"Learn from History", 31st Anniversary of the Assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB339/index.htm
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 339
Posted - March 23, 2011
By: Kate Doyle and Emily Willard
For more information contact:
Kate Doyle - 646/670-8841
kadoyle@gwu.edu

Washington, D.C., March 23, 2011 - Thirty one years ago tomorrow, El Salvador’s Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was shot and killed by right-wing assassins seeking to silence his message of solidarity with the country’s poor and oppressed. The assassination shocked Salvadorans already reeling in early 1980 from attacks by security forces and government-backed death squads on a growing opposition movement. Romero’s murder further polarized the country and set the stage for the civil war that would rage for the next twelve years.

In commemoration of the anniversary, the National Security Archive is posting a selection from our digital archive of 12 declassified U.S. documents that describe the months before his death, his assassination and funeral, as well as later revelations about those involved in his murder.

The documents are being posted as President Barack Obama leaves El Salvador, his final stop on a five-day trip to Latin America. Obama spent part of his time in the country with a visit to Monsignor Romero’s tomb last night. Although the United States funneled billions of dollars to the tiny country in support of the brutal army and security forces during a counterinsurgency war that left 75,000 civilians dead, the president made no reference to the U.S. role, seeking in his speeches instead to focus on immigration and security concerns. The day before his visit to Romero’s gravesite, Obama had told an audience in Chile that it was important that the United States and Latin America “learn from history, that we understand history, but that we not be trapped by history, because many challenges lie ahead.”

Just weeks before his murder, Archbishop Romero published an open letter to President Jimmy Carter in the Salvadoran press, asking the United States not to intervene in El Salvador’s fate by arming brutal security forces against a popular opposition movement. Romero warned that U.S. support would only “sharpen the injustice and repression against the organizations of the people which repeatedly have been struggling to gain respect for their fundamental human rights.” Despite his plea, President Carter moved to approve $5 million in military aid less than one year after the archbishop’s murder, as Carter was leaving office in January 1981.

Included in the posting are documents reporting on a secret, behind-the-scene effort by the United States to enlist the Vatican in pressuring Romero over his perceived support for the Salvadoran left; an account of the archbishop’s powerful March 23, 1980, homily, given the day before his assassination; a description of the murder by the U.S. defense attaché in El Salvador; and an extraordinary embassy cable describing a meeting organized by rightist leader Roberto D’Aubuisson in which participants draw lots to determine who would be the triggerman to kill Romero.

Although the declassified documents do not reveal the extent of the plot to kill Romero or the names of those who murdered him, details in them support the findings of the 1993 report by the U.N.-mandated Truth Commission for El Salvador. Released shortly after the signing of the peace accords that ended the war in El Salvador, the report identified D’Aubuisson, Captains Alvaro Rafael Saravia and Eduardo Avila, and Fernando (“El Negro”) Sagrera as among those responsible for the assassination. On March 25 of last year, Carlos Dada of El Salvador’s on-line news site El Faro published an extraordinary interview with Alvaro Saravia, one of the masterminds of Romero’s killing. In the interview, Saravia revealed chilling details of the plot to murder Romero; see a transcript of the interview, “How We Killed the Archbishop”,here and here en español.

The documents posted below are from the National Security Archive’s Digital National Security Archive’s two El Salvador collections,El Salvador: The Making of U.S. Policy, 1977–1984and El Salvador: War, Peace, and Human Rights, 1980–1994. These two full collections, among others, are available through a subscription with the ProQuest research database.

Read the Documents
Document 1
October 11, 1979
Confidential, Cable, “The Archbishop and the Military”, 2 pp.
United States Embassy. El Salvador
In his homily, Archbishop Romero decries repression by the Salvadoran military and criticizes the army for abandoning its role as the nation’s defender to become “guardian of the interests of the oligarchy.”

Document 2
December 17, 1979
Unclassified, Cable, “Archbishop Strongly Urges Agrarian Reform”, 3 pp.
United States Embassy. El Salvador
Archbishop Oscar A. Romero speaks in support of agrarian reform, criticizing the oligarchy for arming those who seek to preserve the status quo and citing the Catholic Church’s Medellin Council recognition of “right of oppressed to exert pressure, but not through armed violence.”

Document 3
January 31, 1980
Secret, Memorandum, [Draft Letter Attached], “Letter from Dr. Brzezinski to the Pope”, 5 pp.
United States. Department of State, Office of the Secretary
Presents draft of letter to Pope John Paul II outlining areas of concern in Central America and requesting assistance in persuading Archbishop Romero not to "abandon" Revolutionary Governing Junta in favor of more radical leftists in El Salvador.

Document 4
February 19, 1980
Unclassified, Cable, “Text of Archbishop's Letter to President Carter“, 1 pp.
United States Embassy. El Salvador
Archbishop Romero addresses President Jimmy Carter, imploring him not to provide military aid or any other form of assistance that could exacerbate state violence targeting Salvadoran citizens. “I am very worried by the news that the government of the United States is studying a form of abetting the arming of El Salvador,” Romero writes. “The contribution of your government instead of promoting greater justice and peace in El Salvador will without doubt sharpen the injustice and repression against the organizations of the people which repeatedly have been struggling to gain respect for their fundamental human rights.”

Document 5
March 1, 1980
Confidential, Cable, “Reply to Archbishop's Letter to President Carter“,1 pp.
United States Embassy. El Salvador
Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance responds to Archbishop Romero’s letter regarding criticisms of U.S. security assistance to El Salvador, assuring him that President Carter shares his concerns about the human rights of Salvadoran citizens. “Any equipment and training which we might provide would be designed to overcome the most serious deficiencies of the Armed Forces, enhancing their professionalism so that they can fulfill their essential role of maintaining order with a minimum of lethal force.”

Document 6
March 23, 1980
Confidential, Cable “Archbishop's Homily, March 23”, 4 pp.
United States Embassy. El Salvador
This cable reports on Archbishop Romero’s homily, the day before he was assassinated. He speaks of the increasing tension with Salvadoran security forces and condemns rampant killings: “In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression!”

Document 7
March 25, 1980
Confidential, Cable, “Archbishop Romero Assassinated”, 2 pp.
United States Defense Intelligence Agency. Office of the Defense Attaché, El Salvador
This document reports the assassination of Archbishop Romero and includes brief description of events.

Document 8
March 26, 1980
Confidential, Cable, “Archbishop's Assassination: Peaceful Procession”, 2 pp.
United States Embassy. El Salvador
This cable reports on the procession of thousands of people accompanying Archbishop Romero’s coffin from the basilica to the National Cathedral.

Document 9
March 26, 1980,
Unclassified, Cable, “White House Statement on Archbishop Romero's Assassination”, 2 pp.
United States. Department of State
The United States government issues statement condemning the assassination of Archbishop Romero.

Document 10
November 19, 1980,
Secret, Cable “Conversation with National Guard Officer”, 3 pp.
United States Embassy. El Salvador
A source from the National Guard tells a U.S. embassy political officer that National Republican Alliance (Alianza Republicana Nacional—ARENA) founder Roberto D'Aubuisson organized a meeting a day or two before the assassination of Archbishop Romero in which “participants drew lots for the task of killing the archbishop.”

Document 11
February 25, 1981
Unclassified, Cable, “El Salvador: Army Officers Implicated in Romero Killing”, 1 pp.
United States. Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Panama
Radio Venceremosclandestinely broadcasts an interview with “disillusioned army officer” Lt. Col. Ricardo Bruno Navarrete implicating Roberto D'Aubuisson, and members of the Salvadoran armed forces in the assassination of Archbishop Romero.

Document 12
December 21, 1981
Secret, Cable, “Assassination of Archbishop Romero”, 2 pp.
United States Embassy. El Salvador
This document is a follow-up to the November 19 embassy cable concerning a meeting to plan the assassination of Archbishop Romero. In it, a U.S. political officer reports additional information from the same National Guard source indicating that Romero’s killer was Walter “Musa” Antonio Alvarez. [The UN Truth Commission Report on El Salvador would later identify Alvarez as involved in conveying money supplied by Roberto D’Aubuisson as payment to Romero’s assassin, see pp. 130-1.]

by Jeffrey T. Richelson
September 27, 2000

More declassified documents and
Archive publications on U.S. intelligence:
U.S. Intelligence Policy
Documentation Project
For more information:
Jeffrey Richelson 202/994-7000
Michael Evans 202/994-7029


In September 1992 the Department of Defense acknowledged the existence of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), an agency established in 1961 to manage the development and operation of the nation's reconnaissance satellite systems. The creation of the NRO was the result of a number of factors.

On May 1, 1960 Francis Gary Powers took off from Peshawar, Pakistan on the U-2 mission designated Operation GRAND SLAM. The flight was planned to take him over the heart of the Soviet Union and terminate at Bodo, Norway. The main target was Plesetsk, which communications intercepts had indicated might be the site of an ICBM facility.1 When the Soviet Union shot down his plane and captured him alive, they also forced President Dwight Eisenhower to halt aerial overflights of Soviet territory.

At that time the U.S. had two ongoing programs to produce satellite vehicles that could photograph Soviet territory. Such vehicles would allow far more frequent coverage than possible with manned aircraft. In addition, they would avoid placing the lives of pilots at risk and eliminate the risks of international incidents resulting from overflights.

The Air Force program, designated SAMOS, sought to develop a number of different satellite systems--including one that would radio its imagery back to earth and another that would return film capsules. The CIA program, CORONA, focused solely on developing a film return satellite.

However, both the CIA and Air Force programs were in trouble. Launch after launch in the CORONA program, eleven in all by May 1, 1960, eight of which carried cameras, had resulted in failure--the only variation was in the cause. Meanwhile, the SAMOS program was also experiencing difficulties, both with regard to hardware and program definition.2
Concerns over SAMOS led President Eisenhower to direct two groups to study both the technical aspects of the program as well as how the resulting system would be employed.

The ultimate result was a joint report presented to the President and NSC on August 25, 1960.3
As a result of that meeting Eisenhower approved a first SAMOS launch in September, as well as reorientation of the program, with the development of high-resolution film-return systems being assigned highest priority while the electronic readout system would be pursued as a research project. With regard to SAMOS management, he ordered that the Air Force institute special management arrangements, which would involve a direct line of authority between the SAMOS project office and the Office of the Air Force Secretary, bypassing the Air Staff and any other intermediate layers of bureaucracy.4

Secretary of the Air Force Dudley C. Sharp wasted little time creating the recommended new structure and procedures. On August 31st Sharp signed Secretary of the Air Force Order 115.1, establishing the Office of Missile and Satellite Systems within his own office to help him manage the SAMOS project. With Order 116.1, Sharp created a SAMOS project office at the Los Angeles headquarters of the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division (AFBMD) as a field extension of the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force to carry out development of the satellite.5

The impact of the orders, in practice, was that the director of the SAMOS project would report directly to Under Secretary of the Air Force Joseph V. Charyk, who would manage it in the Secretary's name. In turn, Charyk would report directly to the Secretary of Defense.6

The changes would not stop there. The urgency attached to developing a successful reconnaissance satellite led, ultimately, to the creation of a top secret program and organization to coordinate the entire national reconnaissance effort.

Several of the documents listed below also appear in either of two National Security Archive microfiche collections on U.S. intelligence. The U.S. Intelligence Community: Organization, Operations and Management: 1947-1989 (1990) and U.S. Espionage and Intelligence: Organization, Operations, and Management, 1947-1996 (1997) publish together for the first time recently declassified documents pertaining to the organizational structure, operations and management of the U.S. Intelligence Community over the last fifty years, cross-indexed for maximum accessibility. Together, these two sets reproduce on microfiche over 2,000 organizational histories, memoranda, manuals, regulations, directives, reports, and studies, totaling more than 50,000 pages of documents from the Office of the Director of Central Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, military service intelligence organizations, National Security Council, and other official government agencies and organizations.

Document 1
Joseph Charyk, Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense
Management of the National Reconnaissance Program
24 July 1961
Top Secret
1 p.

The organizational changes resulting from the decisions of August 25, 1960 and their implementation left some unsatisfied. In particular, James Killian and Edwin Land, influential members of the President's intelligence advisory board pushed for permanent and institutionalized collaboration between the CIA and Air Force. After the Kennedy administration took office the push to establish a permanent reconnaissance organization took on additional life. There was a strong feeling in the new administration, particularly by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and his deputy, Roswell Gilpatric, that a better, more formalized relationship was required.7

On July 24, 1961, Air Force Undersecretary Joseph Charyk sent a memorandum to McNamara attaching two possible memoranda of agreement for creation of a National Reconnaissance Program, along with some additional material.

Document 2
Memorandum of Understanding
Management of the National Reconnaissance Program (Draft)
20 July 1961
Top Secret
5 pp.
This memo specified establishment of a National Reconnaissance Program (NRP) consisting of "all satellite and overflight reconnaissance projects whether overt or covert," and including "all photographic projects for intelligence, geodesy and mapping purposes, and electronic signal collection projects for electronic signal intelligence and communications intelligence."

To manage the NRP, a National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) would be established on a covert basis. The NRO director (DNRO) would be the Deputy Director for Plans, CIA (at the time, Richard Bissell) while the Under Secretary of the Air Force would serve as Deputy Director (DDNRO). The DNRO would be responsible for the management of CIA activities, the DDNRO and the Air Force for Defense Department activities. The DoD, specifically the Air Force acting as executive agent, would be primarily responsible for technical program management, scheduling, vehicle operations, financial management and overt contract administration, while the CIA would be primarily responsible for targeting each satellite. The office would operate under streamlined management procedures similar to those established in August 1960 for SAMOS.

Document 3
Memorandum of Understanding
Management of the National Reconnaissance Program (Draft)
21 July 1961
Top Secret
4 pp.
This secondary memorandum was prepared at the suggestion of Defense Department General Counsel Cyrus Vance. It offered a quite different solution to the problem. As with the primary memo, it established a NRP covering both satellite and aerial reconnaissance operations. But rather than a jointly run program, it placed responsibility for management solely in the hands of a covertly appointed Special Assistant for Reconnaissance, to be selected by the Secretary of Defense. The office of the Special Assistant would handle the responsibilities assigned to the NRO in the other MOU. The CIA would "assist the Department of Defense by providing support as required in areas of program security, communications, and covert contract administration."

Document 4
Memorandum
Pros and Cons of Each Solution
Not dated
Top Secret
2 pp.
The assessment of pros and cons favored the July 20 memorandum, listing five pros for the first solution and only two for the second. The first solution would consolidate responsibilities into a single program with relatively little disruption of established management, represented a proven solution, would require no overt organizational changes, would allow both agencies to retain authoritative voices in their areas of expertise, and provided a simplified management structure. The two cons noted were the division of program responsibility between two people, and that "successful program management depends upon mutual understanding and trust of the two people in charge of the NRO." It would not be too long before that later observation would take on great significance.
In contrast, there were more cons than pros specified for the second solution. The only two points in its favor were the consolidation of reconnaissance activities into a single program managed by a single individual and the assignment of complete responsibility to the agency (DoD) with the most resources. Foremost of the six cons was the need for DoD to control and conduct large-scale covert operations, in as much as it was an entity "whose normal methods are completely foreign to this task."

Document 5
Roswell Gilpatric, Letter to Allen Dulles
Management of the National Reconnaissance Program
6 September 1961
Top Secret
4 pp.
On July 28, 1961, four days after receiving Charyk's memorandum and draft memoranda of understanding, McNamara instructed Air Force Undersecretary Joseph Charyk to continue discussions with the key officials and advisers in order to resolve any organizational difficulties that threatened to impede the satellite reconnaissance effort. The ultimate result was this letter from Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric to Dulles, which confirmed "our agreement with respect to the setting up of the National Reconnaissance Program."
The letter specified the creation of a NRP. It also established the NRO, a uniform security control system, and specified that the NRO would be directly responsive to the intelligence requirements and priorities specified by the United States Intelligence Board. It specified implementation of NRP programs assigned to the CIA through the Deputy Director for Plans. It designated the Undersecretary of the Air Force as the Defense Secretary's Special Assistant for Reconnaissance, with full authority in DoD reconnaissance matters.
The letter contained no specific assignment of responsibilities to either the CIA or Defense Department, stating only that "The Directors of the National Reconnaissance Office will ... insure that the particular talents, experience and capabilities within the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency are fully and most effectively utilized in this program."
The letter provided for the NRO to be managed jointly by the Under Secretary of the Air Force and the CIA Deputy Director for Plans (at the time, still Richard Bissell). A May 1962 agreement between the CIA and Defense Department established a single NRO director. Joseph Charyk was named to the directorship shortly afterward.

Document 6
Joseph Charyk
Memorandum for NRO Program Directors/Director, NRO Staff
Organization and Functions of the NRO
23 July 1962
Top Secret
11 pp.
This memorandum represents the fundamental directive on the organization and functions of the NRO. In addition to the Director (there was no provision for a deputy director), there were four major elements to the NRO--the NRO staff and three program elements, designated A, B, and C. The staff's functions included assisting the director in dealing with the USIB and the principal consumers of the intelligence collected.
The Air Force Office of Special Projects (the successor to the SAMOS project office) became NRO's Program A. The CIA reconnaissance effort was designated Program B, while the Navy's space reconnaissance effort, at the time consisting of the Galactic Radiation and Background (GRAB) satellite, whose radar ferret mission involved the collection of Soviet radar signals, became Program C. Although the GRAB effort was carried out by the Naval Research Laboratory, the director of the Office of Naval Intelligence would serve as Program C director until 1971.8

Document 7
Agreement between the Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence on Management of the National Reconnaissance Program
13 March 1963
Top Secret
6 pp.
In December 1962, Joseph Charyk decided to leave government to become president of the COMSAT Corporation. By that time a number of disputes between the CIA and NRO had contributed to Charyk's view that the position of the NRO and its director should be strengthened. During the last week of February 1963, his last week in office, he completed a revision of a CIA draft of a new reconnaissance agreement to replace the May 1962 agreement (which had replaced the September 6, 1961 agreement). Charyk took the revision to Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric. It appears that some CIA-suggested changes were incorporated sometime after Charyk left office. On March 13, Gilpatric signed the slightly modified version on behalf of DoD. It was sent to the CIA that day and immediately approved by DCI John McCone, who had replaced Allen Dulles in November 1961.9
The new agreement, while it did not include all the elements Charyk considered important, did substantially strengthen the authority of the NRO and its director. It named the Secretary of Defense as the Executive Agent for the NRP. The program would be "developed, managed, and conducted in accordance with policies and guidance jointly agreed to by the Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence."
The NRO would manage the NRP "under the direction, authority, and control of the Secretary of Defense." The NRO's director would be selected by the Defense Secretary with the concurrence of the DCI, and report to the Defense Secretary. The NRO director was charged with presenting to the Secretary of Defense "all projects" for intelligence collection and mapping and geodetic information via overflights and the associated budgets, scheduling all overflight missions in the NRP, as well as engineering analysis to correct problems with collection systems. With regard to technical management, the DNRO was to "assign all project tasks such as technical management, contracting etc., to appropriate elements of the DoD and CIA, changing such assignments, and taking any such steps he may determine necessary to the efficient management of the NRP."

Document 8
Department of Defense Directive Number TS 5105.23
Subject: National Reconnaissance Office
27 March 1964
Top Secret
4 pp.
This directive replaced the original June 1962 DoD Directive on the NRO, and remains in force today. The directive specifies the role of the Director of the NRO, the relationships between the NRO and other organizations, the director's authorities, and security. It specified that documents or other material concerning National Reconnaissance Program matters would be handled within a special security system (known as the BYEMAN Control System).

Document 9
President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board
Memorandum for the President
Subject: National Reconnaissance Program
2 May 1964
Top Secret
11 pp.
The 1963 CIA-DoD agreement on the NRP did not end the battles between the CIA and NRO--as some key CIA officials, including ultimately DCI John McCone, sought to reestablish a major role for the CIA in the satellite reconnaissance effort. The continuing conflict was examined by the PFIAB.
The board concluded that "the National Reconnaissance Program despite its achievements, has not yet reached its full potential." The fundamental cause for the NRP's shortcomings was "inadequacies in organizational structure." In addition, there was no clear division of responsibilities and roles between the Defense Department, CIA, and the DCI.
The recommendations of the board represented a clear victory for the NRO and its director. The DCI should have a "large and important role" in establishing intelligence collection requirements and in ensuring that the data collected was effectively exploited, according to the board. In addition, his leadership would be a key factor in the work of the United States Intelligence Board relating to the scheduling of space and airborne reconnaissance missions.
But the board also recommended that President Johnson sign a directive which would assign to NRO’s Air Force component (the Air Force Office of Special Projects) systems engineering, procurement, and operation of all satellite reconnaissance systems.
Document 10
Agreement for Reorganization of the National Reconnaissance Program
13 August 1965
Top Secret
6 pp.
Despite the recommendations of the May 2, 1964 PFIAB report, which were challenged by DCI John McCone, no action was taken to solidify the position of the NRO and its director. Instead prolonged discussions over a new agreement continued into the summer of 1965. During this period the CIA continued work on what would become two key satellite programs--the HEXAGON/KH-9 imaging and RHYOLITE signals intelligence satellites.
In early August, Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus Vance and CIA official John Bross reached an understanding on a new agreement, and it was signed by Vice Adm. William F. Raborn (McCone's successor) and Vance on August 13, 1965. It represented a significant victory for the CIA, assigning key decision-making authority to an executive committee, authority that was previously the prerogative of the NRO director as the agent of the Secretary of Defense.
The Secretary of Defense was to have "the ultimate responsibility for the management and operation of the NRO and the NRP," and have the final power to approve the NRP budget. The Secretary also was empowered to make decisions when the executive committee could not reach agreement.
The DCI was to establish collection priorities and requirements for targeting NRP operations, as well as establish frequency of coverage, review the results obtained by the NRP and recommend steps for improving its results if necessary, serve on the executive committee, review and approve the NRP budget, and provide security policy guidance.
The NRP Executive Committee established by the agreement would consist of the DCI, Deputy Secretary of Defense, and Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology. The committee was to recommend to the Secretary of Defense the "appropriate level of effort for the NRP," approve or modify the consolidated NRP and its budget, approve the allocation of responsibility and the corresponding funds for research and exploratory development for new systems. It was instructed to insure that funds would be adequate to pursue a vigorous research and development program, involving both CIA and DoD. The executive committee was to assign development of sensors to the agency best equipped to handle the task.
The Director of the NRO would manage the NRO and execute the NRP "subject to the direction and control of the Secretary of Defense and the guidance of the Executive Committee." His authority to initiate, improve, modify, redirect or terminate all research and development programs in the NRP, would be subject to review by the executive committee. He could demand that all agencies keep him informed about all programs undertaken as part of the NRP.

Document 11
Analysis of "A $1.5 Billion Secret in Sky" Washington Post, December 9, 1973
Not dated
Top Secret
33 pp.
Throughout the 1960s, the United States operation of reconnaissance satellites was officially classified, but well known among specialists and the press. However, it was not until January 1971 that the NRO's existence was first disclosed by the media, when it was briefly mentioned in a New York Times article on intelligence and foreign policy.
A much more extensive discussion of the NRO appeared in the December 9, 1973 Washington Post as a result of the inadvertent mention of the reconnaissance office in a Congressional report. The NRO prepared this set of classified responses to the article, clearly intended for those in Congress who might be concerned about the article's purported revelations about the NRO's cost overruns and avoidance of Congressional oversight.

Document 12
E.C. Aldridge, Jr. (Director, NRO)
Letter to David L. Boren, Chairman,
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
21 November 1988
Secret
3 pp.
The late 1980s saw the beginning of what eventually would be a wide-ranging restructuring of the NRO. In November 1988 NRO director Edward "Pete" Aldridge wrote to Senator David Boren, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, concerning the findings of an extensive study (the NRO Restructure Study) of the organizational structure of the NRO.
Aldridge proceeded to report that, after having discussed the study's recommendations with Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci and Director of Central Intelligence William Webster, he was directing the development of plans to implement the recommendations. Specific changes would include the creation of a centralized systems analysis function "to conduct cross-system trades and simulations within the NRO," creation of a "User Support" function to improve NRO support to intelligence community users as well as to the growing number of operational military users, and the dispersal of the NRO Staff to the new units, with the staff being replaced by a group of policy advisers. In addition, Aldridge foresaw the establishment of an interim facility "to house the buildup of the new functions and senior management." The ultimate goal, projected for the 1991-92 period, would be the "collocation of all NRO elements [including the Los Angeles-based Air Force Office of Special Projects] . . . in the Washington, D.C. area."

Document 13
Memorandum of Agreement
Subject: Organizational Restructure of the National Reconnaissance Office
15 December 1988
Secret
2 pp.
This memorandum of agreement, signed by the Director of the NRO and the directors of the NRO's three programs commits them to the restructuring discussed in Edward Aldridge's November 21 letter to Senator Boren.
Many changes recommended by Aldridge, who left office at the end of 1988, were considered by a 1989 NRO-sponsored review group and subsequently adopted.
Document 14
Report to the Director of Central Intelligence
DCI Task Force on The National Reconnaissance Office, Final Report
April 1992
Secret
35 pp.
This report was produced by a panel chaired by former Lockheed Corporation CEO Robert Fuhrman, whose members included both former and serving intelligence officials. It focused on a variety of issues other than current and possible future NRO reconnaissance systems. Among the issues it examined were mission, organizational structure, security and classification.
One of its most significant conclusions was that the Program A,B,C structure that had been instituted in 1962 (see Document 6) "does not enhance mission effectiveness" but "leads to counterproductive competition and makes it more difficult to foster loyalty and to maintain focus on the NRO mission." As a result, the panel recommended that the NRO be restructured along functional lines with imagery and SIGINT directorates. This change was made even before the final version of the report was issued.
The report also noted that while the NRO's existence was officially classified it was an "open secret" and that seeking to attempt to maintain such "open secrets ... weakens the case for preserving 'real' secrets." In addition, such secrecy limited the NRO's ability to interact with customers and users. The group recommended declassifying the "fact of" the NRO, as well as providing information about the NRO's mission, the identities of senior officials, headquarters locations, and the NRO as a joint Intelligence Community-Defense Department activity.

Document 15
National Security Directive 67
Subject: Intelligence Capabilities: 1992-2005
30 March 1992
Secret
2 pp.
NSD 67 directed a number of changes in U.S. intelligence organization and operations. Among those was implementation of the plan to restructure the NRO along functional lines--eliminating the decades old Program A (Air Force), B (CIA), and C (Navy) structure and replacing it with directorates for imaging, signals intelligence, and communication systems acquisition and operations--as recommended by the Fuhrman panel. As a result, Air Force, CIA, and Navy personnel involved in such activities would now work together rather than as part of distinct NRO components.
Document 16
Email message
Subject: Overt-Covert-DOS-REP-INPUT
27 July 1992
Secret
1 p.
In addition to the internal restructuring of the NRO, 1992 saw the declassification of the organization, as recommended by the Fuhrman report (Document 14), for a number of reasons--to facilitate interaction with other parts of the government, to make it easier for the NRO to support military operations, and in response to Congressional pressure to acknowledge the obvious. As part of the process of considering declassification NRO consulted Richard Curl, head of the Office of Intelligence Resources of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research--the office which provides INR with expertise and support concerning technical collection systems.

Document 17
Memorandum for Secretary of Defense, Director of Central Intelligence
Subject: Changing the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to an Overt Organization
30 July 1992
Secret
3 pp.
w/ attachments:
Document 17a: Mission of the NRO, 1 p.
Document 17b: Implications of Proposed Changes, 4 pp. (Two versions)
Version One
Version Two
These memos, from Director of the NRO Martin Faga, represent key documents in the declassification of the NRO. The memo noted Congressional pressure for declassification and that Presidential certification that declassification would result in "grave damage to the nation ... would be difficult in this case."
Faga reported that as a result of an NRO review he recommended declassifying the fact of NRO's existence, issuing a brief mission statement, acknowledging the NRO as a joint DCI-Secretary of Defense endeavor, and identifying top level NRO officials. He also noted that his recommendations attempted to balance concerns about classifying information that realistically could not be protected, while maintaining an ability to protect matters believed to require continued protection.
Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney, DCI Robert Gates, and President Bush approved the recommendations in September and a three-paragraph memorandum to correspondents acknowledging the NRO and NRP was issued on September 18, 1992.
Document 17b comes in two versions, representing different security reviews. Material redacted from the first version includes provisions of National Security Directive 30 on space policy, expression of concern over "derived disclosures," and the assessment that the "high degree of foreign acceptance of satellite reconnaissance, and the fact that we are not disclosing significant new data," would not lead to any significant foreign reaction. Another redacted statement stated that "legislation . . . exempting all NRO operational files from [Freedom of Information Act] searches" was required.

Document 18
Final Report: National Reconnaissance Program Task Force for the Director of Central Intelligence
September 1992
Top Secret
15 pp.
The end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union required the U.S. intelligence community and NRO to reconsider how U.S. overhead reconnaissance systems were employed and what capabilities future systems should possess. To consider these questions DCI Robert Gates appointed a task force, chaired by his eventual successor, R. James Woolsey.
The final report considers future needs and collection methods, industrial base considerations, procurement policy considerations, international industrial issues, and transition considerations. Its recommendations included elimination of both some collection tasks as well as some entire types of present and planned collection systems.

Document 19
NRO Protection Review, "What is [BYEMAN]?"
6 November 1992
Top Secret
18 pp.
Traditionally, the designations of Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) compartments--such as UMBRA to indicate particularly sensitive communications intelligence and RUFF to intelligence based on satellite imagery--have themselves been classified. In recent years, however, the NSA and CIA have declassified a number of such terms and their meaning. One exception has been the term "BYEMAN"-- the BYEMAN Control System being the security system used to protect information related to NRO collection systems (in contrast to their products) and other aspects of NRO activities, including budget and structure. Thus, the term BYEMAN has been deleted in the title of the document and throughout the study--although the term and its meaning has become known by specialists and conveys no information beyond the text of any particular document.
This study addresses the use of the BYEMAN classification within the NRO, its impact on contractors and other government personnel, and the consequences of the current application of the BYEMAN system. The study concludes that placing information in the highly restrictive BYEMAN channels (in contrast to classifying the information at a lower level) may unduly restrict its dissemination to individuals who have a legitimate need to know.

Document 20
NRO Strategic Plan
18 January 1993
Secret
19 pp.
A study headed by James Woolsey (Document 18), President Clinton's first DCI, heavily influenced the contents of this early 1993 document. The plan's introduction notes that while some collection tasks will no longer be handled by overhead reconnaissance the "uncertain nature of the world that is emerging from the end of the 'cold war' places a heavy premium on overhead reconnaissance." At the same time, "this overhead reconnaissance challenge must be met in an era of a likely reduced national security budget."
The strategic plan is described in the introduction, as "the 'game plan' to transition current overhead collection architectures into a more integrated, end-to-end architecture for improved global access and tasking flexibility."
The document goes on to examine the strategic context for future NRO operations, NRO strategy, strategic objectives, and approaches to implementation. Strategic objectives include improving the responsiveness of NRO systems by developing an architecture that spans the entire collection and dissemination process, from the identification of requirements to dissemination of the data collected.

Document 21
National Reconnaissance Office: Collocation Construction Project, Joint DOD and CIA Review Report
November 1994
Unclassified
28 pp.
In an August 8, 1994 press conference, Senators Dennis DeConcini (D-Az.) and John Warner (R-Va.), the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence accused the NRO of concealing from Congress the cost involved in building a new headquarters to house government and contractor employees. Previously NRO activities in the Washington area were conducted from the Pentagon and rented space in the Washington metropolitan area. The collocation and restructuring decisions of the late 1980s and early 1990s had resulted in a requirement for a new headquarters facility.10
The accusations were followed by hearings before both the Senate and House intelligence oversight committees--with House committee members defending the NRO and criticizing their Senate colleagues. While they noted that some of the documents presented by the NRO covering total costs were not presented with desirable clarity, the House members were more critical of the Senate committee for inattention to their committee work.11
This joint DoD and CIA review of the project, found "no intent to mislead Congress" but that "the NRO failed to follow Intelligence Community budgeting guidelines, applicable to all the intelligence agencies," that would have caused the project to be presented as a "New Initiative," and that the cost data provided by the NRO "were not presented in a consistent fashion and did not include a level of detail comparable to submissions for . . . intelligence community construction."

Document 22
Memorandum for Director of Central Intelligence
Subject: Small Satellite Review Panel
Unclassified
July 1996
The concept of employing significantly smaller satellites for imagery collection was strongly advocated by Rep. Larry Combest during his tenure (1995-97) as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. As a result the DCI was instructed to appoint a panel of experts to review the issue.12
Panel members included former NRO directors Robert Hermann and Martin Faga; former NRO official and NSA director Lew Allen; scientist Sidney Drell and four others. The panel's report supported a radical reduction in the size of most U.S. imagery satellites. The panel concluded that "now is an appropriate time to make a qualitative change in the systems architecture of the nation's reconnaissance assets," in part because "the technology and industrial capabilities of the country permit the creation of effective space systems that are substantially smaller and less costly than current systems." Thus, the panel saw "the opportunity to move towards an operational capability for . . . imagery systems, that consists of an array of smaller, cheaper spacecraft in larger number with a total capacity which is at least as useful as those currently planned and to transport them to space with substantially smaller and less costly launch vehicles."13
The extent to which those recommendations have influenced NRO's Future Imagery Architecture plan is uncertain--although plans for large constellations of small satellites have not usually survived the budgetary process.

Document 23
Defining the Future of the NRO for the 21st Century, Final Report, Executive Summary
August 26, 1996
Unclassified
30 pp.
This report was apparently the first major outside review of the NRO conducted during the Clinton administration, and the first conducted after the NRO's transformation to an overt institution and its restructuring were firmly in place.

Among those conducting the review were former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. David E. Jeremiah, former NRO director Martin Faga, and former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence John McMahon. Issues studied by the panel included, inter alia, the existence of a possible alternative to the NRO, NRO's mission in the 21st Century, support to military operations, security, internal organization, and the relationship with NRO's customers.

After reviewing a number of alternatives, the panel concluded that no other arrangement was superior for carrying out the NRO mission. It did, however, recommend, changes with regards to NRO's mission and internal organization. The panel concluded that where the NRO's current mission is "worldwide intelligence," its future mission should be "global information superiority," which "demands intelligence capabilities unimaginable just a few years ago." The panel also recommended creation of a fourth NRO directorate, which was subsequently established, to focus solely on the development of advanced systems, in order to "increase the visibility and stature of technology innovation in the NRO."

Notes
1. Michael R. Beschloss, Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev and the U-2 Affair (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), pp.241-42; John Ranelagh, The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA, From Wild Bill Donovan to William Casey (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), p. 319; Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald Welzenbach, The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance: The U-2 and OXCART Programs, 1954-1974 (Washington, D.C.: CIA, 1992), pp. 170-93.
2. Kenneth Greer, "Corona," Studies in Intelligence, Supplement 17, Spring 1973 in Kevin C. Ruffner (Ed.), CORONA: America's First Satellite Program (Washington, D.C.: Central Intelligence Agency, 1995), pp. 3-40; Gen. Thomas D. White, Air Force Chief of Staff to General Thomas S. Power, Commander in Chief, Strategic Air Command, June 29, 1960, Thomas D. White Papers, Library of Congress, Box 34, Folder "2-15 SAC."
3. "Special Meeting of the National Security Council to be held in the Conference Room of the White House from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m., Thursday, August 25, 1960, undated, National Security Council Staff Papers, 1948-61, Executive Secretary's Subject File Series, Box 15, Reconnaissance Satellites [1960], DDEL.
4. "Reconnaissance Satellite Program," Action No.1-b at Special NSC Meeting on August 25, 1960, transmitted to the Secretary of Defense by Memo of September 1, 1960; G.B. Kistiakowsky to Allen Dulles, August 25, 1960, Special Assistant for Science and Technology, Box No. 15, Space [July-Dec 1960], DDEL.
5. Carl Berger, The Air Force in Space Fiscal Year 1961, (Washington, D.C.: Air Force Historical Liaison Office, 1966), pp.41-42; Secretary of the Air Force Order 115.1, "Organization and Functions of the Office of Missile and Satellite Systems," August 31, 1960; Robert Perry, A History of Satellite Reconnaissance, Volume 5: Management of the National Reconnaissance Program, 1960-1965, (Washington, D.C., NRO, 1969), p. 20; Secretary of the Air Force Order 116.1, "The Director of the SAMOS Project," August 31, 1960.
6. Perry, A History of Satellite Reconnaissance, Volume 5, p. 20.
7. Jeffrey T. Richelson, "Undercover in Outer Space: The Creation and Evolution of the NRO," International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 13, 3 (Fall 2000): 301-344.
8. Ibid.; GRAB: Galactic Radiation and Background (Washington, D.C.: NRL, 1997); Dwayne A. Day, "Listening from Above: The First Signals Intelligence Satellite," Spaceflight, August 1999, pp. 339-347; NRO, Program Directors of the NRO: ABC&D, 1999.
9. Perry, A History of Satellite Reconnaissance, Volume 5, pp. 93, 96-97.
10. Pierre Thomas, "Spy Unit's Spending Stuns Hill," Washington Post, August 9, 1994, pp. A1, A6.
11. Walter Pincus, "Spy Agency Defended by House Panel," Washington Post, August 12, 1994, p. A21; U.S. Congress, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, NRO Headquarters Project (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995), pp. 3-4.
12. Walter Pincus, "Congress Debates Adding Smaller Spy Satellites to NRO's Menu," Washington Post, October 5, 1995, p. A14; Joseph C. Anselmo, "House, Senate at Odds Over Intel Small Sats," Aviation Week & Space Technology, January 1, 1996, p. 19.
13. Small Satellite Review Panel, Memorandum for: Director of Central Intelligence, Subject: Small Satellite Review Panel, July 1996.

Russ Baker & the New York Times on JFK

The New York Times’ Ostrich Act On JFK Assassination Is Getting Old

By Russ Baker July 27, 2011

http://whowhatwhy.com/2011/07/27/the-ny-times%e2%80%99-ostrich-act-on-jfk-assassination-getting-old/

Nobody’s perfect. But it’s hard to think of anything as unworthy of a high-quality journalistic institution as the New York Times’ decades-long determination to never, ever, find any reason to question the original story spun by the Warren Commission on the JFK assassination. No matter how much new evidence has come out to the contrary.

It reminds a bit of the forever-blinkered character Sgt. Schultz on the old tv show Hogan’s Heroes (“I see NUUU-singg”—here’s a good clip, watch first minute of so…)

Ask any reporter, privately, what he or she thinks on this issue. Putting aside those who will demur on the basis of not having read widely on the topic (a surprisingly large number), you’ll find most believing that the “lone nut” or “Leftist loner” narratives about Oswald are utter junk. This would certainly apply in the New York Times newsroom.

And yet just the other day, there was this obituary. It’s about Warren Leslie, a Dallas reporter who wrote a book on right-wing animosity toward JFK in Dallas at the time of the assassination. Yet, skip down to paragraph 17, and you have this contradictory little morsel:

The lone suspect in the assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, far from being a right-winger, was an ardent leftist with Communist sympathies.

It’s just neatly slipped in as if it’s an uncontested fact, like the day’s sports scores.
Why take this angle? I called and e-mailed the obituary writer, Times staffer Dennis Hevesi, to ask him, but did not hear back by the time this was posted. In any case, it’s unfair to single Hevesi out, since this has been a long-standing Times policy on the matter.

Indeed, the obituary was typical of The Times’ way of handling the subject—every so often, run a kind of “curiosity” piece about some reporter or character, but then subtly undercut their findings.

Take the paper’s coverage of former Washington Post reporter and author Jefferson Morley’s ongoing research on Oswald, which again points toward Oswald not being a “leftist sympathizer” or Communist agent at all. The Times article, generally sympathetic toward Morley, actually began with the following disclaimer, which essentially contradicted the article’s thrust:

“Is the Central Intelligence Agency covering up some dark secret about the assassination of John F. Kennedy? Probably not.”

We have to wonder if that opening nullifier was dictated from on high. After all, though Scott Shane, who wrote that piece, called Morley’s reporting “meticulous,” for some reason the article never provides the name of Morley’s book (“Our Man in Mexico”) nor provides a link to it, but quotes the main “no-conspiracy” author, and cites the name ofhis book instead.

There are literally hundreds of interesting, often excellent books on the JFK assassination. The vast majority of those written by serious researchers and scholars, and backed by extensive documentation and footnotes, come down on the side of Oswald having been recruited years earlier to do covert work for US government entities — with the “left-winger” story serving as constructed cover until his untimely demise.

I myself ran into the depth of the subterfuge and the institutional resistance to disturbing revelations while researching the Bush family’s past for my investigative history, Family of Secrets. I learned, for example, of George H.W. Bush’s secret intelligence connections, which preceded his CIA directorship by several decades. I learned that the elder Bush had a lifelong friendship with a Dallas-based Russian émigré (anti-communist) oil and intelligence operative named George de Mohrenschildt — who himself was of intense if passing interest to the Warren Commission. And I learned that de Mohrenschildt had essentially guided Oswald for a good part of the year before the assassination.

There’s paperwork on all this, even a letter on the topic of Oswald from de Mohrenschildt to Bush, with Bush’s reply. Plus connections between de Mohrenschildt and right-wing Dallas moguls of exactly the sort that the late Mr. Leslie wrote about more generally.
Nothing on this Oswald - de Mohrenschildt - Bush connection has ever been mentioned by The Times (save a one-sentence pooh-pooh in the paper by the late establishment historian Stephen Ambrose in 1992.) However, The Times did cover de Mohrenschildt’s suicide, shortly after his final correspondence with Bush and shortly before he was expected to testify before the new House Select Committee on Assassinations.

Speaking of which, The Times rarely reminds readers that the House committee itself concluded that Kennedy’s death was probably the result of an elaborate conspiracy (i.e., it was not a “loner” operation), but with no Soviet or Cuban government involvement.

How to explain this see-no-evil act? There are many reasons that news organizations will not tell the whole story, or fudge what could be revealed. Whatever is behind this shameful failure, reporters and editors know that the JFK assassination is just “too hot to handle,” that it is a kind of electrified third rail that can destroy a journalism career. But even well-founded fear—of being ridiculed, marginalized, demoted, or otherwise penalized—is no justification for this unrelenting pattern of behavior at an institution that promotes itself as a “paper of record.”

Anyone who calls him - or herself a journalist must be willing to take risks for the truth.

After all, if the public can’t count on journalists to get it right on the big stories, why should they trust us on the rest? And if journalism can’t be trusted, democracy is on a slippery slope.

At JFK Monument at American University June 10

Howard Roffman's Presumed Guilty

Howard Roffman

Preface
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/PG/PGpreface.html


A Decade of Deceit: From the Warren Commission to Watergate

Whoever killed President John F. Kennedy got away with it because the Warren Commission, the executive commission responsible for investigating the murder, engaged in a cover-up of the truth and issued a report that misrepresented or distorted almost every relevant fact about the crime. The Warren Commission, in turn, got away with disseminating falsehood and covering up because virtually every institution in our society that is supposed to make sure that the government works properly and honestly failed to function in the face of a profound challenge; the Congress, the law, and the press all failed to do a single meaningful thing to correct the massive abuse committed by the Warren Commission.

To anyone who understood these basic facts, and there were few who did, the frightening abuses of the Nixon Administration that have come to be known as "Watergate" were not unexpected and were surprising only in their nature and degree.

This is not a presumptuous statement. I do not mean to imply that anyone who knew what the Warren Commission did could predict the events that have taken place in the last few years. My point is that the reaction to the Warren Report, if properly understood, demonstrated that our society had nothing that could be depended upon to protect it from the abuses of power that have long been inherent in the Presidency. The dynamics of our system of government are such that every check on the abuse of power is vital; if the executive branch were to be trusted as the sole guardian of the best interests of the people, we would not have a constitution that divides power among three branches of government to act as checks on each other, and we would need no Bill of Rights. Power invites abuses and excesses, and at least since the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, an enormous amount of power has been assumed and acquired by the president.

Political deception is an abuse that democracy invites; in a system where the leaders are ultimately accountable to the people, where their political future is decided by the people, there is inevitably the temptation to deceive, to speak with the primary interest of pleasing the people and preserving political power. There probably has not been a president who has not lied for political reasons. I need only cite some more recent examples:

Franklin Roosevelt assured the parents of America in October 1940 that "your boys are not going to be sent into foreign wars"; at the time he knew that American involvement in World War II was inevitable, even imminent, but he chose not to be frank with the people for fear of losing the 1940 election.

Dwight Eisenhower in 1960 denied that the American aircraft shot down by the Russians over their territory was a spy-plane, when he and the Russians knew very well that the plane, a U-2, had been on a CIA reconnaissance flight;

John F. Kennedy had the American ambassador at the United Nations deny that the unsuccessful invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs was an American responsibility when exactly the opposite was true.

So, deception and cover-up per se did not originate with the Warren Commission in 1964 or the Nixon administration in 1972. They had always been an unfortunate part of our political system. With the Warren Commission they entered a new and more dangerous phase. Never before, to my knowledge, had there been such a systematic plan for a cover-up, or had such an extensive and pervasive amount of deception been attempted. And certainly never before had our government collaborated to deny the public the true story of how its leader was assassinated.

In the face of this new and monumental abuse of authority by the executive, all the institutions that are supposed to protect society from such abuses failed and, in effect, helped perpetrate the abuse itself. As with Watergate, numerous lawyers were involved with the Warren Commission; in neither case did these lawyers act as lawyers. Rather, they participated in a cover-up and acted as accessories in serious crimes. The Congress accepted the Warren Report as the final solution to the assassination and thus acquiesced in the cover-up of a President's murder. And, perhaps most fundamentally, the press failed in its responsibility to the people and became, in effect, an unofficial mouthpiece of the government. For a short time the press publicized some of the inconsistencies between the Warren Report's conclusions and the evidence; yet never did the press seriously question the legitimacy of the official findings on the assassination or attempt to ascertain why the Johnson administration lied about the murder that brought it into power and what was hidden by those lies.

It was only a small body of powerless and unheralded citizens who undertook to critically examine the official investigation of President Kennedy's murder, and among them it was still fewer who clearly understood the ominous meaning of a whitewashed inquiry that was accepted virtually without question. It was only these few who asked what would happen to our country if an executive disposed to abuse its authority could do so with impunity.

It was in 1966, long before the press and the public saw through the thicket of deception with which we had been led into a war in Vietnam, long before this country was to suffer the horrors of Watergate, that a leading assassination researcher, Harold Weisberg, wrote and published the following words:

If the government can manufacture, suppress and lie when a President is cut down -- and get away with it -- what cannot follow? Of what is it not capable, regardless of motive . . .?

This government did manufacture, suppress and lie when it pretended to investigate the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

If it can do that, it can do anything.

And will, if we let it.

Weisberg, in effect, warned that the executive would inevitably commit wrongdoing beyond imagination so long as there was no institution of government or society that was willing to stop it. That one man of modest means could make this simple deduction in 1966 is less a credit to him than it is an indictment of a whole system of institutions that failed in their fundamental responsibility to society.

My political maturity began to develop only in the past few years; all of my research on the assassination was conducted while I was a teenager. Yet the basic knowledge that my government could get away with what it did at the murder of a president made me fearful of the future. On October 10, 1971, when I was eighteen years old, I wrote what I hoped would be the last letter in a long and fruitless correspondence with a lawyer who had participated in the official cover-up as an investigator for the Warren Commission. I concluded that letter with these words:

I ask myself if this country can survive when men like you, who are supposed to represent law and justice, are the foremost merchants of official falsification, deceit, and criminality.

It was to take three years and the worst political crisis in our history for the press and the public to even begin to awaken to the great dangers a democracy faces when lawyers are criminals.

It is with pain and not pride that I look back and see that so few were able to understand what the Warren Commission and the acceptance of its fraudulent Report meant for this country. This was not omniscience, but simple deduction from basic facts. I cannot escape the conviction that had the Congress, or the lawyers, or especially the press seriously endeavored to establish the basic facts and then considered the implications of these facts, we all might have been spared the frightening and threatening abuses of Watergate. If the institutions designed to protect society from such excesses of power had functioned in 1964, it is possible that they would not have had to mobilize so incompletely and almost ineffectively in 1972 and 1973.

Watergate has brought us into a new era, hopefully one in which all institutions will work diligently to see that our government functions properly and honestly. As of now, the reasons for optimism are still limited. It was not the press as an institution that probed beneath the official lies about Watergate and demanded answers; essentially, it was one newspaper, the Washington Post, that, true to its obligations, bulldogged the story that most of the nation's press buried until it became a national scandal. It was not the law as an institution that insisted on the truth; it was one judge, John Sirica, who best served the law by settling for no less than the whole truth, and he was and continues to be deceived and lied to by those whose responsibility it is to uphold and defend the law. Whether Congress will adequately respond to the crimes and abuses of the Nixon administration remains to be seen.

Our very system of government and law faces its most profound challenge today. A nation that did not learn from the Warren Commission has survived to relive a far worse version of that past in Watergate. It would do well to live by the wisdom of Santayana, for it is doubtful that American democracy could survive another Watergate.

Howard Roffman
January, 1974

Conclusion

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/PG/PGconclu.html

Throughout twelve hours of interrogation over the weekend of the assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald steadfastly denied that he had shot the President (R613, 627). He repeated that denial before hundreds of newsmen crowded into the narrow corridors of the police headquarters: "I'm just a patsy," he exclaimed (20H362, 366). Even as he lay dying on a stretcher, the police pressed him for a final confession. But Oswald merely shook his head; he would die protesting his innocence (12H185).

Oswald's plea was ignored amid the clamor of official voices, which hastened to assure the public of Oswald's guilt.

The Dallas Police wasted no time in announcing their verdict. Of course, it is preposterous to assume that even the most competent police force could have solved one of the century's most complex crimes overnight. Yet this was precisely the claim made by the Dallas Police when, on the day after the assassination, they told the world that Oswald was beyond doubt the lone assassin.

Two weeks later the FBI claimed that it too had conclusively determined that Oswald was the lone assassin. This was indeed an unwarranted conclusion since, in its "solution" of the crime, the FBI failed to account for one of the President's wounds and a shot that missed the car. The FBI seems never to have anticipated that concerned citizens would probe its thoroughly flawed report. It made sure that everyone knew the conclusion reached in the report by leaking to the press everything it wanted known. The report itself, however, the FBI decided to keep secret.

The FBI's ploy had one salient effect: it preempted the Warren Commission and left the Commission little choice but to affirm the FBI's conclusions. The alternative was for the Commission to conduct a genuinely independent investigation and announce that the FBI had erred. In 1964, given the FBI's reputation as the greatest law-enforcement investigative agency in the world and the pervasive, although then unspoken fear of J. Edgar Hoover's power, this was an unthinkable alternative for the conservative Commission members. The choice was made to rely on the FBI -- in effect, to let the FBI investigate itself.

Thus, from the very beginning of its investigation, the Commission planned its work under the presumption that Oswald was guilty, and the staff consciously endeavored to construct a prosecution case against Oswald. One Commission member actually complained to the staff that he wanted to see more arguments in support of the theory that Oswald was the assassin. There could have been no more candid admission of how fraudulent the "investigation" was than when a staff lawyer secretly wrote, "Our intention is not to establish the point with complete accuracy, but merely to substantiate the hypothesis which underlies the conclusions that Oswald was the sole assassin." In its zeal to posthumously frame Oswald -- and falsify history -- the staff often considered ludicrous methods of avoiding the facts -- as in the suggestion of one staff lawyer that "the best evidence that Oswald could fire as fast as he did and hit the target is the fact that he did so."

The Commission, in presuming Oswald guilty, abdicated its responsibility to the nation. But did the Commission, in spite of its prejudices, arrive at the truth? Does the evidence establish that Oswald was the assassin?

The medical evidence actually disassociates Oswald's rifle from the wounds suffered by President Kennedy and Governor Connally. The nature of the bullet fragmentation within the President's wounds rules out full-jacketed military bullets such as those allegedly fired by Oswald. Bullet 399, discovered at Parkland Hospital and traced to Oswald's rifle, could not, in any conceivable way, have produced any of the President's wounds. Likewise, 399 could not have produced the Governor's wounds without having suffered some form of mutilation; bullets simply do not smash through two or three bones and emerge in the condition of 399, with no apparent distortions and no disruption of their microscopic markings.

The medical evidence leads one to believe that Oswald's rifle played no role in the shooting and that all the evidence that seems to link Oswald to the shooting was in fact planted. The only evidence that might conclusively show whether bullet 399 and the two fragments traced to Oswald's rifle were actually involved in the wounding of either victim is the spectrographic and neutron activation analyses, and they are withheld from the public. One need not be an expert analyst to deduce that the government would hardly suppress this evidence if it corroborated its account of the assassination. The only credible explanation for the suppression of this crucial scientific evidence is that it must establish conclusively what the medical evidence established to but a reasonable degree -- that Oswald's rifle played no role in the shooting.

The evidence of the rifle, the cartridge cases, and the bullets is significant because it creates the powerful assumption that Oswald was the assassin. The medical evidence, in disassociating Oswald's rifle from the crime, makes it apparent that unknown persons deliberately planted the recovered ballistic items with the intention of leaving evidence that would point to Oswald as the murderer. Such planting of evidence does not necessarily imply an enormous conspiracy, as some of the Commission's defenders have suggested. Two accomplices, one at the Book Depository and one at Parkland Hospital, are all that would have been required. Conditions at both sites were so chaotic at the time that such accomplices could easily have escaped detection.

Once it is established that Oswald's rifle was not involved in the shooting, there is not a shred of tangible or credible evidence to indicate that Oswald was the assassin. The evidence proves exactly the opposite.

The circumstantial evidence relating to Oswald himself is almost entirely exculpatory. Every element of it was twisted by the Commission to fit the preconceived conclusion of Oswald's guilt. I have documented that, through its staff and its Report, the Commission:

1. Drew undue suspicion to Oswald's return to Irving on November 21, although the evidence indicated that Oswald did not know the motorcade route and broke no set pattern in making the return;

2. Ignored all evidence that could have provided an innocent excuse for Oswald's visit;

3. Wrongly discredited the reliable and consistent testimony of the only two witnesses who saw the package Oswald carried to work on the morning of the assassination; because their descriptions meant that the package could not have contained the rifle, the Commission claimed to have made this rejection on the basis of "scientific evidence," which did not exist;

4. Concluded that Oswald made a paper sack to conceal the rifle, citing no evidence in support of this notion and suppressing evidence that tended to disprove it;
5. Concluded that the sack was used to transport the rifle, although its evidence proved that the sack never contained the rifle;

6. Used the testimony of Charles Givens to placed [sic] Oswald at the alleged source of the shots 35 minutes too early, even though Givens described an event that physically could not have taken place;

7. Claimed to know of no Depository employee who saw Oswald between 11:55 and 12:30, basing its claim on an inquiry in which it (through General Counsel Rankin) had the FBI determine whether any employee had seen Oswald only at 12:30, completely suppressing from the Report three distinct pieces of evidence indicating Oswald's presence on the first floor during the period in question.

8. Failed to produce any witness who could identify the sixth-floor gunman as Oswald; both rejected and accepted the identification of one man who admitted lying to the police, who constantly contradicted himself, and who described physically impossible events; and ignored evidence of clothing descriptions that might have indicated that Oswald was not the gunman;

9. Reconstructed the movements of Baker and Truly in such a way as to lengthen the time of their ascent to the second floor;

10. Reconstructed the movements of the "assassin" so as to greatly reduce the time of his presumed descent; a valid reconstruction would have proved that a sixth-floor gunman could not have reached the second-floor lunch-room before Baker and Truly;

11. Misrepresented Baker's position at the time he saw Oswald entering the lunchroom, making it seem possible that Oswald could have just descended from the third floor, although, in fact, the events described by Baker and Truly prove that Oswald must have been coming up from the first floor (as Oswald himself told the police he did);

12. Misrepresented the nature of the assassination shots by omitting from its evaluation the time factor and other physical obstacles, thus making it seem that the shots were easy and that Oswald could have fired them;

13. Misrepresented the evidence relevant to Oswald's rifle capability and practice, creating the impression that he was a good shot with much practice, although the evidence indicated exactly the opposite. The conclusion dictated by all this evidence en masse is inescapable and overwhelming: Lee Harvey Oswald never fired a shot at President Kennedy; he was not even at the Depository window during the assassination; and no one fired his rifle, the Mannlicher-Carcano, on that day. Beyond any doubt, he is innocent of the monstrous crime with which he was charged and of which he was presumed guilty. The official presumption of his guilt effectively cut off any quest for truth and led to the abandonment of the principles of law and honest investigation. At all costs, the government has denied (and, to judge from its record, will continue to deny) Oswald's innocence and perpetuated the myth of his lone guilt.

With this, a thousand other spiders emerge from the walls.

It can now be inferred that Oswald was framed; he was deliberately set up as the Kennedy assassin. His rifle was found in the Depository. We know that it had to have been put there; we also know that it was not Oswald who put it there. Someone else did.

We know that a whole bullet traceable to Oswald's rifle turned up at Parkland Hospital; we also know that this bullet was never in the body of either victim.Someone had to have planted it at the hospital. The same applies to the two identifiable fragments found in the front seat of the President's limousine.

We know that someone shot and killed President Kennedy; we also know that Oswald did not do this. The real presidential murderers have escaped punishment through our established judicial channels, their crime tacitly sanctioned by those who endeavored to prove Oswald guilty. The after-the-fact framing of Oswald by the federal authorities means, in effect, that the federal government has conspired to protect those who conspired to kill President Kennedy.

It is not my responsibility to explain why the Commission did what it did, and I would deceive the reader if I made the slightest pretense that it was within my capability to provide such an explanation. I have presented the facts; no explanation of motives, be they the highest and the purest or the lowest and the most corrupt, will alter those facts or undo what the Commission indisputably has done.

The government has lied about one of the most serious crimes that can be committed in a democracy. Having lied without restraint about the death of a president, it can not be believed on anything. It has sacrificed its credibility.

Remedies are not clearly apparent or easily suggested. Certainly, Congress has an obligation to investigate this monumental abuse by the executive. But first and foremost, the people must recognize that they have been lied to by their government and denied the truth about the murder of their former leader. They must demand the truth, whatever the price, and insist that their government work honestly and properly.

Until then, the history of one of the world's most democratic nations must suffer the stigma of a frighteningly immoral and undemocratic act by its government.

George Bannerman Dealey and Dallas Morning News

I've corrected a mistake in Part 3 of my series Journalists & JFK - The Real Dizinformation Agents at Dealey Plaza.

I knew that George Bannerman Dealey owned the Dallas Morning News, and not the Dallas Times Hearld, but got it wrong, and now I stand corrected (thanks to Gary Mack). Any other corrections should be addressed to me - Bkjfk3@yahoo.com.

I also knew that Dealey, for whom Dealey Plaza is named, was born in England and came to America where he worked as a journalist in Texas, working his way up from reporter to editor, publisher and owner. Dealey's call for the improvement of the blighted area led to naming it after him, and now universally known as the scene of the assassination of President Kennedy.

I also know that Ruby's pal Tony Zoppi worked for the Dallas Morning News, and Ruby's alibi at the time of the assassination was that he was in the office of one of the advertising managers, from whose window you could see Dealey Plaza.

Seth Kantor, Jim Lehrer and Connie Kritzberg worked for the Dallas Times Heard, the afternoon daily paper that was purchased for $52 million by the Dallas Morning News in 1991 and closed down the next day.

If you walk out the front door of Dallas' Union train station, the Dallas Morning News building is just across the street by the park. Inscribed on the wall by the front door are the following words.

The Dallas Morning News

BUILD THE NEWS UPON
THE ROCK OF TRUTH
AND RICHTEOUSNESS
CONDUCT IT ALWAYS
UPON THE LINES OF
FAIRNESS and INTEGRITY
ACKNOWLEDGE THE RIGHT
OF THE PEOPLE TO GET
FROM THE NEWS
BOTH SIDES OF EVERY
IMPORTANT QUESTION

Probably attributed to George Bannerman Dealey, the quote is wrong on one count, in that there are more than two sides to every important question.

Journalists & JFK - Real Dizinfo Agents Part 3

FROM: http://www.ctka.net/

Part 3 - Journalists & JFK – The Real Dizinformation Agents at Dealey Plaza
Hugh Aynesworth, Priscilla Johnson (McMillan) & Gordon McLendon
By Bill Kelly (bkjfk3@yahoo.com), July 2011

Besides their reporting on the assassination of President Kennedy, Hugh Aynesworth, Priscilla Johnson and Gordon McLendon share an interesting common trait in that they applied for jobs with the CIA and didn’t get them. But rather than become full fledged agents, it appears they were assigned a contact officer and served as CIA assets for decades, which is especially interesting in how their CIA associations affected their activities related to the assassination.

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] (*as corrected)

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.

(*I had previously said he worked for the Times Hearld, the afternoon paper that was purchased by the Morning News corp for $52 million and discontinued. Thanks to Gary Mack for pointing out the discrepancy. Direct any other corrections to Bkjfk@yahoo.com)

CONTINUED AT:

http://www.ctka.net/2011/Journalists_&_JFK_3.html

Dear President Obama: Please release my records

July 24, 2011

President Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington , D.C, 20500

Dear President Obama:

I am writing to you for help with an important problem which I cannot solve by myself, despite all the Freedom of Information/Privacy letters I have written over the years, and those written by my attorney to various congressional investigative bodies.

I am a graduate of the University of Chicago (Ph.B. 1950 and Ph.D. 1954). a retired neurophysiologist, and I have done research and taught physiology to college and medical students and to graduate students at Rockefeller University, Tulane University School of Medicine, Louisiana State University School of Medicine, University of Texas at San Antonio and other colleges in Louisiana and Texas .

In 1963 I was a Postdoctoral Fellow of the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness (NINDB) of the National Institutes of Health. At scientific biomedical meetings in April of 1963 where I presented a paper on my research, I met Jose A. Rivera, a science administrator from the NINDB on the Grants and Awards committee responsible for my Fellowship. He invited me to visit his home for dinner and to meet his family when I was to come to NIH in Bethesda on my way home to New Orleans. I never met his family or went to his home because he took me to restaurants and gave me a sight-seeing tour of Washington while he spoke about President John Kennedy, his policies on civil rights, and about his impending assassination

On November 24, 1963, I gave all my information to the US Secret Service Agent in Charge of the New Orleans office, John W. Rice, and to FBI Special Agent Orrin Bartlett from Washington, liaison from the FBI to the Secret Service and the White House. Mr. Bartlett telephoned his headquarters and field offices there and in Baltimore, ordering them to pick up Rivera and bring him in for questioning. I fully expected to be called to testify before the Warren Commission, but was not.

My attorney offered my information to Senator Frank Church and his Senate Committee on Intelligence, who were not interested, and later to Senator Daniel Inouye who was interested, but his staff aide was reluctant to subpoena Rivera for the committee. He then wrote to Representative Louis Stokes and to Representative Richardson Preyer of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), but received no reply from either one.

In late 1984 I met an FBI Special Agent who asked me to write a very brief account of my experiences in 1963 which he was to send to FBI Headquarters with his cover letter and a copy of my curriculum vitae. These were sent in 1985 and neither one of us heard anything from the FBI. I sent an FOIA letter to the FBI in Washington, and they replied they had nothing on me in their files, which they had said prior to this mailing and in years before and much later. However, after the passage of the JFK Collection Act in 1992 and the creation of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), a staff member found these mailed materials, not in FBI files, but in the files of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) which had ended its activity in 1979, six years before these materials had been sent to the FBI! They were meant to be hidden, or to be saved for some historian 200 years from now to discover. The materials are now preserved in Box 18 in the Douglas Horne’s Military Files Section of the JFK Collection in the National Archives II at College Park, Maryland. I am also mentioned on page 109 of the Final Report of the ARRB, and on its list of testimonies page.

I believe Jose A. Rivera, a former US Army Colonel, was one of the traitors and conspirators who plotted and murdered President John F. Kennedy. These traitors, in government positions in the military and intelligence and their financial backers, wanted to destroy Kennedy and his administration because he was working for economic improvements for all peoples, for Democracy, and for world-wide Peace and harmony. These were not goals of his murderers and War profiteers. Many of them can be linked to the conspiracy to overthrow President Roosevelt and our system of government in order to establish a fascistic dictatorship in 1933-1934, just thirty years before 1963.

What I wish to ask is that you, with your Executive authority and power, ask the relevant agencies, the National Archives, and the National Declassification Center to release
FBI, Secret Service, and CIA and Congressional documents, audio tapes, film/video recordings, in their possession which relate to me, Adele E. Uskali Edisen, and to Attorney Jack Peebles, and to Jose Alberto Rivera, and Winston de Monsabert, and Grant Stockdale (friend of John Kennedy, whose death after the assassination was predicted by Rivera in April of 1963).

Members of the Subcommittee of the 2010 House Oversight and Government Reform Committee have copies of a summary statement written by me, and an analysis of Jose Rivera’s Military Personnel File written by Attorney Dave Robertson. I traveled to Washington in March of 2010 to urge the House Subcommittee to have open hearings on the JFK and other assassinations, but they apparently decided not to “rock the boat.”

I hope you can understand why I have finally had to write to you.

November 22, 2013, about two years from now, will be the 50th Year Anniversary of the death of President Kennedy, and all documents and records currently withheld from the public’s access should be made available to the American people. We have a right to know our true history.

Sincerely,
Adele E.U. Edisen, Ph.D

General Curtis LeMay on 11/22/63

JFK with Generals LeMay and Powers

















Wiarton AFB Canada, where LeMay was on 11/22/63.




According to the Andrews AFB Log from that day (posted below on this blog), LeMay flew from Wiarton to Washington National Airport, despite being ordered to fly to Andrews.

LeMay's official biography (p.430, "Iron Eagle: The Turbulent Life of General Curtis LeMay," by Thomas M. Coffey)says he was visiting his wife's family in Michigan when the news arrived about JFK's assassination, so there is a discrepancy in the records.

Randy Owen makes the following observations:

-LeMay departed Wiarton at 4:04pm (Eastern) and arrived in Washington at 5:12pm

-LeMay disobeyed Air Force Sec. Zuckert's wishes to meet him at Andrews Air Force Base before Air Force One arrived with JFK's body. Instead, LeMay insisted his military plane land at the civilian Washington National Airport. Horne says this would put LeMay closer to Bethesda than Andrews.

-Oddly, the website for the Wiarton Airport has a link to a website about Camp-X. Camp-X was created in World War II in Oshawa, Ont. to train spies. The Camp-X website even has a photo of Ian Fleming visiting the Camp site.

Larry Hancock notes: "I was struck by the fact that it made a big deal of his being so remote that he was out of contact and was not even able to make it back to Washington until the funeral. I don't see that as a minor thing, the book definitely creates the impression that he was not back in Washington that weekend. This really is an important point, if Doug is right and can be verified it looks pretty certain that LeMay was handing out disinformation and there would need to be a good reason for that. After all, it would not be unusual for him to rush back to DC or to some other AF base where he could achieve command and control capability. What seems to me not at all understandable is why he would go to Bethesda, and then lie about it."

Dear Mac from Dez re: Cuban Ops

National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy and Desmond Fitzgerald, head of CIA Cuban Ops




FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1964–1968

VOLUME XXXII, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC; CUBA; HAITI; GUYANA, DOCUMENT 249

http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v32/d249

249. Letter From the Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division of the Central Intelligence Agency (FitzGerald) to the President's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs

(Bundy)1

Washington, March 6, 1964.

Dear Mac:

Dick Helms and I are most appreciative of the opportunity you gave us this morning for a thorough discussion of the Agency's various operational problems in connection with Cuba. It was very helpful to us and has served to clarify to a great extent our own thinking on the future of our various operational programs. It might perhaps be well to set forth, in this informal fashion, a list of the various topics which we discussed together with the considerations that appear to me to apply.

In the first place, as you know very well, although the Agency appears as the proposer of most covert action programs at the Special Group and elsewhere, we do this only in response to what we understand to be policy requirements and have no interest in either commencing or perpetuating any programs which are not demanded by policy and which are not geared to the accomplishment of a specific objective. The interdependent program of actions which we proposed last spring and which was accepted in June2 was based on three propositions which were accepted at the time: (a) that it was in the U.S. interest to get rid of Castro; (b) that, in attempting to do so, the U.S. did not wish either to employ overt force or to raise the international “noise level” to an unacceptable degree; and (c) that the ultimate objective of the program was not mass uprisings but to encourage disaffected elements within the military establishment and other power centers of the regime to carry out a coup.

The resulting program represented a maximum covert effort but only a minimum overall national effort which could result in overthrowing Castro. The percentage of chance of achieving this purpose was admittedly never too high even had the program proceeded on full blower. In fact the economic part of the program suffered a serious, if not fatal, reverse with the Leyland bus contract and subsequent moves by European suppliers to take advantage of Castro's improved cash position. The sabotage raids, built into the program as a sort of firing pin for internal unrest and to create the conditions for a coup, which was to be the main force leading to Castro's defeat, ran only from August to December and only five were actually conducted. The effectiveness of these five raids is certainly debatable; there are strong proponents on both sides of the argument. Regardless of how that debate might come out, however, five rather low-key raids followed by the present three-month hiatus, the latter clearly noted by pro- and anti-Castroites alike, adds up to a program of a much smaller dimension than originally envisioned which could not be expected to have had the desired detonating effect.

At the present time, as a result of a number of circumstances well known to you,Castro is in a strong upswing and the spirit of resistance within Cuba is at a very low point indeed. In my estimation, a covert program at this time designed to overthrow Castro is not realistic. Acceptance of risks and noise level of a greater magnitude than we had in mind in June would be needed to stand a chance in view of the developments since last June. This then raises the question of what should happen now to the various bits and pieces of the June program. I would like to mention these separately and refer to some of the considerations typical to each.

The sabotage raids are conducted by Cuban exile groups held and trained in Florida and entirely subject to our planning and control. There are three of these groups totaling approximately 50 men. To place them in position and recover them there requires an extensive maritime apparatus in Florida, which likewise serves intelligence agent infiltrations and exfiltrations. To maintain the raiding capability on a stand-by basis is expensive but, more importantly, the raiding groups themselves have a relatively short shelf life; if not employed their morale deteriorates and some of the members, usually the best motivated, drop out. Replacements can be acquired and trained but their caliber and morale is in large part determined by the morale of the exile community as a whole. We probably can retain the present raiding groups at roughly their current capabilities for another month or two, although the well-known Cuban volatility is capable of causing sudden and more rapid deterioration.

In short, we will need to know within a reasonable time whether we should continue to effect repairs to and keep in being our sabotage raiding apparatus. The dismemberment of these raiding teams could be accomplished without too much shock to the exile community. It would be noticed, but, if done carefully, particularly if it coincided with the commencement of “autonomous” operations, it should not cause undue repercussions and polemics against U.S. policy.

As you know, again as part of the June plan, we are supporting two “autonomous” exile groups headed respectively by Manuel Artime and Manolo Ray. In both cases we have gone to maximum lengths to preserve the deniability of U.S. complicity in the operation. Artime, who now possesses the greater mechanical and paramilitary apparatus, has required a good deal of hand-feeding although still within the context of deniability. He will probably not be ready for his operations against Cuba before April or May of this year. He possesses most of his hardware and maritime equipment and has negotiated geographical and political bases in Central America. Manolo Ray has been handled on a much more independent basis. We have furnished him money and a certain amount of general advice. He does not possess the physical accoutrements that Artime has and is probably not as well equipped in terms of professional planning. Ray has a better political image inside Cuba among supporters of the revolution and has recently acquired, according to reports, some of the other leftwing exile activist groups such as Gutierrez Menoyo and his Second Front of the Escambray. He is said to be ready to move into Cuba on a clandestine basis late this spring. His first weapon will be sabotage inside Cuba, apparently not externally-mounted hit-and-run raids.

If U.S. policy should demand that the “autonomous” operations be suspended, we could of course cut off our support immediately. Artime and his group might or might not disintegrate at once. Manolo Ray almost certainly would continue. Both groups are based outside the United States and our only real leverage on them is through our financial support but withdrawal of this support would probably be fatal to their operations in time. A cutoff of this support, even though this support has been untraceable in a technical sense, would have a considerable impact within the exile community. U.S. support is rumored, especially in the case of Artime, and the collapse of the only remaining evidence of exile action against Castro would hit the exile community hard which is what it in turn would do to its favorite target, U.S. policy. The exile of today, however, appears to have lost much of his fervor and, in any case, does not seem to have the capacity for causing domestic trouble which he had a year or two ago. The Central American countries in which the exile bases exist would be greatly confused, although we have carefully never indicated to the governments of these countries any more than U.S. sympathy for the “autonomous” groups.

We have a capacity, which is increasing, to sabotage Cuban merchant ships calling at foreign ports. We are emphasizing in this program the more subtle forms of sabotage as against large explosions obviously stemming from agent-placed bombs and limpets. The Cuban merchant fleet, among the most badly run in the world, can be helped along to a measurable degree by this program.

On the economic warfare front, as you know, we have for many months conducted a covert denial program based on limited capabilities directed at very narrow targets. The effectiveness of this program is dependent on the careful selection of items to be denied in terms of their critical value to a key element of the Cuban economy. Despite the virtual collapse of the U.S. overall economic denial program against Cuba, we still retain the capacity, using unofficial and covert methods, to hurt but obviously not to destroy certain bits of the Cuban economy. This effort can be complemented by carefully concealed contamination of lubricants and similar actions.

Our program to get in touch with and subvert members of the military establishment and other elite groups in Cuba continues. Its chance of success naturally rises and falls with the state of morale inside Cuba as influenced by the success or inactivity of our other programs and the U.S. posture in general.

Our intelligence program continues at full force. It will be affected by anti-Castromorale but we believe that we can offset the effects of further deterioration in this morale by increasingly tightened and efficient operations.

We are seeking your advice to know which of the above lines of actions we should continue, which we should try to retain as a shelf capability and which to abandon. (Of course, intelligence collection would continue.) As parts of an integrated national program designed to have at least a fighting chance to get rid of Castro, they seemed to us to make sense; as separate pieces they can serve to exert some braking effect on Castro's progress, but that is about all.

Sincerely,

Des

1 Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Cuba, Intelligence, Covert Program, 1/64–6/65. Secret; Eyes Only.
2 For text of the proposed program of action, see Foreign Relations, 1961–1963, vol. XI, Document 346.

FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1961–1963
VOLUME XI, CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS AND AFTERMATH, DOCUMENT 346
http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v11/d346
346. Paper Prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency for the Standing Group of the National Security CouncilSource
Washington, June 8, 1963.

• SUBJECT
• Proposed Covert Policy and Integrated Program of Action towards Cuba

I. Introduction

1. Submitted herewith is a covert program for Cuba within CIA's capabilities. Some parts of the program have already been approved and are being implemented. Being closely inter-related, the total cumulative impact of the courses of action set forth in this program is dependent upon the simultaneous coordinated execution of the individual courses of action.

2. This program is based on the assumption that current U.S. policy does not contemplate outright military intervention in Cuba or a provocation which can be used as a pretext for an invasion of Cuba by United States military forces. It is further assumed that U.S. policy calls for the exertion of maximum pressure by all means available to the U.S. Government, short of military intervention, to prevent the pacification of the population and the consolidation of the Castro/Communist regime. The ultimate objective of this policy would be to encourage dissident elements in the military and other power centers of the regime to bring about the eventual liquidation of the Castro/Communist entourage and the elimination of the Soviet presence from Cuba.

3. While the effect of a program of maximum pressure is unpredictable, it is suggested that a sustained intensive effort undertaken now to prevent the consolidation of the Castro/Communist regime may in the future present the United States with opportunities and options not now foreseeable. The consequences of a policy of allowing Castro to “stew in his own juice,” however, are foreseeable. According to current estimates, barring Castro's death or a decisive change in the U.S. posture or Soviet policy towards Cuba, the Castro regime is likely to be more firmly established a year hence, despite possible economic setbacks. The mere passage of time tends to favor Castro as the population and elite groups in Cuba become accustomed to the idea that he is here to stay and as his regime gains in administrative experience and the security organs become more efficient. Over the longer run, the existence of an organized party apparatus as well as a stable governmental machinery could reduce the indispensability of Castro's personal leadership. Thus, if left to chance, the U.S. must be prepared to accept for the indefinite future a Communist regime in Cuba closely tied to and a significant component of the Soviet world power structure.

4. Within the context of the policy assumptions and estimate of the situation in Cuba outlined above, CIA submits a program consisting of the following interdependent courses of action:

A. Covert collection of intelligence, both for U.S. strategic requirements as well as for operational requirements.

B. Propaganda actions to stimulate low-risk simple sabotage and other forms of active and passive resistance.

C. Exploitation and stimulation of disaffection in the Cuban military and other power centers.

D. Economic denial actions on an increased basis.

E. General sabotage and harassment.

F. Support of autonomous anti-Castro Cuban groups to supplement and assist in the execution of the above courses of action.

5. A vital feature of the foregoing program to exert maximum pressure on theCastro/Communist regime is the dependence of the impact of each course of action on the simultaneous and effective execution of the other courses of action. Thus, intelligence information is needed to permit the planning and mounting of operations against economic denial and sabotage targets. Covert propaganda actions are designed to produce a psychological climate in Cuba conducive to the accomplishment of the other courses of action in the integrated covert program. Only after the effects of economic denial and sabotage actions are deeply felt by the populace and the elite groups can one hope to convert disaffection in the armed forces and other power centers of the regime into militant revolt against theCastro/Communist entourage. It is also at this point where CIA-controlled and autonomous activist elements in the Cuban exile community can begin to assume genuine resistance proportions. As a consequence of this inter-related and continuous process, it is reasonable to expect a considerable increase in the volume and quality of the intelligence product on the basis of which additional and increasingly more effective operations can be mounted. Unless all the components of this program are executed in tandem, the individual courses of action are almost certain to be of marginal value, even in terms of achieving relatively limited policy objectives. This is clearly a cause where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

II. Discussion of Components of an Integrated Program

6. In amplification of the courses of action listed in paragraph 4 above, the following additional description and terms of reference are offered:

A. Covert collection of intelligence, both for U.S. strategic requirements as well as for operational requirements.

Covert collection of intelligence continues to be a major CIA mission. Without detracting from our strategic intelligence efforts, emphasis is being given to increasing the volume and quality of intelligence needed for planning and mounting the operations contemplated in the integrated program described in this paper, particularly for defections and penetrations and for economic denial and sabotage actions against vulnerable sectors of the Cuban economy.

B. Propaganda actions to stimulate low-risk simple sabotage and other forms of active and passive resistance.

In accordance with a previously approved psychological program in support of U.S. policy on Cuba, CIA-controlled radio programs and other propaganda media directed at Cuba encourage low-risk simple sabotage and other forms of active and passive resistance. These media also seek to stimulate and exacerbate tensions within the regime and between Cuba and the Soviet Bloc, taking advantage of Sino-Soviet tensions. All of these propaganda operations are calculated to create a psychological atmosphere within Cuba which will facilitate the accomplishment of the other courses of action within the integrated covert action program.

C. Exploitation and stimulation of disaffection in the Cuban military and other power centers.

We are undertaking an intensive probing effort to identify, seek out and establish channels of communication with disaffected and potentially dissident non-Communist elements in the power centers of the regime, particularly in the armed forces hierarchy. The objective is to promote the fragmentation of the regime and possibly lead to an internal coup which would dislodge Castro and his entourage, and make it possible to eliminate the Cuban Communists from positions of power and force the withdrawal of the Soviet military presence and the termination of its economic aid. Several promising operations are already underway.

D. Economic denial actions.

Overt official U.S. economic sanctions in conjunction with covert economic denial operations (such as denial of [less than 1 line of source text not declassified]) is causing a marked adverse effect on the Cuban economy. For maximum impact on the Cuban economy this effort must be coordinated with sabotage operations. We propose to continue and intensify economic denial operations which would be greatly enhanced by an inter-agency committee with a charter enabling it to call upon member agencies for rapid action.
E. General sabotage and harassment.

Sabotage in this program is both an economic weapon and a stimulus to resistance. As an economic weapon, it is a supplement to and therefore must be coordinated with the economic denial effort. As a stimulus to resistance, there must be visible and dramatic evidence of sabotage to serve as a symbol of growing popular defiance of the Castro regime.
These operations will be conducted either by externally held assets now available or by existing internal assets or those to be developed. Assets trained and controlled by CIA will be used as will selected autonomous exile groups. Initially, the emphasis will be on the use of externally held assets with a shift to internal assets as soon as operationally feasible.

The types of sabotage considered appropriate for this program are:

(1) Simple low-risk sabotage on a large scale stimulated by propaganda media (approved and being implemented).

(2) Sabotage of Cuban ships outside Cuban waters (approved and being implemented).

(3) Externally mounted hit-and-run attacks against appropriately selected targets.

(4) Support of internal resistance elements, providing materiel and personnel to permit them to undertake a variety of sabotage and harassment operations.

It must be recognized that no single act of sabotage by itself can materially affect the economy or stimulate significant resistance. However, it is our opinion that a well-planned series of sabotage efforts, properly executed, would in time produce the effect we seek. Each action will have its dangers: there will be failures with consequent loss of life and charges of attribution to the United States resulting in criticism at home and abroad. None of these expected consequences should cause us to change our course if the program as outlined can be expected to be successful.

Annex A is an elaboration of a proposed sabotage and harassment program against Cuba.

F. Support of autonomous anti-Castro Cuban groups to supplement and assist in the execution of the above courses of action.

In the past, CIA has utilized only fully controlled and disciplined agent assets as a safeguard against unilateral and irresponsible action by Cuban exiles intent upon the liberation of their country. If sabotage and resistance activities are to be undertaken on a larger scale, it will be necessary to accept the risks involved in utilizing autonomous Cuban exile groups and individuals who will not necessarily be responsive to our guidance.CIA proposes the following “rules of engagement” to govern the conduct of these autonomous operations:

(1) It is the keystone of autonomous operations that they will be executed exclusively by Cuban nationals motivated by the conviction that the overthrow of the Castro/Communist regime must be accomplished by Cubans, both inside and outside Cuba acting in consonance.

(2) The effort will probably cost many Cuban lives. If this cost in lives becomes unacceptable to the U.S. conscience, autonomous operations can be effectively halted by the withdrawal of U.S. support; but once halted, it cannot be resumed.

(3) All autonomous operations will be mounted outside the territory of the United States.

(4) The United States Government must be prepared to deny publicly any participation in these acts no matter how loud or even how accurate may be the reports of U.S. complicity.

(5) The United States presence and direct participation in the operation would be kept to an absolute minimum. Before entering into an operational relationship with a group, the U.S. representative will make it clear that his Government has no intention of intervening militarily, except to counter intervention by the Soviets. An experienced CIA officer would be assigned to work with the group in a liaison capacity. He would provide general advice as requested as well as funds and necessary material support. He may be expected to influence but not control the conduct of operations.

(6) These operations would not be undertaken within a fixed time schedule.

III. Recommendation

7. Policy authority already exists for courses of action described in paragraph 6 A-D. In order that full advantage can be taken of an integrated covert action program, the Standing Group is requested to approve courses of action outlined in paragraph 6 E and F within the terms of reference and rules of engagement therein.

Annex A

• SUBJECT
• Sabotage/Harassment Program

The broad target categories against which the sabotage/harassment operations would be mounted and a preliminary evaluation of their effect, can be summarized as follows:

A. Electric Power

Disruption of any of the existing power grids which might be effected by damage to or destruction of the generating facilities or of the critical sub-stations in the distribution network, would significantly weaken the existing economic and social structure, particularly in view of the fact that in many areas the power now available is not adequate to meet the demands of industrial and public consumers. Smaller acts of sabotage/harassment by the populace such as throwing chains over high tension lines to short them out, would also exacerbate the current power shortage, and the cumulative effect of all such actions could cause a prolonged breakdown of the power system as there is already a shortage of spare parts and replacement materiels.

B. Petroleum, Oil and Lubricants (POL)

Damage to or destruction of POL production and/or storage facilities would seriously affect almost all aspects of the Cuban economy. The electric power industry depends almost entirely upon POL as fuel for the generating plants and the sugar industry depends upon POL powered processing and transportation facilities as does all intra-province transportation. Production and storage facilities are susceptible to external attacks by heavy weapons or by more subtle methods if internal assets having an appropriate degree of accessibility can be developed. The loss of refining facilities could be offset by increased Bloc shipments of refined products but such a shift would require a period of readjustment during which there would be a heavy strain on the Cuban economy. An additional burden on the Bloc refining capacity would also exist until Cuba's refining capacity is restored.
C. Transportation
Damage to or destruction of railway and/or highway rolling stock or the destruction of key bridges would lead to breakdowns in the regional economics which to a large degree are dependent on the distribution of imported products. The processing and export of the vitally important sugar crop is also entirely dependent on transportation. It is not anticipated that we could achieve that degree of disruption which would cause a collapse of the economy or social structure, but even a minor degree of disruption will adversely affect the standard of living and the output of the economy, both of which are key factors in the stability of the regime. The type of operations envisioned in this category would range from fairly sophisticated attacks by external or internal assets against the rolling stock, key bridges and repair facilities to simple low risk acts by the populace such as the derailing of rail transportation or placing tire puncturing material on highways.
D. Production Processing and Manufacturing Facilities
While the Cuban economy primarily depends on imports for indigenous consumption and even though the sugar crop is by far the most important item in Cuban exports, there are still a number of other facilities such as the nickel complex at Nicaro, cement plants, distilleries, and the myriad industries associated with the provision of food, clothing and shelter, which are worthwhile targets in that stopping or lessening their output will weaken the economy and breed discontent against the regime. These targets are particularly susceptible to attack by external or internal assets in that due to their profusion and their relatively low strategic importance they are not well guarded or otherwise secured against attack.

The selection of specific targets within the above categories and the determination of timing and tactics will be predicated upon detailed analysis of the following factors:

1. The extent to which the target can be physically damaged.
2. The resultant effect upon the Cuban economy.
3. The cost or effort required if additional burdens are placed on Bloc support.
4. The psychological effect on the Cuban population.
5. Anticipated adverse reactions.
6. Operational capabilities and limitations of CIA assets.

* Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, Cuba, General, 6/63. Secret; Eyes Only. According to a covering memorandum from Smith to Bundy, June 10, this paper was to be submitted to the NSC Standing Group on June 11. The next (8th) meeting of the Standing Group was held on June 18, not June 11.Bundy's record of action of the June 18 meeting indicated that the group discussed this paper and approved it for final decision by the President. (Ibid., Meetings and Memoranda Series, Standing Group Meeting, 6/18/63)

[Many thanks to Tree Frog and his friends for these notes - BK]

LBJ's Remarks at Andrews AFB 11/22/63

Andrews AFB Log 11/22/63

Andrews Log

RIF: 161-10002-10000
USAF
SPECIAL ANDREWS AFB DUTY OPERATIONS LOG FROM NOV 22-25, 1963 AND JUNE 5-6,

9 pages.

SUBJECTS: JFK ASSASSINATION; RFK ASSASSINATION; AIR FORCE ONE; GENERAL LEMAY.

DOCUMENT TYPE: LOG BOOK, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

UNCLASSIFIED
OPEN IN FULL

COMMENTS: Special Log of Events found by Air Force civilian employee, Mr. Chuck Holmes, and transferred to ARRB by USAF. Cover stamped 1254 ATW Command Post.

COVER REMARKS:

Special Unclassified
J.F.K. Assassination - 22 Nov. 63 & RFK Assassinations 5 June 68.
1254th ATW Command Post
Return to Chuck Holmes.
RECORD
MAINTAIN IN LOCAL TIME
7530-222-3523 Federal Supply Service ICPO
UNCLASSIFIED
ALL IN LOCAL TIME

Page 1

LOCAL Death of J.F.K.
Time 22 Nov 63 (FR.)

1400 [2 pm-bk] Col Hornbuckle Heard News Report on the President being shot at Dallas.

Put Wing on Alert & Told Maint To Put Act T intoo. (C P Maintaining acft status)
Notified 98 & 99 To Alert Crews (Received Aircraft Availability Status)
Notified Air Police To Alert Flight Guards.
Notified Air Team.
D2Col Schwikert Concurs in Above Actions

1405 [2:03pm] Notified To Dispatch: 0912488 Plu Boston, Drop Dallas

1420 [2:20] 092488 & 2493 CANX. 4197 Set-up
To Dept To Plu Gen Lemay at Toronto, Canada. Trip #1602

1446 [2:46] =094197 Dept for Canada. ETA 1546
Received word from 86972 - Returning To HIK, Min 6nd Time, Direct Dallas.
092489 inbound To Whitemn with ulsec McMillian Advised to Standby there for further instructions.

1450 Set up MSN #1617 12490 To Take Sen Kennedy To Otis.

Crossed out ione line. Undecipherable

Change Gen Lemays Plu from Torento To Wawirton Canada 44.45N 0981.06W

END OF PAGE ONE

Page 2

Local
Time

1500 [3pm] (C.F.) - WashARTC called with Flight Plan on AF1. ETD Dallas 22
1515 Hi. ALT to ADW, 2 + 10 ENROUTE

1505 [3:05] Contacted 24197 (UHF) to change Destination to Wairton.

1510 [3:10] Patch w/86972 EST ADW 23/0100

1515 [3:15] Change 12490 Destination Otis to Barnstable.

1525 [3:25] 912492 & 12493 Patrick to Ramey (Cong Group)Returning To ADW ETAs 1650 & 1700

1530 [3:30] 0912490 (Sen Kennedy Departed For Barnstable. Crew ABD ACFT
when He arrived Sgt Pshney AFLP stated that the S.S. will Take Care of Body At ADW

1535 [3:35] =09=0912499 u/sec MsMillian Returning ADW

1540 [3:40]=09=0924200 OUT of Commission For TOC=D5s To FAR into PE.

Missions 1572/27 & 1573/01 CANX.

1545 [3:45] 96000 Returning ADW, Mr Johnson ABD ETA 1725 (Returning as AF-1) Body & Mrs. Kennedy ABD

1547 [3:47] =09=09AF 1 Dept DAL, ETA ADW 1805

1600 [4:00pm] =09Quiet Hour 1745 To 1830.

1609 [4:09] =096972 Dept AIK ETA 00240

END OF PAGE 2
Page 3

Local
Time=20

1625 [4:25pm] 24197 Gen Lemay Dept Wairton 1604 ETA DCA 1715, Driver & Aide at DCA ETA charged 1710, Secy Zuckert Will Meet Lemay at ADW. (notified AC f t )

1650 [4:50] =09=09Call From 26000, need steps FWD Door, FWD Gally Door & Lift Truck AfT Pax Door, Body in Rear.

1700 [5:00pm] =09Gen Lemay Will land DCA NOT ADW.

1700 Alert Posture From Burleson: Immediate Alert till 1830 HR Alert till 1830 - 200 HR Alert 2000 - Till Advised Left Jetstar on 1 HQ

96000 Requested Ramps & Press Fence

1710 [5:10] =09=09Call From Duty Off @ Torrejon C.P. Requesting info on Sam
P/U of =09=09=09=09=09V.P. of Spain - None Sked By 1254th.
1712 [5:12] =09=094192 Gen Lemay ARR DCA.

1715 [5:15] =0912491 w/Cong Price at Burbank Alerted For Possible P/U ofLawford Family to Return ADW.

1730 [5:30] 096972 ETB A ADW 0030 . 32 PAX.Notified Mr Jackson – Home 9929-1298 For Transport Etc.

1735 12491 Possible Plu of Lawford Family CANX. Notified Alc @ Burbank. Maj Chappelle Advised thaat He is Returning ADW via FFUTT with Cong Cohelan.

END OF PAGE 3

Page 4.

Local
Time

1740 [5:40 pm] AF1 Reg Four A.P. Cars, 2 FWD & 2 ft of AcFt on Ramp Confirmed.

1800 [6:00pm] AF1 ARR ADW, 12489 Slowing Down To ARR After ADW Opens, 42816 Still Holding

1830 [6:30]=09=0986970 ARR ADW

1841 [6:41] =0942816 ARR ADW

1852 [6:52] =09=0912489 ARR ADW

2108 [9:08pm]=0912490 ARR ADW

2145 [9:45] From Col Burleson - AT 39 #493 will Dept Love Field arond 2345 ETA ADW 0230 W/ A CAPT & 2 PRESS. Arrange a car To Take Them To The White House immed - Confirmed w/TFC.

2324 09T39 ETA ADW 0136 - given To TFC.

0923 NOV 63 (Saturday)

0037L [12:37am] =0986972 ARRIVED ADW with Scc Rusk, etc.

0950 [9:50am]=09Per Sgt Geiser - Gen Eisenhower to arrive at DCA at 1030L on a CBS Gulfstream.

Crossed out Line
1400 [10:00am] Per LCOL Burleson - Set up #1618 C131 42815 Drop Father Cavanaugh Barnstable. 09TRAF - RS 091299 - Johnson - Dec_____CAMRON – BECK SSC – RBC T/OPS - Hornbuckle W.H. - Po_le

END OF PAGE 4

Page 5

23 NOV 63

Local
Time

1200 [Noon] =09Per LCol Burleson SET UP MSN 1619
=09=09=09VC140 12490 PU VICE PRES SPAIN
=09=09=09MENOS GRANDES RTN TO ADW

Johnson – Deceasre
TFRAF - HP
CAMERON - BECK
SSC - RBC
DET 3 – LARSON’09T/OPS - HORNBUCKLE
W.H. -

1248 [12:48pm] =09SGT LARSON CONFIRMED GATE #21 (1AB Terminal) will be available for arrived MSN 1619.

1700 [7:00pm]=09MSN 1619 DELAYED ARRIVAl at Idlewild Due to Weather at Destination 2490 Landed. IDL 1645L Departure 10L 1756 L RTA ADW 1834 2490 Blocked in 1842

Notified Col Burleson
Col Hornbuckle
MX Beck
DET 3 Larson
Spanish Embassy

1710 [7:10] Sgt. Griser - Cx Mission # 1585
Baggage P/U at Patrick Henry
Wg Ops Col Hornbuckle
Maj. Hefner
MX Harding
T/C Wade

1825 [8:25] =09=09Per Sgt Griser Set up Mission #1621 VC - 140
P/U Prince Bernhard at IDL Drop ADW
Set up Mission #1620 C-131 42815
Drop Gen Fol__sc_ IDL wgOps. Col Hornbuckle
99th Maj Hefn
Mx. Beck
TFC Wade
Det. 3 - Sgt Larson

END OF PAGE 5

Beginning of Page 6

Local
Time

0900 [9:00am]=09Per Col Burleson - Mission # 1604 A/C 80608 will divert To Nellis AFB To P/U Mr Conlon after DV Drop at Hamilton. - 98th
Maj. Tul_ Wg Ops. -

2300 Per Col Burleson - Mission #1604 will also wait at Hamilton no longer than 24/1800- for P/U of Congressman Shelly and Return ADW via Nellis.

24 NOV 63 (Sunday)

1330L [1:30pm] ACFT 80608 MSN # 1604 DIV To TRAVIS Due Hamilton WX will pu MR/CONLON At Nellis Per Col Tueful, Mr Conlon ARR Commercial

1436 [2:36pm] Per Col. Burleson - Set up Mission # 1622 VC-140 ADW To
IDL =09=09=09=09=09drop Prince Philip - To connect with BOAC Flight #500 For
London Det 3 - Larson
MX. - Beck=
99th - Bartels
SSC - Henry
TFC - L D
WH - Chance

1645 [4:45] 80610 Mission # 1367 Enroute From Naples To Lajes diverted To Lisbon Due to shorted plugs on Rt x Lt side of #2 cyl #4 Eng. Possible Cyl. or Eng change - will advise after inspection
ETA Lisbond 24/17102 Per Col Burleson set up Mission # 1623
VC - 09137 86902 To Lisbon To P/U Gen. Hamlet on 80610 ETA AD
W=20
0924/1800L
998th Mangold
Wg. Ops.
Col. Hornbuckle
SSC – Green
MX Harding
TFC Lynn

END PAGE SIX

Begin Page 7

Local
Time

1827 [8:27pm] Per Col Burleson CX. Mission #1623
986972- Wg.Ops Col Hornbuckle
998. - Mangold
MX. Harding
TFC Lynn
SSC MAY

2000 [10:00pm]Per Col Burleson - Set up Mission # 1624 VC-140 Pick up President Truman at DCA and drop at Kansas City.
Wg Ops Col Hornebuckle
MX. Harding
TFC Wade
SSC Grlla
99th Parker

1750 [7:50pm] 24197 called UHF and advised DV request 4197 make additionaltrip to Boston after Drop at Otis - Request approved - Sgt.Geiser

1845 [8:45] Chg OF ACFT ON MSN 1622 INST PANEL LIGHTS OUT D4ACFT 92490 Chg To 2493 approved - Col Hornbuckle

25 NOV 63 (Monday)

0930 [9:30am] Per Col HornBuckle Set Up MSN #1433 C140 To Take MRS Rose Kennedy To Cape Cod ETD 25/1500L
WG - Cesarid
MX - CN
SSC-Parish
99 - Bartels
TFC-JP

END

END OF PAGE 7

Page 8 Re: DEATH OF R.F.K. 05 JUNE 68=20