Missing JFK Assassination Records

 Missing JFK Assassination Records - Revised and Updated

Missing JFK Assassination records is a key element in the case currently being heard in federal court in San Francisco. 

The Black Hole at the Archives  - Missing Assassination Records   

By William Kelly (billlkelly3@gmail.com)

[Thanks to G.W.Hail of Dallas for reminding me to update this file.]

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

-        -  A former National Security Advisor to the  president is caught stealing documents under his shirt, some of his own records from the Archives II, where the JFK Collection is kept.

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2017/10/notable-theftes-from-national-archives.html

-       -   The night time janitor at a major history museum sells off major artifacts to a collector for beer and cigarette money and is only caught after the collector showed off his rare relics at a gun show

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2017/10/museum-crooks.html

-        -   An archivist with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is caught selling rare photos, films and documents over eBay, including JFK Assassination Records.

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2017/10/case-of-missing-history.html

JFK Assassination Records

It appears that at some point agencies realized that every record turned over to the ARRB would eventually be released. So they adopted a strategy of keeping the most significant records from the JFK Collection.

-        -   John Newman makes copies of Eisenhower era documents on political assassinations that a few years later are no longer available.

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

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

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

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

Tunheim shrugged and looked at John Newman, who said to me, “You are.” 

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

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

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

I added a list of my own and after posting them received a response from a number of other prominent researchers with lists of their own.

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

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

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

4. Unedited AF1 Radio Transmission tapes from November 22, 1963. Two different edited versions of these tapes are available, one on cassette tapes released by the LBJ Library and a reel to reel version discovered among the personal effects of General Clifton. The White House Communications Agency (WHCA) is responsible for these tapes. As Vince Salandria has pointed out there was a transcript of the complete AF1 radio transmissions in the LBJ White House, where two reporters - T. H. White and William Manchester were permitted to read it and quote from it. They recount conversations not on either of the extant tapes. Possible sources - LBJ Library, Collins Radio, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, WHCA - Dallas Sheraton, Dallas Civil Defense bunker, SAC Bases, Amateur HAM radio club, governments of Cuba, Canada or Australia.

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

6. The Zapruder film briefing boards made at NPIC on the day after the assassination.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

14. Office of Naval Intelligence - ONI Defector File, as identified as an assassination record by Navy Lt. Com. T. Pike, but never turned over to the Archives.

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

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

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

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

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

20. RFK's date book for 1963 is missing from the Kennedy Library.

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

22. OSI - Office of Special Investigation military intelligence review of Oswald's State Department file is missing.

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

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

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

26.  Army Intelligence files on Oswald were kept from the Warren Commission and then "routinely" destroyed.

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

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

29. Records of the Dallas-based 488th Military (Strategic) Intelligence Detachment (Counter-Intelligence) unit histories and rosters 1962-1963.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Armstrong adds the following:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

54) All employment records of MO from 1955 thru 1963

55) SS records for Marina and LHO.

56) Since compiling this list I learned about the CIA officer who wrote a memo that mentions the CIA investigation of the JMWAVE Cubans who were suspected of having a role in the assassination, an official CIA investigation that we have no records of.

Comments:

Bill Simpich says: The National Archives has the duty to index the files themselves, and send a demand to the CIA for the missing files. The Act is in effect until "the Archivist certifies to the President and the Congress that all assassination-related records have been made available to the public in accordance with this Act."

D Starks said...This is a wonderful list and so glad you are still working on this stuff.  Outstanding content and good luck with Tunheim and any future searches. The Deep State wants to play like they are Winston and throws this all down the memory hole... and thieves are also looking for souvenirs they can sell.  Maybe some thieves are doing both - sanitizing the record and later enriching themselves with the loot.

Spearman said...

Disappointed that in #18 there isn't a more specific ref to the SS files that are missing from NARA concerning the Conservation Tour of late Sept 63. As I have mentioned to you before the SS told Tunheim that they had mistakenly shredded them 2 weeks before Tunheim had asked for them. When I looked for them at NARA the only piece of paper present in 2 boxes for the dates Sept 24 & 25 were said to have been "withdrawn for national security reasons". Seems to me those 2 days of SS records are important considering RC Nagell believed he was derailing a late Sept plot when he was arrested for bank robbery in El Paso on Sept 20 on his way to Mexico City to kill LHO.

I don’t blog, just read said...

This is extremely important Bill, and should be spread everywhere. This is the real key to the JFK Assassination-all the pertinent missing records, and accounts of missing bullets, fragments, Autopsy Photos, and X=Rays from those who were there.