Assassination Records Not in the JFK Collection

  NOTE: This will be continually updated with new cases, footnotes and links. 

 

Bill Kelly – Originally posted on 12 October, 2017

Missing JFK Assassination Records – Revised and Updated

The Black Hole at the Archives – Top Fifty Missing Assassination Records not in the JFK Collection at the National Archives.

By William Kelly

“I do think identifying the missing assassination records is an important project, not because I think we can make the documents appear, but so we can help make this sleeping nation more aware that America has a deep history.”  – Peter Dale Scott

 

The list of missing artifacts, records and documents from ostensibly secure Archives is growing – especially JFK assassination records.

If Peter Dale Scott‘s “Negative Template” theory is correct, what is missing from the extant history is more significant than what is in the documentary record.

As researcher Malcolm Blunt has said, “It’s amazing we have anything left. It’s sickening, just sickening, and a disgrace, an absolute disgrace. The ARRB should have pressured these people into doing a proper search for all of the records.”

This list began when, during a March 2017 press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, I asked Federal Judge John Tunheim if anyone was looking for missing assassination records such as the AF1 tapes and ONI records.

Judge Tunheim shrugged and John Newman said to me, “You are.”

So if it’s up to me I’m going to start looking by making a list of them and prioritizing them as to most significant and easiest to find.

In a private conversation afterwards Judge Tunheim gave me his card and asked me to send him a list and he would look into it.

And this list may be included in the Mary Ferrell-Bill Simpich civil suit against President Biden and the National Archives for not enforcing the JFK Act of 1992.

I began the list with the CIA OS Volume Five file on Lee Harvey Oswald, as it was found missing by Malcolm Blunt and given some publicity.

1)      Oswald CIA Office of Security File Volume 5, last seen by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA).

2)      Files of the first chief council to HSCA Richard Sprague, who took his files home with him when he was fired for conducting a real investigation. The Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB), responsible for identifying and obtaining records, missed them because they confused the attorney Richard Sprague with the computer programmer of the same name whose extensive files on the assassination are part of the JFK Collection. Sprague’s HSCA files, paid for by taxpayers that rightfully belong at the Archives, are currently in Sprague’s Philadelphia law office.

3)      Soviet KGB records of Oswald’s time in Moscow and Minsk that were obtained by Norman Mailer are now in the possession of Mailer’s former associate Lawrence Schiller, who refused to turn them over to the ARRB.

4)      Unedited AF1 Radio Transmission tapes from November 22, 1963. Two different edited versions of these tapes are available, one on cassette tapes released by the LBJ Library and a reel to reel version discovered among the personal effects of General Clifton. The White House Communications Agency (WHCA) is responsible for these tapes. As Vince Salandria has pointed out there was a transcript of the complete AF1 radio transmissions in the LBJ White House, where two reporters – T. H. White and William Manchester were permitted to read it and quote from it. They recount conversations not on either of the extant tapes. Pierre Salinger was given a copy of the unedited transcript and quoted from it, and said he returned it to the JFK Library in Boston, but no one there can find it.

5)      Dan Alcorn notes: Joan Mellen found that the Bruce-Lovett Report on the CIA covert operations, that Arthur Schlesinger mentions, is now missing from RFK’s files at the JFK Library. David Bruce was the OSS colonel who accompanied Hemingway to liberate Paris, later JFK’s ambassador to Court of St. James, while Lovett was on board of Moa Bay Mining Company in Cuba and the person who recommended Robert McNamara and McGeorge Bundy to JFK. It’s inconceivable their report on CIA operations is missing, but it is. Even the CIA now wants a copy, if you can find one.

6)      Most of the Zapruder film briefing boards made at NPIC on the day after the assassination are missing, though a few have been found.

7)      Peter Dale Scott wants the minutes of the Honolulu Conference of Nov. 20, 1963. “I consider this omission (even the fact of it) extremely important, not just for understanding the JFK assassination, but for understanding U.S. history. For example: The documents about the Honolulu Conference in the FRUS 1961-1963 Volume make no reference to North Vietnam. The first FRUS record to do so is FRUS Doc. 327 [SECRET]. Memo of Conversation Between Hilsman and Lodge, Nov. 24, 1963, 10 AM.[1]U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, Vol IV, 632, Doc. 327. Memo of Conversation Between Hilsman and Lodge, Nov. 24.  A SECRET/EYES ONLY second version follows as Doc. 328. There was also a third version, as we learn from this footnote 2 to Doc. 327: “2. Because of different distribution limitations, Hilsman made three separate memoranda of this conversation. The second is infra; the third was not declassified.”[2] U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, Vol IV, 632, Doc. 327. Memo of Conversation between Hilsman and Lodge, Nov. 24, 1963, 10 AM, fn. 2

8) Church Committee interviews with Gerry Patrick Hemming, Orestes Pena, Immigration and Naturalization Service and Customs officials, and other Church Committee testimony are missing.

9) U.S. Customs records on Cubans, especially by Cesar Diosdado, requested by the HSCA were so voluminous they couldn’t be given to the HSCA, but now consist of only a few records at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

10) The audio tape recording of Gaeton Fonzi’s interview with Mitch Werbell was erased and the transcript is missing, only Fonzi’s notes remain.

11) John Newman says that Eisenhower era reports on assassinations of foreign leaders that he copied years ago are now missing from the NARA, and he believes such records are being deliberately stolen.

12) Bill Simpich says that CIA Mexico City Station (MCS) cable to Headquarters from September 26-30, 1963 are missing as well as cables from CIA HQ to MCS, JMWAVE to HQ and HQ to JMWAVE cable traffic on the same dates, and all cable traffic between MCS and JMWAVE between September 26 and October 20 and November 22 to December 30, 1963 are missing.

13) The CIA’s “detailed” study of the July 20, 1944 attempt to kill Hitler to be adapted for use against Castro, as mentioned by Desmond FitzGerald in his September 23, 1963 briefing of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is missing, and was the subject of a FOIA lawsuit by the Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC).

14) Office of Naval Intelligence – ONI Defector File, as identified as an assassination record by Navy Lt. Com. T. Pike, but never turned over to the Archives. See: JFKCountercoup – The Railroading of Lt. Commander Terri Pike.

15) ONI 119 investigation reports on Oswald’s defection and the assassination, as referred to by the Navy investigators who wrote them and the officers who read them.

16) The assassination files of the Director of the ONI Rufus Taylor, whose office had undercover agents working in Jack Ruby’s Carousel Club, installing and maintain the sound system, who reported, in the only surviving document, that Oswald was seen in the club.

17) James Mastrovito – the Secret Service Agent responsible for the SS records on the assassination acknowledged to the ARRB that he “culled” – destroyed many records and flushed into a food processor a vial of material labeled “JFK brain – Armed Forces Institute of Pathology,” with no repercussions.

18) The Secret Service destroyed many records, including the Advance Reports for the Tampa trip after the JFK Act was passed by Congress, although copies of some of these records were found among the personal effects of Agent Gerald Blaine, who wrote the Tampa Advance report. Do other agents also have copies of official records among their personal effects? Is anyone looking?

19) The “Homme Report” from a Congressional subcommittee reportedly contains information on Robert F. Kennedy’s knowledge and approval of CIA plans to kill Fidel Castro.

21) Four boxes of witness testimony turned over to NARA in April 1965 by US Attorney now missing.

22) OSI – Office of Special Investigation military intelligence review of Oswald’s State Department file is missing.

23) When former US Marine officer Oliver Revill joined the FBI he reported on an investigation of Oswald and files on him at a US Marine base in North Carolina, records not in the public record.

24) The Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel had documents excluded from the Warren Commission, according to a memo sent to ARRB and NARA archivist Steve Tilly, “more stuff lost in the shuffle,” says Malcolm Blunt.

25) The ARRB tried to obtain Oswald’s New Orleans court records but were told they were accidentally destroyed when sent for microfilming.

26) Army Intelligence files on Oswald were kept from the Warren Commission and then “routinely” destroyed in 1973.

27) In 1976 when the CIA Counterintelligence (CI) staff were reviewing JFK assassination files the Security Office did not hand over their “secondary files” on Oswald, aka “research files,” that were not seen by HSCA or any other component of the CIA, as Malcolm Blunt says “they are like a whole separate agency.”

28) Larry Haapanen notes, White House Situation Room Incoming-Outgoing Message Log for 11/22/63-11/30/63 (the extant log for November 1963 ends abruptly on the morning of 11/2263).

29) Records of the Dallas-based 488th Military (Strategic) Intelligence Detachment (Counter-Intelligence) unit histories and rosters 1962-1963.30. Records of FBI wiretapping of Oswald while in police custody as well as post assassination taps of Ruth Paine and Michael Paine and Marina and Robert Oswald phones, as reported by Irving police Chief Paul Barger.]

30) Records of FBI wiretapping of Oswald while in police custody as well as post assassination taps of Ruth Paine and Michael Paine and Marina and Robert Oswald phones, as reported by Irving police Chief Paul Barger.

31) White House Communications Agency (WHCA) records for 11/22/63 including tape of Secret Service motorcade security radio “Charlie” channel that included Roy Kellerman talking as the third shot was fired, and radios in LBJ’s car, the AF1 cockpit and the WHCA base station at the Dallas Sheraton hotel.

32) Missing Mexico City records include LILYRIC (Soviet embassy photo records, Sept. ’63); LIFEAT (wiretap records, for all of 1963), daily resumen wiretap summaries for 1963, and records withheld by ARRB at request of CIA and FBI that may be released in the October 26, 2017 data dump.

33) Many relevant FBI 134 Informant records are missing or being withheld.

34) FBI dispatch tape of Dallas calls for 11/22/63 is missing.

35) The National Photo Interpretation Center (NPIC) report on their study of the Zapruder film and Art Lundal’s briefing of CIA Director John McCone is missing, though McCone told RFK that the CIA said there were two gunmen.

36) The JMWAVE NPIC records and other NPIC assassination records were, according to a NPIC secretary, boxed and at the orders of Robert Kennedy sent to the Smithsonian Institute instead of the NARA.

37) FBI’s Mexico City file MX 105-2137. Let me begin with the Board’s explanation of why this file, brought to their attention by me, was not seen by them.

38) Malcolm Blunt: FBI espionage “65” File on Oswald, Correspondence between Office of Security (Bruce Solie and David Slawson during WC investigation….second part of Bruce Solie HSCA Security Classified Testimony, full debriefs of INS and Customs officers at the Department of Justice following their testimony to the Church committee (all missing).

39) Mexico City Station to Headquarters (September 26–30, 1963); Headquarters to Mexico City Station (September 26–30, 1963); JMWAVE to Headquarters (September 26–November 21,1963); Headquarters to JMWAVE (September 26–November 21, 1963); and all traffic between the Mexico City Station and JMWAVE for the periods September 26–October 20, 1963 and November 22–December 30, 1963.

40) Records of the Dallas-based 488th Military Intelligence Detachment (Strategic) and 349th Military Intelligence Detachment (Counter-Intelligence) — for example unit histories and unit rosters from 1962-63.

John Armstrong: Bill, You might also want to include the following:

41) Employment records of LHO collected by the FBI from the Pfister Dental Lab have disappeared.

42) Stripling Junior High (Ft. Worth) records of LHO’s attendance in 1954, collected by the FBI, have disappeared.

43) The “original” US postal money order, allegedly used to pay for the MC rifle, has disappeared.

44) Documents relating to LHO’s discharge from the Marine Corp in March, 1959, reviewed by asst Provost Marshall William Gorsky at El Toro, CA., disappeared.

45) LHO’s Texas driver’s license (and file), seen and handled by numerous employees at the TDPS, disappeared.

46) The Oswald wallet, produced by Capt. Westbrook at 19th & Patton and shown to officers and FBI agent Barrett, was last seen in the hands of Capt. Westbrook.

47) Film taken of anti-Castro Cubans training in Louisiana, which also showed Oswald, has disappeared

48) All original NYC school records of LHO disappeared while in FBI custody. Only photographs remain in the National Archives.

49) FBI files on LHO in NYC from Sept, 1961- March, 1962

50) Interviews by Edward J. Epstein of US Marines who knew LHO in Japan, the Fulton Ousler Collection, kept for years at Georgetown University, are now missing.

51) Complete files of LHO’s attendance at radar school in Keesler (2 files with two different numbers; two different graduation dates; two different class numbers, etc).

52) Marine Corps unit diaries for LHO at El Toro, CA from December, 1958 thru March, 1959.

53) Interviews by John Hart Ely of Marines who knew LHO at El Toro, CA are missing.

54) All employment records of Marguerite Oswald from 1955 thru 1963.

55) SS records for Marina and LHO.