Sirhan B. Sirhan and Luis Angel Castillo

 Sirhan B. Sirhan and Luis Angel Castillo

Sirhan B. Sirhan and Luis Angel Castillo 

The possibility of Sirhan B. Sirhan (SBS) being paroled in the assassination of RFK has reignited the debate over his role in the murder and whether he was a programed assassin, in the Manchurian Candidate mold.

LA coroner Dr. Thomas Noguchi, who performed the autopsy, said in his report that RFK was killed by a bullet to the back of the head that was shot from inches away, so SBS, feet in front of him when he was wrestled to the ground, did not kill RFK.

But his general attitude and behavior clearly indicate he was out of his mind at the time and probably programed to do what he did.

That, to me, is reminiscent of another programed assassin – Luis Angel Castillo.

While Castilo comes into the JFK story on a number of levels, Robert Lipka is the best.

Lipka was a National Security Agency (NSA) file clerk when he was recruited by the Soviet KGB to turn over documents in exchange for money. He went undetected however, and retired to eastern Pennsylvania. And there he lived undisturbed until Vasili Mitrokhin, a KGB archivist, defected as the Soviet Union began to fall apart. At first Mitrokhin offered his services to the Americans, but they turned him down so he fell into the arms of the British MI-5, counter-intelligence branch.

In order to establish his bonafides, Mitrokhin gave up Lipka and the MI5 informed the FBI. They tracked Lipka down to a small town outside of Philadelphia, and an FBI agent posed as a Soviet who slipped up to the seat next to Lipka at a bar and requested his services once again, in exchange for money. While Lipka explained he no longer worked for NSA, he accepted the deal, and was promptly arrested.

Luckily there was a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer present in the court where Lipka was arranged, and listened to the charges against him. When given the opportunity to say something, Lipka confessed and said that one of the documents he read as an NSA file clerk “named the real assassin of President Kennedy.”

With that the judge banged his gavel and ended the proceedings. As Lipka was being led away, the reporter asked him the name of JFK’s real assassin, and Lipka replied – Luis Angel Castillo.

Now there is a new book about Lipka and Mitrokhin, that goes into many details, and I’ve ordered it, but someone who read it informed me that it doesn’t mention the Castillo reference at all.

In any case, I learned, many years ago, that there was a Congressional invesigative document regarding Castillo that was at the Gerald Ford Presidential Library in Michigan, and wrote to them about it, but was informed that it was classified. After the JFK Act of 1992 was passed however, I was informed that it was now available, and obtained it from a then research associate Todd Vaughn.  Vaughn has since flipped and is now an anti-conspiracy and lone nut advocate in league with a dozen others, all of whom claim to be former silly conspiracy theorisits who have since seen the light. Another former independent researcher who I worked with and is now in league with Vaughn is attorney Mark Zaid, who I worked with at the Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC) in DC when we were lobbying for the JFK Act. And he comes into play in this story as well.

And the document from the Ford Library is a WOW!

Castillo was arrested in the Phillipines for attempted assassination, and it was there his mental programing was diagnosed. Back in the USA he was incarcerated at a Bordentown, New Jersey detention center where an MKULTRA doctor ran things. He was either paroled or escaped from there, and when the FBI tracked him down to his mother’s house, she said that some men in suits had picked him up and drove away with him. She said she didn’t expect to ever see him again. 

https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2008/01/luis-angel-castillo.html

https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2020/05/luis-angel-castillo-revisited.html?m=1

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2016/09/nsa-kennedy-assassination-records.html

A faithful reader of my blog and now research associate Richard Booth contacted me and informed me that a former FBI agent involved with the Lipka case wrote a book about it – “Fool’s Mate,” a 380 page book that for some reason fails to even mention the name Luis Angel Castillo, even though that was part of his original arrangement in court proceedings.

https://www.turningthepagebooks.com/book/9780465003129

As Richard Booth said to me, “The only reason that the book would omit the fact that Lipka mentioned Castillo or said he saw the name of JFK's assassin in NSA files would be if that information were indeed seen on classified documents due to the laws in this country relating to classified information and pre-publication review of books.”

In the epilogue of his book, FBA SA John Whiteside wrote this: "Special thanks go out to my attorney Mark Zaid who has stood by me in my dealings with the pre-publication review units during the second round of reviews. Following Jenny’s editing of the original manuscript, I was again required to run the manuscript through the pre-publication review process at NSA and the FBI. This time it took ten months before the manuscript was approved once more for publication. Mark is one of the finest and best known attorneys in the Washington, DC area and his assistance was invaluable to me.”

So the references Lipka made about Luis Angel Castillo at his arrangement, which was also covered and reported on by another Pennsylvania paper besides the Philadelphia Inquirer article I read. 

Full news report from the Harrisburg Patriot-News: JFKCountercoup2: Article from newspaper about Lipka

These news reports re: Castillo and JFK were intentionally censored by FBI and NSA redactors, as overseen by Whiteside’s finest and best known attorney in Washington D.C. – Mark Zaid.

While Zaid has recently been promoting the full release of the JFK records in open letters, he is also proud of the fact he is a national security lecturer at the Center for International Studies, where David A. Phillips, E. Howard Hunt, Ed Lansdale, Joe Smith and others received their training in psychological warfare, black propaganda and covert operational procedures.

Zaid has also made a reputation for himself for representing CIA and military whistle blowers, but when I called him during the 9/11 Congressional Hearings and asked him to represent one of former FBI agent John O’Neill’s undercover operatives, he said, “They can’t afford my fees.”

Well, right then and there I knew where Zaid rated.

And when the NSA records on the assassination of President Kennedy were released, a number of records known about from news reports – such as the documents on Luis Angel Castillo, were not among them.