of the pattern answered questions which had remained unanswered since Day One. The pattern embraced every part of Lee Harvey Oswald's role in the assassination and indicated what was intended for him had the plan not gone awry.

Once the existence of the second plot was recognized the remainder of the conspiracy assumed a new perspective. It finally made sense, and for the first time Oswald was clear to me.

Oswald, blamed for the assassination, was not expected to be investigated personally. There was a hint here of what the second plot was all about. Oswald, in their plan, escaped to Cuba. The Cubans had sent him. It was as plain as the nose on your face. There was nothing to investigate.

To assassination researchers, investigators and to others concerned with seeking the truth, Lee Harvey Oswald was the great enigma. He provided the central (piece) to the  puzzle to all that happened that day in the Dealey Plaza, and many have tried, without success, to identify his role in the conspiracy to kill the President. The trouble was reminiscent of completing a jigsaw puzzle and finding pieces left over. Different people putting the jigsaw together produced different pictures, but always there was a residue of pieces that did not fit.....There is only one thing about which every researcher is in agreement: Oswald was involved in the murder of the President, but on the subject of exactly how there is no accord.

The trouble the researchers have met in grappling with the conspiracy to kill the President was that it was simply overwhelming in its proportions and its complexity. It was a monstrous conundrum, the likes of which, in all the annals of crime, had never before been encountered. But the basic problem with examining the assassination data was the conspiracy was perceived as one enormous plot and the perception of it was calculated to make it appear overwhelming.

The fact that researchers brilliantly compartmentalized the vast available data did not change the basic concept of one crime - one plot.

The tantalizing jigsaw pieces would simply not lock together onto one picture, and there was a very good reason for it: they made two pictures, not one. To complicate matters, the pictures overlapped, and shared an area which was common to both, much in the same way that two overlapping circles feature a segment common to both..

To recognize this is to take the first step towards unravelling the complexities of the plan to kill the president. In the planning, preparation and execution of the crime there were two plots which worked independently of one another.

The first - the main tier - plot was at least simple on concept. A team of marksmen were to be assembled in various positions in Dealey Plaza, and they were to ambush the President as his limousine made its way down Elm Street, catching him in a crossfire from which there would be no chance of survival.

The second plot provided not only for the escape of the marksmen, but for the concealment of the identities of those who had sent them by the laying of the blame at the door of Fidel Castro.

It is when this detail of the second plot is understood that the framework of the entire conspiracy is exposed.

The details of the second plot forms a complete, recognizable pattern which interlocks with the main tier plot in such a way as to show the full intentions of the conspirators.....not merely exposing the Grand Plan, we have accounted for its execution to the point where it broke down.

It is not that all aspects of it are entirely unheard of - Senator Richard Schweiker was quoted by author Anthony Summers as saying as long ago as 1978: 'I personally believe Oswald had a special relationship with one of the intelligence agencies, but which one I'm not certain. But all the fingerprints I found during my eighteen months on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence points to Oswald as being a product of, and interacting with, the intelligence community.'

As a HSCA investigator put it: 'In the months leading up to the assassination....Oswald was no longer quite sure who he was working for, or why. Somebody was using him, and they knew exactly how and why.'

The notion that the second plot existed was derived from a logical progression of the observed pattern created by established data, combined with and supported by the available factual indications. The observed pattern was, in basis, a relatively simple one, which recommended it at the outset. In the very best tradition it was discovered by accident and quickly recognized as embracing all those known facts about Oswald which have proved so hard to comprehend.They are now in the context which can be understood, a context that makes sense.

There was a common belief, in the period immediately following the assassination, that Fidel Castro was responsible for Kennedy's death....The assassination of Kennedy was seen as a straightforward case of the boot being put on the other foot, with Castro obtaining a mighty retribution against the bully United States. If evidence came to light that this was the case, a war would have been the more likely outcome.

The student of these matters...will have recognized, looking at the evidence through a different pair of eyes, indications of the activities of the renegades through all the stages of the second p!ot as they have been traced.

The main tier plot was principally concerned with providing a well-rehearsed team of marksmen and law enforcement officers in position to plant evidence that would incriminate Oswald. The main tier plot probably required no more than one or two 'arrangers' to organize and supervise the carrying out of these tasks.

Having analyzed the conspiracy as far as our present knowledge allows us, it is an interesting exercise to try and work out, on a partially, but not entirely speculative basis, exactly how the conspiracy came to be. Here we are referring as much to the actual participants, witting or unwitting, but the shadowy people behind the shooting of the President. The conspirators had names and it is likely all of them at one time or another had shaken the hand of the President.

From the way the second plot activities were carried out, it can be recognized that the CIA renegades were fairly senior - or even highly placed - operatives, who were able to command obedience from a large number of people within the Agency....A significant number of agents were deployed by them and CIA resources of many kinds were used in the mounting of the plot. It is unlikely that the agents at ground level were in any way taken into the confidence of those who were illegally running them, and the orders they carried out would be indistinguishable from legitimate instructions. The very nature of the intelligence operation made it easy for it to be 'borrowed' for illicit purposes by those who worked for it.

So the two plots were meticulously put into operation. The team of marksmen were recruited and drilled. Weapons were prepared, heights and distances calculated in relation to motion: this was to be a once-only event and it must succeed the first time. There must be no escape from it. But for all its precision and careful planning, the first plot by itself added up to little more than a bunch of hi-tech bandits lying in wait to spring an ambush on the President.

All the real sophistication lay in the planning and execution of the second plot. Without the second plot the shooters would have been exposed. But then all was well with the second plot. It was  as meticulously planned as the ambush. All the right ingredients were there and, like the first plot, it was timed with great accuracy. As with the marksman's operation, there was no margin for error. It must dovetail with precision into the overall plan.

END Matthew Smith

Bill Kelly Notes: Oswald a key player as the Patsy what happened at Dealey Plaza was a covert operation, it was a plan not just a plot and the plan included the caveat of blaming the murder of Oswald and Castro, a part of the plan that failed.