New Releases August 23 2023

 New Releases August 23 2023 

Thanks to Joe Backes and Alan Dale for keeping up with these silent releases by the NARA, the most recent on August 24, 2023, that includes 21 new unredacted documents, two of which I want to comment on as good examples of why they were withheld. 

One is 104-10172-10108.pdf that is quite long and concerns Maurice Halpern, an Ivy League academic and communist that documents how closely he was monitored. This Halpern is  not to be confused with Samuel Halpern, the CIA officer and deputy to Desmond FitzGerald. 

Maurice Halpern, like Oswald, relocated to the USSR to live but after awhile, like Oswald, he became disenchanted with the Soviet lifestyle and returned home. It is labeled NBR - Not Believed Relevant, and was continuously withheld, I believe, because it demonstrates how closely these leftist were monitored by the government. 

Another is the 4th document listed - 104-10180-10155 - from July 12, 1960, from J.D. Jacob Esterline, C/WH/4 in which he reports his recruitment of Emilio Americo RODRIGUEZ - so he can be paid $300 a week via his New Orleans bank. 

104-10180-10155.pdf

First off, former CIA officer Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, who served for over 20 years including the top foreign post of CIA Chief of Station Moscow, says that his evaluation of the assassination evidence indicates that it could have been a covert intelligence operation carried out by the CIA, and his top suspect is Jacob Esterline. 

Esterline was a top CIA officer involved in the Bay of Pigs, Mongoose and JMWAVE, and was a close associate of David Atlee Phillips, who includes Easterline in his fictional book The Carlos Contract, barely disguised by the character "Hyphenated Jake." 

As the guys over at Mary Ferrell have deciphered, Rodriguez was an important player, recruited by Esterline, who lived in New Orleans, worked in Havana for American companies, and was a close associate of a number of JMWAVE commandos and Pathfinders including Tony Sforza (AMYRE-1). 

Cryptonym: AMIRE-1

Definition:

Emilio Americo Rodriguez.

Status:

Documented

Discussion:

One of the most closely guarded CIA cryptonyms and true names in the history of the case. The sources for the true name and the crypt are mutually reinforcing. The principal center RIF blocks for Rodriguez (10180; 10161, and 10215) also betray his identity in all of the documents. And, finally, the story behind this identification is buttressed by the parallel story of AMPARCH-1 (Warren E. Frank, AKA Edward D. Knapman) and AMRYE-1 (Tony Sforza, AKA Henry Sloman): All three men worked together in Havana, were exfiltrated at the same time, and then went to JMWAVE where they worked together. Used the psuedonym Peter J. Digerveno: See https://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=147737&search=jmwave#relPageId=37&tab=page

Sources:

(1) 104-10161-10341. 1/27/65 Biographical Data on Emilio Americo Rodriguez.

Although the name is redacted everywhere in the document, the redactor failed to redact it on the RIF sheet, effectively nullifying decades of effort to hide this name. His CIA security number, 214442, at the top of this document, links to hundreds of other documents where his name is redacted.

(2) 104-10161-10373. 6/20/60 CIA Report of Investigation approved by SAIC Dale B. Whiteside.

The redactor for this document failed to remove Emilio’s initials—E. A. R. They appear, along with Emilio’s CIA security number, in the “Case No.” field of the report.

(3) 104-10180-10132. 6/16/61 CIA MFR, RE: Initial Debriefing of [AMIRE-1].

This MFR is located in a stream of documents [in the 10180 center RIF block] that all belong to Emilio. This MFR discusses his work with Tony Sforza (AMRYE-1) in the CIA’s stay-behind net before and after the January 1961 the break in relations with Cuba.

(4) 104-10271-10246. 9/22/60 CIA Havana Station cable (6269) to DIR.

This cable mentions Francisco Pancho Varona’s (AMCONCERT-1) contact with Jack Stewart in Havana in 1958. It also mentions that AMCONCERT-1 was then passed to “AMIRE-1 under stay-behind planning.” This history of the person behind the AMIRE-1 crypt, especially the passing of AMCONCERT-1 from Jack Stewart to AMIRE-1, is born out in the next two source documents (104-10113-10074 and 104-10109-10162).

(5) 104-10113-10074. 6/11/69 Memo from Miami SAIC Charles W. Kane for Chief of Station Miami.

This memo explains that Francisco Pancho Varona’s Havana case officer at “about 1959” was Jack Stewart.

104-10109-10162. 6/18/69 Memo from Anthony R. Ponchay (Esterline), COS, WH/Miami to SAIC Kane.

This memo reveals that subsequent to being handled in Havana by Jack Stewart, Francisco Pancho Varona was handled by Frank Belsito and “Emilio Rodriguez.” When combined with HAVA 6269 (see above), this makes it certain the Emilio Americo Rodriguez’ CIA crypt was AMIRE-1.

(6) 104-10215-10235. 10/24/63 CIA Report on Weaknesses and Derogatory Information on Rolando Cubela (AMLASH-1).

Page 6 of this report discusses Henry Sloman’s (Tony Sforza) involvement in a CIA plan to exfiltrate Cubela from Cuba. It also notes that “AMIRE-1 advised that Rolando Cubela very probably will defect on OP ASTA.”

(7) 104-10103-10125. Memo by John D. Peters, WH/4/PM/OPS

This memo is a preliminary debrief report on AMPANIC-7 (Emilio Adolfo Rivero Caro, AKA “Brand”), whose CIA Havana contact was Emilio Rodriguez. The debrief states that “AMIRE-1” was known to AMPANIC-7 “as Emilio Rodriguez.” NB: Researchers who want to see this in the clear will need to put quote marks around the RIF number to pull up all versions of this RIF.

104-10513-10095: DISPATCH-ALIASES.

Almost illegible, but it indicates that Emilio used the alias Eugenio, that he worked with AMYUM-1 whose alias was "Ojeda", that he is linked with AMCONCERT-1 and AMBRONC-5. It is clear that he is the subject, which refers to his 201-274049 bio number.

104-10129-10002: PERSONAL HISTORY STATEMENT

This redacted Agency personal history statement form describes an unknown agent living in Cuba under a cover job and in the United States using a pseudonym with black hair and a ruddy complexion. When compared to a more recent declassified version of the same document it confirms this a personal history statement detailing some of Emilio Americo Rodriguez's biographic history. (Unredacted version: https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2018/104-10129-10002.pdf)

104-10332-10002: ARRB-CIA ISSUES: CRYPTONYMS

"AMIRE-1 - 201-274049 - A Career Agent, AMIRE-1 died of natural causes in October or November 1968. The DCI sent a letter of condolence to his wife."

Here's some more on Rodriguez: 

Cryptonym: AMIRE-1

2017 JFK Document Release Shows Former Intelligence Analyst Got It Right - WhoWhatWhy

JFK Assassination Anniversary—What We Learned From New Files | Time

docid-32371533.pdf

Each of the document released in the late batches should be analyzed and reviewed in this fashion, and anyone who does so should send along your report to me for publication here: 

Billkelly3@gmail.com 

JFK's Brain at Armed Forces Institute of Pathology

 Tracking JFK's Brain

Jim diEugenio over at Kennedys and King recently learned about the Secret Service destruction of records and a vile from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology - AFIP- labeled as a section of JFK's Brain that was destroyed by SS Agent James Mastrovito by flushing it into a food processor.

The Mystery of Kennedy’s Brain Deepensv

Mastrovito, when assigned custody of the SS records on the assassination, was instructed to destroy "unnecessary" records so he, in his word "culled" them.

I think I learned this from a document given to me by British researcher Malcolm Blunt, as Jimmy D did, and I wrote about it on my JFKCC2 blog in 2014, and then more recently this past August listed it among the records destroyed and missing for the MFF v. Joe Biden-NARA civil case.

JFKCountercoup2: James Mastrovito - Destroyed USSS Records and JFK Evidence

JFKcountercoup: Destroyed, Missing, Withdrawn and Withheld Records

I know Jim reads my blog because he occasionally comments on it, but I guess he must have missed my first 2014 post as I put it up at JFKCountercoup2 instead of my regular blog, as I guess that was a busy time. I have been going over my backup blog, where I mainly post important articles and references that I use in my main blog and overall story, I will be reposting items that I think are important and bring them up to the forefront. 

While most believe RFK put the brain, or what was left of it, in the coffin when it was moved and reburied in a top secret Midnight operation in 1967, when JFK's son Patrick was reburied next to him,  the autopsy doctors did examine a brain a few weeks after the autopsy, and Dr. Pierre Fink was associated with the AFIP, so it could make sense.

More t o come on this soon. 

BK

Billkelly3@gmail.com 

Zeta-Diogenese - Black and Wet Operational Proecdures

 ZETA-DIOGENESE

                                                               Greek Philosopher Diogenes

Zeta-Diogenese –  Is an Air Force - Army code name for wet black covert ops 

I have wondered how John Rosselli could testify under oath that he was in bed in a Vegas hotel room when a Hollywood movie producer associate called him to tell him JFK was dead, and also be flown to Dallas in a private plane at the same time?

And how is it that the head of Maritime Operations at the CIA’s JMWAVE base Gordon Campbell, could still be conducting business a year after he officially died?

While some key people – Ed Lansdale for one, have been documented as being in Fort Worth and Dallas when JFK was there and killed, how were the main black operatives – shooters, spoters, drivers, pilots, etc., infiltrated and exfiltrated from Dealey Plaza and Dallas without anyone seeing or documenting their presence?

Well, the answer is Zeta-Diogenes, the code for the black-wet operational procdures that takes its name from the 4th century B.C. Greek philosopher and cynic who made poverty a virtue and when asked what he was doing replied: “I am just looking for an honest man,” but found nothing but rascals and scoundrels.

It is my opinion that Gene Wheaton is one of the most important whistle blowers of our times, not only for helping to expose the Iran-Contra operation, but the CIA plots to kill Castro, the assassination of President Kennedy, and government agency and military security protocols in general.

While Wheaton is best known for his short video interview with William Matson Law, in which he discusses his good friend, business partner and housemate Carl Jenkins, and his possible role in the assassination of President Kennedy, Wheaton also did a series of longer interviews with Matt Ehling, a Minnesotta documentary film maker affiliated with Public Records Media. He corresponded with and filmed extensive interviews with Wheaton. Although most of it concerned Wheaton’s role in the Iran-Contra scandal, he does touch on some interesting things – including the Zeta-Diogenes Program.

Wheaton:  “In Italy, in 1962, I was recruited into … I was approached to become part of an assassination network in the intelligence community. I was there (Italy) from ’61-’63 - as an (Air Force) Office of Special Investigations (OSI) agent working out of Aviano Air Base…In ’62, shortly after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and the embarrassment of the intelligence community, they … CIA covert operators in conjunction with some people in the Pentagon wanted to set up a secret cell –(a) worldwide cell of intelligence agents that would be called on for, uh, torture, interrogations, and assassinations, if necessary…  I was approached.  A man came out from Washington, talked to me, and described it as … in the Air Force - I don’t know if it was that way in all the services and the CIA - but in the Air Force it was called the Zeta-Diogenes Program, the ‘ZD Program’ for short.  And each agent that was indoctrinated, recruited into it would be given this secret identifier on his master military record in Washington DC, and only another ZD controlling officer would recognize it.  Nobody in personnel or anybody else would know that it was there.” 

 

Wheaton: “They went looking for young, super-patriotic, guys … flag-wavers … with military and police background …, above-average intelligence … who could work on their own.  Who would do anything for their country. I was approached - because I fit that mold. Conservative. Oklahoma, Big family, Flag wavers, Patriotic.  I had been in the Marine Corps before the Air Force, and I’d been a police officer before that.  And I fit the mold. “

“Because of the compartmentalization, and so forth,” Wheaton continues, “I never knew anybody else in that program, except I knew that General Joe Cappucci had been…for the Air Force portion of this thing. In ’65, I transferred from the Air Force to the Army … I don’t know if I was recruited in or rejected … they just came out and interviewed me, and told me what it was about, and if they needed me, the idea was that you’d be sent on temporary duty someplace, and then you’d disappear and you’d go where you were really supposed to go.  And then come back and your temporary duty would continue, and you’d go back to your regular base.  And they could call these individuals out from all over the world.  They wouldn’t be a team - they’d be individuals. The next time I was specifically approached by this - the next generation of these people - was during 1985, when I was being recruited into Ollie North’s network.”

“…The idea was that you’d be sent on temporary duty someplace, and then you’d disappear and you’d go where you were really supposed to go. And then come back and your temporary duty would continue, and you’d go back to your regular base…”

One person familiary with the Air Force’s Zeta-Diogenese was General Joseph J. Cappucci, head of Air Force Counter-Intelligence, and close friend of J. E. Hoover. At a party in Rome in 1969, Cappucci told his assistant Col. William Henry Amos that LBJ had JFK killed.

For more on this see: 

BRIGADIER GENERAL JOSEPH J. CAPPUCCI > U.S. Air Force > Biography Display

 https://www.publicrecordmedia.org/   /   http://www.publicrecordmedia.org/gene-wheaton/ 

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2018/09/zeta-diogenes-zd-usaf-assassination.html

THE Macolan Case. Zeta-Diogenese Clear-Eyes.

While that sounds reasonable and doesn’t sound too far fetched, it is confirmed by at least one other military man - Sgt. Daniel Brad MacBolan III, who informs us that he too was recruited into Diogenes:

“So basically they built this platform which was built on Zeta Diogenes Clear-Eyes. There are five levels with that. I’m a level five, able to handle other elements within the five membered cell. Its an unacknowledged special access programs deep coordinates cell.”

MacDolan: “We are pretty much I guess you would say the darker part of the CIA’s non official cover-type, where you got CIA agents which have a different name. Nonofficial cover are employed somewhere and that’s their day job. And then you turn a key and they become someone else. And go about doing their spooking so to speak. They’re a spook and some may know it and some may not. Most know it because they have to have special training to make sure they’re, they’re extremely careful not to compromise themselves….Non-official cover are employed somewhere and that’s their day job. And then you turn a key and they become someone else. And go about doing their spooking…..”

One of the weak links in this type of covert intelligence operation is the transportation – as Eugne Hasenfras demonstrated when he was shot down in Nicaragua while delivering supplies to the Contras, and Tosh Plumley says he flew Johnny Rosselli from Florida to Dallas when he was supposed to be in bed in Vegas.

And this is why the CIA Operational Files for William Harvey, John Rosselli, Carl Jenkins, Felix Rodriguez, Chi Chi Quentero and others are not available, as they document both the cover jobs as well as the black wet ops that they were involved in, especially in November 1963.

Billkelly3@gmail.com

3 PROJECTS

THREE PROJECTS (I am working on)

1) Congressional Briefing Book on JFK Act 

2) JFK Anthology 

3) Permanent Center for the Study of Political Assassinations (CSPA) in DC 

1) For starters I am editing a Congressional Briefing booklet on the JFK Act that will summarize where we stand that will be printed and distributed to all Congressmen and Senators, detailing what should be done, beginning with House Oversight Hearings in the fall. This will necessarily be acomplished by a small team of people who know the JFK Act and can put together a chronology of events and summary of things that have occurred.

2) Further down the line, I will be editing and compiling a JFK Anthology on the news reports, articles, book excerpts and transcripts of conference programs and documentaries on the limited subject of the JFK assassination. It will serve as a deep background and sources for my full report (manuscript) that I hope will be published alongside the JFK Anthology.

3) And finally I am formulating a plan that will result in the creation of a bricks and mortar building in DC to house the Center for the Study of Political Assassinations (CSPA), that will be a think tank on the subject as well as a physical library of books, archive of filed and scanned documents, small theater with films and videos, and a small apartment for a temporary writer in residence and bunks for researchers from out of town to stay. That was the idea and dream we started out with and have failed to accomplish.

Bill Simpich asked how this would be funded, and the best way is to get someone with the qualified property to donate it to one of our non-profit organizations that would operate it without paying property taxes – and hopefully a large or few large doners whose principle can be held in a bank with the operating funds taken from interests. Two good examples are the Mott House and the Harvard Research Center in DC – Dumbarton Oaks, were both donated to their non-profit hosts.

The Congressional Briefing Book on the JFK Act is what's on the table, and the other two are on the back burner but simmering. 

If you want to help please respond to me, unless you want everyone to know your thoughts on this.

Bilkelly3@gmail.com

Byrd, Alvenslaben and Dootlittle Case Update

 17 AUGUST, 2023 UPDATE: AARC v. CIA Opposition to Motion for Summary Affirmance as Filed - ASSASSINATION ARCHIVES

USCA Case #23-5064 Document #2012985 Filed August 17, 2023 

Many thanks to Dan Alcorn of AARC and Alan Dale for continuing these leads. 

"Applicants believe, based on decades of experience to be among the most promising leads to solving the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy." 

The MFF v. Biden and NARA is just one of a number of continuing, active legal cases involving records related to the assassination of President Kennedy, with the determination of the Nix film as well as a number of still active cases filed by the Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC), of which this is one. 

While the AARC also filed the FOIA requests and went to court in regards to the CIA Valkyrie - Hitler plot and Pathfinder plan records, that other released documents refer to, the CIA claims that they have no records of either among their files, which is rather incredible, and means they were removed or destroyed or are being continually withheld. 

As Peter Dale Scott has noted in his "Negative Template" thesis, the records destroyed, missing and withheld are the most significant records, and these are good examples of that thesis in action. 

The USCA Case #23-5064 concerns the CIA files or lack of them on D. H. Byrd, the owner of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) building in Dallas at the time of the assassination, from where shots were fired at the President. 

Although Byrd was not asked to testify before the Warren Commission or any other investigation, he is a major player in the assassination drama for a number of reasons. 

D.H. "Dry Hole" Byrd was a cousin of US Navy Admiral Richard Byrd, the polar explorer, whose expeditions D.H. Byrd helped finance. Although the US Navy could not pick up the radio broadcasts Byrd sent from his remote locations, they were picked up by a young, teenage radio buff Arthur Collins, who built his own radio receiver in his parent's Cedar Rapids, Iowa garage, and duly relayed the messages to the Navy. That assisted Collins, when he began to mass manufacture his HAM radios, to obtain a military contract before WWII increased the need for such radios. 

Another HAM radio buff, US Air Force officer Curtis LeMay, became a close acquaintance of Collins and later, as Chief of Staff of the Air Force, ad Collins Radio installed on all SAC bombers and Executive Air Fleet aircraft, including Air Force One. 

These radios were maintained by Collins and monitored by the relay station at Collins HQ in Cedar Rapids known as 'Liberty" station, which can be heard frequently on the Air Force One radio recordings because it relayed the broadcasts. 

D. H. Byrd was a co-founder, with Cord Meyer, Sr., of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), shortly before Pearl Harbor. Cord Meyer, Sr., like Byrd, was an early aviation pioneer and father of Cord Meyer, Jr., the CIA officer who served as a deputy to director Allen Dulles, ran the CIA's International Organizations Division, and married Mary Pinchot, a close friend and paramour of John F. Kennedy. 

In late September 1963, after signing the Nuclear Test Ban treaty, against the advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and approving the still secret Operation Four Leaves in a National Security Action memorandum, that had something to do with communications, Mary Pinchot Meyer accompanied President Kennedy on the first leg of his "Conservation Tour," when he visited Mary Meyer's mother, who had donated wilderness land to the federal government to become public parks. 

Accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was a member of the New Orleans CAP, the organization that Byrd and Meyer, Sr. co-founded, and despite attempts to say he was not an active member, is seen in a photo with CAP Captain David Ferrie, and there is a photo of Oswald in his CAP uniform. 

A Pennsylvania newspaper obtained and published a CAP report that indicated that the organization was recruiting its cadets to become "Spies," attend special classes at Fort Holibard, Maryland, Counter-Intelligence base, learn foreign languages and infiltrate targeted organizations like the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Sound familiar? 

At the time of the assassination Curtis LeMay was hunting and fishing in upstate Michigan, David Ferrie went grouse hunting in Texas, and D.H. Byrd was on a big game safair hunt in West Africa with a German Werner von Alvensleben. 

OSS records from WWII show that von Alvensleben served as an assassin for Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler in Germany in 1933, and was considered an "assassination expert." His father had written a report in support of the failed July 20, 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler by the German military. 

As this court case document says, "Due to Mr. Alvensleben's service as a valued double agent for 0SS during WWII it is likely that Mr. Alvensleben served as an asset of the CIA after the war and had contact with the CIA." 

The African safari that Byrd was on with Alvensleben was photographed extensively by Alvensleben's nephew, a professional photographer. Despite being repulsed by the brutality of the hunt, young Alvensleben published a book of many of the photos he took, including one of a dead elephant that is labeled shot by D. H. Byrd. 

Another big game safari hunting buddy of Byrd was US Air Force general James Doolittle, who is famous for leading the carrier bomber attack on Tokyo in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. 

But Doolittle is more important for his role as chairman of the Doolittle Commission appointed by President Eisenhower to evaluate CIA covert operations. 

Everyone has heard of the Warren Commission, the Rockefeller Commission, and the 9/11 Commission, but the least known Doolittle Commission recommended more aggressive covert action against Communism. 

Returning home to Dallas after the hunt, Byrd invited von Alvensleben to join him, and regaled at the heads of dead animals in the trophy room of his mansion, adding a window from the sixth floor of the TSBD to his trophy collection.  

It was well known that von Alvensleben, as well as Ernest Hemingway and other avid big game hunters used the 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Schoenauer rifle, a remote cousin to the 6.5 Manlicher-Carcano found on the 6th floor and said to belong to the accused assassin. 

Warren Commission John J. McCloy must have been familiar with these weapons because he asked the FBI firearms expert if the MC ammo could be fired from a MS, the better rifle, but the FBI expert didn't know. 

But now we know that the CIA is not properly searching their files for the relevant JFK assassination records, and that as we piece together what we do know, we are getting a fuller picture of what really occurred at Dealey Plaza that day. 

17 AUGUST, 2023 UPDATE: AARC v. CIA Opposition to Motion for Summary Affirmance as Filed - ASSASSINATION ARCHIVES

Read the entire motion here: 

AARC3 v. CIA oppo to motion for summary affirmance as filed

Valkyrie's Deception in Operation Today

 Valkyrie Deception in Operation Today 

The ideas that President Kennedy and his brother Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy approved the CIA's attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro , and the plots backfired and led to the murder of the President continuously resurfaces as the deception aspect of the Valkyrie plan to kill Castro that continues today. 

While Kennedy baiter and haters like Sam Halpern, Gus Russo and Max Holland are the most frequently cited sources, I will use one of Kennedy's aides, former Senator Harris Wofford, who wrote: 

"From the findings of the (Church) Senate committee, we could begin to understand the burden of knowledge - even of guilt - that Robert Kennedy was carrying in the last years of his life. Together with the findings of the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1979, these facts can account for the grief beyond ordinary grief with which Robert Kennedy wrestled for long months and years. They do not prove that John Kennedy was killed as a result of a conspiracy, but they do suggest that it was not a tragedy without reason." 

"Robert Kennedy must have considered the story of those facts told to be worse than the most terrible fiction. Adding to his burden was the obligation he felt to keep all the key facts secret from most, if not all, of his family and friends, and try to withhold them forever from the people of this country and the world." 

[ BK NOTES: And my doing so, protected those who framed and blackmailed him, and carried out the plan that killed his brother. ]

Wofford: 

"Those secrets provided the motives for Castro, or the Mafia, or the CIA's Cuban brigade, or some people in the CIA itself to have conspired to kill the President, yet to preserve the good name of John Kennedy and the government of the United States they had to be kept from the Warren Commission and from the eyes of history." 

"Also weighing on Robert Kennedy's mind must have been the risks of blackmail against the government and the family of the murdered president which threatened to make a special hostage of the Attorney General." 

"From the reconstruction of the record made possible by the Senate House reports, and from everything we know about the character of Robert Kennedy, I believe that the shock of these discoveries and his realization of what violence, crime, and secret conspiracies can lead to were significant factors in his transformation. Thus, in order to understand Robert Kennedy and his times, the truth about these stories must be sorted out and the painful facts faced. That is what I believe Robert Kennedy did....." 

 - And now what we must also find out the truth about these stories, sort them out and face the painful facts. 

[BK NOTES: many thanks to my friend Jim Dwyer, as well as John Simkin and Jefferson Morley for calling attention to Wofford's reference to this ] 

Most of those who accuse JFK and RFK of approving or even knowing about the CIA-Mafia plans to kill Castro. 

These are plans, not plots like those portrayed in the Hollywood movies Executive Action and JFK, where men sit around drinking and smoking and talking about how to whack the president. 

As I have detailed these two plans elsewhere, I want to address the allegation that is at the foundation of this story - that JFK and RFK approved the CIA plans to kill Castro, 

Since all CIA covert operations must be approved by the National Security Council's Special Group (Augumented) - that is augumented with the addition of RFK, there are records of such approval of covert ops, and much of it is documented, even though they are still with holding such government records. 

As documented by the Church Committee and HSCA, the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro began during the Eisenhower administration, included Allen Dulles, Richard Bissell, Richard Helms, James O'Connell, and Robert Mahu on the CIA side, and John Rosselli, Sam Giancana and Santo Traficante on the Mafia side. 

After the failure of the first poison plot, involving Traficante, he was dropped from the program, and after the Bay of Pigs, James O'Connell was replaced as Rosselli's CIA case officer by William Harvey, who was made head of the Cuban Desk in the basement of the CIA HQ at Langley, aka Task Force W. Harvey was responsible for running the expansive CIA JMWAVE base in Miami and Operation Mongoose, the covert ops against Castro that included his assassination. 

But did JFK and RFK know about those assassination contingency plans? 

The Valkyrie plan was probably approved by the NSC SGA - because it called for the recruitment of disenchanted Cuban military officers and administrators to organize a coup against Castro based on the German military's Valkyrie plan to remove Hitler by killing him and taking over the Nazi government. That plan eventually evolved into the AMLASH plan involving Dr. Rolando Cubella (AMLASH). 

But as one of it's major players - Carl Jenkins, told Jefferson Morley, the AMLASH plan was an assassination plan, as many have suspected. 

Jenkins was also a principle agent in the Pathfinder plan, that called for Castro to be shot in the head by snipers with high powered rifles as he drove by in an open jeep, the tactical covert operational contingency plan that according to those CIA NPIC technicians who saw and worked on it, the plan "was disapproved by higher authority," - that is the NSC SGA, RFK and JFK. 

As the overall strategic plan to overthrow Castro, the head of CIA operations for Cuba, Desmond FitzGerald informed the Joint Chiefs of Staff that while they had identified a number of disenchanted Cuban military officers, including Cubella, they didn't have the confidence to talk among themselves. 

That wasn't a problem with the US military and the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the top brass were united in their opposition to the President's policies, which accounts for the adoption of this plan to use against JFK. 

Of the five specific aspects of the origional German military plan to kill Hitler - that fit like a glove over what happened at Dealey Plaza, one stands out. It is the one that is most peculiar, almost  bizarre, but a key element in the plan that protects that actual sponsors. It is getting the intended victim to sign off and approve the plan that would ostensibly end in his death. 

German Col. Clause Von Stauffenberg was the one who devised the Valkyrie plan to have the Home Guard - ie. National Guard, to take over key government buildings and media outlets during a crisis, the revolt of slave laborers was the example given, and Hitler signed off and approved the plan.

With the adoption of the Valkyrie plan by the CIA and Joint Chiefs, and redirecting it to JFK, it called for JFK to approve the plans to kill Castro, something he was reluctant to do.

JFK privately told his old PT109 shipmates and Assst. Navy Sec. Paul Fay, while they were sailing off Massachusetts, and to journalist Joe Alsop, that he was under a lot of pressure to approve the plans to kill Castro, but as with their advice, refused to do so.

And the top leaders of the CIA involved, Dulles, Bissell, Helms and FitzGerald, they all said they DID NOT discuss the plans to kill Castro with the president.

And we know for a documented fact that the Pathfinder Plan to kill Castro, that most closely resembles what occurred at Dealey Plaza, was "disapproved by Higher Authority," though we don't know if that means it was at a previous time approved and then disapproved.

With the president effectively kept out of the operation - plausible denial, the effort shifted to RFK, the President's brother. Attorney General and head of the SGA of the NSC, responsible for approving all such covert ops, especially those against Cuba.

It was no secret that RFK and William Harvey were at odds, and after Harvey sent the elite Pathfinders into Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, RFK had them recalled before they got to Cuba. Then Harvey was replaced as head of the covert Cuban ops by Desmond Fitzgerald, who had a better relationship with RFK.

Shortly after FitzGerald took over he made a tour of his foreign bases, and told them RFK had given them orders to do whatever was necessary to get rid of Castro.

It appears from JMWAVE activities, the NSC SGA approved a series of covert commando terrorist raids against industrial targets - ie. oil and sugar, giving the anti-Castro JMWAVE commandos hope their activation was the beginning of better things to come, especially the plans to kill Castro they had trained for, including Pathfinder.

RFK is known to have visited JMWAVE at least three times, one when he had an infamous run in with Harvey, whose biographer (Stockton) wrote that Harvey usually visited the base to meet with Rosselli. 

The other two times were a visit to a CIA safe house on a Miami golf course, where he met base top brass (Shackley, Campaigns) and case officers (Porter Goss). And then a helicopter jaunt RFK took to a remote Evergades training base where he met some of the elite Pathfinder commandos personally, telling them, "good luck on your mission," whatever it was.

When RFK was asked about his approval of the CIA plans to kill Castro, on at least two occasions, he responded to such allegations by saying, "I put a stop to them," not approve them.

There are a number of documents that support the idea RFK did not approve the CIA plans to kill Castro, often used to make a case against RFK.

One is the Hemingway plot, promoted by Gus Russo in The Nation, that stems from Hemingways wife visiting Cuba to retrieve personal items from their house after Hemingway death. When Castro learned she was there, he went over and spent some time with her there. When CiA people learned of this, they considered it an opportunity to kill Castro that was missed. 

And if that's the best the RFK baiters could come up with that he wanted to kill Castro, it is certainly a stretch.

Another popular example is Desmond FitzGerald's Deputy Samuel Halpern, who repeatedly claimed RFK was the driving force behind the CIAs plots yo kill Castro, and he claimed that CIA officer Charles Ford was the middle man between RFK and Rosselli and the mobsters brought in to kill Castro.

Charles Ford, from Atlantic City and Princeton, was sent to China by the OSS during WW2 on a mission with G. Walton Moore, who became the head of the CIA's Dallas Domestic Contacts office, and personal friend of George deMohrenschilts, the best friend of the accused assassin.

Ford was assigned to the CIAs Training Division at Quantico, VA (aka the Farm), where he was given custody of the Secret Service copy of the Zapruder Film, "for training purposes."

That is he was assigned to Training except for one year - 1963, when he was cross posted to Operations and assigned to JMWAVE. 

When he testified in closed executive sessions before a Congressional Committee investigating the assassination, when it was finally released, clearly indicated that while he  must have interacted with both RFK and Rosselli at JMWAVE, he did not, as Halpern claimed, serve as a liaison between them in any plans to kill Castro.

The whole idea behind having the Kennedys approve the CIA plots to kill Castro, as the Valkyrie plan requires, is to make them responsible for the covert action plans that were developed for use against Castro but turned against them instead.

While the fall back position of those who promote the Kennedys knew and approved the Castro murder plots, and thus themselves deserved to die, lamely attempt to say Castro retaliated and killed JFK before JFK could kill him, that is demonstratedly false.

A further fall back position is that Oswald was motivated to kill JFK because of his knowledge of the CIA plots to kill Castro, something that the Warren Commission didn't even know because it was intentionally kept from them. 

These types of speculation are best made by former Church Committee attorney and author of the book Murder, Inc., that takes its title from LBJs statement in regards to the Kennedy assassination, that "We were running a Murder incorporated in the Caribbean."

But the answer isn't Castro retaliated, or Oswald was inspired by the plots, but the Murder incorporated apparatus we set up to kill Castro, turned around and killed JFK. That was the backfire.

And it was all part of the deception aspect of the plan - the Valkyrie Plan to kill Hitler, adapted for use against Castro, and turned on JFK in Dallas. 

Billkelly3@gmail.com 

Julio Fernandez @ JMWAVE

 JULIO FERNANDEZ 

I first heard of Julio Fernandez in the fall of 1969 when I began to peruse the 24 volumes of Warren Commission testimony and exhibits at the University of Dayton library. 

After awhile I began to focus on the documents and testimony that refered to Cuba, as I was doing my Latin American history thesis on the Bay of Pigs. One document stood out, official Pennsylvania State Police reports on Mrs. Margaret Hoover of Martinsberg, Pa., whose brother reported to the police that his sister had information that might have a bearing on the assassination of President Kennedy. 

Mrs. Hoover told them that she discovered some paratially burnt trash in her yard, including a trailer advertisment with the words "Ruby" and "Lee Oswald" written on the back, as well as an AMTRACK train ticket recipt that she at first believed belonged to her recently divorced husband, and Ruby and Lee were girls he was seeing. She showed the items to her daughter, but then realized that the trash had blown over to her yard from the yard of her neighbor, who was burning trash. 

Moving next door, the police learned that the neighbor was a Cuban exile, Dr. Julio Fernandez, the publisher of a Cuban newspaper and his wife and son, who had recently defected. Fernandez was teaching Spanish at the local high school. The train ticket was used by his son, a Penn State University art major who traveled to Florida in the summer of 63 to attend a conference of Cuban journalists in exile at the University of Miami, that I later learned was the home of the CIA's JMWAVE operations. 

I also learned that Fernandez and his family was assisted by the Philadelphia based Catherwood Foundation, that David Wise and Thomas Ross in their book The Invisible Government, was used as a front for dispersing CIA funds for covert intelligence operations. 

While that's where the official investigation ended, I called Mrs. Hoover and talked with her on the phone. She told me that Fernandez suspiciouly moved away shortly thereafter, but other men in suits had visited her to inquire about him, so somebody was interested in this story besides me. 

I later learned that British-Soviet double-agent Sir Anthony Blunt, the Surveyor of the Queens Pictures, had given a series of lectures at Penn State while young Fernandez, Jr. was in attendence there, and wondered if there was a connection. I also wanted to get any reports, press items, or U of Miami records on the confernce for Cuban journalists in exile held there during the summer of '63, but have yet to learn any more about it. 

Then the Ladies Home Journal, of all places, had a feature story about Clare Booth Luce, the former US Ambassador to Italy, wife of Time-Life founder Henry Luce, that focused on her recceiving a phone call late on the night of the assassination. From her bedroom phone she answered, and said it was from one of her "Cuban boys," Julio Fernandez. 

Her "Cuban boys," as she refered to them, were anti-Castro Cuban commandos who were paid and trained by the CIA at JMWAVE, the CIA's base in Miami, who she supported in various ways and wrote about them in her weekly Life Magazine column (BK Notes: That I have been unable to find). 

Fernandez told Luce that he had photos and a tape recording of Oswald, the accused assassin, in which he promotes Fidel Castro, as well as some other material that implicated Oswald with Castro. What should he do?, he wanted to know. 

Luce said she told him to call the FBI, but he apparently didn't, and a few days later the Cuban Student Directoate (DRE) released a phamplet with the photos and story of Oswald's arrest giving out Fair Play for Cuba Committee leaflets and his radio debate with two men who had been trained by the CIA in psychological warfare - Ed Butler and Carlos Bringuier. 

When Bringuier was asked about the call to Luce, he said he wasn't a commando, as Julio Fernandez was, but rather a psychological warrior. 

BRADLEY AYERS 

Things went quiet for awhile on the Julio Fernandez front, until I read a book at the local library called The War That Never Was by former US Army Ranger Captain Bradley Ayers, who trained some of the JMWAVE Cuban commandos, including one named Julio Fernandes. While I knew at the time that the book contained information that was relevant to the assassiantion of President Kennedy, I didn't know that the book was vetted and edited and censored by the Indiana book publisher's attorney William Harvey, after he had retired from the CIA. 

It was also called to my attention that the publisher Bobs-Merrell, was primarily a school books putlisher who maintained an office and secretaries in the Texas School Book Depository, from where shots were fired at the president. 

It was years later when I obtained a copy of Ayders' followup book The Zenith Secret, published by Vox Pop, who operated out of a decrepid storefront in the Bronx, New York. This uncensored version of Ayers' storyincluded a letter from the CIA that confirmed that in 1963 he was a US Army Ranger Captain cross posted to the CIA to train anti-Castro Cuban commandos at JMWAVE. 

The book was very revealing, however it recently came to my attention that much of it is total bullcrap, though he gets a lot of names and dates correct, and gives some good insight into the otherwise closed JMWAVE base, that used Zenith Technological Services as its cover front. 

In any case, I do accept the fact that Ayers was training Cubans out of JMWAVE, at secret operational bases including Pirate's Lair in the Everglades, Point Mary off Key Largo, and others, utilized a small navy of ships including The Rex and The Leda, and mobster John Rosselli was a principle JMWAVE trainer under the alias of a US Army Colonel in uniform who worked closely with Ayers' cohort US Army Ranger Major Edward Roderick. 

I also accept what Ayers' says about some of the personnel he worked with including the head of JMWAVE was Ted Shackley, had a secretary Maggie Craine, who was brought in after working with William Harvey in Berlin and at the Cuban desk in the basement of the CIA HQ at Langley, Task Force W. Harvey's official biographer (B. Stockton) confirms that Maggie Craine was Harvey's secretary, who sat on the floor to drink her martinis becaues she said that's where she always ended up. I tracked her down and learned that she had married a CIA officer who was stationed in Southeast Asia, but failed to contact her, though I realize that secretaries know all the secrets. 

I also believe Ayers when he says RFK visited JMWAVE bases at least twice, once to meet with the top brass and case officers at a golf course safe house, and a second time at an Everglades base where he met some of the Cuban commandos, including one named Julio Ferenandes. 

Bradley Ayers had a lot to say about the anti-Castro Cuban commando named Julio Fernandez, as he worked closely with him training him and his men in small boat maneuvering, covert tradecraft, and basic commando training that all Rangers go through. US Army Rangers are also known by their nickname the Pathfinders, and a small, elite group of the JMWAVE commandos, some of whom were involved at the Bay of Pigs, were especially selected and trained and known as the Pathfinders. 

At JMWAVE Julio Fernandez was known as a "team leader" who was in charge of a ten man team of commando, who also had a CIA case officer, possibly Porter Goss, who later became the last Director of the CIA before the appointement of a Director of Homeland Security. 

I blieve that the JMWAVE's Julio Fernandez is one and the same Julio Fernandez who was one of Clare Booth Luce's "boys" and called her on the night of the assassination. 

I also consider this Julio Fernandez to possibly be the son of Julio Fernandez, Sr. the Cuban newspaper publisher in exile who lived next door to Mrs. Hoover in Martinsberg, Pa. and attended Penn State Art School. 

It should also be noted that Lyndon Johnson shared a limo with Clare Booth Luce on the way to the inaguration, and she asked him why he took the Vice Presidencey over the more powerful House Chairmanship, and he replied that one in six presidents die in office and he thought he could improve those odds. 

Clare Botth Luce was the wife of the Time-Life publisher Henry Luce who was at the heart of the CIA's Mockingbird Program to obtain the cooperation of publishers and broadcasters. 

And Clare Booth Luce was the featured keynote speaker at the dinner meeting of David Atlee Phillips' Association of Former Intelligence Officers when Gaeton Fonzi had Antonio Veciana confront Phillips to determine if he was the mysterious spymaster known as "Maurice Bishop." 

I would like to get a copy of Mrs. Luce's address to that conference, as well as anything I can get on the conference of Cuban journliasts in exile at the University of Miami in the summer of '63. 

In any case, there may be a number of Julio Fernandezs, and while that name may be as common in Cuba as Joe Smith is in New York, the name seems to crop up a lot among the anti-Castro activities, especially around JMWAVE, and I think it's important and more research must be done. 

Bill Kelly

billkelly3gmail.com 

According to (William) Harvey

                                                       William Harvey and RFK 

William Harvey had served in Berlin and was credited with developing the Berlin Tunnel project before returning to America to CIA HQ and taking over the Cuban desk that he renamed Task Force W, that was responsible for JMWAVE, the largest CIA base in the world at the University of Miami, Florida. While living in DC Harvey was one of the first to suspect Kim Philby as a Soviet-MI6 double-agent, especially after he got into a fist fight with Philby's pal Guy Burgess at a private party when Burgess drew an unflattering drawing of Harvey's wife. (To fully understand the vivid hatred Harvey had for the Kennedys see the Youtube interview with Mrs. Harvey.)

Harvey was also assigned to head ZR/RIFLE, an assassination program, and when President Kennedy asked to meet "America's James Bond," ie licensed to kill, he was presented with Harvey, who checked his pistols with the Secret Service at the door to the Oval Office. The portly pear shaped Harvey looked nothing like the tall, thin and handsome 007 James Bond. 

According to Harvey’s official biography “Flawed Patriot – The Rise and Fall of CIA Legend Bill Harvey” by Bayard Stockton (Potomac Books, Washington D.C., 2006, p. 125):

[NOTE: It should be pointed out that “Flawed Patriot” was vetted and approved by CIA, and the author, former CIA officer Bayard Stockton died before the book was published. ]

“By early Spring 1962 Task Force W’s headquarters staff was in place. Bill’s throne room during the fraught Cuban days was, of course, in the Langley basement, but his empire was in Miami, masquerading as Zenith Technical Enterprises on two thousand acres of CIA-leased property (on the University of Miami south campus).”

Stockton wrote: “…The stories about JMWAVE are legion. Among them is the tale of a visit by Robert Kennedy to JMWAVE – an incursion that in it self must have put Harvey into something south of a slow burn because CIA operating premises were off-limits to non-Agency personnel, regardless of rank or stature. As Kennedy roamed the building, he heard a telex machine chattering away. He ambled over to it, ripped the message out, and began to read it. Incensed beyond courtesy, Harvey, in turn, ripped the copy from the attorney general’s hands and thundered words to the effect that Kennedy was not cleared to read classified Agency correspondence. Both smoldered. The incident naturally became legendary and was symptomatic of relations between the two men.”

Ted Shackley told Stockton that, “(Harvey) came down to Miami ever four to six weeks, mostly to see Johnny Rosselli….”

As Stockton writes it, “Another popular JMWAVE story is the U-Haul truck deal. Writers like this one because, to them, it proves that the CIA and Harvey provided arsenals to the Mafia. The only known witness/participant to the event is Shackley.”

Shackley: “Bill came down with a list…four or five pages….of equipment he wanted. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary in that. We turned the list over to the JMWAVE warehouse manager, who loaded the stuff into watertight containers. All very standard procedure. I rented a truck through three or four cutouts and drove it into the JMWAVE compound. The stuff was manifested in and out. I drove the truck out of the compound and turned it over. Bill and I followed it to a parking lot in South Miami. The driver of the truck took a hike and caught a cab. Bill and I waited; maybe up to an hour….It was no different from any other odd request for equipment.”

According to Rosselli however, while Harvey approved of and made arrangements for the U-Haul truck load of arms, he recalls O’Connell as being with him on the hour long stakeout of a vacant lot behind a Cuban restaurant in Miami, and watched as Cuban #3 picked up the truck they watched as it was driven away. In his 1975 Church Committee testimony, Rosselli said Cuban #3, who he refused to name, often made runs to Cuba in his powerboat, sometimes depositing teams of commandos and assassins. The U-Haul arms cache, inventoried in a detailed manifest, included high powered rifles with scopes and ammo that Shackley says were packed by the JMWAVE warehouse man in waterproof containers so they could be easily and safely shipped to Cuba.

“During…. the climax of the Cuban Missile Crisis, it looked as if the United States was going to war,” writes Stockton, who quotes Shackley as saying: “American military teams were ready to be infiltrated ….pathfinders and people like that. I was to be in a plane with the airborne commander. The presumption was that the American military would pacify Cuba, and then J-2 – military government would take over. I guess I would probably have been Havana station chief…Then Bobby heard there was a commando team on the water, which he had not authorized, and he called them back.”

“American military teams were ready to be infiltrated….pathfinders and people like that…”

An official CIA Public Affairs officer, in response to a media request as to whether or not Bradley Ayers “was ever a CIA agent,” wrote: “According to our records, he was never an Agency employee. As an Army officer, Mr. Ayers was detailed to work with the CIA from May of 1963 to December 1964. Because he never was an Agency employee – and, as such, never signed a pre-publication agreement with us – any suggestion that the CIA tried to censor or suppress his writings is incorrect.”

The War That Never Was: An Insider’s Account of the CIA Covert Operations Against Cuba,” (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1976.) 

While the CIA didn’t vet “The War That Never Was,” it was edited by William Harvey himself, the attorney for Bobbs-Merrell, of Indianapolis, Indiana, primarily a school book publisher who reportedly maintained an office at the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas.

After I read Ayers’ book in the early 1970s, I immediately recognized its significance in regards to the assassination of President Kennedy, and later got know Brad Ayers through numerous long distance telephone conversations. I also got a copy of his second book on the subject, “The Zenith Secret – A CIA Insider Exposes The Secret War Against Castro And the Plot That Killed The Kennedy Brothers,” (Vox Pop, NY, May 2006), a very obscure publisher that was run out of Bronx storefront.

In a motel room drinking Scotch, Ayers recalled that, “Rod described an interesting new guy, Colonel Rosselli from Washington with whom he was working in operations.”

Ayers says that Roderick “had been drinking before he got to the house that night…confided, he and the recently arrived Colonel Rosselli were working on plans to ambush Fidel Castro, and they had been on a weekend binge together. They’d become close friends as they spent time together; their drinking friendship was a natural extension of their on-duty relationship.”

“While we ate I discussed my training activities,” Ayers continued, “Rod began to tell me about the new things that were ‘in the air’ at the station….It seemed the administration was ready to begin making an even more concerted effort to unseat Castro…The Special Group had already removed a number of targets from the restricted list, and there were more to go. It was up to the CIA, specifically the Miami station, to plan the new missions, recruit and train exiles, and mount operations to strike the Communist dictator where it really hurt. Other espionage activities were being carried out to coincide with this paramilitary effort, and still more attempts to eliminate Castro were being developed.”

“Then he dropped it,” Ayers says. “He told me Rosselli had high level Mafia and Havana connections. I was speechless. The American government collaborated with organized crime? I couldn’t believe it. I was anxious to meet this guy.”

Harvey was the CIA case officer for John Rosselli, the mob boss under Chicago's Sam Giancana, and Rosselli was known around the JMWAVE base as "Colonel Rawlston," and wore a US Army Colonel's uniform. 

During the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 62, Harvey sent a team of JMWAVE Pathfinder commandos into Cuba, but when RFK found out he had them recalled, and Harvey was fired from his leadership of the Cuban projects and replaced by Desmond FitzGerald. Harvey was sent to be the Chief of Station in Rome, where James J. Angleton had served in the OSS during the War and Clare Booth Luce had been ambassador under Eisenhower. Both Luce and Harvey supported teams of JMWAVE commandos, Luce's team leader being Julio Fernandez and Rosselli's team were snipers trained at Point Mary, off Key West. 

The last official meeting between Harvey and Rosselli was in June 1963 in Miami, when they wined and dined together with Harvey paying their hotel and expenses on the ZR/RIFLE account. 

David Talbot filed an FOIA request and civil suit seeking Harvey's travel records, but I don't know what became of that, but will try to find out. 

Update Note: Well, I didn't have to wait long to get an answer to that question, as Jeff Morley, who must be on the same wavelength as I am, just posted a JFKFacts blog post about William Harvey, linking to Mrs. Harvey's interview video on their opinions of JFK and RFK, as well as the fact that the CIA response to David Talbot's request for Harvey's travel records was to not respond favorably. 

BK 

Billkelly3@gmail.com 

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

ONI and the Assassination

Cigar chomping Dallas Police Detective Paul Bentley, the chief operator of the Dallas Police department's polygraph unit; was one of the officers who arrested Lee Harvey Oswald at the Texas Theater.  Two days after the assassination Bentley received a letter from a friend and associate Robert D. Steel, an ONI Investigator based in San Diego in which he wrote:

November 22, 1963

Robert D. Steel, Commander, USNR-R

7960 June Lake Drive, San Diego, California

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. 

Robert D. Steel  

Interview w/ ONI Investigator Robert Steel(w/ T. Graves. Steel wrote at least two 119 Reports on Oswald, one after defection and another after the assassination, neither have been released).: https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2016/05/interview-with-oni investigator-robert.html 

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

Details on ONI and the Assassination: https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/10/oni-assassination-of-president-kennedy.html?m=1

Paul Hoch on Military Files:  https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/10/irregularities-relating-to-naval.html

Director of ONI Ruffus Talor : http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/02/very-respectfully-rufus-l-taylor-usn.html

Fred Reeves, USNR on ONI 119 Reports: http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/02/fred-reeves-usnr-on-oni-119-reports.html

Lt. Com. DR Terri Pike and the still withheld ONI Defector File: https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/10/railroading-of-lcdr-terri-pike-over.html

ONI Defector File – Chronology and ONI Response: https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/10/oni-response-to-jfk-act-and-arrb.html

Missing ONI Records: https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2013/02/missing-oni-records-not-missing-at-all.html

ONI Records Revisited: https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2013/02/oni-records-revisited_12.html

NARA Finding Aids to ONI Records: http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/02/finding-aid-for-nara-records.html 

ONI Director Rufus Taylor had former Navy informants working in the Carousel Club as electronic technicians on the sound system who reported that they saw Lee Harvey Oswald in the club with Jack Ruby. Now ONI says that there are no assassination records among the files of Taylor. Nor can they find the 119 Reports written about Oswald by Robert Steel. 

 

 

Destroyed, Missing, Withdrawn and Withheld Records

Destroyed, Missing, Withdrawn and Withheld Records 

Both the judge in the MFF v. Biden and NARA case and Congress need to know exactly what records have been destroyed, are missing, were available but have been withdrawn and are being wrongfully withheld. 

The judge has even instructed the NARA to inform the Department of Justice of any records that have been destroyed, and Bill Simpich and Larry Schnapf, the attorneys for the MFF Plantiffs are compiling lists that they can present to the judge in a scheduled meeting next week.

That is not a problem since there are many examples of each of the categories we are compiling lists for, beginning with the JFK assassination records destroyed. 

For starters the Department of Defense (DOD) informed the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in the late 1970s that it "routinely" destroyed their files on the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. 

The most blatant destruction of assassination records was conducted by the Secret Service (SS) AFTER Congress passed the JFK Act of 1992 that specifically forbade the destruction of such records. 

Among those records the SS claimed to have destroyed was the Tampa Advance Report, but the author of that report, as i mentioned in my affidavit to the court in the  MFF v. Biden and NARA case, SS Agent Gerald Blane, in the book The Kennedy Detail, bragged that he had kept copies of his reports in a box under his bed. When I notified the NARA about this, they obtained Blaine's reports and they are now available as part of the JFK Collection open to the public. 

In the course of reading the reports of the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB), I came across an interview with former SS Agent James Mastrovito, who acknowledged being responsible for the 5-6 filing cabinets of SS records on the assassination, and being instructed by Chief Rowley to remove "irrelevant material," in 1965. Then later being instructed by his superior Walter Young to "cull" them, which he took to mean destroy them, and did so around 1970. Mastrovito also informed the ARRB interviewer that the SS had a lab vile of material that was labeled "JFK Brain matter" and Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, that he said he disposed of in a "food processor." 

Mastrovito passed away in 2006, and his obituary says he also worked for the FBI before the SS and CIA afterwards. But the HSCA knew in 1978, when G. Robert Blakey sought SS records Mastrovito had destroyed, the ARRB knew from 1993 and NARA knew from then on that these records were intentionally and illegally destroyed but did nothing about it. 

MISSING AND PRESUMED DESTROYED 

There are so many missing assassination records the list would be untenable so I will only mention the highlights, or lowlights. 

For starters, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) informed the ARRB that there were no assassination records among the files of the former Director of ONI Ruffus Taylor, the first director of ONI who actually had a background in intelligence. This is impossible because we already have one document from the ONI director Taylor shared and saved from another agency. 

But since almost all documents, except the most highly classified, are distributed to more than one person, there are multiple copies among the various desks, bureaus and agencies, as was the case with Rufus Taylor, whose office distributed at least one document to another agency that released it, and it is a Whopper. The one document from ONI Director Taylor indicates that he had two former Navy men acting undercover in Jack Ruby's Carousel Club, selling and maintaining the sound equipment, microphones and speakers. And they reported to ONI Director Taylor that they believed they saw the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in the club with Jack Ruby, who is later accused of killing Oswald while in police custody. "Oswald" and Ruby visited the electronics office they operated out of to have a microphone fixed. Both electronic technicians employed by Ruby (Langford and Patterson) were former Navy men who reported to ONI and Ruffus Taylor mentions them in his report. 

ONI Agent for San Diego Robert Steel investigated Oswald twice, once when he defected and then after the assassination, filing reports each time, but those reports are not among the records turned over to the NARA by ONI. 

ONI assigned Lt. Commander Terri Price to collect any ONI records on the assassination to comply with the JFK Act of 1992. Among the records Price labeled as "JFK Act Records" was a box of documents with the title of ONI Defector File, and while those records were sent to the NARA they were intentionally kept out of the JFK Collection, not given a RIF# and are considered Not Believed Relevant - NBR because they ostensibly don't mention Oswald. 

JFKcountercoup: ONI Records Revisited

AIR FORCE ONE RADIO TRANSMISSION TAPES AND TRANSCIRPT 

Probably the most intriguing of missing assassination records is the original unedited Air Force One Radio Transmission Tapes and Transcript, that we positively know exist or once existed because we have copies that contain visible edits, and three reputable journalists read and quote from the unedited transcript of the tapes. 

Vince Salandria was the first to call attention to the significance of these tapes and transcripts, and I believe that, like the Gen. Clifton version of the AF1 Radio Tapes, the original tapes exist somewhere, possibly on a dusty shelf in a closet or archive vault. 

The three journalists who were permitted to read the transcript of the unedited tapes were William Manchester, hired by Jackie Kennedy to write The Death of a President, and The Making of President 1964 author Theadore White, both of whom were given permission by President Johnson to read the transcript but not make a copy. They both quote portions of the transcript that are not on the existing recordings. 

Former JFK Press Secretary Pierre Salinger obtained a copy of the transcript from the JFK Library in Boston, quotes from it in his book, and informed Vince Salandria that he returned his copy to the JFK Library, that now can no longer locate it. 

NPIC - National Photo Interpretation Center records. 

When the ARRB staff tracked down a  retired NPIC secretary, she told them that Attorney General Robert Kennedy requested she collect all NPIC assassination records, box them and send them to the Smithsonian Institute, rather than the NARA where they belonged. But the ARRB never asked the Smithsonian for any assassination related records, and the NPIC records, ostensibly including the missing Pathfinder Plan folder from JMWAVE, remain unaccounted for.

During the Church Committee investigations, eight NPIC technicians came forward to say they knew about a CIA plan to kill Castro called Pathfinder, that was run by Carl Jenkins. It called for Castro to be shot in the head by snipers with high powered rifles in Veradero as he drove by I an open jeep enroute to the DuPont Xandau estate, that he frequently visited. 

The Pathfinder Plan folder they said, was kept in the NPIC section of the JMWAVE station rather than the Operational Files where it should have been filed.

When the Assassinations Archive and Research Center (AARC) filed an FOIA request to the CIA for the Pathfinder file, they had no record of it. 

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY (NSA) RECORDS 

The NSA has records on the assassination they have not turned over to the NARA, including a document intentionally leaked to the Scripps Howard News Service (SHNS) that attempted to implicate Fidel Castro in the assassination of President Kennedy as well as promote Castro as trying to kill then President Reagan a few weeks before John Hinkley shot Reagan in 1980. 

In addition, when Valery Mitrokin, a KGB defector to UK implicated former NSA file clerk Robert Lipka as a KGB spy, Lipka told the arranging judge in court that one of the NSA documents he passed on to the Russians was one that "named JFK's real assassin." When a reporter in the court asked Lipka, as he was being led away, what was his name, he replied - Luis Angel Castillo, a known MKULTRA hypto-programed assassin who was arrested for trying to kill the president of the Philippines. 

Neither the document leaked to the SHNS nor the Castillo document were turned over to the ARRB or NARA by the NSA, but are publicly known to exist. 

MRS. LINCOLN AND THE OVAL OFFICE RECORDS AND TRUNK 

JFK had a SS agent place a recording device in his desk that permitted him to switch it on and tape record conversations in the room and on the Oval Office desk telephone. Shortly after JFK was killed, the SS agent removed the recording devices and tapes but Mrs. Lincoln kept the tapes among the Oval Office records that included filing cabinets of documents, a rocking chair, JFK's wrist watch and other items. RFK ordered Mrs. Lincoln to keep those records at her home, which she did even though she also kept an office at the JFK Library in Boston for awhile. 

When Mrs. Lincoln was not invited to the Caroline Kennedy's wedding, she began hording the JFK material, and gave some to a celebrity autograph collector, eventually willing him whateever she had from the Kennedy Oval Office. The collector then placed some of the items for sale at a NYC auction and sold the wrist watch and some of the Oval Office phone tapes to a wealthy contractor, who wrote about them in his book The Inheritance, that quotes some of the Oval Office phone conversations that indicate their importance. The JFK Library in Boston has tapes and transcripts from the Oval Office and phone records and Caroline wrote a book containing many of the conversations, but the official records end on October 8, 1963, so the tapes in private hands represent the key conversations from October 9 until November 20, 1963. The FBI raided the former President Trump's home in Florida looking for such records, but no one is trying to get these tapes and put them in the JFK Collection where they belong. 

Then there's Mrs. Lincoln's Trunks, two of which were full of Oval Office documents that in her will she had sent to her personal attorney in Kansas, who had them placed in the evidence locker of the local Sheriff. When that Sheriff left office, they were removed and are now in private hands, but when I asked about their contents I was told that he would only answer questions if subpoenaed by a court or Congress. 

CHURCH COMMITTEE RECORDS 

When archivist Steve Tilly was in charge of the JFK Collection at the NARA in 1995 he made sent a memo of the fact that many of the records of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities (SSCIA) aka Church Committee, were missing, to Charles Battaglia, then the staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee. 

Dear Mr. Battaglia: It has come to my attention that certain transcripts of testimony given before the Select Committee To Study Governmental Operations With Respect To Intelligence Activities may not be among the records transferred to the National Archives for inclusion in the JFK Collection. I discussed this matter with Ms. Judy Hodgson on April 13, and she suggested that I inform you in writing about this matter…

In response to the researcher’s inquiry, I learned that the testimony of the “FBI supervisor” was not among the records in our custody. I began to read other footnotes in the report and realized that other transcripts of testimony were referenced that I had not seen on our list. I decided to review every footnote in the report and compiled of (sic a) list of transcripts of testimony, summaries of interviews, and affidavits described in the footnotes that are not among our holdings. I have also enclosed a copy of this list for your use. I call your attention to the fact that most of these transcripts are dated in 1976. A review of our folder title list shows that most of the transcripts in the records in our custody are dated in 1975. It goes without saying that the individuals who gave this testimony, whether identified by name or title, are very significant persons in the history of the assassination…….

For more: https://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/03/missing-sscia-docs.html?m=1

Among the missing records were footnoted references to documents that are not in the JFK Collection, and some of the testimony taken in secret executive sessions, including some of the entire days of secret testimony of John Rosselli, the mobster recruited by the CIA to assist in their efforts to kill Fidel Castro. 

Rex Bradford, who has studied the Church Committee records carefully, and British researcher Malcolm Blunt both have reported missing Church Com records. Blunt mentions that a folder of interviews with US marines who were stationed with Oswald were empty. 

While working for the Church Committee, Gaeton Fonzi interviewed CIA weapons specialist Mitch Werbel on tape, but when Malcolm Blut tried to listen to it there was nothing there. Acoustic Forensic specialist who reviewed the AF1 tapes and determined they were edited, concluded Fonzi's tape of his inerview with Mitch Werbel was intentionally erased, though we still have Fonzi's hand written notes, that reveal CIA commercial assets (Pan Am Bank of Miami) among other things. 

RECORDS WITHDRAWN 

John Neman once recognized the importance of a specific document at the NARA and made a copy of it, only to return sometime later and find that the folder in which it was contained had a document that simply read WITHDRAWN, when the JFK Act specifically says that any records that have been released to the public cannot be later withheld. 

PUBLICLY WITHHELD RECORDS 

Besides records kept by SS agents, Mrs. Lincoln's Trunks of Oval Office documents that are in a Nebraska closet, and the Oval Office Tapes that were wrongfully purchased and privately kept, there are other JFK assassination records in private hands that should belong in the JFK Collection at NARA and available to the public. 

Among them are the Minks KGB surveillance records of the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald from when he lived in the Soviet Union, While some were given to the President directly, others were given to writer Norman Mailer, who visited the USSR while researching his book on Oswald. Mailer's assistant at the time Lawrence Schiller, now has these documents, but refused to turn them over or even copy them for the ARRB, as detailed in their Final Report. 

In addition, the former Chief Counsel of the HSCA Richard Sprague, kept his office files and took them back to Philadelphia with him, where they remain today in his law office run by his son. While there are hundreds of records in the JFK Collection under the second Chief Counsel of the HSCA G. Robert Blakey, there are none whatsoever for Richard Sprague. When I questioned the NARA about this, they referred me to the files of computer and photo specialist Richard Sprague, who with the same name, they confused with the Chief Counsel. 

SAVED FROM DESTRUCTION

Among the JFK assassination records ordered destroyed, we have two examples of what was saved, or salvaged.

When Harry Connick, Sr. replaced Jim Garrison as District Attorney of New Orleans, he ordered one of his staff to collect and destroy Garrisons files, including the Grand Jury records. The staff member instead recognized their historical significance and took them home, then passed them on to the ARRB to be included in the JFK Collection. While Connick threw a hissy fit and tried to take it to court he was over ruled.

Then there's the Andrews Air Force Base Log for 11/22/63 that kept track of relevant air traffic including times of landings of AF1, the Cabinet plane and General LeMay. This hard bound manilla folder log book was removed from a trash bin at Andrews AFB by a janitor, who realized it's significance and turned over to the ARRB. I obtained the log from the NARA, made copies of every handwritten page, transcribed it and posted it on my blog.

BK Notes: This is only a partial list. The tip of the iceberg. More to come.