Hugh Aynesworth - 1931 - 2023

HUGH AYNESWORTH – August 2, 1931 – December 23, 2023 

 As Hugh Aynesworth just passed away earlier this week, I thought I would revive one of the articles I did on him as part of the Real Disinformation Agents at Dealey Plaza. While Aynesworth, like myself, also wrote about psycho serial killer Ted Bundy, he tried to portray Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused killer of President Kennedy, in the same light, refusing to acknowledge Oswald’s many intelligence connections, as he himself had..

Aynesworth reported to the CIA’s Domestic Contact Agent in Dallas J. Walton Moore, who was the CIS controller for George deMohrenschildt and Col. Lawrence Orlov. Orlov accompanied deMohrenschildt to visit Oswald for the first time, after getting the go-ahead from Moore. While deMohrenschildt often had dinner with Moore, Orlov played racket ball with him every day, so they had a personal as well as professional relationship. And Moore and the CIA were closely monitoring events. 

HUGH AYNESWORTH

As a local reporter for George Bannerman Dealey’s Dallas Morning News, Hugh Aynesworth was all over the place during the assassination weekend. He was at Dealey Plaza, the Tippit murder scene, the Texas Theater where the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested, the house in Irving where Oswald’s wife lived, the rooming house where Oswald lived and the Dallas Police Department where he was killed.[1]

It’s important to mention Aynesworth’s background and his presence at so many crime scenes because while it always seemed suspicious, and his CIA ties were confirmed with the release of CIA records by the JFK Act.

As Jim DiEugenio notes, “many more pages of documents have been released showing how tightly bound Aynesworth was with the intelligence community. It has been demonstrated that Aynesworth was – at the minimum – working with the Dallas Police, Shaw's defense team, and the FBI. He was also an informant to the White House, and had once applied for work with the CIA. As I have noted elsewhere, in the annals of this case, I can think of no reporter who had such extensive contacts with those trying to cover up the facts in the JFK case...”[2]

Rex Bradford, the web master of Mary Ferrell’s extensive files on the case wrote, “Declassified documents show that Dallas reporter Hugh Aynesworth was in contact with the Dallas CIA office and had on at least one occasion ‘ offered his services to us.’ The files are chock full of Aynesworth informing to the FBI, particularly in regard to the Garrison investigation….Also of note is a message Aynesworth sent to…LBJ's White House, in which Aynesworth wrote that ‘My interest in informing government officials of each step along the way is because of my intimate knowledge of what Jim Garrison is planning.’” [3]

Most incredible however, is the CIA report written on October 10, 1963 when J. Walton Moore, the head of the Dallas CIA Domestic Contacts Division reported to the Chief of the Contact Division on “the possibility of Hugh Grant Aynesworth making a trip to Cuba.”[4]

One month before the assassination J. Walton Moore - the same CIA agent who has been meeting regularly with the accused assassin’s best friend George DeMohrenschildt, is also meeting with Hugh Aynesworth about going to Cuba.

Moore’s first mission with the OSS during Word War II was to China with Charles Ford, who later became the CIA agent assigned to work with RFK at JMWAVE. Using an Italian alias, Ford worked with John Rosselli, the mafia boss the CIA previously recruited to kill Castro. In his interview with the Church Committee, Ford said they were trying to overthrow, not kill Castro, but those who have it in for RFK use Ford as a lynchpin to crucify Bobby, as we have seen with Sy Hersh in the Dark Side of Camelot, Evan Thomas in Robert Kennedy – His Life , and David Kaiser in The Road to Dallas , and Max Holland. But with the release of Ford’s records by the JFK Act, they have all gone silent. [5]

However there could be an association between Hugh Aynesworth, J. Walton Moore, Charles Ford and David Atlee Phillips, especially in regards to the timing of Moore’s memo and Phllips’ travels, not just as it relates to Cuba, but to what happened at Dealey Plaza. This is especially so since J. Walton Moore – the CIA contact agent to the accused assassin’s best friend, served in the same capacity with Hugh Aynesworth about a trip to Cuba a month before the assassination. And the day before Aynesworth met with Moore, David Phillips was at JMWAVE, the CIA’s Miami, Florida base, where anti-Castro operations were planned and carried out.[6]

How did these damning records get released? And if this was released, what’s in the thousands of documents that are totally redacted or are still partially withheld for reasons of national security? Many of these withheld records include many pages of the files of Hugh Aynesworth, Priscilla Johnson and Gordon McLendon.

As David Talbot points out, “…some of these journalists did the CIA’s bidding: see, for instance, a January 25, 1968 CIA memo on Hugh Aynesworth, who covered the JFK assassination, first for the Dallas Morning News and then Newsweek . Aynesworth – who at one time, according to the memo, ‘expressed some interest…in possible employment with the Agency’ – was considered by the CIA to be a solid ‘Warren Commission man on the assassination.’”[7]

And indeed he was. He eagerly did the agencies bidding to squash the Garrison investigation, and he doesn’t consider the Kennedy assassination among the unsolved homicides in his 1994 book Murders Among Us: Unsolved Homicides, Mysterious Deaths and Killers at Large .[8] But his article, “The Strangest Story I Ever Covered,” details how he came to expose the head of the local crime commission was himself a criminal who had crafted a new identity to hide his past. So Aynesworth is capable of uncovering conspiracies when he wants to. If he applied the same investigative skills to the homicide at Dealey Plaza, perhaps he would have helped uncover the truth instead of promoting the cover story and blaming the murder on the patsy.[9]

Joseph Goulden was one of Hugh Aynesworth’s colleagues who also covered the events in Dallas and also pushed the lone-nut myth. When rumors began to circulate that Oswald was an FBI informant, and was even assigned an informant number, Aynesworth, along with Houston reporter Lonnie Hudkins and Goulden, floated the story that they had made up an informant number to make it seem real. The Warren Commission held a closed door executive session to discuss it, and former CIA director Allen Dulles explained that even if Oswald was an informant, there would be no record of it, though there was a record of Jack Ruby being such an FBI informant.[10]

Just as there was a lot of friction between the FBI and the Dallas Police, there was also friction between the FBI and the Secret Service and the FBI and the CIA. So Goulden’s story actually took some of the heat off the CIA, especially in regards to Oswald’s defection to the Soviet Union and his trip to Mexico City, both of which called unwanted attention to CIA operations they wanted to keep secret.

It was also a diversion that appeared to dissipate when Aynesworth and Goulden acknowledged the story was bogus. So the idea of Oswald as intelligence operative went south and the public image now became one of the deranged loser, and lone nut assassin.

Today, both Aynesworth and Goulden write for the Washington Times newspaper, founded by Sun Myung Moon and owned by the Unification Church, who some suspect acts as a front for the CIA.[11]

When Priscilla Johnson McMillan testified before the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), she said that in the course of researching Marina’s story, she discovered who actually obtained and leaked Oswald’s “Historic Diary” to the Dallas Morning News and Life magazine.[12]

Who was it? Hugh Aynesworth.

 

NOTES

HUGH AYNESWORTH

[1] Anyesworth on the weekend of the assassination.
http://www.mywesttexas.com/top_stories/article_38b31e0a-eb9b-5a22-9dc6-21674b814a2e.html

[2] DiEugenio, James. “Hugh Aynesworth Never Quits”. Also See: James DiEugenio "These are Your Witnesses?"

[3] Bradford, Rex. On Aynesworth. Bradford, Rex. Kennedy’s Ghost. http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Essay_-_Kennedys_Ghost - fn_2

[4] Moore, J. Walton. Aynesworth to Cuba. Offers Services to CIA: On October 10, 1963 J. Walton Moore wrote to the Chief, (Domestic) Contact Division on the possibility of Hugh Grant Aynesworth Making Trip To Cuba. http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=594957

[5] 5) Moore, J. Walton and Charles Ford, Ford Report Sept. 28, 1962 http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=55224&relPageId=43; Ford & Bobby, - Sy Hersch in the Darkside of Camelot, Evan Thomas Robert Kennedy – His Life (p. 178), and David Kaiser in The Road to Dallas notes (47-48 p.446). Max Holland writes about “The Paper Trail” in his Washington Decoded blog: http://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/files/conspiracy_theories_keep_coming_but_under_scrutiny_the_plot_gets_thinner.pdf

[6] 6) Scott, PD. – Phillips at JMWAVE. Oct. 63. PDS Deep Politics III – http://www.history-matters.com/pds/DP3_Overview.htm - _ftn196 From about October 1 to October 9 Phillips made a quick trip, authorized by the Special Affairs Staff, to Washington and then Miami.[193]  On October 1 the Mexico City CIA station also sent a cable directing that a diplomatic pouch, sent on October 1 to Washington, should be held in the registry until picked up by “Michael C. Choaden” (i.e. Phillips) presently TDY (temporary duty) HQS.”[194][195]  The  date October 1 catches our eye, in as much as it is the date of the alleged Oswald-Kostikov intercept. One is also struck by Phillips’ presence in the Miami JMWAVE station from October 7-9. There are reports that Rosselli, who had good standing in the JMWAVE station, met on two occasions in Miami in early October with Jack Ruby.[196]

[7] Talbot, David. Re; Aynesworth. Talbot, David Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years . (P. 445 Notes: 390) …Talbot Note: NARA record number 104-10170-10230. Offers Services to CIA: http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=594957

[8] Aynesworth, Hugh. Murders Among Us: Unsolved Homicides, Mysterious Deaths and Killers at Large (signet & Onyx True Crime, 1994 w/Stephen Michaud) http://www.fishpond.com.au/Books/Murderers-Among-Us-Stephen-G-Michaud-Hugh-Aynesworth/9780451170576

[9] Aynesworth, Hugh. “Strangest Story I Ever Covered”. http://www.dmagazine.com/Home/1983/08/01/The_Strangest_STORY_1_Ever_Covered.aspx

[10] Meagher, Sylvia.  Accessories After the Fact  (p. 348) Oswald FBI Informant. Also see Spook Journalist Goulden: http://www.dcdave.com/article1/081198.html

[11] Aynesworth and Goulden at Washington Times .

Aynesworth on Pedophile N.O. Priest - http://www.bishopaccountability.org/news3/1991_05_14_Aynesworth_SexTapes_Dino_Cinel_1.htm

Goulden on Espionage for Washington Times : http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/24/espionage-28603365/

[12] Priscilla Johnson and Oswald’s Diary. PJM on Aynesworth got it from John Thorne, Esq. and Martin. http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=95330&relPageId=27

 Real Disinformation Agents at Dealey Plaza – Posted by Jimmy DiEugenio in 2011

Part 3 - https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/journalists-jfk-part-3-the-real-dizinfo-agents-at-dealey-plaza

Part 2 - https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/journalist-jfk-part-2-the-real-dizinfo-agents-at-dealey-plaza

Part 1 - https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/journalists-and-jfk-part-1-real-dizinfo-agents-at-dealey-plaza

Leonard Bernstein and JFK

 Leonard Bernstein and JFK

"Two things are necessary to achieve great things - a plan of action, and not enough time." - L. Bernstein

Bradley Cooper,  star of American Sniper, is now portrying Leonard Bernstein in a new major motion picture that requires me to bring up the following -

In 1980, Bernstein was booed and hissed on stage when he said:

"We don't dare confront the implications. I think we've all agreed there was a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy, and we just don't want to know the complete truth. It involves such powerful forces in what we call high places that if we do know, everything might fall apart. We don't dare confront the implications."

This is an update on what I wrote a few years ago:

https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2018/03/leonard-bernstein-and-jfk-we-dont-dare.html?m=1

Just as JFK’s 100 birthday was celebrated in 2017, Leonard Bernstein’s 2018 centennial is being recognized and celebrated, and should reflect his feelings on JFK and his assassination.

As one of America’s premier composers and conductors, Bernstein was not only a contemporary of JFK at Harvard, but a New York City neighbor, acquaintance and personal friend who dined often together.

Among other things, Bernstein composed the music for the hit Broadway play and movie West Side Story, that featured Natalie Wood and actor Richard Beymer.

 n  n                                               Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood 

Beymer figures prominently in the recently released records under the JFK Act as someone who associated with Syliva Duran, the Mexican national who worked at the Cuban embassy in Mexico City and dealt with both Beymer and the accused assassin of President Kennedy, both of whom wanted visas to Cuba.

Wood and Beymer played a contemporary Romeo and Julet in the movie, and while Wood’s suspicious death is being reinvestigated today, Beymer was a subject of CIA records recently released under the JFK Act - CIA phone taps of the Cuban embassy, where he called after the assassination seeking information on Syliva Duran.

Beymer was one of the two American Gringos who reportedly attended a Twist Party hosted by Duran where Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of the President, was said to have been encouraged to kill JFK by those from the Cuban embassy.

While Duran knew the name of the American film actor, when she was interviewed by reporters she suspected he was still alive and refused to identify him to protect him.

From the government records recently released under the JFK act, CIA wiretap documents identify Beymer. When contacted recently Beymer acknowledged being in Mexico for a film festival, and visiting the Cuban embassy in an attempt to get a visa to Cuba, but he said he doesn’t recall attending a Twist Party or meeting Oswald, though attending a Twist Party is something they would have done, being two footloose Americans below the border.

Who was Beymer’s companion? The other Gringo, Beymer said, was Bradley Pierce, then a New York City bar owner who is then a Catholic priest, who has since passed away.

Father Bradley Pierce recalls being in Mexico City on the day of the assassination, exiting the elevator in a hotel lobby to learn that the president had been killed, but he doesn’t recall a Twist Party or meeting the accused assassin. Since they were only in Mexico a few weeks, and were there at the time of the assassination, they weren’t there when Oswald was there in late September and early October.

While Beymer said he didn’t remember Sylvia Duran, a CIA wiretap report indicates he knew her well enough to call the Cuban embassy and ask for her by name, and inquire as to how she was, indicating he knew she had been violently interrogated by Mexican police after the assassination.

There are reports that under interrogation Duran confessed to meeting Oswald outside the Cuban embassy and having an intimate relation with him. A friend of Duran said that she met Oswald at Sanborn’s restaurant, near the American embassy, where others said they saw Oswald leave the restaurant on the back of a motorcycle on the way to the Cuban embassy to try to get a visa to Cuba.

Another unsubstantiated report has Duran taking Oswald to a more fancy restaurant where they met the Cuban ambassador to Mexico, a story repeated by a doctor who treated the CIA backed Cuban refugees in Florida for Catholic Welfare, an organization supported by the CIA’s Catherwood Foundation.

While it is unlikely Duran had a sexual affair with Oswald, she most certainly did have an affair with Carlos Lechuga, the Cuban ambassador at the UN who was the key intermediary in the back channel negotiations between JFK and Castro at the time of the assassination. It is possible she also had an intimate affair with Richard Beymer, the American film actor who she tried to protect, and who may be trying to protect her.

But what are they protecting? Their infidelities? Or something more?

Beymer was the on screen lover of Natalie Wood in the contemporary adaption of Romeo and Juliet, that had a music scored by Leonard Bernstein, a personal friend and associate of President Kennedy.

In 1962 Leonard Bernstein introduced seven year old Chinese cellist Yo-Yo Ma, in a concert attended by President Kennedy. A year later JFK was dead and Bernstein was greatly affected by his murder.

As explained by the official New York Philharmonic history: the Death of the President The Philharmonic and Leonard Bernstein Respond: News of President John F. Kennedy's assassination reached the New York Philharmonic during an afternoon subscription concert led by George Szell. Following Beethoven's Leonore Overture No. 3, the Orchestra's manager Carlos Moseley broke the news to the audience and canceled the rest of the program. The remaining concerts that weekend replaced the overture with the funeral march from Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, Eroica, performed without applause. (Now available on Youtube) 

On November 24, Leonard Bernstein conducted Mahler's Symphony No. 2, Resurrection, in a televised tribute to President Kennedy. Not only was it the first time the complete symphony was televised, but performing Mahler for an event of this nature was unprecedented.  (Now available on Youtube) 

At the United Jewish Appeal Benefit the next day, Bernstein explained his novel decision to program this work rather than the expected Eroica or a requiem....

Since the tribute to JFK, Mahler symphonies have become part of the standard repertoire for national mourning. 

In explaining why he chose to play that hopeful music rather than a funeral durge, Bernstein quoted Kennedy as saying, “America’s leadership must be guided by learning and reason.”

“Learning and reason: precisely the two elements that were necessarily missing from the mind of anyone who could have fire that impossible bullet. Learning and reason: the motto we here tonight must continue to uphold with redoubled tenacity, and must continue, at any price, to make the basis of all our actions.”

As Bernstein said,  - We refuse to confront the truth and its implications “because everything will fall apart.”

Everything fell apart, and now we must confront the implications.

Some Important New Documentary Films on JFK

Since I have been very busy reading Nicholas Shakespeare's new biography of Ian Fleming, and writing a review of it for Robin Ramsey over at Lobster in the UK, - that should be out in the next issue before the end of the year, I was prevented from writing about the new films and books that have come out for the 60th anniversary of JFK's death. 

My T & RC associate Dan Storper did that in a letter to T&RC members and was kind enough to allow me to use it here. When I get a chance I will also list the new books that are out or coming out that I think are important and review them if I can. - All the Best - Bill Kelly - Billkelly3@gmail.com 

Dear Friends,

I’d like to wish you happy holidays and a more peaceful New Year. At the same time, I think it’s crucial to try to understand how we arrived at the divided world we’re living in today.

The first episode of the new film series Four Died Trying (fourdiedtrying.com), now out on Amazon and other outlets, explains why and how the efforts of JFK, MLK, Jr, Malcolm X and RFK to pursue peace and justice were destroyed by forces in the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about. The first film introduces the series with new films every couple of months. You’ll hear from more than 100 well-known government figures, activists and family members ranging from Andrew Young and Martin Luther King III to Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Adam Walinsky.

Rob Reiner & Soledad O’Brien’s Who Killed JFK? now on its 6th episode, explains some of the forces behind JFK’s assassination and why it still matters today (available wherever you listen to podcasts).

Barbara Shearer & Susan Zirinsky’s JFK: The Parkland Doctors, on Paramount Plus and Amazon, is a film built around seven Parkland doctors in Dallas who first witnessed JFK’s body and were threatened by military and political figures to lie about the clear evidence of multiple shooters. It is well-done, interesting and clearly disproves the official story.

These films and podcast help demonstrate that the progressive ideals of peace and justice pursued by JFK were destroyed by forces opposed to democracy, peace and justice. To understand them, we encourage you to view these films, listen to the podcast and read exceptional books like JFK and the Unspeakable and The Devil’s Chessboard.

The Truth and Reconciliation Committee (www.americantruthnow.org) that I co-chair offers a selection of other resources that help explain the journey from the 1960s to today. It was co-founded by truth-seekers including Daniel Ellsberg, Martin Sheen, David Crosby, Kennedy & King family members and others who believe democracy was hijacked in the 1960s and that its time to learn from it and help America and the world move forward in a more positive way.

Sincerely,  Dan Storper

Greetings from JFKCountercoup Readers

 Mr. Kelly,

For many years now I have read your blog, as it has always been an Bookmark for me and a place for 11/22/63.  I just wanted to say "Thank You, very much" for all the great research and effort you have done for the community. I find great comfort in it.

I was 9 years old on 11/22/63. JFK' death has always haunted me and I guess traumatized me in some way. I recall asking my Dad about it at the time, but he was very noncommittal about what was happening and if a true story of what really happened after what transpired that weekend. He also said it would be 50 years before the whole truth comes out and that stuck with me.

Your latest post about your fascinating journey into 11/22/63 and the late John Judge (I met him at American University, remembrance reading of JFK 6/63 Speech) and Biden's final order on JFK records has me feeling saddened that 60 years later, we still don't have the whole truth, although we are a lot closer, thanks to people like you.

Again, Thank you and I look forward to your next post.   -  Larry Bettis

Hey Bill,

Paul Nahra here. Hope you remember me, I was a friend and colleague of John Judge and introduced myself briefly to you at the Duquesne conference previous to this last one. I've been meaning to get in touch with you for awhile now, but am prompted to do so today on this sad anniversary. Thank you for your posts of the last few days on JFK Countercoup, CAPA is Kaput and the tribute to COPA and John. That is some fabulous history. 

     I was sorry to read about the conflicts with and disrespect from CAPA. It reminded me of an interaction I had with Marilyn Tennenoff a few years ago. I was in York PA visiting my cousin and I arranged to meet with her at John's archive, the hidden history center. She has an occasional intern come in, but  I feel like people, including myself, have been cataloguing that collection for twenty years, and each half completed effort would be lost before the next attempt would begin. Anyway, she mentioned to me that you had requested she return a box of yours with material in it that you wanted to revisit, and that she was disinclined to allow it out of the collection. I disagreed strongly with her, first because she could have Xeroxed whatever she wanted before she gave you back the originals. But secondly, and I don't know if you remember but I was at John Judge's when you dropped off a few boxes because you needed a safe place to store them, I forget if it was because you had flooding, or you were moving, that was the first time we met. So John was a temporary custodian of your material, in my view, and you should have every right to have them returned. 

In any event I have suspicions about anyone who is getting in the way of you doing your excellent work. 

Though Marilyn was always very kind to me when I visited John in those last few years.

[BK Notes: When I first met Marilyn at a Pittsburgh conference she told me directly that she had no interest in John's political assassination, COPA and Hidden History work. Then when she was made executor of his estate and saw the bank accounts she took them, along with John's five figure life insurance. There is nothing she has that I need or want. The HHM she hijacked will hang like an anvil around her neck until she lets it go. She should donate everything to the Wecht Collection at Duquesne University Library, but won't, as long as she gets donations for the now truly secret Hidden History Museum. And Glenda DeVaney has done to CAPA what Marilyn Teennenoff did to COPA - destroyed it from within. ]

     I was excited to read of your plans to gather your best posts and curate the essential moments from COPA's history and indeed the history of the last 60 years. I am an archivist at heart and have a good collection of COPA conference videos, dvds and abstracts, perhaps I can help you out in some way. I have found that none of the COPA videos come up on a rudimentary you tube search online, and I hope that can be corrected somehow. I am not much of a computer person but I would be happy to go through those conferences and try to isolate the important speeches. Or perhaps I could send you copies if you find things are missing from your own collection. Or help in some other way!

     Hope to hear back from you when you get some time, Bill. Happy Thanksgiving to you, and thanks again for all your good and important work.  - Paul Nahra

Kudos, Bill for this vigilance and dedication which seems especially pertinent to the issues of disclosure and destruction of vital records in the JFK case. More now in this 60th anniversary year. I am grateful for the opportunity to gain valuable insight from your frequent postings, so thanks again and help us keep the kettle on the boil!  -  Greg Giorgio

Great Work, as always. Much appreciated. - Brandon 

Stauffenberg and Doolittle

Stauffenberg and Doolittle 

I'm back to JFK after spending time reading Nicholas Shakespeare's 800 page biography of Ian Fleming, and will be posting more frequently now. I will post a link to my review as soon as it is available. 

For starters, I recently picked up two other biographies at a used book store - Stauffenberg - The Architect of the Famous July 20 Conspiracy to Assassinate Hitler, by Joachim Kramarz and an introduction by H.R. Trevor-Roper (Macmillan, NY, 1967) and Gen. James H. "Jimmy" Doolittle's autobiography "I Could Never Be So Lucky Again." (Bantam, 1991).

Kramarz's Stauffenberg is a very objective study of the plot, that was also, according to Desmond FitzGerald,  "studied in detail" by the CIA to be used against Fidel Castro, a study that despite being lost by the CIA, can be seen to have developed into the AMLASH plot involving Dr. Rolando Cubela. 

Kramarz does mention Hans B. Gisivious, the Nazi officer who was befriended by Allen Dulles and kept Dulles informed of the development and ultimate failure of the plot, but Kramarz does not have much confidence in Gisiviou's perspective of things. Items that I will quote at length ASAP. 

As for Doolittle, I was less interested in his planning and leadership of the bombing raid over Tokyo than I was of his appointment by President Eisenhower as head of the Doolittle Commission, the three man overview of CIA covert intelligence operations. 

Doolittle says that only one copy of the report was made and he handed it directly to President Eisenhower, and only devotes a few paragraphs of the book to this important aspect of his career. 

Doolittle writes: "In November 1952, General Eisenhower was elected to the presidency. Despite the controversy I seemed to raise whenever I was party to a government stud and its resultant report, someone was pushing my name with the planners of the incoming administration to become the next Secretary of the Air Force. I was not and am not a politician. My identity has always been with aviation technological progress, and I do not like partisan politics to enter into the equation when it comes to issues affecting aeronautical developments. Being active in the Air Force Association at that time, I realized that politics entered into many basic technological decisions affecting the future of our defense establishment , but I was never comfortable when I felt the nation's survival depended on technical decisions made solely to satisfy biased political ends. 

I did not feel that accepting a political appointment as the civilian head of the Air Force fitted my nature or my desire to serve in a nonpartisan capacity.....

....In 1954, President Eisenhower asked me to chair a committee to study the Central Intelligence Agency. Sen. Joseph McCarthy had loudly claimed that communists had infiltrated the agency, and he had raised such a fuss that the President had no choice but to have a committee appointed to look into his accusations. Concurrently, he appointed General Mark Clark to head another committee to study the possible reorganization of the agency.....

We could not reveal the details of our CIA investigation, but our committee found the agency was doing a creditable job and was "exercising care to insure the loyalty of its personnel." 

I so reported to the President. In my cover letter I noted that there were important areas in which the CIA's organization, administration, and operations could and should be improved. The agency was aware of those problems, and steps were being taken toward their solution. Only one copy of that report was made and I handed it personally to the President.

He wrote me a thank-you letter saying, "Both the report itself and the discussion I was privileged to have with the group when the report was presented here were of unusual value in providing an appraisal and stocktaking of those operations." 

My appointment had its detractors. Westbrook Pegler, a nationally syndicated columnist, called our study a "whitewash" and wrote: 

"I see no reason to place any value on the report which James H. Doolittle has made for President Eisenhower, on the mysterious, secretive, and sinister agency of our government called the Central Intelligence Agency. To begin with, I know a little about Doolittle's career but absolutely nothing which seems to qualify him as a competent man in this field.....He was a friend of Ike and a protege of Roosevelt and he was favored by an overload of rank which presents him to history as a Lieutenant General. Although, this inflation, or dilution, of rank has worked to the popular discredit of the titles of Admiral and General in their several degrees..." 

Naturally, this column made me furious but I knew there was nothing I could do about it. It was his opinion and he was privileged to render it in print, but I have often wondered what the basis was for it......

It is very interesting that our old friend William Pawley was also a member of this committee. 

The Doolittle Report - From the CIA site: 
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP86B00269R000100040001-5.pdf

More on Gisivious and Stauffenberg coming as well. 

"Conspiracy" - the New "N" Word

 “Conspiracy” – the New “N” Word

In the course of my interaction with multiple, dedicated lone nutters who continue to promote the idea that one man alone was responsible for the murder of the president, one thing became quite clear – they are not so much interested in learning the full truth about the death of the president, but rather are concerned, focused and committed to debunking the many silly conspiracy theories that have been devised since the failure of government investigations to resolve the matter.

I have debunked more conspiracy theories than they can imagine, but since the official story is also proven wrong, one of the conspiracy theories must be correct.

Since most  “conspiracy theorists” (aka CTs) and all Lone Nutters (LNers)  believe they are crack sure as to who killed JFK, and promote their suspect, and I, after over fifty years studying this case, still do not know who killed JFK, I put them in the same sinking, stinking boat.

Even the term Conspiracy Theorist, was not popularly used until after JFK was killed, and was devised by the CIA psychological warfare department to describe those who were critical of the Warren Commission and its conclusions, it has become something of misnomer – and improperly used to describe crazy people who believe in all kinds of crazy things.

There is even a new line of books by prominent academics who, rather than investigate the truth, write about the silly conspiracy theories and study those who believe and promote them. 

I thought we were investigating an unresolved homicide.

LNers want to talk about the evidence, but can't write a paragraph or post without referring to conspiracy theorists. 

The Lners however, are strictly focused on the conspiracy theories, and debunking them, one and all, but put all CTs in the same pot, just as I put them all in the same boat. As John Judge said, “All conspiracy theories are not created equal,” and “you can call me a conspiracy theorists if I can call you a coincidence theorist,” because that’s what they would have you believe. All  of the things that came together to result in the assassination of the president were simply coincidences. But as David Atlee Phillips said, “The intelligence profession does not encourage one to believe coincidence as an explanation for events.”

So in order to disparage my own thinking about the assassination, I too have been branded a conspiracy theorist, but take exception to it, as does Jefferson Morley, since I don’t know who killed the president, do not point a finger at any particular suspect, and don’t have a theory to promote, other than what occurred at Dealey Plaza was a very well planned out and executed covert intelligence operation.

Most dedicated Lners are proud of the fact that they once held an open, inquiring mind and considered themselves conspiracy theorists, but then woke up and now see the light. One such LNer, Todd Vaughan, who knows that I detest the idea of conspiracy theorist – called me in a post “CT, CT, CT, CT,” as if repeating it over and over it would hurt my feelings.

It just got me to understand that “Conspiracy” is the new “N” word – and used in the same disparaging way that the “N” word was.

My late, great friend and associate comedian Dick Gregory, who helped get the Zapruder film on national TV, wrote a book he titled “Nigger,” and dedicated to his mother, because he could say the word and write about it openly.  Now, only other black people can call other black people “nigger” as it has risen to the level of a word censored by the mainstream media.

Gregory described a “nigger” as an unruly black man who didn’t hold a job, sold drugs, fathered children with different women, a deadbeat dad who didn’t care for his kids, lived with a single mom in a Section 8 welfare apartment and was what the word described them as. 

It is, in the same vein, as what Martin Luther King was saying when he wanted black men to be known for the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, 

Now the word “conspiracy” has rose to the same level, and as Todd Vaughan has used it to try to discredit me, it is used in the same derogatory way. 

Today, the “C” word is the new “N” word, no longer used to describe a crime committed by more than one person, but used in a disparaging way to cast a negative light on anyone who is critical of the official version of events – especially in regards to the assassination of President Kennedy.

Billkelly3@gmail.com

November 22, 1963 - November 22, 2023 - 60 Years After

November 22, 1963 - November 22, 2023 - Sixty Years After 

Sixty years ago I was a 12 year old grade school student at St. Joseph's in East Camden, N.J., when shortly after 1:30 pm, EST, the principle nun came on the intercom to announce that the President had been shot and that school was being suspended for the rest of the day. 

I walked home to 362 Garden Avenue and began climbing the Wheeping Willow Tree in the backyard when the phone rang, and I ran in the back kitchen door to answer the wall phone. It was my father, a Camden policeman - who told me not to leave the yard, as the President was killed and "we don't know what this is all about." 

I wondered then - what the murder of a president could in any way influence me, a kid playing in the  yard? 

And it's still not over, as the influence is still affecting not only me but all of us. 

A few years later, in 1968, as a 17 year old Camden Catholic High School student, I opposed the war in Vietnam, and came "clean for Gene" McCarthy, the poet Senator from Minnesotta who also opposed the war in Vietnam, and after narrowly defeating President LBJ in New Hampshire, forced him to decide not to run for re-election, that opened the door for RFK to run, as also as a peace candidate. 

I will never forget the morning my father woke me up to inform me that RFK had been killed in California, after defeating McCarthy in the primary election there, so I went to Chicago to the Democratic National Convention as a McCarthy campaign worker, and while wearing a jacket and tie, I was caught up in the street riots that really radicalized me. 

The following year, 1969, as a freshman at the University of Dayton, Ohio, I stopped by two tables that were set up outside the JFK Student Union lunchroom, one manned by two US Marines recruiting students to join their ROTC program, and the other by a long haired hippie I learned was John Judge. 

Judge, who was promoting military men to become consciencious objectors to the war, handed me a copy of Playboy Magazine and asked me to read the interview with New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. I knew a little about Garrison, my father, who worked as a detective in the Camden Country Prosecutors Office through a half dozen DAs, said that Garrison was just another politician looking for publicity to get votes. 

But the Playboy interview sparked my interest, and Judge took me over to the new campus library and showed me where the 26 volumes of Warren Commission testimony and evidence was kept, and I began reading, and also reviewed copies of a magazine Computers and Automation, that had a series of photos on the assassination along with a number of articles. 

Judge and I were sitting in the JFK Student Union lunchroom drinking coffee in 1972 as I read the Dayton Daily News, and began reading a short news report buried deep in the paper that detailed the Watergate breakin, complete with names - Bernard Barker, Eugenio Martinez, E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis, G. Gorden Liddy. "Let me see that," Judge exclaimed, and after reading it for himself, said "These are the same muther fuckers who killed JFK." 

We then went over to the UD library and began looking up the names in Whose Who in Washington books and found most of them, and copied their background details, expanding our research from JFK to Watergate. 

Judge convinced the Student Body President, then Kevin Keefe, to bring in Mae Brussell from California to be a speaker. She did a weekly radio show from Carmel, California, called World Watchers, in which she tried to connect the dots of those who were running the shows - in Vietnam, Cuba, Dallas, Chicago, where ever there was a news story she would fill in the details. When she was finished with her lecture, I carried her bag of books to John Judge's car as she was to spend the night at John's apartment, and out of the darkness a man emerged and introduced himself as a friend of Mae. Ah, yes, Mae said, recognizing him, and thanking him for checks he sent her to support her research. "It's my conscience money," he said. And later, in talking to Judge, we noticed how much he resembled and spoke like Lee Harvey Oswald, and it turned out, had a similar background and may have been one of the impersonators. 

Since John Judge was from Washington D.C., we often went there, and attended some of the Watergate and later Church and House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) public hearings, as well as one of the first JFK Assassination Conferences at NYU Law School in New York City, where I met Mae again, as well as other first generation Warren Commission critics - Sylvia Meagher, Penn Jones, Ralph Schoeman and Col. Fletcher Prouty. 

I attended a lecture by Prouty held in a physics conference hall, where he explained how covert intelligence operations worked, and how you had to understand these principles in order to understand what really happened at Dealey Plaza when JFK was killed. 

Eventually Judge and I formed the Committee for an Open Archive, that became, along with the Assassinations Archives and Research Center (AARC) and Jim DiEugenio's outfit, the basis for the Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA), that became a major watchdog organization over the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) and lasted over 20 years. 

In 1992, at the urging of Jim Lesar, director of the AARC, I obtained a $3,000 grant from the Fund For Constitutional Government Investigative Journalism Project, that I used to buy a round trip ticket from Atlantic City to California and back, via Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Dallas, San Diego, Los Angeles and points in between, visiting other researchers, JFK witnesses and suspects. 

I often stayed with Judge in Washington D.C. and we became Archive Associates, visiting the old National Archives in downtown DC and the new Archives II in College Park, Md., where the JFK Collection is kept. 

When in Dallas one time I visited the Assassination Information Center, that was set up in a storefront on the third floor of a mall in the West End, behind the School Book Depository and Dealey Plaza. There I obtained three cassette tapes of Air Force One radio transmissions, that over the course of six months or so, I transcribed and posted at my JFKCountercoup blog. 

Once when Judge and I visited the Archives II, I asked for and made a copy of what the ARRB called the "Andrews AFB Logbook for November 22, 1963," and also posted on my blog, that detailed the timing of the take off and landings of various planes, including AF1, the Cabinet Plane and the jet that brought AF Chief of Staff General LeMay back to DC in the immediate aftermath of the assassination, as he had been hunting and fishing in North Michigan and Canada. 

When the reel to reel tapes of AF1 radio transmission were discovered among the effects of General Clifton, JFK's military aide, I obtained a copy from NARA and transcribed them as well, combining the longer length with what was on the cassettes that were released by the LBJ library in the mid-1970s. 

From the Clifton tapes I learned the identity of two individuals, one Robert Patterson, a military officer, code named STRANGER who was in the White House Situation Room at the time of the assassination and can be heard on conversations with AF1 and the Cabinet plane. 

There is also a Colonel Dorman, who identified himself as General LeMay's aide, who had an important message for LeMay, who was then enroute fo DC from Canada, but the message is not on the existing tapes. 

I then learned about Ed Primeau, a Michigan Acoustics Forensic expert who agreed to combine the two existing tapes, and clean them up of static and noise so they can be heard more clearly. He also mentioned that there are many clear splices in both copies, so there is still an even longer, unedited tape out there somewhere, or it was intentionally destroyed. 

I presented this clear and combined tape to the Wecht Conference in Pittsburgh during the 50th anniversary conference in 2013, and also arranged for it to be aired over WLFR - FM, the Stockton University, NJ student radio station on November 22, that year, 50 years to the hour it was originally broadcast.  

Then, I really believed that by today, we would have all of the records as required by Congress under the JFK Act of 1992, and we would be much further along than we are. 

I have been writing what I have learned over the years, decades, at my blogs JFKCountercoup and JFKCountercoup2, and will be putting the best of the posts together in one volume of my work, along with some of my personal narrative and an appendix - anthology of other works - news reports, magazine articles, book excerpts and transcripts of TV shows, films, movies and conference presentations that I mention in my own work and feel important to preserve in one place. 

Besides collecting all of these works together, I will be continuing my research to try to answer the outstanding questions, and focus my work on areas that no one else seems to be doing. I don't want to repeat the same things over and over, nor engage in silly arguments over the acoustics, single bullet theory, Zapruder film, authenticy of photos or any of that. 

Rather, instead of arguing, or focusing on who killed JFK and why - I will, to the best of my ability, address and answer the other question - How - how as JFK killed? - What was the mechanism of death, and how did those actually responsible get away with it? 

I have decided to devote at least one more year to this endeavour, and will also continue some other writings I have been working on that I will fill you in on when I can. 

In the meantime, I am quite somber on this 60th anniversary, as it isn't what I expected it to be, and rather than get depressed, I look forward to yet another year of continuing this quest, this great adventure that we are all involved in. 

Bill Kelly 

To comment on this story or this series you can contact me anytime: 

billkelly3@gmail.com 

609-346-0229

Relevant News Articles

Relevant News Articles 

In the course of compiling a JFK Anthology, I have broken down items for inclusion into various categories - News Reports, Feature Articles, Book Excerpts, and Transcripts of Films, Videos, Interviews and Conference Presentations. 

As far as News Reports go, there are a number that fit into my own work - 

1) September 9th - Associted Press Report of Harker's 7th interview with Fidel Castro at the Brazilian embassy reception in Havana in which he complained about CIA trained terrorists attacking Cuban industrial facilities and that American leaders would not be safe if they tried to kill Cuban leaders, at the very same time a CIA agent met with Dr. Rolando Cubeala (AMLASH) in Brazil, to discuss killing Castro, indicating he was a double agent. 

2) November 1, 1963 New York Times article on the CIA Raider Ship Rex, docked at Palm Beach, Florida not far from the Kennedy compound. The NYTs identify the ship as having just returned from a mission to Cuba where it deposited anti-Castro Cuban commandos with high powered rifles sent to kill Cuban leaders. The commandos were paid and trained by the CIA at their Miami JMWAVE station. The boat, the NYTs reprots, was previously owned by Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, sold to an oil company and leased to the Collins Radio Company of Richardston, Texas for "electronics research." '

3) The November 23, 1963 New York Herald Tributne report from Dallas that quotes Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) Vice President Ochis Campbell as saying that when he reentered the building after the shooting he saw Lee Harvey Oswald standing next to the stairs to the second floor. 

4) The 1980 Scripts Howard News Service (SHNS) report, "leaked from the NSA" - National Security Agency, that says "Castro was planning to assassinte President Reagan as he had previously killed President Kennedy." John Hinkley shot Reagan a few weeks later. 

5) JFK visit to the USAF Strike Force in Florida a week before he was assassinated. 

6) News reports on the Chicago murder of Sam Giancana shortly before he was to testify before Congress about his knowledge of CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro, and news reports from Miami on the murder of John Rosselli shortly after he did testify before secret Congressional hearings about the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro, that he was involved in. Both of these are still unsolved cold case homicides that can and should be legally resolved. 

7) London Sunday Times interview with US Navy Lt. Commander Thomas Narut at a NATO conference in Norway, who said the Navy used the MMPI to test recruits, looking for the Passive-Aggressive personality to train as assassins.

8) 

 Others - more to come. 

Relevant Feature Articles

1) McCleans Mag. article on the conversation overheard at Canadian Airport lounge.

2) Gaeton Fonzi article on David Atlee Phillips in Washingtonian Magazine.

3) New Republic articles by Jean Daniel on his interviews with JFK and Castro.

4) Castro on the Grassy Knoll - 

5) Italian magazine article on Permindex.

6) Bill Turners Articles in Ramparts.

7) Philadelphia Magazine article on assassination by Mike Mallow that mentions Mrs. Paine and Catherwood Foundation.

8) Life Magazine Column by Clare Booth Luce about her "Cuban Boys" that ran terrorist raids into Cuba.

9) Ladies Hime Journal article about CBL's phone call 11/22/63 from the leader of the JMWAVE team Julio Fernandez who said he had photos and recordings of Oswald proving him to be a Castro sympathizer.

10) Tony Summers article in Vanity Fair on his interviews with John Martinos widow and son. 

11) Max Hollands article in CIA publication on how the KGB duped Jim Garrison.

12) Dick Russell's articles in Village Vouce.

13) William Weston articles in Third Decade on Oswald sightings.

14) SOF article on Bayo-Pawley mission

15) 

Bill Kelly's article on The Collins Radio Connections.

14) John Judge and Bill Kelly's article Bottlefed By Oswald's NANA.

15) OTHERs coming.

Send Suggestions to billkelly3@gmail.com 

Why CAPA is Kaput.

 Why CAPA is KAPUT

And why I am not in Pittsburgh

When John Judge died, and the Coalition On Political Assassinations (COPA) was wrongfully dissolved after 20 years as the most effective active group, I initiated a conference call among serious researchers to form a new organization that became CAPA.

I suggested the name Citizens Against Political Assassinations because I thought a group of like minded individuals could work together towards common goals. Boy was I wrong.

I nomined Dr. Wecht to be chairman, as he was for COPA, and I served as its first secretary for the first four years, preparing agendas, writing minutes and editing two 20 page news letters. The newsletters were discontinued when Gerry Policof decided social media platforms were superior, so I began a CAPA Facebook group. 

At my request, Glenda replaced me as CAPA secretary, so I could devote more time to research and headed the Research Committee.

No one in the JFK community had heard of Glenda DeVaney before. She wrote a letter to her California senator asking her to support the release of the JFK records, and shared the letter with Dr. Wecht, who asked her to join the CAPA Executive Board, saying that we were a group of men, needed a women on board, and I agreed. She said she lived in San Diego, and was somehow affiliated with the Navy, then denied the Navy connection. 

Policoff and Larry Schnapf left the board after a "falling out" with Dr. Wecht, and Policoff died in a traffic accident after complaining of being poisoned. Schnapf and Bill Simpuch, who headed the CAPA Legal Committee, both left and filed their suit against Biden and NARA under the Mary Ferrell banner instead of CAPA.

Simpich told me he left because Secretary Glenda had insulted him and his conference contacts he had faithfully provided her when requested. Glenda took over as conference chair. It was a successful conference at the Dallas Marriott, and those I had requested made  presentations - Dr. Newman, Jeff Morley, and former CIA officer Rolf Mowett Larrson, all of whom made significant contrabutions. I also spoke on the release of the records. 

Unfortunately my debit card was rejected at the desk, and when I told Dr. Wecht, he had CAPA pay for my room with the understanding I would pay it back, which I did to the tune of $500 over a period of a few months. Of those dozen whose flights and hotel bills were paid by CAPA, all doctors, lawyers and producers (Oliver Stone included), who earn six figures a year, I was the only one to reemburse CAPA. 

With the arrival of COVID, Glenda chaired the 2021 virtual conference, and strongly objected to my video presentation on 2 taped interviews with Gene Wheaton and Lee Shephards interview with Carl Jenkins, but she was unamously over ruled by the rest of the CAPA Board. 

While my presentation ran, Glenda added a disclaimer on the program of her disapproval, though I believe it was one of the most important presentations in that conference, researach that is actually panning out, and others, besides myself, - Dan Storper, Larry Hancock, Matt Ehling and Dan Alcorn, are following up on those leads today. 

It was also the first indication to me that there was a serious problem with Glenda, a rare name that she shares with the Good Witch of the East in the Merry old land of Oz. Sometimes I feel that is where CAPA is.  

Glenda chaired the organization of the in-person November 2022 conference in Dallas, but didn't bother asking the Research Committee for any advice as to the state of the research. And I didn't attend as I was recovering from a serious illness that required a blood transfusion, and was in a COVID lockdown with two members of my household testing positive. 

I did however, write a blogpost promoting the conference a month before hand, and went on Len Osanic's Black Op Radio and promoted it, and arranged for Dr. Wecht and Glenda to appear on the show to promote the conference.  I also made arrangements for someone to pick up Dr. Wecht at the Dallas Airport and take him to his hotel and return him to the airport when the conference was over.

When Michael Nurko, a former COPA member, could no longer be treasurer, Glenda made arrangements for her accountant to be the paid treasurer, so now she was conference chair, secretary and controlled the bank account, that because of a few generous doners, was now five figures. 

The largest expenditure of late was to give thousands of dollars to a guy to make a digital survey of Dealey Plaza, even though Larry Schnapf and John Orr spent $30,000 of their own money to so a more detailed survey two years earlier, and reported on it at a CAPA conference. The two surveys should be compared, but Schnapf and Orr are no longer with CAPA. 

She also hired a Facebook "analytics" guy for $700 to build a social media campaign but he learned that I had already started a CAPA Facebook group seven years earlier that had over 3,000 followers. So Glenda asked me to make him a co-administrator, which I did, and the first thing he did was to remove me as an administrator. The notice from Facebook that this occurred was another indication that something was seriously wrong, and that Glenda was behind it.

When I complained, Glenda sent me a letter that she had wrote saying that the CAPA Board had voted to remove me for "not supporting CAPA," an outrageous claim since I have done more to promote CAPA than anyone other that Dr. Wecht. She said Dr. Wecht had signed off on the dismissal, and shortlhy there after I received a form letter complete with letterhead from Dr. Wecht saying the Board voted to remove me, but the letter was returned to him as it had a wrong address, so it was emailed to me. 

The wrong address was not the only thing wrong, as when I polled the Board, both Nurko and Dr. Aguilar said that they were never asked to vote on such a measure, and would not vote to remove me if they were asked. So it was only Glenda, who talks privately with Dr. Wecht on the phone, who convinced Dr. Wecht to remove me for "not supporting CAPA." It is a ruling that I am the only person ever to be charged with and probably the last. It is certainly not a rule on the books that can be applied, and was made up, by Glenda, just for me. 

When I contacted Dr. Wecht's son Ben and asked him what was going on - he replied, "You don't know what its like taking care of a 92 year old father," but I did, I informed him that I took care of my mother from when she was 85 until she passed at 92, so I do understand. And my mother kept her wits about her until the very end. 

And I give Dr. Wecht a bye and forgive him for his transgressions, but I sort of feel like the Kurt Douglas Colonel in Seven Days in May after learning his hero was a bookie and a traitor, and I feel by the man I admired most betrayed me.

In his autobiography "The JFK Assassination Dissected," Dr. Wecht wrote: "John Patrick Judge co-founded the Committee for an Open Archives in 1990 to push for full public disclosure of the JFK case. Prior to the JFK Records Act, Judge and his group had already been instrumental in getting many files declassified. Judge was also executive secretary of the Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA), a group for which I served as first elected chairman....William Kelly, the other co-founder of the Committee for an Open Archives, was a journalist who wanted material released involving John Martino....After Judge's death, COPA disbanded, and Bill Kelly helped to form Citizens Against Politcial Assassinations (CAPA), of which I serve as chairman of its Executive Committee...." 

I didn't just help form CAPA, I instigated it, attened every meeting, and actively promoted CAPA on my blog dozesn of times, even after I was unofficially ousted by Glenda, with the approval of Dr. Wecht, for the outrageous and unsupportale charge of "not supporting CAPA." 

A lawyer associate asked me if I thought Glenda was assigned to infiltrate CAPA and minimilize me as a threat, as her opposition to my 2021 Presentation suggested, and I said no, she was just a mean, scorned and vindictive women who privately conBoard the now vulnerable Dr. Wecht to do her bidding and eliminate me from the CAPA board.

Unlike the Assassinations Archive and Research Center (AARC), where the longtime director Jim Lesar was recently replaced by the very capable Dan Alcorn when Lesar became ill, there is no one who can fill Dr. Wecht's shoes and assume chairmanship. Dr. Aguilar maybe. But he is too busy to attend meetings. And the game is almost over. Time is running out and there is no stopping it. 

Dr. Wecht was a great chairman, ran meetings according to the agenda and was fair and even in his decisions, other than to remove me from the Board. As he was once wrongfully charged for things he didn't commit, I know he understands how I feel. 

And Glenda is a mother, and she should understand that I feel like CAPA was my baby that she has stole. 

Dr. Wecht apparently is no longer capable of conducting the twice monthly conference call meetings as he used to, and I'm sorry for that. So it's over. CAPA is K-Caput.

In Pittsburgh Dr. Wecht was granted a well deserved Lifetime Achievement Award and his legacy is set and cannot be taken from him. 

The November 2923 Pittsburgh conference is, in Dr. Wecht's words, "The Last Hurrah," and indeed it is. 

The most important thing that has developed is the establishment of a permanent Wecht Collection at the Duquesne University Library, where Dr. Wecht's books and papers will be kept and others added to them. 

I was going to drive Michael Nurko's 300 books to Pittsburgh to add to that collection and may still do that but decided not to attend the conference for all of these reasons. 

But because a half-dozen people have inquired as to why I am not there, I decided to write this so everyone interested can know the truth. 

Like COPA and other similar organizations, CAPA didn't fail because of any attacks from those we acuse of being political assassins or conspirators against democracy, its demise can only be attributed to petty personal jealousies and power plays by mean, vindictive people. 

As Walt Kelly.s Pogo says: "We have met the enemy and he is us." 

All of this occured a year ago and I did nothing. 

Since I was not officially removed by a vote of the Board, I consider myself a CAPA founder and board member, and therefore offer the motion to fund the Wecht Collection with CAPA funds. Because there is a large among of money in the CAPA account, I suggest that it be turned over to Ben Wecht to hire an assitant librarian to catalogue the conents of the Wecht collection at the library and open it to researchers, something we have been talking about for decades. 

Since the CAPA Board never voted to remove me, I consider myself a Citizen Against Political Assassintaions and submit the motion to have the remaining CAPA funds transferred to Ben Wecht to hire an assistant librarian to catalogue the Wecht Collection and any additional items that will be added to it. 

Mike Nurko said he agreed with this idea, and thus seconds the motion that all CAPA members should weigh in on. 

At least something good will come out of all this. 

After organizing the Committee for an Open Archives, the Coalition on Political Assassinations and Citizens Against Political Assassinations, I am going to try to form a new, hopeully permanent institution - the Center for the Study of Political Assassinations (CSPA) - that will be based in DC and eventually have a brick and mortor base of operations. 

I will also be writing a full and complete history of both COPA and CAPA, from their beginnings to their demise, after I finish a few other projects I am working on. 

God Bless Dr. Wecht. 

Billkelly3@gmail.com 

Kenn Thomas - RIP

 Kenneth Francis Thomas

Kenn Thomas – RIP

I was sorry to learn of the death of Kenn Thomas, a long time associate who I met on an AMTRAK train as he recognized me from having attended a JFK conference in Dallas, the year Bill Clinton was elected president. I recall that because I was having dinner with Kenn when we passed through Arkansas, a dry state, so the waiter stopped serving our beer and wine until we passed the state line.

Kenn got off in St. Louis, while I continued on to Chicago on another leg of my cross-country train trip that I took to meet and interview other researchers, witnesses and suspects in the assassination, courtsey of a $3,000 grant from the Fund For Constitutional Government Investigative Reporters Project.

Kenn had a radio program and interviewed me in the back of the train, then sent me a tape on which you can hear the clacking of the train wheels in the background. He also gave me some psychedelic mushrooms and a tape of the Irish rock band movie The Commitments.

Kenn was also good friends with John Judge, and was a source for the manuscript passed among JFK buffs called the Torbitt Document, ostensibly written by a Texas lawyer with inside knowledge of the conspiracy to kill the President. Kenn later published the document with his Steamshovel Press he subtitled NASA, Nazis and JFK. It is the first documented record of the role of the mysterious Defense Industrial Security Command (DISC) intelligence network that is run out of Columbus, Ohio, of all places.

Kenn also offered to publish my work, and now that it’s almost ready, I’m sorry to say he can’t be of assistance.

More on Kenn from the St.Louis papers:

Musician, activist, veteran. An empty-handed army, who dedicated his life to the People. Celebrated by his wife Ellen, mother Lorrie, and his children (all the young punks to ever live.) Services: Memorial at Fortune Teller Bar, 2635 Cherokee Street. May 1, 6-10 p.m. Second line at 8:45. Wear dancing shoes.

When he was a young adult, Kenn Thomas, who died in his sleep on Friday, September 22 at the age of 65, was infamous for answering the phone, any phone, with just his name:  “Kenn.”

No “Hello” or “Thomas Household” or any other kind of introductory phrase greeted callers, whose time he said he didn’t want to waste. Of course, he also really liked to keep people on their toes. That was Kenn – witty, mischievous, and almost always one step ahead.

Kenn was born in St. Louis and grew up in and around Hillsdale and Pine Lawn, where he attended Catholic grade school. His parents moved around a bit during his youth. An important constant during those early years and throughout his life were comic books. Over his lifetime, he amassed a collection of comics that numbers in the thousands. He loved the artwork and the storytelling and was regularly spotted around town at comic book meetings and conventions. His favorite comic book artist was Jack Kirby.

As a teenager, Kenn put his substantial artistic skills to work writing and drawing his own comic strip, “Norm and Andy” for Normandy High School, from which he graduated in 1976. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and Speech Communication (1980) and a Master of Arts in English from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where he also spent the majority of his professional career. He was employed by the University’s Western Historical Manuscripts Collection and State Historical Society of Missouri as a Senior Manuscripts Specialist from 1986  until his retirement in 2019.

Kenn was a charming conversationalist who could talk about anything – music, politics, comic books, and (his favorite) conspiracies. He was a polymath, talented in multiple areas, and could pick up new skills seemingly effortlessly. He was a writer, an artist, a researcher. He could understand and explain even the densest literary works (Pynchon was his favorite). He took an acting class once and blew everyone away with his portrayal of Cardinal Wolsey. He was a gifted speaker with a DJ’s voice and worked at KWMU on the weekends for a few years when they still played music. He reviewed rock concerts in the 1980s for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and co-hosted a music and talk show on KDHX in its early on-air days, where they primarily played and discussed the music of Bob Dylan.

He was part of a small but (obsessively) devoted local group of Dylan diehards who saw every concert and got together to talk about and listen to Dylan recordings and bootlegs regularly. He loved the Beat poets and Timothy Leary and could claim a friendly connection to William Burroughs, for whom he accepted the honor of induction into the St. Louis Walk of Fame in 1990 when Burroughs was too frail to travel to his hometown. Kenn will be buried a stone’s throw from Mr. Burroughs at the beautiful, historic Bellefontaine Cemetery in North St. Louis.

Kenn published a conspiracy magazine, Steamshovel Press, and wrote or co-wrote 10 books on conspiracy topics, including “The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro.” He regularly contributed to other periodicals, wrote introductions to other writers’ books, and spoke about his research internationally at conferences. A full list of his works can be found on his Wikipedia page. He donated his papers to the University of Missouri.

Continued at:

https://stlouiscremation.com/obituaries/kenneth-francis-thomas/

A Spys Disinformed Propagation of the Assassination

 A Spy’s Disinformed Propagation of the Assassination 

By Billkelly3@gmail.com

Former CIA agent Bruce Held is writing a blog post on a Spys View of American History, the details of which clearly indicate can be classified as very distinct disinformation and black propaganda.

Bruce Held’s post on his 60 Years Ago Today blog falsely claims that Lee Harvey Oswald was inspired to kill the President after reading Daniel Harker’s September 9th 1963 Associated Press (AP) article published in the New Orleans newspaper reporting  on Harker’s September 7th interview with Fidel Castro at the Brazilian embassy in Havana. Held calls attention to the article that is indeed a significant piece of assassination evidence, although he misinterprets it.

 Harker’s AP article is the most frequently used source for those who try to pin the Dealey Plaza donkey tail on Fidel Castro, but is also an important lead into the nefarious counter-intelligence operations that have a bearing on the assassination.

Held writes: “Castro had made an impromptu appearance at a reception hosted by the Brazilian Embassy in Havana on Saturday evening, 7 September. He took the initiative to approach an American journalist named Daniel Harker and offered him a quick interview. In the interview Castro said, ‘We are prepared to fight them and answer them in kind. United States leaders should think that if they are aiding terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders, they themselves will not be safe. Let Kennedy and his brother Robert take care of themselves since they, too, can be the cause of an attempt which will cause their deaths.’”

The article published in the New Orleans Times Picayune on page 7 of the September 9th edition, has a headline that refers to Castro’s rant against the US government approved terrorist attacks against Cuban industrial targets by the CIA paid and trained Cubans that operated out of the JMWAVE station, notably the Pathfinders. Some of them were captured and tortured and admitted that the CIA paid and trained them. Some, like those who were captured in the late October raid by the CIA raider ship Rex, head high powered rifles with scopes, that CIA raider ship Captain Rolando Martinez said “weren’t for shooting rabbits.”  

Castro knew they were gunning for him, he just didn’t know if the Kennedy brothers had approved those CIA backed assassination missions, and there is no documented proof that they did, while there is documented proof that JFK had two backchannel communications going with Castro, one at the UN and another with French journalist Jean Daniel.

When Castro’s comments to Harker were quoted over the media, a handful of men (FitzGerald, his two assistants Bruce Cheever and Samuel Halpern and possibly one or two others) at the Cuban desk in the basement of the CIA headquarters at Langley knew that the date of the interview – September 7th, and the location – the Brazilian embassy, were significant indications that Castro knew about the meeting between Dr. Rolando Cubela (AMLASH) and Desmond FitzGerald’s agent Nestor Sanchez in Bolivia that very day. And the fact that a Cuban businessman had warned the CIA that Cubela was a “dangle,” a fake agent attempting to lure those who opposed Castro out into the open.

Held continues: “Castro made these threatening comments because he knew that a senior Cuban government official was meeting in Brazil at that very time, 5-8 September, with a senior CIA officer named Nestor Sanchez. The senior Cuban official, Rolando Cubela, volunteered to assassinate Castro and establish a new Cuban government that was less hostile to the United States. Sanchez told Cubela that his proposal would be brought to the attention of the “highest levels” of the US government and promised a response at their next meeting, scheduled for 29 October in Paris.”

What Held doesn’t tell you is that Nestor Sanchez’s boss and case officer Desmond FitzGerald, who had replaced William Harvey as head of the Cuban desk, personally met with Cubela in Paris and convinced him that the Kennedys did approve of assassinating Castro when in fact FitzGerald later testified that he never told them, or CIA director John McCone, who he knew to be Catholics who opposed murder on principle. While FitzGerald has the name associated with the Kennedys of Boston, the looks and charisma, he was not a Kennedy nor did he inform them of the Castro assassination operation.

According to Held, “By speaking to Harker, Castro had gone out of his way to warn the CIA that he knew about the ongoing discussions with Cubela. Unfortunately, we ignored the warning. What we found out some years later was that Cubela was a double agent. He was not working with the CIA; he was working for Cuban Counterintelligence.  Everything the CIA would ask Cubela to do would be immediately reported back to Castro.”

Yes, we agree that Cubela “But in the Harker interview, Oswald must have felt that Castro was speaking directly to him.”

But, and it’s a BIG But – we haven’t even established that Oswald actually read that issue or that article.

Held: “Five months before he had attempted to assassinate Edwin Walker in an effort to earn a place for himself in Cuba.”

But how is the Walker shooting related to Cuba, or an effort to earn a place for himself in Cuba? That is not established either. Oswald told Marina he tried to kill Walker because he was a fascist like Hitler who should have been assassinated as well. Nothing about Cuba.

Held:  “Just two weeks before he had renewed practicing with his sniper rifle,”

But wait a minute, the Warren Report concluded that Oswald didn’t practice with the rifle, nor did he ever purchase or have ammunition.

Held: “….explaining to his wife, ‘Fidel Castro needs defenders. I’m going to join an army of volunteers. I’m going to become a revolutionary.’”

Wow, I never heard that before. And it’s not footnoted, other than claiming Marina said it and I don’t believe she did.

“The threats against President Kennedy from Castro himself would have a profound impact on Oswald - - and, in 11 weeks, on the nation.”

But were they threats or a warning?

The Murder, Inc. that LBJ referred to was the mechanism “we were running a Murder, Inc. in the Caribbean,” and while Castro did have spies everywhere, including infiltrating JMWAVE, he tried and executed his opponents (ala American William Morgan), and didn’t have a mechanism like our Murder, Inc. – aka ZRRIFLE, that could do it.

The obvious question isn’t whether Oswald knew of the Harker interview, and Castro’s statements, or if Castro attempted to retaliate against JFK, but whether the Murder, Inc. Boys at JMWAVE redirected their target from Castro to JFK, as they certainly hated him as much as they did Fidel Castro.

And we know from the comments of Desmond FitzGerald after being informed of the assassination, wondering if his Cubans were involved, and the recently released Heath Memo, that there were those in the CIA itself who also suspected this immediately after the assassination and conducted an investigation of the JMWAVE station, the results of which have not been forthcoming. 

More on Disinformation at Dealey Plaza

In Deep Politics III Peter Dale Scott writes:

“In the days after the murders in Dallas, the U.S. Was flooded with dubious stories, most of them swiftly discredited, linking Oswald to either a Cuban or Soviet conspiracy. Those which most preoccupied the FBI and CIA all came out of Mexico. These stories exhibited certain common characteristics.  -  They all came from either directly from an intelligence source, or from someone in the hands of an intelligence agency  -  The Stories changed over time, to support either a pro-conspiratorial hypothesis (“Phase One”) or a rebuttal of this (“Phase Two”).-  The Warren Commission was led to believe that the“Phase One”stories were without basis. In fact a number of unresolved anomalies suggest that behind them was some deeper truth, still not revealed.- In retrospect, these stories should not have been taken seriously. In fact the CIA was able to rely on them, not as a source of truth, but as a source of coercive influence over the rest of the government. It will help us to understand what was going on if we refer to the stories, not as 'information' or even as 'allegations,' but as MANAGED STORIES. To say this leaves open the question of who were the ultimate managers?”

Scott: “I do wish to argue that these managed stories, fleeting and insubstantial though they are, were of central importance in determining the outcome of the Kennedy assassination investigation. In succeeding years, furthermore, the discredited 'Phase-One' stories have been revived to manipulate public opinion, even after the CIA and FBI had agreed on a 'Phase-Two' interpretation of Oswald's movements in Mexico City. In 2013, for example, the discredited Garro story of the twist party was revived in a mainstream book by Philip Shenon.”

Newman: “The plot to assassinate President Kennedy was designed to deceive both people in the government and the public at large.  A convincing trail of evidence was established to make it appear that the Kennedy brothers’ plan to overthrow Castro had been turned around and used against them by Fidel himself, resulting in the assassination of President Kennedy."

“There is an unstated corollary principal in the game of deception that Allen Dulles was kind enough to give us.  Once a “single piece” of a black operation has been compromised, the entire fabric of that operation can potentially unravel.”

You can't understand what happened at Dealey Plaza unless you understand the fundamentals of psychological warfare, disinformation and black propaganda – because that's the part of the Dealey Plaza operational plan that failed, that failed in its contention that Castro Cuban Communists were responsible for the assassination, and because it failed it gives us a good glimpse into the Looking Glass and brings us very close to those who designed the plan, especially the part that failed.

https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2015/06/disinformation-at-dealey-plazq.html

https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2015/04/list-of-psychwar-black-prop-ops.html

 

For an opposing perspective here’s a Naval War College Review of a book “Disinformation, Misinformation and the ‘Conspiracy” to Kill JFK Exposed” (Hamden, Conn. Archon Books, 1987) that dismisses all conspiracy theories and concludes JFK was killed by a deranged lone nut.

https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4213&context=nwc-review

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