This is the introduction to the unpublished manuscript I wrote with the grant from the Fund for Constitutional Government Investigative Journalism Project (circa 1994), with the addition of Gibson and a few other items. I will continue to expand on this theme, and would appreciate any corrections, critiques or feedback. - BK
THE DIVINE SKEIN AT DEALEY PLAZA
PSYCHO or PSYOP? FREUD verses SUN TZU
By William Kelly
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy remains a Watershed event in modern American history, the ramifications of which have yet to be fully realized. The details of the crime, the acoustics, ballistics, autopsy and medical evidence are covered elsewhere. This report and the ones that follow concern the covert intelligence operations that resulted in the murder of the president and the black propaganda operations that continue to this day, manipulating the news and judicial system to shield those responsible.
The time and the place – 12:30 p.m., Friday, November 22, 1963, Houston and Elm streets, Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas, are notched in our national subconscious, and the picture of that square acre of time and place are etched in our collective memories.
If Dealey Plaza were pictured as a giant mosaic wall mural, broken into pieces like a puzzle, we would have a pretty good idea of what occurred there. Only a few pieces are still missing – the faces in the shadows, the names of the mangers pulling the strings of the puppets and pawns, details unnecessary to understand the nature of the plot.
Although there are many theories as to what happened in Dealey Plaza on that day, the events as they actually occurred only happened one way, and it is the responsibility of the independent researchers, journalists, professors and historians to determine that truth as close as possible.
Some people might consider the crime ancient history, even though it is such a current event that indictments can still be brought down for those responsible for crimes, if not homicide and conspiracy, then obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence and perjury. Besides the issues concerning the accuracy of our historical perspective, truth and the pursuit of justice, it is important to know for oneself whether the death of the president was an unplanned, spontaneous act of a lone madman or a very well planned and executed coup d’etat.
John F. Kennedy was either killed by a deranged lone-nut, as the official Warren Commission concluded, or he was the victim of a covert action team of clandestine agents, as much of the evidence suggests. The truth is either one way or the other, but cannot be both.
If the assassination of JFK was the work of a lone-nut madman, the lessons to be learned from the tragedy are far less significant than if Kennedy was killed as part of a coup, as the ramifications stem into the realms of truth, justice, responsibility and national security.
Not for the sake of argument, but for the sake of analysis, a competent homicide investigation would proceed first by assuming that JFK was killed as an act of elimination. An understanding of current events and the details of the crime also suggest that what happened at Dealey Plaza was not only the product of a conspiracy, but by a much more clearly defined MO – Modus Operandi – that of a covert intelligence operation.
Although anyone with the training and knowledge can conduct such operations, the murder of the president, because of the extensive cover-up that occurred after the fact, must have had its origin in the very heart of the U.S. government. If it was an independent operation, a renegade group or the work of foreigners, those responsible would have been pursued to the ends of the earth. Instead, the evidence leads directly inside the government itself. Those responsible for what happened at Dealey Plaza took over the government and controlled the investigation of the crime.
But because the modus-operandi MO – is that of a covert operation, by its very name and nature is meant to be hidden and concealed, so as to protect the real sponsors, in order to see it you must look at it through a special spectrum. This ‘crystal ball’ is similar to an onion, an analogy John Judge likes to use, as it has layers of deception that must be pealed off, revealing layers of truth, and can only be understood if you are educated in the history and trained in the crafts and techniques covert intelligence operations.
Allen Dulles' book The Craft of Intelligence was published in 1963, and was the book that he was promoting when he visited Dallas shortly before the assassination. In it Dulles notes that the biographical method of study is a good way to learn and understand practically any subject. Pick a person and learn everything you can possibly know about them. Note 1.
And he suggests that Sun Tsu’s book The Art of War is very special and worthy of attention. 2.
As for biographies, Lee Harvey Oswald is one of the first characters you have to come to know in order to understand the assassination. The primary, but not first suspect, Oswald “is your man,” as LBJ told the Dallas authorities, and no conspiracy, so the official investigators pretty much handed the American public the head of Oswald on a platter.
While a typical homicide investigator on the street may not have the historical background or training in intelligence operations, and may not have the investigative resources federal governmental agencies have at their disposal, a common man’s instincts will tell you something and lead you to clues worth pursing. Every homicide investigator begins with a body, and a suspect who can usually be identified as one who had the means, motive and opportunity to commit the crime. We have that with John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald.
Their paths crossed at Dealey Plaza, an intersection out of the Twilight Zone, one that we keep going back to see if we went in the right direction when we left there.
Oswald had the means, the U.S. Marine Corps training, the experience and the tools - the ability to kill. He also had the opportunity since he worked in a building at the scene of the crime, which makes JFK one of the few assassination victims who, rather than being stalked by his assassin, is delivered to the window his killer.
The problem with Oswald is that he did not have a motive. He actually liked JFK. Not even the Warren Commission, even though they concluded Oswald was the assassin, could determine a motive for the murder. 3.
But the more you learn about Oswald, rather than finding the psychotic, homicidal maniac, you realize he was merely a pawn in a much bigger game of power politics, a game that continues to this day.
Although Oswald may have been a loner, he was seldom alone and not deranged. He was definitely an operative agent, although exactly who he was an agent for has yet to be precisely determined, but can be.
At an early meeting of the Warren Commission Allen Dulles handed out copies of a book he recommended the other Commissioners read - Robert Donovan's The Assassins. 4.
Donovan’s The Assassins purports to show how American assassins are all psychologically deranged loners, but commissioner John J. McCloy called Dulles on this notion, pointing out that Lincoln’s assassination was a conspiracy since co-conspirators were hung along with John Wilkes Booth.
But Dulles paraphrases Donovan, the author of the book, saying that Booth was such a dominating person in the plot that it almost wasn’t a conspiracy.
And Dulles wasn’t the first to suggest the accused assassin was crazy, as Donald Gibson points out in, JFK Assassination Cover-up (Donald Gibson. P.99), which also gets into the Dulles-McCloy exchange over the Lincoln conspiracy. 5.
It is worth quoting Gibson as he writes:
...As was noted earlier, James Reston had suggested, less than 24 hours after the assassination, that this act was committed by one person and that it reflected a “strain of madness” in the country. The New York Herald Tribune had editorialized on November 23 that the assassins in the United States are typically “crazed individuals” and are “real lunatics.” On November 25, the Wall Street Journal asserted that assassins are “idiots” and suffering with “hysteria.” Also, in Dallas, Mayor Earle Cabell was quoted in the November 23 Dallas Morning News describing the assassination as the work of a maniac, as an “irrational act” of a “deranged mind.” As documented earlier, this was not the view of the police officials or the district attorney.
(Allen) Dulles was the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency. He had the experience in intelligence work and in international affairs. He was one of the most sophisticated men in the world. Later, we will discuss the relationship between Dulles and the other early sources of the lone-nut theory. This man probably was not just repeating what he had seen in the newspapers, unless what was appearing in the media immediately after the assassination and what he tried to impose on the Commission had a common source.
On December 5, (Earl) Warren briefly mentioned the mental illness issue. He then also brought this up and he began but did not get to finish a description of a book he had been reading which focused on “the psychiatric angle.”
On December 16, Dulles was far more aggressive in his promotion of this “angle.” Dulles was handing out copies of a book which analyzed seven previous attempts on the lives of U.S. Presidents. Dulles was giving this book to members of the Commission and to the Commission’s lawyers. As indicated by Dulles, the theme of the book was that such attempts were typically the acts of lone individuals, usually individuals with mental disorders. The book that Dulles was pushing was The Assassins by Robert J. Donovan. Although Dulles did not identify it, the Donovan book was published in the year mentioned by Dulles as the publication year and Donovan’s book contains a statement that is almost identical to something said by Dulles.
In response to a comment from McCloy that there was a plot in the Lincoln assassination, Dulles noted that that was true “but one man was so dominant it almost wasn’t a plot.” In his book, Donovan, who was in 1963 the New York Herald Tribune’s Washington bureau chief, argued that in the U.S., assassinations were the work of individuals and he went on to say:
This was true even in the Lincoln assassination, in which, though other conspirators were involved, Booth was the moving spirit and dominated his accomplices to such an extent that the plot was the product of one man’s will.”
The implication of this is that if conspiracies have leaders, they aren’t conspiracies! Donovan’s analysis contained another ingredient that was important in Dulles’s proffered conclusions about the assassination, i.e., that the assassins were usually crazy. Donovan’s conclusion:
By and large the true story behind the assassination and attempted assassinations of American presidents is that the assassins not only were lone operators, but were, most of them, men suffering from mental disease, who pulled the trigger in the grip of delusion...
When Donovan later wrote the introduction of the Popular Library Edition of The Warren Commission Report on the Assassination of President Kennedy, he applied his generalization to the Kennedy assassination:
“For the murder of President Kennedy was so horrifying, so senseless, so heart-rending that the act was difficult to comprehend in terms of the average person’s experience. To anyone who happened to know the history of assassinations of American Presidents, Lee Harvey Oswald conformed remarkably to the pattern of obscure misfits, loners, fanatics, cranks and mentally deranged and deluded men who committed these historic crimes. Indeed he even bore a vague physical resemblance to them.”
“To millions everywhere, however, the crime in Dallas was too momentous in all its implications to be accepted as the pitifully simple thing it was, the solitary act of a deranged and deteriorating wanderer, taking his revenge on the world by destroying one of its finest living figures. Surely, it seemed to many – especially to many abroad – there MUST be a further explanation, a more complex cause, a plot, a conspiracy.”
Donovan uses about eight different terms to suggest that Oswald was a lone nut. The official line that developed during the hours immediately following the assassination had not changed; it was restated with even greater emphasis by Donovan.
Donovan was not your everyday journalist. Although he never graduated from college, he was the Washington correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, and later the LA Times, and had written the best seller “PT 109,” that was made into a movie. 6.
Donovan’s Assassins was published in 1955 (Harper, NY), and after Dulles’ genuflection, he also wrote the introduction to A Concise Compendium of the Warren Commission Report (Popular Library, NY, 1964), which continued promoting the lone-nut thesis. 7.
The attempt to attribute psychological motives to the accused assassin continues, and many millions of words have been written on the subject, with Donovan’s original seven case studies being expanded to over eighty subjects included in the Secret Service Exceptional Case Study. 8.
One of the problems with all of these official academic psychological studies of assassins is they accept the false premise that Oswald was the assassin of President Kennedy, when in fact it can be reasonably demonstrated that he was what he claimed to be – a Patsy. So these authorative studies are of one animal - the Patsy, when they wrongfully assumed they were studying another animal - the Assassin. 9.
Whether assassin or fall-guy, Oswald was a covert intelligence operative, and in fact he sets the mold for what I call the Covert Operative Profile that can be used in the analysis of political assassins, just as the academic studies profile psychotics. 10.
Rather than use Donovan’s The Assassins as a primer on political assassinations for the Warren Commissioners, Dulles should have handed out copies of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, which he recommends highly in The Craft of Intelligence for anyone who wants to try to understand the arcane world of clandestine espionage and covert intelligence operations.
Just as psychotic assassins are described by armchair psychoanalists as various types of paranoid skidso maniacs, covert operators can also be defined more precisely by the type of secret agents they are.
In his book The Craft of Intelligence Dulles elaborates on this theme when he writes, “In a chapter of The Art of War called the ‘Employment of Secret Agents,’ Sun Tzu gives the basics of espionage as it was practiced in 400 B.C. by the Chinese – much as it is practiced today. He says there are five kinds of agents: native, inside, double, expendable and living. ‘Native’ and ‘inside’ agents are similar to what we shall later call ‘agents in place.’ ‘Double,’ a term still used today, is an enemy agent who has been captured, turned around and sent back where he came from as an agent of his captors. ‘Expendable agents’ are a Chinese subtlety which we later touch upon in considering deception techniques. They are agents through whom false information is leaked to the enemy. Sun Tzu says they are expendable because the enemy will probably kill them when he finds out their information was faulty. ‘Living’ agents to Sun Tzu are later-day ‘penetration agents.’ They reach the enemy, get information and manage to get back alive.”
There are many different English translations of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War but Dulles notes, “For my remarks on Sun Tzu I am indebted to the recent excellent translation of the Art of War with commentaries by General Sam Griffith (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1963).” 11.
Dulles continues: “To Sun Tzu belongs the credit not only for this remarkable analysis of the ways of espionage but also for the first written recommendations regarding an organized intelligence service. He points out that the master of intelligence will employ all five kinds of agents simultaneously; he calls this the ‘Divine Skein.’ The analogy is to a fish nest consisting of many strands all joined to a single cord. And this by no means exhausts Sun Tzu’s contribution. He comments on counter-intelligence, on psychological warfare, on deception, on security, on fabricators, in short, on the whole craft of intelligence. It is no wonder that Sun Tzu’s book is a favorite of Mao Tse-tung and is required reading for Chinese Communist tacticians. In their conduct of military campaigns and of intelligence collection, they clearly put into practice the teachings of Sun Tzu.”
“Espionage of the sort recommended by Sun Tzu,” writes Dulles, “which did not depend upon spirits or gods, was, of course, practiced in the West in ancient times also, but not with the same degree of sophistication as in the East; nor was there in the West the same sense of craft or code of rules so that one generation could build on the experiences of another.”
Today, the same crafts and techniques are used, just as they were used centuries ago by Sun Tzu. There have been advances however, not only in the crafts and techniques of espionage, but also in the technique of criminal profiling, a new tool in which criminal behavior is categorized in a similar way.
The category Oswald belongs to, since he should not be among the psychotics studied by the academics, is the Covert Operative Personality, which also includes other rogues of similar persuasion – Feliz Rodriguez, Frank Forini Sturgis, Gerry Patrick Hemming, Richard Case Nagel, Michael Townley, Frank Terpel, El Nosair Sayyid, Ali Mohammad, et. al.
The Covert Operational Profile fits those who are military trained, usually USMC, and from a military family, fluent in a foreign language, can travel extensively, maintains safe house and dead drops, is familiar with codes, ciphers and covert communication techniques, works on an operational need-to-know basis and does not talk about any clandestine affairs.
Of course Allen Dulles recognized these traits in Oswald, the primary suspect, but instead of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, as Dulles recommends in the very beginning of The Craft of Intelligence, he promotes Donovan’s psychotic assassins.
In The Craft of Intelligence Dulles wrote: “But in the craft of intelligence the East was ahead of the West in 400 B.C. Rejecting the oracles and the seers, who may well have played an important role in still earlier epochs of Chinese history, Sun Tzu takes a more practical view.”
“What is called ‘foreknowledge’ cannot be elicited from spirits, nor from gods, nor by analogy with past events, nor from calculations,” he wrote. “It must be obtained from men who know the situation.” [See: Note 16]
In “The Art of War,” Sun Tzu wrote about The Employment of Secret Agents. “Now the reason the enlightened prince and the wise general conquer the enemy wherever they move, and their achievements surpass those of ordinary men, is foreknowledge.”
Sun Tzu: “Now there are five sorts of secret agents to be employed. These are native, inside, double, expendable and living. A native agent is one of the nationality of the enemy. An inside agent is one who lives and works in the enemy camp. A double agent is an enemy agent who works for both sides. An expendable agent is one that can be cut loose after achieving his goal. A living agent is one that can get into the enemy camp and return with information. When these five types of agents are all working simultaneously and none knows their method of operation, they are called ‘The Divine Skein,’ and are the treasure of the sovereign.”
Although satellite and communication intelligence have become more significant in today’s world of espionage, the nature of the clandestine network in action – the “Divine Skein” is still the most reliable means of learning the intentions of other people and governments and acting covertly against them.
In this regard, little has changed since the days of Sun Tzu. The same type of agents are classified and utilized today, as they were in the ancient Chinese dynasties as well as on November 22, 1963 at Dealey Plaza. Now their means and method is known as “covert intelligence operations,” and are “compartmentalized” on a “need to know” basis, so each member of the network team only knows his job and role, and may not even know who he is actually working for.
The gunmen who killed JFK were well trained and competent professional marksmen and killers, operating on a need-to-know basis as part of a covert intelligence operation. The shooters were the easy part, mere technicians. It is the covert operational managers at the top of the clandestine pyramid who are actually responsible for the crime, and the subject of this pursuit.
The accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was an agent trained in what Dulles called “the crafts of intelligence,” but he wasn’t a very good marksman, and undependable for that part of the operation. Rather than the assassin, as the evidence suggests, Oswald was what he claimed to be, an archetypical patsy, the fall guy set up and framed for a crime he didn’t commit. Oswald was, at various times in his short, 22 year old career, an inside agent, a living agent, possibly a double agent, and in the end, an expendable one.
It is not the pawns in the Great Game we are after, but rather, the Knights, Bishops and Rooks, the middle managers and who they work for - the intelligence officers who pull the chains of the puppets and pawns like Oswald, and Rodriguez, Sturgis and Townley.
Sun Tzu calls the men at the top “wise generals” and the “sovereign,” and the operations of the network “The Devine Skein,” giving it a sort of deity or godlike association, since only the patriarch at the top knows all that is going on during the game. To the little man on the street it appears to be divine intervention, or the work of God, when actually it is mere man-made magic.
Professor Paul Linebarger, who wrote the textbook on psychological warfare, trained three generations of American spies in the techniques of psychological clandestine operations – the “black arts,” including E. Howard Hunt, Ed Lansdale and David Atlee Phillips. 12. (Psychological Warfare, Paul Linbarger)
Besides his own textbook on propaganda, Linebarger had his students read The American Confidence Man by David W. Maurer. 13. (The American Confidence Man, Pocket Books, N.Y. 1949).
A professor of linguistics at the University of Louisville (KY), Maurer’s book started out as a study of the slang used by swindlers and crooks in the big time confidence games prevalent in the first half of the last century. Using a unique social science technique – Maurer introduced himself to the crooks, told them what he was doing and after obtaining their confidence, learned their lingo as well as how they pulled off such complicated operations as the Big Con or “The Big Store,” which was used as the basis of the popular movie, “The Sting.”
– Setting up a Big Store in a city where there are lots of transients – Marks, the store operators pay off the Dicks with the understanding only transients will be marked by Ropers for a Sting and no locals will be taken advantage of. The Roper meets a Mark casually, or what appears to be coincidental circumstances, though he’s actually been selected out of a crowd because of his profile – class, money, out of his home element, etc. and is brought to the Big Store where the Roper passes the Mark off to the Inside Man, who sets up the Sting. The Wire is the operation used in the movie “The Sting,” though there were other similar, totally theatrical productions like The Ring and The Stock, which also end with the money being given to the thieves without the Mark even knowing he was robbed.
“The big time confidence games are in reality, only carefully rehearsed plays in which every member of the cast – Except the Mark, knows his part perfectly.” - David Maurer,
In the Big Store that is Dealey Plaza, JFK was the Mark, John Connally roped him and Lyndon Johnson played the Inside Man and greased the official Dicks. And it was the American people who were swindled of their democracy, without even knowing how they did it. Well now we know how they did it and can illustrate it quite clearly for anyone who wants to know.
As with The Sting, the behind the scene network of operators that makes up the Devine Skein is compromised of many different types of people, from street-wise con artists to suave, Ivy League corporate executives and bankers in business suits.
Now ordinary people can look into the glass onion and see The Big Picture, like a moving picture that leaves Dealey Plaza into the cool, dark tunnel and then emerges into the light of day on the trail of the assassins, the picture moves wherever the evidence leads, to places on the board and individuals who are players in the Great Game, whether they want to be or not.
The names of the real assassins of President Kennedy may never become as famous as Lee Harvey Oswald, but I am convinced that we will come to know them, even if they are now dead. We look into the Glass Onion, enter the ‘wilderness of mirrors,” not to name the guilty, but for the adventure of answering the questions, figuring out the riddles, to learn the how and the why, and to view today’s circumstances with the proper perspective.
If Oswald was just crazy, nothing else would make sense, but when you look at the Devine Skein through the "Glass Onion" of covert operations, it all makes sense, and you learn to understand what happened at Dealey Plaza.
As William Manchester wrote, “…If you put the murdered President of the United States on one side of the scale and that wretched waif Oswald on the other side, it doesn’t balance. You want to add something weightier to Oswald. It would invest the President’s death with meaning, endowing him with martyrdom. He would have died for something. A conspiracy would, of course, do the job nicely. Unfortunately, there is no evidence whatever that there was one.” 14. (The Death of the President, William Manchester, 1967).
But the evidence is there, if you know what to look for and where to look for it. People ask all the time, “Who killed JFK?” Well, anyone can know the answer, but you just can’t say a name, you have to take the inquisitive journey and learn for yourself, not just who killed JFK, but how and why they did it.
While we don’t have all the pieces to the big picture and mural puzzle, especially the one with the “smoking gun,” and there probably are no still secret document that gives the names to the men who pulled the triggers, the overwhelming circumstantial evidence fits in very nicely with the covert history of current events.
The psychological makeup of that “wretched waif Oswald” is of little consequence, and all the academic studies of the Patsy are wrong because they are based on the false premise that he was the assassin.
On the other hand, an understanding of the Cold War history and the rules of the Divine Skein puts things in a proper perspective and balances out the scales of history, if not justice. The tools of the social scientist are limited. We can read and interview, and in the end we must judge for ourselves what is real and what is not. A homicide detective once told me that even if you know who murdered someone, you still need to develop the evidence to convict them in a court of law. But the counter-intelligence investigator, the journalist and historian do not have to meet those same standards to know the truth.
Most of the American people have always known, in fact most assumed or have come to believe there was a conspiracy at Dealey Plaza. Even if they couldn’t see through the Glass Onion clearly, they knew in their hearts that something was wrong, not only with the official version of events, but with our constitutional democracy.
It has only been since Watergate in 1972 that the general public became familiar with the covert operational terms such as “black bag operation” and “executive action.”
Philadelphia attorney Vincent Salandria calls it the “Transparent Conspiracy,” where it is prearranged for anyone who takes up the trail of the assassins to be led into a labyrinth of never ending false trails, dead ends and Machiavellian intrigues. “The material we already have demonstrates conclusively that only the only candidate behind the assassination is the American government,” says Salandria, “so to go into a microanalysis only gets oneself into a hopeless maze, and we fail to address the real issues. You can try to develop a model of explanation of what was going on, what happened and why, but to rehash this is useless.” 15. (The Transparent Conspiracy, Vincent Salandria, COPA Conference, Dallas, 1998, John Kelin, ed.).
With an understanding of the crafts and history of covert intelligence operations, and applying standard homicide investigative techniques, the network responsible for the assassination can be identified. The Divine Skein provides a model of the labyrinth, a map of the maze from those who have been there to those who are just taking up the trail and want to take it even further. To understand the truth of what happened at Dealey Plaza you can’t get caught up in all of the ballistics, trajectories, acoustics, autopsies and caskets. Forget the “single-bullet-theory,” suspend judgment on any theories you may have developed. Take up the trail cold and follow it wherever it leads.
At the last meeting of the Warren Commission Allen Dulles tried to have all of the testimony, reports and exhibits classified, but was over ruled by the other commissioners. “Go ahead and publish the stuff,” Dulles said, “people won’t read it anyway.”
John Judge said, “What they are telling us is that ‘We killed the son-of-a-bitch, and you can’t do anything about it’.”
Well, Dulles was wrong, and many thousands of people have read it, and I believe we can do something about it.
My personal approach is to adapt the style David Maurer developed when he researched and wrote about the “Big Con,” and get to know the players, the lingo and the lexicon of the clandestine warriors, learn their history, get to know their biographies, and where they live, and then slip up next to them and ask them why they did it.
[Billkelly3@gmail.com]
RESEARCH NOTES:
1. Dulles, Allen; The Craft of Intelligence (June, 1963, Harpercollins, NY)
http://books.google.com/books?id=mH3qdHK6_EsC&pg=PA259&lpg=PA259&dq=allen+dulles+the+craft+of+intelligence&source=bl&ots=AtnZlGxkzI&sig=2944V6_VSGmESgORGlpwjU-GBI8&hl=en&ei=0ICPSuSvHsGllAfWhoWyDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3 - v=onepage&q=&f=false
2. Sun Tzu; The Art of War By Sun Tzu – Translated by Samuel B. Griffith
http://books.google.com/books?id=5QKhUYU-rwAC&pg=PR6&lpg=PR6&dq=Gen.+Sam+Griffith&source=bl&ots=CQCabkQZEi&sig=0VTlfMkgMeBUw2UiE1zzA42EwpA&hl=en&ei=WmmGSu7dH4WGtgeJ-NznDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5 - v=onepage&q=&f=false
3. The Warren Commission Report (1964) http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/ / http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-7.html - conclusions “...Many factors were undoubtedly involved in Oswald's motivation for the assassination, and the Commission does not believe that it can ascribe to him any one motive or group of motives. It is apparent, however, that Oswald was moved by an overriding hostility to his environment. He does not appear to have been able to establish meaningful relationships with other people. He was perpetually discontented with the world around him. Long before the assassination he expressed his hatred for American society and acted in protest against it. Oswald's search for what he conceived to be the perfect society was doomed from the start. He sought for himself a place in history--a role as the "great man" who would be recognized as having been in advance of his times. His commitment to Marxism and communism appears to have been another important factor in his motivation….”
4. Donovan, Robert; The Assassins (Harpers, 1955, Elek Books, London, 1956)
See: Time review, June 20, 1955. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,861574,00.html
5. Gibson, Prof. Donald: The Kennedy Assassination Cover-Up (Kroshka Books, 1999) http://books.google.com/books?id=7n_sF3PSvSAC&pg=RA1-PA194&lpg=RA1-PA194&dq=Donald+Gibson+Assassination+Coverup&source=bl&ots=h2f9dPlX9U&sig=h05pb9YPYKxXo657jYT6bVythIU&hl=en&ei=eH-PSqeiF4m1lAeDxuy4DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2 - v=onepage&q=&f=falsex)
6.Donovan, Robert J., 90, NYT Obit, Saturday, August 10, 2003.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/10/us/robert-j-donovan-90-the-author-of-pt-109.html
7. Donovan, R.; Introduction to A Concise Compendium to the Warren Report. (Popular Library, N.Y.,1964) See: #66 http://www.tomfolio.com/bookssub.asp?subid=1884
Warren Commission. Donovan, Robert J. [Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, 1917-1963]
A Concise Compendium of the Warren Commission Report on the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. Publisher: NY, Popular Library [1964]. Introduction by Robert J. Donovan. 637 p.; "Since the tragic death of President John F. Kennedy, a great controversy, both here and in Europe, has raged over the true facts of the assassination. To end this debate once and for all, President Johnson set up the Commission, headed by Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Earl Warren. Now, with the publication of the Warren Commission Report, the public for the first time can find the answers to such troubling questions as: Was Lee Harvey Oswald really the killer? Was he alone, or a member of a conspiracy? Just what were his relations with the far Left, the radical Right, the CIA, and Jack Ruby? What was the true sequence of events of the terrible crime and its extraordinary aftermath?" "The conclusive findings of the Official Investigation into the most shocking crime of our century."
8. Exceptional Secret Service Study. http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac.shtml
Assassination in the United States: An Operational Study of Recent Assassins, Attackers, and Near Lethal Approaches; Journal of Forensic Sciences, Volume 44, Number 2, March 1999. http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac/ntac_jfs.pdf
9. More Recent Study – Presidential Stalkers and Assassins.
http://www.jaapl.org/cgi/content/full/34/2/154 By codifying their actions based on motive, presence or absence of delusions, active psychosis, and intent to do harm, the author presents five descriptive categories that he suggests capture the various motivations of presidential stalkers and assassins and characterize the clinical context in which the behavior occurs…
10. Covert Operative Personality Profile
http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2009/08/covert-operational-profile.html
11. Sam Griffith; Obit; Sun Tzu (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1964)
http://www.tecom.usmc.mil/HD/Whos_Who/Griffith_SB.htm
Retired Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, a noted author, lecturer, and Sinologue, died unexpectedly 27 Mar. 1983 in Newport, RI. He was born 31 May 1906, Lewiston, Penn.,U.S. Naval Academy 1929, 2nd Lt. USMC,. Second Nicaraguan Campaign, China, Cuba, and England. In China, language officer at the US Embassy Peiping. WW II British commando training, England and Scotland; 1st Marine Div, 1st Raider Bat., Guadalcanal, and 1st Raider Reg. in New Georgia, Navy Cross, Sept. 1942 for “extreme heroism and courageous devotion to duty” at Matanikau River, Purple Heart, Army Distinguished Service Cross. U.S. Naval War College, Newport, R.I., Chief of Staff, Fleet Marine Force, staff of the U.S. Commander in Chief, Europe, retired from the Marine Corps 1956, after more than 25 years service. Following retirement, Gen. Griffith awarded D.Phil. in Chinese Military History, Oxford University (New College) 1961, translated Sun Tzu’s The Art of War,1963 and Mao Tse-tung’s On Guerrilla War, 1978, wrote The Battle for Guadalcanal, The Chinese People’s Liberation Army, and In Defense of the Public Liberty. Research Fellow Council on Foreign Relations and Institute for Defense Studies in London.
Also see: Samuel Griffith Society Annual Conference – Adelaide
http://www.samuelgriffith.org.au/pages/Conf21/conf21generalinfo.html
12. Linebarger, Paul; Psychological Warfare – International Propaganda and Communications by Paul M. A. Linebarger (1948, U.S. Army; Duell, Sloan and Pearce, N.Y. 1954; Arno Press, 1972),
13. Mauer, David W.; The American Confidence Man (The Big Con; Pocket Books, 1949)
The American Confidence Man – (Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, USA, 1974)
14. Manchester, William; The Death of the President (1967, Harper & Row, NY )
15. Salandria, Vincent; The Transparent Conspiracy COPA Conference Vincent Salandria speech to the Coalition on Political Assassinations, Dallas, Texas, Nov. 20, 1998.
http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/35th_Issue/vs_text.html
16. Foreknowledge and the Assassination of JFK. http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2009/08/foreknoweldge-and-jfk-assassination.html
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Foreknoweldge and the JFK Assassination
FOREKNOWLEDGE AND JFK ASSASSINATION
Sun Tzu said: “Now the reason the enlightened Prince and the wise general conquer the enemy whenever they move and their achievements surpass those of ordinary men is foreknowledge.”
”What is called foreknowledge cannot be elicited from spirits nor from gods. Nor by analogy with past events, nor from calculations. It must be obtained from men who know the enemy situation.” – The Art of War – Chapter XII – Employment of Secret Agents.
One of the hallmarks and “fingerprints of intelligence” that makes the assassination of President Kennedy a covert intelligence operation is the foreknowledge certain people had of the event, and expressing it to others before it occurred.
- Bray – See: Bray v. Bendix trial transcripts re: JEFCOTT.
- Cambridge, England – Telephone call. See: Bowen, Howard.
- Cheramie, Rose – Jack Ruby associate. See: Louisiana State Police (HSCA)
- Dinkin, Eugene B. – American soldier in Germany, claims to have picked up on the assassination plot from Army Security Agency monitor of OAS, the Algerian French Generals, went AOL and tried to inform American ambassador. See : Russell, Dick, TMWKTM.
- Grace, William – “Shortly before the assassination an executive of the Grace Lines was found unconscious in the street. Taken to a hospital, he mumbled that the president was to be shot. He had an appointment with Army Intelligence agents before he was found.” (Paris Flamonde, The Kennedy Conspiracy). Also : “An executive of the Grace Lines suffered a concussion after coming into contact with an Army Intelligence agent. While in a delirium he said, ‘The President is in danger!...”. [Also NoteLHO wrote to mother/brother he “made reservations on a Grace liner.” ]
- Martinez, Jorge Soto – On Nov. 1, told Lillian Springler at Parrot Jungle in Miami JFK to be killed by “Lee, been to Russia, Mexico.” JSM lived in apartment above Mike McLaney’s garage, former Cuban Customs, worked at Fountainblu Hotel.
- Martino, John – To his wife, on the morning of the assassination (See: Summers, Vanity Fair, SWHT), also Larry Hancock’s “Someone Would Have Talked.”
- Milteer, Joseph - (RIP Feb. 28, 1974) Alias Samuel Steven Story. See: William Agusta Somerset – Agent 88 - undercover conversations. NO, April 63.
- Odio, Syliva – See: Fonzi, Gaeton (HSCA; The Last Investigation)/ Russell, Dick (TMWKTM).
- Oxnard, California telephone call – See: Peter Noyes, Legacy of Doubt; latest by Greg Parker. Ed Forum & Blog http://reopenkennedycase.weebly.com/forums.html
- Paine, Michael – Was talking about political assassination as JFK was being killed.
- Philbrick, Herbert – See: Jean Hill. Philbrick expressed foreknowledge of the assassination.
- Rivera, Jose, Dr. (Col. USAR) – See: Adele Edisen (ARRB). Rivera not only expressed foreknowledge of JFK’s assassination, but also of his son Patrick’s premature death and that LHO would move into the apartment on Magazine Street, New Orleans before LHO knew.
- Underhill, G. Garrett – See: Turner, William, Ramparts.
More to come :
A
B
C
X
Y
Z
xxxxxxx
Sun Tzu said: “Now the reason the enlightened Prince and the wise general conquer the enemy whenever they move and their achievements surpass those of ordinary men is foreknowledge.”
”What is called foreknowledge cannot be elicited from spirits nor from gods. Nor by analogy with past events, nor from calculations. It must be obtained from men who know the enemy situation.” – The Art of War – Chapter XII – Employment of Secret Agents.
One of the hallmarks and “fingerprints of intelligence” that makes the assassination of President Kennedy a covert intelligence operation is the foreknowledge certain people had of the event, and expressing it to others before it occurred.
- Bray – See: Bray v. Bendix trial transcripts re: JEFCOTT.
- Cambridge, England – Telephone call. See: Bowen, Howard.
- Cheramie, Rose – Jack Ruby associate. See: Louisiana State Police (HSCA)
- Dinkin, Eugene B. – American soldier in Germany, claims to have picked up on the assassination plot from Army Security Agency monitor of OAS, the Algerian French Generals, went AOL and tried to inform American ambassador. See : Russell, Dick, TMWKTM.
- Grace, William – “Shortly before the assassination an executive of the Grace Lines was found unconscious in the street. Taken to a hospital, he mumbled that the president was to be shot. He had an appointment with Army Intelligence agents before he was found.” (Paris Flamonde, The Kennedy Conspiracy). Also : “An executive of the Grace Lines suffered a concussion after coming into contact with an Army Intelligence agent. While in a delirium he said, ‘The President is in danger!...”. [Also NoteLHO wrote to mother/brother he “made reservations on a Grace liner.” ]
- Martinez, Jorge Soto – On Nov. 1, told Lillian Springler at Parrot Jungle in Miami JFK to be killed by “Lee, been to Russia, Mexico.” JSM lived in apartment above Mike McLaney’s garage, former Cuban Customs, worked at Fountainblu Hotel.
- Martino, John – To his wife, on the morning of the assassination (See: Summers, Vanity Fair, SWHT), also Larry Hancock’s “Someone Would Have Talked.”
- Milteer, Joseph - (RIP Feb. 28, 1974) Alias Samuel Steven Story. See: William Agusta Somerset – Agent 88 - undercover conversations. NO, April 63.
- Odio, Syliva – See: Fonzi, Gaeton (HSCA; The Last Investigation)/ Russell, Dick (TMWKTM).
- Oxnard, California telephone call – See: Peter Noyes, Legacy of Doubt; latest by Greg Parker. Ed Forum & Blog http://reopenkennedycase.weebly.com/forums.html
- Paine, Michael – Was talking about political assassination as JFK was being killed.
- Philbrick, Herbert – See: Jean Hill. Philbrick expressed foreknowledge of the assassination.
- Rivera, Jose, Dr. (Col. USAR) – See: Adele Edisen (ARRB). Rivera not only expressed foreknowledge of JFK’s assassination, but also of his son Patrick’s premature death and that LHO would move into the apartment on Magazine Street, New Orleans before LHO knew.
- Underhill, G. Garrett – See: Turner, William, Ramparts.
More to come :
A
B
C
X
Y
Z
xxxxxxx
Friday, August 21, 2009
Covert Operational Profile
COVERT OPERATIONAL PROFILE of Dealey Plaza Assassin
COVERT OPERATOR – Either state sponsored/controlled or possible renegade with official support.
SEX: Male.
[Note on sexuality of political assassins: historically, there is no known example of a female sniper-assassin, and few others besides Sara Jane Moore (an FBI informant), Squeaky Fromme (a Charlie Manson disciple) and the Pennsylvania Mall Commando spree killer, though there is one female sniper in fiction (Ian Fleming’s Soviet Russian cello-assassin in “From a View to a Kill”].
RACE: Caucasian, or possibly Latin.
NATIONALITY: American, or possibly foreign national, Cuban-Latin American, with U.S. military training and control.
AGE: 22-32 years old.
MARITAL STATUS: Single or separated/divorced; maintains private apartment.
EDUCATION: High School, some college, technical training; fluent in at least one foreign language, with on-site experience and training in covert intelligence crafts and procedures.
FAMILY: Dominant mother, very strong or no father figure, brothers in military.
IQ – 110-130- above average; tests “Passive-Aggressive” on The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), and among the 20% of population that is easily responsive to hypnosis.
MILITARY: USMC or USN (Sub/SEAL), possible Active Reserve Status; trained in codes, ciphers, interrogation techniques, languages, technical, electronic communications, familiar with all types of weapons, expert marksman. If Army, special ops training at Fort Bragg or Fort Bennington.
CHARACTER: Independent personality but disciplined, doesn’t talk unnecessarily, followers orders, is “organized” and focused, doesn’t smoke or drink to excess, and blends in nicely in any environment.
EMPLOYMENT: Civilian blue collar worker; trained technician.
MOTIVE: Ideologically motivated, believes in operational goals.
MODUS OPERANDI: Covert Operative, utilizes intelligence tradecraft, maintains Post Office box, valid passport, uses aliases, dead drops, codes and ciphers, maintains confidential and clandestine communications, fluent in foreign language, and operates on need-to-know basis, under command of case officer; military superior.
KNOWLEDGE: Of military and government procedures, lines of authority and communications.
SPECIALITY – Expert marksman, rifleman, sniper. Special Detachment; primary overseas duty.
STATUS: Contract agent, not a salaried line officer; but possible active duty or active reserve military.
TYPE: Fits Serial Killer profile as a repeat offender, organized personality, involved in three or more separate events, premeditated, select type of victim, thinks he will never be caught (and is usually correct), controls events.
[Note: Because Lee Harvey Oswald fits the profile in more than one category, if he had anything at all to do with the assassination, the motive is elimination and motus operandi for the assassination is that of a covert intelligence operation; but because Oswald was not an expert marksman, and too unreliable a shot to be placed in that position, and the circumstances of the crime scene suggest he has an alibi, it is doubtful his role was that of a shooter.
Also note that if Oswald was responsible for both the assassination of JFK, wounding of Connally and murder of Tippit, the classification of the crimes would be that of spree killer, as well as an assassin and serial killer].
EXAMPLES: John W. Booth; Leon Czoigosz; Byron DeLa Beckwith; Lee Harvey Oswald; Luis Angel Castillo; Frank Sturgis; Felix Rodriguez, Gerry Patrick Hemming, Kerry Thornley, David Morales, Angel Murgado, James Earl Ray; Charles Whitman; Michael Townly; Timothy McVeigh; Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi.
TYPE II American assassin: (disorganized personality) psychologically motivated, mentally deranged, though conditioned and controlled by a handler. Examples include Charles J. Guiteau; Luis Angel Castillo, John Hinkley; Mark David Chapman; Siran B. Siran;
COVERT OPERATOR – Either state sponsored/controlled or possible renegade with official support.
SEX: Male.
[Note on sexuality of political assassins: historically, there is no known example of a female sniper-assassin, and few others besides Sara Jane Moore (an FBI informant), Squeaky Fromme (a Charlie Manson disciple) and the Pennsylvania Mall Commando spree killer, though there is one female sniper in fiction (Ian Fleming’s Soviet Russian cello-assassin in “From a View to a Kill”].
RACE: Caucasian, or possibly Latin.
NATIONALITY: American, or possibly foreign national, Cuban-Latin American, with U.S. military training and control.
AGE: 22-32 years old.
MARITAL STATUS: Single or separated/divorced; maintains private apartment.
EDUCATION: High School, some college, technical training; fluent in at least one foreign language, with on-site experience and training in covert intelligence crafts and procedures.
FAMILY: Dominant mother, very strong or no father figure, brothers in military.
IQ – 110-130- above average; tests “Passive-Aggressive” on The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), and among the 20% of population that is easily responsive to hypnosis.
MILITARY: USMC or USN (Sub/SEAL), possible Active Reserve Status; trained in codes, ciphers, interrogation techniques, languages, technical, electronic communications, familiar with all types of weapons, expert marksman. If Army, special ops training at Fort Bragg or Fort Bennington.
CHARACTER: Independent personality but disciplined, doesn’t talk unnecessarily, followers orders, is “organized” and focused, doesn’t smoke or drink to excess, and blends in nicely in any environment.
EMPLOYMENT: Civilian blue collar worker; trained technician.
MOTIVE: Ideologically motivated, believes in operational goals.
MODUS OPERANDI: Covert Operative, utilizes intelligence tradecraft, maintains Post Office box, valid passport, uses aliases, dead drops, codes and ciphers, maintains confidential and clandestine communications, fluent in foreign language, and operates on need-to-know basis, under command of case officer; military superior.
KNOWLEDGE: Of military and government procedures, lines of authority and communications.
SPECIALITY – Expert marksman, rifleman, sniper. Special Detachment; primary overseas duty.
STATUS: Contract agent, not a salaried line officer; but possible active duty or active reserve military.
TYPE: Fits Serial Killer profile as a repeat offender, organized personality, involved in three or more separate events, premeditated, select type of victim, thinks he will never be caught (and is usually correct), controls events.
[Note: Because Lee Harvey Oswald fits the profile in more than one category, if he had anything at all to do with the assassination, the motive is elimination and motus operandi for the assassination is that of a covert intelligence operation; but because Oswald was not an expert marksman, and too unreliable a shot to be placed in that position, and the circumstances of the crime scene suggest he has an alibi, it is doubtful his role was that of a shooter.
Also note that if Oswald was responsible for both the assassination of JFK, wounding of Connally and murder of Tippit, the classification of the crimes would be that of spree killer, as well as an assassin and serial killer].
EXAMPLES: John W. Booth; Leon Czoigosz; Byron DeLa Beckwith; Lee Harvey Oswald; Luis Angel Castillo; Frank Sturgis; Felix Rodriguez, Gerry Patrick Hemming, Kerry Thornley, David Morales, Angel Murgado, James Earl Ray; Charles Whitman; Michael Townly; Timothy McVeigh; Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi.
TYPE II American assassin: (disorganized personality) psychologically motivated, mentally deranged, though conditioned and controlled by a handler. Examples include Charles J. Guiteau; Luis Angel Castillo, John Hinkley; Mark David Chapman; Siran B. Siran;
Monday, June 29, 2009
JFK ACT Oversight Hearings Petition
Petition for JFK Act Oversight Hearings
Getting Congressional oversight hearings on the JFK Act is one thing that can and should be done, and will happen as soon as someone convinces Edolphus Towns (D. N.Y.), the chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, to do his job and hold them.
It's possible JFK Act Oversight Hearings could be held as early as next March, during Sunshine Week, after the President’s Open Government Directives are developed and the FOIA Task Force completes its work, and if enough people request the hearings, a big if.
Getting new, sworn testimony on JFK assassination records issues would be huge, and if they try to answer just some of the outstanding questons related to the disposition of the records it is likely they will hold more than one hearing as the Oversight committee is the "investigative arm" of the House of Representatives.
Officially, "The Congressional Oversight and Reform Committee is the main investigative committee of the House of Representatives. It has jurisdiction to investigate any federal program and any matter with federal policy implications."
Although I thought we had a better chance with Henry Waxman as chairman, he's moved on to another committee, and the new chair of the Oversight Committee, Edolphus Towns, is a reasonable New York Democrat with the Congressional Black Caucus who will give us time to make our pitch and is open to persuasion.
I think we have an excellent chance of convincing him that it's vitally important to hold hearings on the JFK Act, and get the sworn testimony of the Secret Service official who destroyed records AFTER the JFK Act was established by law, and determine who in the Air Force ordered the Andrews log for 11/22/63 thrown in the trash, and what became of the negative of the photo of the swearing in aboard AF1 that disappeared from the vaults NARA?
If the Committee chair and Committee members want to learn the answers to these questions themselves, then we have a better chance of getting them to ask them.
Why is the CIA stonewalling Jeff Morely on the Joannides/DRE records? What happened to the Air Force One radio tapes? Who at the White House Communications Agency was responsible for their now missing records? Why are records that were open in full years ago now being withheld? Are the agencies and departments of government responding to Obama's Executive Orders on FOIA and Open Government? What about the MLK Records of the HSCA?
So many questions, with nobody to ask them and nobody to answer them.
What can you do?
Go to this site and sign the petition, and if you want to learn more about our efforts, help us lobby Congress, and be kept informed of the progress of the petition, you can follow this blog or email me at bkjfk3@yahoo.com and I'll get back to you with special updates and inside information.
http://www.petitiononline.com/JFKACT/petition.html
To: U.S. Congress
Congressional Oversight of JFK Act
To: Rep. Edolphus Towns, Chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee
and Rep. William Lacy Clay, Chairman of the Sub-committee on information policy, census and NARA and members of the relevant committee.
In order to regain the public’s confidence in government, which has been in decline since November 1963, Congress passed the JFK Act of 1992, requiring the release of all government records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Since the last time Congress conducted a hearing on the JFK Act (June 4, 1997), neither the House Oversight Committee, nor the responsible subcommittee have held one hearing on this issue, despite the destruction of Secret Service documents, the loss of national security records and the continued withholding of records that have been ordered released to the public.
It is imperative that Congress take some action to ensure that the law is enforced and the work mandated by the JFK Assassination Records Act is completed. Therefore,
We, the undersigned citizens of the United States and the free world, do hereby request the House Oversight Committee do its duty and hold public oversight hearings on the JFK Act.
Sincerely,
William E. Kelly, Jr.
et al.......
The day I put this petition on line they were fighting in the streets of Iran and the site was down because of a cyber attack from Iran. After watching those demonstrators being beaten and shot in the street, the government they were fighting was also waging a cyber war that was affecting me - us.
They reported: http://www.petitiononline.com/PetitionOnline provides free online hosting of public petitions for responsible public advocacy, with more than 79 million signatures collected — tens of thousands of active petitions. Starting on Friday, June 12, 2009 around the time of the Iran elections, PetitionOnline was subjected to a form of Internet sabotage known as a massive DDoS attack. Until NTT/Verio Network Operations could devise sufficient active filters to keep the massive attack at bay, this site was inaccessible for most of four days and parts of others. At last notice, the attack was continuing but the filters were holding. Background details are available here and updates are being posted here. We are also posting short updates via Twitter at petitiononline. Thank you for all your support and encouragement, which we really need and especially appeciate during this crisis period.
Join us in the ancient methods of grassroots democracy, combined with the
latest digital networked communications, running live and free 24 hours a day.
Of all the petitions on line, the one I like the best, http://www.petitiononline.com/expeltex/petition.html
is to expel Texas from the United States and return it to Mexico, but nobody's signed on.
The right to petition the government is one of the most basic democratic rights, and is one of the weapons we are using to try to get Congress to hold Oversight Hearings on the JFK Act, to get a Special Federal Grand Jury to investigate the assassination of President Kenendy and to obtain proper forensic autopsies of the victims, all things guaranteed in the Constitution and the way our government is supposed to work.
More deep background on Congressional Oversight of JFK Act
As the Final Report of the ARRB says:
Section 12(a) of the JFK Act states that the provisions of the Act...shall continue in effect until such time as the Archivist certifies to the President and the Congress that all assassination records have been made available to the public in accordance with the Act.”
Therefore the JFK Act is a LIVING LAW, one that is still in effect and shall continue and remain in effect until all assassination documents are declassified, released and made available to the public, whenever that day comes, sometime in 2017.
It has been over ten years now since the ARRB completed its work, so it is imperative that Congress take some action now to ensure that the work mandated by the JFK Assassination Records Act is completed.
The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee is responsible for the oversight of the JFK Act, and when hearings are eventually held on the JFK Act, the responsible sub committee will be chaired by Rep. William Lacy Clay (D.Mi) on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives, with jurisdiction that includes public information, the Freedom of Information Act, the Presidential Records Act and the National Archives and Records Administration.
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP MAKE IT HAPPEN:
If you live in the district of any of these Congressmen, and they represent you, they will pay more attention to your letter, phone call, email or fax, because you are a constituent and represent a potential vote.
If so, please go out of your way and ask your Representative to hold public hearings on the JFK Act and to notify you when they are scheduled before they happen so you can attend, view it on C-SPAN and be kept informed of what happens.
Real Democracy depends on an educated electorate, so stay informed.
Rep. Edolphus Towns (D. 10 NY)
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
2157 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
(202-225-5051)
Subcommittee on Information Policy, NARA, Census
William Lacy Clay, Chairman (D. Missouri)
Majority (202-224-3121)
Paul Kanjorsic
Carolyn Maloney
Eleanor Holmes Norton
Danny Davis
Steve Driehaus
Diane Watson
Minority
Patrick McHenry, Ranking Member
Lynn Westmoreland, Vice Ranking Member
John Mica
Jason Chaffetz
http://informationpolicy.oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=2452
http://www.archives.gov/isoo/policy-documents/eo-12958-amendment.html
Getting Congressional oversight hearings on the JFK Act is one thing that can and should be done, and will happen as soon as someone convinces Edolphus Towns (D. N.Y.), the chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, to do his job and hold them.
It's possible JFK Act Oversight Hearings could be held as early as next March, during Sunshine Week, after the President’s Open Government Directives are developed and the FOIA Task Force completes its work, and if enough people request the hearings, a big if.
Getting new, sworn testimony on JFK assassination records issues would be huge, and if they try to answer just some of the outstanding questons related to the disposition of the records it is likely they will hold more than one hearing as the Oversight committee is the "investigative arm" of the House of Representatives.
Officially, "The Congressional Oversight and Reform Committee is the main investigative committee of the House of Representatives. It has jurisdiction to investigate any federal program and any matter with federal policy implications."
Although I thought we had a better chance with Henry Waxman as chairman, he's moved on to another committee, and the new chair of the Oversight Committee, Edolphus Towns, is a reasonable New York Democrat with the Congressional Black Caucus who will give us time to make our pitch and is open to persuasion.
I think we have an excellent chance of convincing him that it's vitally important to hold hearings on the JFK Act, and get the sworn testimony of the Secret Service official who destroyed records AFTER the JFK Act was established by law, and determine who in the Air Force ordered the Andrews log for 11/22/63 thrown in the trash, and what became of the negative of the photo of the swearing in aboard AF1 that disappeared from the vaults NARA?
If the Committee chair and Committee members want to learn the answers to these questions themselves, then we have a better chance of getting them to ask them.
Why is the CIA stonewalling Jeff Morely on the Joannides/DRE records? What happened to the Air Force One radio tapes? Who at the White House Communications Agency was responsible for their now missing records? Why are records that were open in full years ago now being withheld? Are the agencies and departments of government responding to Obama's Executive Orders on FOIA and Open Government? What about the MLK Records of the HSCA?
So many questions, with nobody to ask them and nobody to answer them.
What can you do?
Go to this site and sign the petition, and if you want to learn more about our efforts, help us lobby Congress, and be kept informed of the progress of the petition, you can follow this blog or email me at bkjfk3@yahoo.com and I'll get back to you with special updates and inside information.
http://www.petitiononline.com/JFKACT/petition.html
To: U.S. Congress
Congressional Oversight of JFK Act
To: Rep. Edolphus Towns, Chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee
and Rep. William Lacy Clay, Chairman of the Sub-committee on information policy, census and NARA and members of the relevant committee.
In order to regain the public’s confidence in government, which has been in decline since November 1963, Congress passed the JFK Act of 1992, requiring the release of all government records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Since the last time Congress conducted a hearing on the JFK Act (June 4, 1997), neither the House Oversight Committee, nor the responsible subcommittee have held one hearing on this issue, despite the destruction of Secret Service documents, the loss of national security records and the continued withholding of records that have been ordered released to the public.
It is imperative that Congress take some action to ensure that the law is enforced and the work mandated by the JFK Assassination Records Act is completed. Therefore,
We, the undersigned citizens of the United States and the free world, do hereby request the House Oversight Committee do its duty and hold public oversight hearings on the JFK Act.
Sincerely,
William E. Kelly, Jr.
et al.......
The day I put this petition on line they were fighting in the streets of Iran and the site was down because of a cyber attack from Iran. After watching those demonstrators being beaten and shot in the street, the government they were fighting was also waging a cyber war that was affecting me - us.
They reported: http://www.petitiononline.com/PetitionOnline provides free online hosting of public petitions for responsible public advocacy, with more than 79 million signatures collected — tens of thousands of active petitions. Starting on Friday, June 12, 2009 around the time of the Iran elections, PetitionOnline was subjected to a form of Internet sabotage known as a massive DDoS attack. Until NTT/Verio Network Operations could devise sufficient active filters to keep the massive attack at bay, this site was inaccessible for most of four days and parts of others. At last notice, the attack was continuing but the filters were holding. Background details are available here and updates are being posted here. We are also posting short updates via Twitter at petitiononline. Thank you for all your support and encouragement, which we really need and especially appeciate during this crisis period.
Join us in the ancient methods of grassroots democracy, combined with the
latest digital networked communications, running live and free 24 hours a day.
Of all the petitions on line, the one I like the best, http://www.petitiononline.com/expeltex/petition.html
is to expel Texas from the United States and return it to Mexico, but nobody's signed on.
The right to petition the government is one of the most basic democratic rights, and is one of the weapons we are using to try to get Congress to hold Oversight Hearings on the JFK Act, to get a Special Federal Grand Jury to investigate the assassination of President Kenendy and to obtain proper forensic autopsies of the victims, all things guaranteed in the Constitution and the way our government is supposed to work.
More deep background on Congressional Oversight of JFK Act
As the Final Report of the ARRB says:
Section 12(a) of the JFK Act states that the provisions of the Act...shall continue in effect until such time as the Archivist certifies to the President and the Congress that all assassination records have been made available to the public in accordance with the Act.”
Therefore the JFK Act is a LIVING LAW, one that is still in effect and shall continue and remain in effect until all assassination documents are declassified, released and made available to the public, whenever that day comes, sometime in 2017.
It has been over ten years now since the ARRB completed its work, so it is imperative that Congress take some action now to ensure that the work mandated by the JFK Assassination Records Act is completed.
The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee is responsible for the oversight of the JFK Act, and when hearings are eventually held on the JFK Act, the responsible sub committee will be chaired by Rep. William Lacy Clay (D.Mi) on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives, with jurisdiction that includes public information, the Freedom of Information Act, the Presidential Records Act and the National Archives and Records Administration.
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP MAKE IT HAPPEN:
If you live in the district of any of these Congressmen, and they represent you, they will pay more attention to your letter, phone call, email or fax, because you are a constituent and represent a potential vote.
If so, please go out of your way and ask your Representative to hold public hearings on the JFK Act and to notify you when they are scheduled before they happen so you can attend, view it on C-SPAN and be kept informed of what happens.
Real Democracy depends on an educated electorate, so stay informed.
Rep. Edolphus Towns (D. 10 NY)
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
2157 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
(202-225-5051)
Subcommittee on Information Policy, NARA, Census
William Lacy Clay, Chairman (D. Missouri)
Majority (202-224-3121)
Paul Kanjorsic
Carolyn Maloney
Eleanor Holmes Norton
Danny Davis
Steve Driehaus
Diane Watson
Minority
Patrick McHenry, Ranking Member
Lynn Westmoreland, Vice Ranking Member
John Mica
Jason Chaffetz
http://informationpolicy.oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=2452
http://www.archives.gov/isoo/policy-documents/eo-12958-amendment.html
Friday, June 26, 2009
New COPA Media Project
John Geraghty has stepped up to say:
Hello to you all,
I wanted to share with you a project that I have started working on with John Judge and the Coalition on Political Assassinations.
We intend to produce a 5 part free to view online mini series as part of a cooperative project over the coming months.
I have pasted the completed proposal underneath, so it is probably best that you read that first.
In terms of getting this project off the ground we will be asking for monetary donations, air miles, a place to stay and your knowledge, expertise etc.
Please read the proposal and send it on to interested friends. Also, if you could post this on blogs, forums and other online information sources, I would be most grateful.
JFK - The Truth in Our Lifetime
The last few years have seen the release of some of the most complete and important accounts of the Kennedy assassination, mainly in terms of its historical significance as a deep political event. Most are based on the release of over 6.5 million pages of classified records that have rewritten the history of the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination itself.
For years the work of the critics has always been of great quality and has overshadowed and outsold those books that sought to uphold the establishment perception of the assassination of President Kennedy was not a conspiracy, but an aberration of history.
This struggle between the combined will of the informed populace and the sturdy control of a domineering elite is best exemplified in two books- JFK and the Unspeakable by Jim Douglas and Reclaiming History by Vincent Bugliosi. One is a relatively short book, detailing the most recent and complete analysis of the politics of the JFK assassination, drawing on all credible material unearthed and analyzed thus far. The other, a voluminous tome focused on the infallibility of the Warren Commission’s findings and the dismissal of any notion of a coup within the United States.
Although both books may have sold in similar quantities, Bugliosi’s work is set to become a ten part mini-series, produced by Tom Hanks for the HBO network. It is here that the distinction between the good and bad research must be made. The critics’ contribution to history is more accurate and more honest, yet their work is not as widely available or acceptable in a hierarchical society.
Bugliosi’s aim with his book and series is to make a serious dent in the 75% majority of the American population who believe there was a conspiratorial plot to assassinate President Kennedy, and he may well do so. This will be the largest tele-visual project on the topic of the assassination since Oliver Stone’s film ‘JFK’ and Nigel Kennedy’s History channel series, ‘The Men Who Killed Kennedy’.
No matter how valuable or important a book is on this case, it will still not reach a wider audience in the way it can via a visual medium.
A new audience
The ‘research community’, as we call it, has made a significant contribution to American politics and society since the day of the assassination. Authors and researchers have freely shared information, created archives, tracked down leads, forced new investigations and successfully lobbied Congress to investigate the murder and to release millions of relevant documents.
The research community has now grown to a stage, both in terms of knowledge and stature, that we can leave the familiar confines of attempting to create exposure for our stories, books and truths in the mainstream media and produce our own material available for mass consumption. Such a production could take the form of a 5-part documentary series, available online for free - our response to ‘Reclaiming History’.
This new series would draw upon the internet culture that has grown up around us and that we have harnessed to enable discussion and to disseminate the riddles of the past at a much quicker rate than was previously possible.
We live in an age when a documentary costing a few thousand dollars can be seen by millions of people on the internet and in DVD form. The power of the word of mouth is now matched by the power of the keyboard. After being blocked out of various Democratic presidential debates Dennis Kucinich was still able to use the internet to get his message out to millions of Americans, one video alone being viewed by 1.9 million people on Youtube.
This proposed series would not simply be an extension of ‘The Men Who Killed Kennedy’, focusing in on individual stories laced through a broader spectrum, nor would it be a straight rebuttal to the tightly wound and loosely conveyed arguments put forward in ‘Reclaiming History’. It can instead be the story that has been on the tip of our collective tongue for decades. The story of the Kennedy assassination, told not in terms of entrance wounds, intelligence agency rumors, ballistics, trajectory, but in terms of the political scene, the danger of a Kennedy presidency to those financial power and in the military.
In other words, this series will take the assassination out of Dealey Plaza and into the real world, making it tangible for an audience to realize that this past event genuinely effects them in the current political climate, and not just in the USA, but globally.
The focus of this version of the assassination can be narrowed into a much more digestible and relevant format, taking it out of the obscure sciences and into the understandable political event that it was. As Mr X, the character in the film JFK tells Jim Garrison, the DA on the trail of the killers, “Why was Kennedy killed? Who benefited? Who has the power to cover it up? Who?"
Not only will the series focus upon the causes and impact of the assassination, but it will do something other series and films don’t and can’t do, provide solutions. The last of the 5 episodes will be an examination of the various methods that have been employed to seek justice and a collection of those legal remedies that we can still use in order to seek some form of resolution.
Who am I, who are we?
What is it that I mean when I say that ‘we’, the ‘research community’ can produce this documentary series? First of all, who am I?
My name is John Geraghty, I’m 23 and from Dublin, Ireland. I hold a Degree in History from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth and I am currently working on a Masters Thesis there on the topic of JFK and the Freedom of Information Act. In the 6 years that I have been interested in this case, I think it is not over-reaching to say that I’ve been responsible for some good and critical work.
Since the age of 17 I have studied the Kennedy assassination, being a regular contributor to online forums and a member of Dealey Plaza UK, a group of researchers of all ages and backgrounds. In 2006 I worked as an intern in the office of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. There I worked with John Judge on the Martin Luther King Records Act, modelled after the successful JFK Records Act of 1992.
The following summer I worked in the Assassination Archives Research Centre under James Lesar, compiling a large list of CIA cryptonyms, code words and personnel. Over several years, I have assisted John Judge with his work in the Coalition On Political Assassinations, including building and managing their website.
I am proposing that I take on the task of actually filming, producing and editing this proposed series. Of course, my knowledge and assets can take me only so far, so it is to the research community that I look for support.
The most important contribution that the research community can make to this project is their knowledge and expertise. It is my intention to talk to and interview authors and researchers of the calibre of Professor Peter Dale Scott, Jim DiEugenio, Walt Brown, Gerald McKnight, Dick Russell, Michael Parenti and Jim Douglas to name but a few. The other contribution that we will need from the research community is financial support, supplies and hospitality.
The whole idea of producing this series is that a group of committed citizens (of any country) can now get together and make a project like this work on very minimal funding.
I do not think it unreasonable to be targeting an initial figure of 50-60,000 viewers of the series. In the age we live in, this is an extremely achievable goal. This is the bare minimum of viewers that I would expect to watch. I will ensure that the documentary is properly marketed on the internet on forums, blogs, websites, social networking sites and hopefully through word of mouth.
Documentaries made for the internet including Zeitgeist and Loose Change have garnered viewers in the millions. The Men Who Killed Kennedy is available online and has been viewed on youtube alone 30,000 times, though this number is likely higher when google video is taken into account. COPA has uploaded 14 videos over the last year. These videos were not professionally produced, nor were they fully promoted, yet they were still viewed 38,000 times.
The funding of this project will be done through COPA, the Coalition On Political Assassinations as a sponsor of our project. We will be asking members of the research community to help us in any way they can - in terms of knowledge, monetary donations, allowing me to stay with them if I’m travelling around the country, loaning filming equipment or donating air miles.
This series will have a very professional feel to it, both in terms of presentation and content. The more material donated and offers of hospitality, the fewer monetary contributions we will need.
This can be our great collaborative effort, our response to the history texts and a chance to bypass a distorted media and tell our own truth without thought of pleasing sponsors, succumbing to government pressure or the need to make a profit.
I speak of this series as a project for this community, but I will say with absolute definite certainty that nothing will be put into this series unless it is absolutely verifiable. The collaborative element of this project ensures that no personal agendas can be followed, I will be merely the organizer of the facts.
Preproduction on the series will begin immediately, with initial filming beginning in July and running through the summer. Following the editing process the episodes will be screened live online each weekend until the anniversary of the assassination Dallas in November. Following the live screening the episodes will be made available for free to stream, to download and to burn onto DVD.
Each episode will be screened at live events in cities across the U.S. with feedback sessions with live audiences to be broadcast directly after the episode.
Because this documentary is made by a non-profit you can be guaranteed that the money is being put to good use, that there are no hidden agendas, and that we will employ every cost cutting technique that does not impact on the quality of the film.
Internet blockbusters are a reality today. With the right story, good research and good production, it really is possible for a series like this to be seen by hundreds of thousands of people. This project is citizen activism at its purest, a group of people from various political and social groupings who share a common goal in the interest of the common good.
Of course, to make all of this possible we need your support. Our goal is to raise $4,000 to cover basic costs for travel, production and editing. I will come over as soon as possible from Ireland and cross the US to get the best interviews I can, drawing on other earlier recorded talks and documentary materials.
Let me put it this way, for every dollar you donate, at least 6 people will be introduced to the historical reality of the Kennedy assassination. This figure could rapidly grow, but I do not wish to speculate at this early stage of the project.
Donations to this project and COPA are not tax deductible. For donations over $50, I will make sure you receive the 5 part series on DVD.
To donate, please go to www.politicalassassinations.com and under the heading of the project click the 'donate' button or by sending a paypal donation to johnpetergeraghty@gmail.com.
Or by mail, please make the check to COPA and note "Know the Truth" at the bottom.
Thank you
John Geraghty
COPA
P.O. Box 772
Washington, DC 20044
johnpetergeraghty@gmail.com
www.politicalassassinations.com
Know the Truth
Breakdown of the 5 part series
Part 1
An introduction to the assassination for someone without any real prior knowledge of the time line, geography and background to the assassination. Beginning with the actual assassination itself and the political, economic and foreign policy battles that pre-dated the act itself.
This episode will also chronicle the establishment of the CIA, the growth of the Military Industrial Congressional Complex. It will touch on subsequent events arising from this intense militarism, such as the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis, two events which foreshadowed President Kennedy’s ultimate demise.
Specifics such as the telephone blackout in Washington D.C. immediately after the assassination, the cabinet’s plane journey at the exact time of the assassination, the DEFCON status, missing code books and troop movements in Florida will be focused upon to give the viewer a sense of the wider implications of Kennedy’s assassination in the immediate aftermath.
Part 2
A study of Lee Harvey Oswald, his ONI intelligence background, his movements and the move to convict him in the mind of the public. Also, the Miami and Chicago plots to kill JFK. This will include Oswald’s time in the Soviet Union and other brief stays in New Orleans and his connections in Dallas.
The principal importance of this episode is to outline the circles in which Oswald ran and the characters with whom he was associated, primarily George De Mohrenschildt and other intelligence agency assets and officers.
Part 3
The investigations, legal battles and official responses which wrote mainstream history with regards to the assassination. Included in this is a presentation on the control exerted over the media in the reporting of the event and subsequent repercussions, including the deaths of witnesses, the Vietnam war and the further drift towards global capitalism, paranoia about international communism and intensified spying upon U.S. citizens.
In the case of the Warren Commission, it will be outlined how in some ways the perpetrators of the crime controlled the investigation into the crime they committed or allowed to happen. The backgrounds of the Commission members will be explored.
Part 4
Foreign policy shifts following the death of the President. The intensification of armed conflict in Vietnam juxtaposed with Kennedy’s proposed policies before his death. An examination of those hawks who advocated an increased presence and a full scale U.S. invasion of Vietnam.
Also including the assassination of Diem, the actions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA, détente with Soviet Union and Cuba, and Kennedy's clear intent to end the nuclear arms race and find real peace. In specific focus will be the actions of the Joint Chiefs of staff, their actions being the overt actions of the state, and the CIA and DIA, the covert and unseen actions of the state.
Part 5
What can be done in the current climate? Introduction to researcher's proposals about grand juries, citizen solutions and an insight into the various researcher communities that endeavor to see a resolution to the case. The end goal being a release of all files in this and other related cases such as the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Robert Kennedy as well as a final reassessment of the case in some official and unbiased forum to get at the truth.
Hello to you all,
I wanted to share with you a project that I have started working on with John Judge and the Coalition on Political Assassinations.
We intend to produce a 5 part free to view online mini series as part of a cooperative project over the coming months.
I have pasted the completed proposal underneath, so it is probably best that you read that first.
In terms of getting this project off the ground we will be asking for monetary donations, air miles, a place to stay and your knowledge, expertise etc.
Please read the proposal and send it on to interested friends. Also, if you could post this on blogs, forums and other online information sources, I would be most grateful.
JFK - The Truth in Our Lifetime
The last few years have seen the release of some of the most complete and important accounts of the Kennedy assassination, mainly in terms of its historical significance as a deep political event. Most are based on the release of over 6.5 million pages of classified records that have rewritten the history of the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination itself.
For years the work of the critics has always been of great quality and has overshadowed and outsold those books that sought to uphold the establishment perception of the assassination of President Kennedy was not a conspiracy, but an aberration of history.
This struggle between the combined will of the informed populace and the sturdy control of a domineering elite is best exemplified in two books- JFK and the Unspeakable by Jim Douglas and Reclaiming History by Vincent Bugliosi. One is a relatively short book, detailing the most recent and complete analysis of the politics of the JFK assassination, drawing on all credible material unearthed and analyzed thus far. The other, a voluminous tome focused on the infallibility of the Warren Commission’s findings and the dismissal of any notion of a coup within the United States.
Although both books may have sold in similar quantities, Bugliosi’s work is set to become a ten part mini-series, produced by Tom Hanks for the HBO network. It is here that the distinction between the good and bad research must be made. The critics’ contribution to history is more accurate and more honest, yet their work is not as widely available or acceptable in a hierarchical society.
Bugliosi’s aim with his book and series is to make a serious dent in the 75% majority of the American population who believe there was a conspiratorial plot to assassinate President Kennedy, and he may well do so. This will be the largest tele-visual project on the topic of the assassination since Oliver Stone’s film ‘JFK’ and Nigel Kennedy’s History channel series, ‘The Men Who Killed Kennedy’.
No matter how valuable or important a book is on this case, it will still not reach a wider audience in the way it can via a visual medium.
A new audience
The ‘research community’, as we call it, has made a significant contribution to American politics and society since the day of the assassination. Authors and researchers have freely shared information, created archives, tracked down leads, forced new investigations and successfully lobbied Congress to investigate the murder and to release millions of relevant documents.
The research community has now grown to a stage, both in terms of knowledge and stature, that we can leave the familiar confines of attempting to create exposure for our stories, books and truths in the mainstream media and produce our own material available for mass consumption. Such a production could take the form of a 5-part documentary series, available online for free - our response to ‘Reclaiming History’.
This new series would draw upon the internet culture that has grown up around us and that we have harnessed to enable discussion and to disseminate the riddles of the past at a much quicker rate than was previously possible.
We live in an age when a documentary costing a few thousand dollars can be seen by millions of people on the internet and in DVD form. The power of the word of mouth is now matched by the power of the keyboard. After being blocked out of various Democratic presidential debates Dennis Kucinich was still able to use the internet to get his message out to millions of Americans, one video alone being viewed by 1.9 million people on Youtube.
This proposed series would not simply be an extension of ‘The Men Who Killed Kennedy’, focusing in on individual stories laced through a broader spectrum, nor would it be a straight rebuttal to the tightly wound and loosely conveyed arguments put forward in ‘Reclaiming History’. It can instead be the story that has been on the tip of our collective tongue for decades. The story of the Kennedy assassination, told not in terms of entrance wounds, intelligence agency rumors, ballistics, trajectory, but in terms of the political scene, the danger of a Kennedy presidency to those financial power and in the military.
In other words, this series will take the assassination out of Dealey Plaza and into the real world, making it tangible for an audience to realize that this past event genuinely effects them in the current political climate, and not just in the USA, but globally.
The focus of this version of the assassination can be narrowed into a much more digestible and relevant format, taking it out of the obscure sciences and into the understandable political event that it was. As Mr X, the character in the film JFK tells Jim Garrison, the DA on the trail of the killers, “Why was Kennedy killed? Who benefited? Who has the power to cover it up? Who?"
Not only will the series focus upon the causes and impact of the assassination, but it will do something other series and films don’t and can’t do, provide solutions. The last of the 5 episodes will be an examination of the various methods that have been employed to seek justice and a collection of those legal remedies that we can still use in order to seek some form of resolution.
Who am I, who are we?
What is it that I mean when I say that ‘we’, the ‘research community’ can produce this documentary series? First of all, who am I?
My name is John Geraghty, I’m 23 and from Dublin, Ireland. I hold a Degree in History from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth and I am currently working on a Masters Thesis there on the topic of JFK and the Freedom of Information Act. In the 6 years that I have been interested in this case, I think it is not over-reaching to say that I’ve been responsible for some good and critical work.
Since the age of 17 I have studied the Kennedy assassination, being a regular contributor to online forums and a member of Dealey Plaza UK, a group of researchers of all ages and backgrounds. In 2006 I worked as an intern in the office of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. There I worked with John Judge on the Martin Luther King Records Act, modelled after the successful JFK Records Act of 1992.
The following summer I worked in the Assassination Archives Research Centre under James Lesar, compiling a large list of CIA cryptonyms, code words and personnel. Over several years, I have assisted John Judge with his work in the Coalition On Political Assassinations, including building and managing their website.
I am proposing that I take on the task of actually filming, producing and editing this proposed series. Of course, my knowledge and assets can take me only so far, so it is to the research community that I look for support.
The most important contribution that the research community can make to this project is their knowledge and expertise. It is my intention to talk to and interview authors and researchers of the calibre of Professor Peter Dale Scott, Jim DiEugenio, Walt Brown, Gerald McKnight, Dick Russell, Michael Parenti and Jim Douglas to name but a few. The other contribution that we will need from the research community is financial support, supplies and hospitality.
The whole idea of producing this series is that a group of committed citizens (of any country) can now get together and make a project like this work on very minimal funding.
I do not think it unreasonable to be targeting an initial figure of 50-60,000 viewers of the series. In the age we live in, this is an extremely achievable goal. This is the bare minimum of viewers that I would expect to watch. I will ensure that the documentary is properly marketed on the internet on forums, blogs, websites, social networking sites and hopefully through word of mouth.
Documentaries made for the internet including Zeitgeist and Loose Change have garnered viewers in the millions. The Men Who Killed Kennedy is available online and has been viewed on youtube alone 30,000 times, though this number is likely higher when google video is taken into account. COPA has uploaded 14 videos over the last year. These videos were not professionally produced, nor were they fully promoted, yet they were still viewed 38,000 times.
The funding of this project will be done through COPA, the Coalition On Political Assassinations as a sponsor of our project. We will be asking members of the research community to help us in any way they can - in terms of knowledge, monetary donations, allowing me to stay with them if I’m travelling around the country, loaning filming equipment or donating air miles.
This series will have a very professional feel to it, both in terms of presentation and content. The more material donated and offers of hospitality, the fewer monetary contributions we will need.
This can be our great collaborative effort, our response to the history texts and a chance to bypass a distorted media and tell our own truth without thought of pleasing sponsors, succumbing to government pressure or the need to make a profit.
I speak of this series as a project for this community, but I will say with absolute definite certainty that nothing will be put into this series unless it is absolutely verifiable. The collaborative element of this project ensures that no personal agendas can be followed, I will be merely the organizer of the facts.
Preproduction on the series will begin immediately, with initial filming beginning in July and running through the summer. Following the editing process the episodes will be screened live online each weekend until the anniversary of the assassination Dallas in November. Following the live screening the episodes will be made available for free to stream, to download and to burn onto DVD.
Each episode will be screened at live events in cities across the U.S. with feedback sessions with live audiences to be broadcast directly after the episode.
Because this documentary is made by a non-profit you can be guaranteed that the money is being put to good use, that there are no hidden agendas, and that we will employ every cost cutting technique that does not impact on the quality of the film.
Internet blockbusters are a reality today. With the right story, good research and good production, it really is possible for a series like this to be seen by hundreds of thousands of people. This project is citizen activism at its purest, a group of people from various political and social groupings who share a common goal in the interest of the common good.
Of course, to make all of this possible we need your support. Our goal is to raise $4,000 to cover basic costs for travel, production and editing. I will come over as soon as possible from Ireland and cross the US to get the best interviews I can, drawing on other earlier recorded talks and documentary materials.
Let me put it this way, for every dollar you donate, at least 6 people will be introduced to the historical reality of the Kennedy assassination. This figure could rapidly grow, but I do not wish to speculate at this early stage of the project.
Donations to this project and COPA are not tax deductible. For donations over $50, I will make sure you receive the 5 part series on DVD.
To donate, please go to www.politicalassassinations.com and under the heading of the project click the 'donate' button or by sending a paypal donation to johnpetergeraghty@gmail.com.
Or by mail, please make the check to COPA and note "Know the Truth" at the bottom.
Thank you
John Geraghty
COPA
P.O. Box 772
Washington, DC 20044
johnpetergeraghty@gmail.com
www.politicalassassinations.com
Know the Truth
Breakdown of the 5 part series
Part 1
An introduction to the assassination for someone without any real prior knowledge of the time line, geography and background to the assassination. Beginning with the actual assassination itself and the political, economic and foreign policy battles that pre-dated the act itself.
This episode will also chronicle the establishment of the CIA, the growth of the Military Industrial Congressional Complex. It will touch on subsequent events arising from this intense militarism, such as the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis, two events which foreshadowed President Kennedy’s ultimate demise.
Specifics such as the telephone blackout in Washington D.C. immediately after the assassination, the cabinet’s plane journey at the exact time of the assassination, the DEFCON status, missing code books and troop movements in Florida will be focused upon to give the viewer a sense of the wider implications of Kennedy’s assassination in the immediate aftermath.
Part 2
A study of Lee Harvey Oswald, his ONI intelligence background, his movements and the move to convict him in the mind of the public. Also, the Miami and Chicago plots to kill JFK. This will include Oswald’s time in the Soviet Union and other brief stays in New Orleans and his connections in Dallas.
The principal importance of this episode is to outline the circles in which Oswald ran and the characters with whom he was associated, primarily George De Mohrenschildt and other intelligence agency assets and officers.
Part 3
The investigations, legal battles and official responses which wrote mainstream history with regards to the assassination. Included in this is a presentation on the control exerted over the media in the reporting of the event and subsequent repercussions, including the deaths of witnesses, the Vietnam war and the further drift towards global capitalism, paranoia about international communism and intensified spying upon U.S. citizens.
In the case of the Warren Commission, it will be outlined how in some ways the perpetrators of the crime controlled the investigation into the crime they committed or allowed to happen. The backgrounds of the Commission members will be explored.
Part 4
Foreign policy shifts following the death of the President. The intensification of armed conflict in Vietnam juxtaposed with Kennedy’s proposed policies before his death. An examination of those hawks who advocated an increased presence and a full scale U.S. invasion of Vietnam.
Also including the assassination of Diem, the actions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA, détente with Soviet Union and Cuba, and Kennedy's clear intent to end the nuclear arms race and find real peace. In specific focus will be the actions of the Joint Chiefs of staff, their actions being the overt actions of the state, and the CIA and DIA, the covert and unseen actions of the state.
Part 5
What can be done in the current climate? Introduction to researcher's proposals about grand juries, citizen solutions and an insight into the various researcher communities that endeavor to see a resolution to the case. The end goal being a release of all files in this and other related cases such as the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Robert Kennedy as well as a final reassessment of the case in some official and unbiased forum to get at the truth.
Public Input on Classification Reform Update
PUBLIC INPUT SOUGHT ON CLASSIFICATION REFORM
Joe Backes reports:
At the request of the National Security Advisor, a public meeting has been scheduled for July 8 to solicit public comments and recommendations concerning proposed revisions to executive branch classification and declassification policies. The meeting was announced in a June 23 Federal Register notice.
The Public Interest Declassification Board, which is hosting the July 8 meeting, will also launch a new blog next week to solicit public recommendations online. The blog will sequentially consider four areas: declassification policy, creation of a National Declassification Center, classification policy, and technology challenges and opportunities. Discussion of each topic will continue for three days, before moving to the next topic.
Meanwhile, an experimental and somewhat erratic White House process for gathering public input on transparency and openness has entered its third phase, intended to draft "constructive proposals" for advancing open government.
From the Fed Reg.[Federal Register: June 23, 2009 (Volume 74, Number 119)]
[Notices] [Page 29729-29730]
NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION Information Security Oversight Office
Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB); Meeting
AGENCY: National Archives and Records Administration.
ACTION: Notice of meeting.
SUMMARY: Pursuant to Section 1102 of the Intelligence Reform and
Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which extended and modified the
Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) as established by the
Public Interest.
Declassification Act of 2000 (Pub. L. 106-567, title VII, December 27,
2000, 114 Stat. 2856), announcement is made for the following committee
meeting: DATES: Wednesday July 8, 2009. Time: 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
ADDRESSES: National Archives and Records Administration, 700
Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Room 105, Washington, DC 20408.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Julie A. Agurkis, PIDB Staff,
Information Security Oversight Office, National Archives Building, 700
Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20408, telephone number (202)
357-5308.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: To solicit public input concerning
recommendations and proposed revisions to the classification and
declassification policies found in Executive Order 12958, as amended,
``Classified National Security Information'' (the Order).
This action is being taken at the request of the National Security Advisor and in
support of the ongoing review of the Order directed by the President on
May 27, 2009.
This meeting will be open to the public. To ensure that the Board
may hear from all interested parties, individuals interested in
addressing the Board may be limited to 10 minutes. Due to space
limitations and access procedures, the name and telephone number of
individuals planning to attend must be submitted to the Information
Security Oversight Office (ISOO) via e-mail, PIDB@nara.gov, no later
than July 2, 2009. ISOO will provide additional instructions for
gaining access to the location of the meeting.
Dated: June 11, 2009. Mary Ann Hadyka, Committee Management Officer.
POST HEARING UPDATE:
PIDB Public Hearing of July 8, 2009
Transparency and Open Government Initiative
http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/
Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB)
About the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB)
Overview: The Public Interest Declassification Board is an advisory committee established by Congress in order to promote the fullest possible public access to a thorough, accurate, and reliable documentary record of significant U.S. national security decisions and activities. The President appointed Martin Faga (Chair), Herbert O. Briick, Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, Ronald Radosh, and Jennifer Sims. The Minority Leader of the House appointed David Skaggs and the Majority Leader of the Senate appointed Sanford Ungar, and the Speaker of the House appointed William Studeman. Appointment is pending from the Minority Leader of the Senate.
The Director of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), William J. Bosanko serves as the PIDB Executive Secretary and the ISOO staff provides staff support on a reimbursable basis.
Background :
Section 1102 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 extended and modified the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) as established by the Public Interest Declassification Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-567, title VII, Dec. 27, 2000, 114 Stat. 2856).
Functions:
Advises the President and other executive branch officials on the systematic, thorough, coordinated, and comprehensive identification, collection, review for declassification, and release of declassified records and materials that are of archival value, including records and materials of extraordinary public interest.
Promotes the fullest possible public access to a thorough, accurate, and reliable documentary record of significant U.S. national security decisions and significant U.S. national security activities in order to: support the oversight and legislative functions of Congress; support the policymaking role of the executive branch; respond to the interest of the public in national security matters; and promote reliable historical analysis and new avenues of historical study in national security matters.
Provides recommendations to the President for the identification, collection, and review for declassification of information of extraordinary public interest that does not undermine the national security of the U.S.Advises the President and other executive branch officials on policies deriving from the issuance by the President of Executive orders regarding the classification and declassification of national security information. Reviews and makes recommendations to the President with respect to any congressional request, made by the committee of jurisdiction, to declassify certain records or to reconsider a declination to declassify specific records.
In addition to this meeting, the PIDB will be soliciting your recommendations via the Declassification Policy Forum, at www.whitehouse.gov/open.
There will be four topics of discussion:
1)Declassification Policy,
2)Creation of a National Declassification Center,
3)Classification Policy,
4)Technology Challenges and Opportunities.
Public Input:
http://www.archives.gov/isoo/policy-documents/eo-12958-amendment.html
Ex. Order 12958:
http://www.archives.gov/isoo/policy-documents/eo-12958-amendment.html
Blog:
http://blog.ostp.gov/
Your Recommendations for Classification Policy
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 4:30 pm by Public Interest Declassification Forum
Today, the Public Interest Declassification Board held a public meeting to hear your recommendations for revisions of Executive Order 12958, as amended. This was a very productive meeting framed by the conversations occurring here on this Forum. We thank those of you who participated today at the meeting, and encourage you to continue your participation on the blog. We will accept your comments on all four topics until July 19, 2009.
The public meeting today concentrated particularly on issues of classification, including ways to address over classification. On the Declassification Policy Forum we have seen over 20 thoughtful comments on classification policy. Here are the few of your recommendations:
There should be an independent review of agency classification guides currently in use with the goal of reducing classification controls. These reviews should be made independent of original classifiers and eliminate obsolete classification categories.
Once documents are declassified, they should not be eligible for reclassification except under extreme circumstances.
There should be an initiative that would reward agency members for limiting the number of classifications made.
If the source document is declassified, any dependent information should likewise be declassified.
Because local law enforcement are able to provide for the public safety when they have access to information about potential threats, classification should be limited to allow for the sharing of information.
The process of challenging the classification assigned to a document should be encouraged and streamlined.
Executive agencies should be held more accountable for administering classification systems. At present there is no oversight authority that can meaningfully compel agencies to abide by classification standards.
Agency heads should have the latitude to authorize experimental projects and initiatives that could make security policy more efficient or more transparent.
Classification levels pertaining to the seriousness of the threat to national security should be made more precise.
Under the guidance of the Information Security Oversight Office, agency inspector generals should receive the authority to audit classification and declassification decisions, and the results of these audits should be made public.
Whenever possible, classifiers should use the lowest appropriate classification level and duration.
Confusion over the distinction between intelligence sources, methods, and activities invariably leads to the over classification of information. The scope of these terms should be more clearly defined.
Public Interest Declassification Board Support Staff
Joe Backes reports:
At the request of the National Security Advisor, a public meeting has been scheduled for July 8 to solicit public comments and recommendations concerning proposed revisions to executive branch classification and declassification policies. The meeting was announced in a June 23 Federal Register notice.
The Public Interest Declassification Board, which is hosting the July 8 meeting, will also launch a new blog next week to solicit public recommendations online. The blog will sequentially consider four areas: declassification policy, creation of a National Declassification Center, classification policy, and technology challenges and opportunities. Discussion of each topic will continue for three days, before moving to the next topic.
Meanwhile, an experimental and somewhat erratic White House process for gathering public input on transparency and openness has entered its third phase, intended to draft "constructive proposals" for advancing open government.
From the Fed Reg.[Federal Register: June 23, 2009 (Volume 74, Number 119)]
[Notices] [Page 29729-29730]
NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION Information Security Oversight Office
Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB); Meeting
AGENCY: National Archives and Records Administration.
ACTION: Notice of meeting.
SUMMARY: Pursuant to Section 1102 of the Intelligence Reform and
Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which extended and modified the
Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) as established by the
Public Interest.
Declassification Act of 2000 (Pub. L. 106-567, title VII, December 27,
2000, 114 Stat. 2856), announcement is made for the following committee
meeting: DATES: Wednesday July 8, 2009. Time: 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
ADDRESSES: National Archives and Records Administration, 700
Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Room 105, Washington, DC 20408.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Julie A. Agurkis, PIDB Staff,
Information Security Oversight Office, National Archives Building, 700
Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20408, telephone number (202)
357-5308.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: To solicit public input concerning
recommendations and proposed revisions to the classification and
declassification policies found in Executive Order 12958, as amended,
``Classified National Security Information'' (the Order).
This action is being taken at the request of the National Security Advisor and in
support of the ongoing review of the Order directed by the President on
May 27, 2009.
This meeting will be open to the public. To ensure that the Board
may hear from all interested parties, individuals interested in
addressing the Board may be limited to 10 minutes. Due to space
limitations and access procedures, the name and telephone number of
individuals planning to attend must be submitted to the Information
Security Oversight Office (ISOO) via e-mail, PIDB@nara.gov, no later
than July 2, 2009. ISOO will provide additional instructions for
gaining access to the location of the meeting.
Dated: June 11, 2009. Mary Ann Hadyka, Committee Management Officer.
POST HEARING UPDATE:
PIDB Public Hearing of July 8, 2009
Transparency and Open Government Initiative
http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/
Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB)
About the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB)
Overview: The Public Interest Declassification Board is an advisory committee established by Congress in order to promote the fullest possible public access to a thorough, accurate, and reliable documentary record of significant U.S. national security decisions and activities. The President appointed Martin Faga (Chair), Herbert O. Briick, Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, Ronald Radosh, and Jennifer Sims. The Minority Leader of the House appointed David Skaggs and the Majority Leader of the Senate appointed Sanford Ungar, and the Speaker of the House appointed William Studeman. Appointment is pending from the Minority Leader of the Senate.
The Director of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), William J. Bosanko serves as the PIDB Executive Secretary and the ISOO staff provides staff support on a reimbursable basis.
Background :
Section 1102 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 extended and modified the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) as established by the Public Interest Declassification Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-567, title VII, Dec. 27, 2000, 114 Stat. 2856).
Functions:
Advises the President and other executive branch officials on the systematic, thorough, coordinated, and comprehensive identification, collection, review for declassification, and release of declassified records and materials that are of archival value, including records and materials of extraordinary public interest.
Promotes the fullest possible public access to a thorough, accurate, and reliable documentary record of significant U.S. national security decisions and significant U.S. national security activities in order to: support the oversight and legislative functions of Congress; support the policymaking role of the executive branch; respond to the interest of the public in national security matters; and promote reliable historical analysis and new avenues of historical study in national security matters.
Provides recommendations to the President for the identification, collection, and review for declassification of information of extraordinary public interest that does not undermine the national security of the U.S.Advises the President and other executive branch officials on policies deriving from the issuance by the President of Executive orders regarding the classification and declassification of national security information. Reviews and makes recommendations to the President with respect to any congressional request, made by the committee of jurisdiction, to declassify certain records or to reconsider a declination to declassify specific records.
In addition to this meeting, the PIDB will be soliciting your recommendations via the Declassification Policy Forum, at www.whitehouse.gov/open.
There will be four topics of discussion:
1)Declassification Policy,
2)Creation of a National Declassification Center,
3)Classification Policy,
4)Technology Challenges and Opportunities.
Public Input:
http://www.archives.gov/isoo/policy-documents/eo-12958-amendment.html
Ex. Order 12958:
http://www.archives.gov/isoo/policy-documents/eo-12958-amendment.html
Blog:
http://blog.ostp.gov/
Your Recommendations for Classification Policy
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 4:30 pm by Public Interest Declassification Forum
Today, the Public Interest Declassification Board held a public meeting to hear your recommendations for revisions of Executive Order 12958, as amended. This was a very productive meeting framed by the conversations occurring here on this Forum. We thank those of you who participated today at the meeting, and encourage you to continue your participation on the blog. We will accept your comments on all four topics until July 19, 2009.
The public meeting today concentrated particularly on issues of classification, including ways to address over classification. On the Declassification Policy Forum we have seen over 20 thoughtful comments on classification policy. Here are the few of your recommendations:
There should be an independent review of agency classification guides currently in use with the goal of reducing classification controls. These reviews should be made independent of original classifiers and eliminate obsolete classification categories.
Once documents are declassified, they should not be eligible for reclassification except under extreme circumstances.
There should be an initiative that would reward agency members for limiting the number of classifications made.
If the source document is declassified, any dependent information should likewise be declassified.
Because local law enforcement are able to provide for the public safety when they have access to information about potential threats, classification should be limited to allow for the sharing of information.
The process of challenging the classification assigned to a document should be encouraged and streamlined.
Executive agencies should be held more accountable for administering classification systems. At present there is no oversight authority that can meaningfully compel agencies to abide by classification standards.
Agency heads should have the latitude to authorize experimental projects and initiatives that could make security policy more efficient or more transparent.
Classification levels pertaining to the seriousness of the threat to national security should be made more precise.
Under the guidance of the Information Security Oversight Office, agency inspector generals should receive the authority to audit classification and declassification decisions, and the results of these audits should be made public.
Whenever possible, classifiers should use the lowest appropriate classification level and duration.
Confusion over the distinction between intelligence sources, methods, and activities invariably leads to the over classification of information. The scope of these terms should be more clearly defined.
Public Interest Declassification Board Support Staff
Friday, May 29, 2009
Presidential Action Memos
http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing_room/PresidentialActions/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Presidential-Memorandum-Classified-Information-and-Controlled-Unclassified-Information/
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
_______________________________________________
For Immediate Release May 27, 2009
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
SUBJECT: Classified Information and Controlled Unclassified Information
As outlined in my January 21, 2009, memoranda to the heads of executive departments and agencies on Transparency and Open Government and on the Freedom of Information Act, my Administration is committed to operating with an unprecedented level of openness. While the Government must be able to prevent the public disclosure of information where such disclosure would compromise the privacy of American citizens, national security, or other legitimate interests, a democratic government accountable to the people must be as transparent as possible and must not withhold information for self-serving reasons or simply to avoid embarrassment.
To these ends, I hereby direct the following:
Section 1. Review of Executive Order 12958. (a) Within 90 days of the date of this memorandum, and after consulting with the relevant executive departments and agencies (agencies), the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs shall review Executive Order 12958, as amended (Classified National Security Information), and submit to me recommendations and proposed revisions to the order.
(b) The recommendations and proposed revisions shall address:
(i) Establishment of a National Declassification Center to bring appropriate agency officials together to perform collaborative declassification review under the administration of the Archivist of the United States;
(ii) Effective measures to address the problem of over classification, including the possible restoration of the presumption against classification, which would preclude classification of information where there is significant doubt about the need for such classification, and the implementation of increased accountability for classification decisions;
(iii) Changes needed to facilitate greater sharing of classified information among appropriate parties;
(iv) Appropriate prohibition of reclassification of material that has been declassified and released to the public under proper authority;
(v) Appropriate classification, safeguarding, accessibility, and declassification of information in the electronic environment, as recommended by the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction and others; and
(vi) Any other measures appropriate to provide for greater openness and transparency in the Government's security classification and declassification program while also affording necessary protection to the Government's legitimate interests.
Sec. 2. Review of Procedures for Controlled Unclassified Information.
(a) Background. There has been a recognized need in recent years to enhance national security by establishing an information sharing environment that facilitates the sharing of terrorism-related information among government personnel addressing common problems across agencies and levels of government. The global nature of the threats facing the United States requires that our Nation's entire network of defenders be able rapidly to share sensitive but unclassified information so that those who must act have the information they need.
To this end, efforts have been made to standardize procedures for designating, marking, and handling information that had been known collectively as "Sensitive But Unclassified" (SBU) information. Sensitive But Unclassified refers collectively to the various designations used within the Federal Government for documents and information that are sufficiently sensitive to warrant some level of protection, but that do not meet the standards for national security classification. Because each agency has implemented its own protections for categorizing and handling SBU, there are more than 107 unique markings and over 130 different labeling or handling processes and procedures for SBU information.
A Presidential Memorandum of December 16, 2005, created a process for establishing a single, standardized, comprehensive designation within the executive branch for most SBU information. A related Presidential Memorandum of May 9, 2008 (hereafter the "May 2008 Presidential Memorandum"), adopted the phrase "Controlled Unclassified Information" (CUI) to refer to such information. That memorandum adopted, instituted, and defined CUI as the single designation for information within the scope of the CUI definition, including terrorism-related information previously designated SBU. The memorandum also established a CUI Framework for designating, marking, safeguarding, and disseminating CUI terrorism-related information; designated the National Archives and Records Administration as the Executive Agent responsible for overseeing and managing implementation of the CUI Framework, and created a CUI Council to perform an advisory and coordinating role.
The May 2008 Presidential Memorandum had the salutary effect of establishing a framework for standardizing agency-specific approaches to designating terrorism-related information that is sensitive but not classified. As anticipated, the process of implementing the new CUI Framework is still ongoing and is not expected to be completed until 2013. Moreover, the scope of the May 2008 Presidential Memorandum is limited to terrorism-related information within the information sharing environment.
In the absence of a single, comprehensive framework that is fully implemented, the persistence of multiple categories of SBU, together with institutional and perceived technological obstacles to moving toward an information sharing culture, continue to impede collaboration and the otherwise authorized sharing of SBU information among agencies, as well as between the Federal Government and its partners in State, local, and tribal governments and the private sector.
Agencies and other relevant actors should continue their efforts toward implementing the CUI framework. At the same time, new measures should be considered to further and expedite agencies' implementation of appropriate frameworks for standardized treatment of SBU information and information sharing.
(b) Interagency Task Force on CUI.
(i) The Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, the Archivist of the United States, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Director of National Intelligence, the Program Manager, Information Sharing Environment (established in section 1016 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, as amended (6 U.S.C. 485)), and the CUI Council (established in the May 2008 Presidential Memorandum), shall lead an Interagency Task Force on CUI (Task Force).
The Task Force shall be composed of senior representatives from a broad range of agencies from both inside and outside the information sharing environment.
(ii) The objective of the Task Force shall be to review current procedures for categorizing and sharing SBU information in order to determine whether such procedures strike the proper balance among the relevant imperatives.
These imperatives include protecting legitimate security, law enforcement, and privacy interests as well as civil liberties, providing clear rules to those who handle SBU information, and ensuring that the handling and dissemination of information is not restricted unless there is a compelling need.
The Task Force shall also consider measures to track agencies' progress with implementing the CUI Framework, other measures to enhance implementation of an effective information sharing environment across agencies and levels of government, and whether the scope of the CUI Framework should remain limited to terrorism-related information within the information sharing environment or be expanded to apply to all SBU information.
(iii) Within 90 days of the date of this memorandum, the Task Force shall submit to me recommendations regarding how the executive branch should proceed with respect to the CUI Framework and the information sharing environment.
The recommendations shall recognize and reflect a balancing of the following principles:
(A) A presumption in favor of openness in accordance with my memoranda of January 21, 2009, on Transparency and Open Government and on the Freedom of Information Act;
(B) The value of standardizing the procedures for designating, marking, and handling all SBU information; and
(C) The need to prevent the public disclosure of information where disclosure would compromise privacy or other legitimate interests.
Sec. 3. General Provisions. (a) The heads of agencies shall assist and provide information to the Task Force, consistent with applicable law, as may be necessary to carry out the functions of their activities under this memorandum. Each agency shall bear its own expense for participating in the Task Force.
(b) Nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) Authority granted by law or Executive Order to an agency, or the head thereof;
(ii) Functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(c) This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(d) This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
Sec. 4. Publication. The Attorney General is hereby authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.
BARACK OBAMA
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Freedom_of_Information_Act/
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 at 12:00 am
Freedom of Information Act
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
SUBJECT: Freedom of Information Act
A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, "sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants." In our democracy, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which encourages accountability through transparency, is the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open Government. At the heart of that commitment is the idea that accountability is in the interest of the Government and the citizenry alike.
The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption:
In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.
Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect the personal interests of Government officials at the expense of those they are supposed to serve.
In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies (agencies) should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public.
All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government.
The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.
The presumption of disclosure also means that agencies should take affirmative steps to make information public. They should not wait for specific requests from the public.
All agencies should use modern technology to inform citizens about what is known and done by their Government. Disclosure should be timely.
I direct the Attorney General to issue new guidelines governing the FOIA to the heads of executive departments and agencies, reaffirming the commitment to accountability and transparency, and to publish such guidelines in the Federal Register.
In doing so, the Attorney General should review FOIA reports produced by the agencies under Executive Order 13392 of December 14, 2005.
I also direct the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to update guidance to the agencies to increase and improve information dissemination to the public, including through the use of new technologies, and to publish such guidance in the Federal Register.
This memorandum does not create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
The Director of the Office of Management and Budget is hereby authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.
BARACK OBAMA
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Transparency_and_Open_Government/
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 at 12:00 am
Transparency and Open Government
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
SUBJECT: Transparency and Open Government
My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government.
We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration.
Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.
Government should be transparent.
Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing.
Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use.
Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public.
Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.
Government should be participatory.
Public engagement enhances the Government's effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions.
Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge.
Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information.
Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government.
Government should be collaborative.
Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector.
Executive departments and agencies should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new opportunities for cooperation.
I direct the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services, to coordinate the development by appropriate executive departments and agencies, within 120 days, of recommendations for an Open Government Directive, to be issued by the Director of OMB, that instructs executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing the principles set forth in this memorandum.
The independent agencies should comply with the Open Government Directive.
This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
This memorandum shall be published in the Federal Register.
BARACK OBAMA
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Presidential-Memorandum-Classified-Information-and-Controlled-Unclassified-Information/
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
_______________________________________________
For Immediate Release May 27, 2009
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
SUBJECT: Classified Information and Controlled Unclassified Information
As outlined in my January 21, 2009, memoranda to the heads of executive departments and agencies on Transparency and Open Government and on the Freedom of Information Act, my Administration is committed to operating with an unprecedented level of openness. While the Government must be able to prevent the public disclosure of information where such disclosure would compromise the privacy of American citizens, national security, or other legitimate interests, a democratic government accountable to the people must be as transparent as possible and must not withhold information for self-serving reasons or simply to avoid embarrassment.
To these ends, I hereby direct the following:
Section 1. Review of Executive Order 12958. (a) Within 90 days of the date of this memorandum, and after consulting with the relevant executive departments and agencies (agencies), the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs shall review Executive Order 12958, as amended (Classified National Security Information), and submit to me recommendations and proposed revisions to the order.
(b) The recommendations and proposed revisions shall address:
(i) Establishment of a National Declassification Center to bring appropriate agency officials together to perform collaborative declassification review under the administration of the Archivist of the United States;
(ii) Effective measures to address the problem of over classification, including the possible restoration of the presumption against classification, which would preclude classification of information where there is significant doubt about the need for such classification, and the implementation of increased accountability for classification decisions;
(iii) Changes needed to facilitate greater sharing of classified information among appropriate parties;
(iv) Appropriate prohibition of reclassification of material that has been declassified and released to the public under proper authority;
(v) Appropriate classification, safeguarding, accessibility, and declassification of information in the electronic environment, as recommended by the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction and others; and
(vi) Any other measures appropriate to provide for greater openness and transparency in the Government's security classification and declassification program while also affording necessary protection to the Government's legitimate interests.
Sec. 2. Review of Procedures for Controlled Unclassified Information.
(a) Background. There has been a recognized need in recent years to enhance national security by establishing an information sharing environment that facilitates the sharing of terrorism-related information among government personnel addressing common problems across agencies and levels of government. The global nature of the threats facing the United States requires that our Nation's entire network of defenders be able rapidly to share sensitive but unclassified information so that those who must act have the information they need.
To this end, efforts have been made to standardize procedures for designating, marking, and handling information that had been known collectively as "Sensitive But Unclassified" (SBU) information. Sensitive But Unclassified refers collectively to the various designations used within the Federal Government for documents and information that are sufficiently sensitive to warrant some level of protection, but that do not meet the standards for national security classification. Because each agency has implemented its own protections for categorizing and handling SBU, there are more than 107 unique markings and over 130 different labeling or handling processes and procedures for SBU information.
A Presidential Memorandum of December 16, 2005, created a process for establishing a single, standardized, comprehensive designation within the executive branch for most SBU information. A related Presidential Memorandum of May 9, 2008 (hereafter the "May 2008 Presidential Memorandum"), adopted the phrase "Controlled Unclassified Information" (CUI) to refer to such information. That memorandum adopted, instituted, and defined CUI as the single designation for information within the scope of the CUI definition, including terrorism-related information previously designated SBU. The memorandum also established a CUI Framework for designating, marking, safeguarding, and disseminating CUI terrorism-related information; designated the National Archives and Records Administration as the Executive Agent responsible for overseeing and managing implementation of the CUI Framework, and created a CUI Council to perform an advisory and coordinating role.
The May 2008 Presidential Memorandum had the salutary effect of establishing a framework for standardizing agency-specific approaches to designating terrorism-related information that is sensitive but not classified. As anticipated, the process of implementing the new CUI Framework is still ongoing and is not expected to be completed until 2013. Moreover, the scope of the May 2008 Presidential Memorandum is limited to terrorism-related information within the information sharing environment.
In the absence of a single, comprehensive framework that is fully implemented, the persistence of multiple categories of SBU, together with institutional and perceived technological obstacles to moving toward an information sharing culture, continue to impede collaboration and the otherwise authorized sharing of SBU information among agencies, as well as between the Federal Government and its partners in State, local, and tribal governments and the private sector.
Agencies and other relevant actors should continue their efforts toward implementing the CUI framework. At the same time, new measures should be considered to further and expedite agencies' implementation of appropriate frameworks for standardized treatment of SBU information and information sharing.
(b) Interagency Task Force on CUI.
(i) The Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, the Archivist of the United States, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Director of National Intelligence, the Program Manager, Information Sharing Environment (established in section 1016 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, as amended (6 U.S.C. 485)), and the CUI Council (established in the May 2008 Presidential Memorandum), shall lead an Interagency Task Force on CUI (Task Force).
The Task Force shall be composed of senior representatives from a broad range of agencies from both inside and outside the information sharing environment.
(ii) The objective of the Task Force shall be to review current procedures for categorizing and sharing SBU information in order to determine whether such procedures strike the proper balance among the relevant imperatives.
These imperatives include protecting legitimate security, law enforcement, and privacy interests as well as civil liberties, providing clear rules to those who handle SBU information, and ensuring that the handling and dissemination of information is not restricted unless there is a compelling need.
The Task Force shall also consider measures to track agencies' progress with implementing the CUI Framework, other measures to enhance implementation of an effective information sharing environment across agencies and levels of government, and whether the scope of the CUI Framework should remain limited to terrorism-related information within the information sharing environment or be expanded to apply to all SBU information.
(iii) Within 90 days of the date of this memorandum, the Task Force shall submit to me recommendations regarding how the executive branch should proceed with respect to the CUI Framework and the information sharing environment.
The recommendations shall recognize and reflect a balancing of the following principles:
(A) A presumption in favor of openness in accordance with my memoranda of January 21, 2009, on Transparency and Open Government and on the Freedom of Information Act;
(B) The value of standardizing the procedures for designating, marking, and handling all SBU information; and
(C) The need to prevent the public disclosure of information where disclosure would compromise privacy or other legitimate interests.
Sec. 3. General Provisions. (a) The heads of agencies shall assist and provide information to the Task Force, consistent with applicable law, as may be necessary to carry out the functions of their activities under this memorandum. Each agency shall bear its own expense for participating in the Task Force.
(b) Nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) Authority granted by law or Executive Order to an agency, or the head thereof;
(ii) Functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(c) This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(d) This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
Sec. 4. Publication. The Attorney General is hereby authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.
BARACK OBAMA
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Freedom_of_Information_Act/
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 at 12:00 am
Freedom of Information Act
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
SUBJECT: Freedom of Information Act
A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, "sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants." In our democracy, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which encourages accountability through transparency, is the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open Government. At the heart of that commitment is the idea that accountability is in the interest of the Government and the citizenry alike.
The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption:
In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.
Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect the personal interests of Government officials at the expense of those they are supposed to serve.
In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies (agencies) should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public.
All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government.
The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.
The presumption of disclosure also means that agencies should take affirmative steps to make information public. They should not wait for specific requests from the public.
All agencies should use modern technology to inform citizens about what is known and done by their Government. Disclosure should be timely.
I direct the Attorney General to issue new guidelines governing the FOIA to the heads of executive departments and agencies, reaffirming the commitment to accountability and transparency, and to publish such guidelines in the Federal Register.
In doing so, the Attorney General should review FOIA reports produced by the agencies under Executive Order 13392 of December 14, 2005.
I also direct the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to update guidance to the agencies to increase and improve information dissemination to the public, including through the use of new technologies, and to publish such guidance in the Federal Register.
This memorandum does not create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
The Director of the Office of Management and Budget is hereby authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.
BARACK OBAMA
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Transparency_and_Open_Government/
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 at 12:00 am
Transparency and Open Government
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
SUBJECT: Transparency and Open Government
My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government.
We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration.
Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.
Government should be transparent.
Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing.
Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use.
Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public.
Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.
Government should be participatory.
Public engagement enhances the Government's effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions.
Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge.
Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information.
Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government.
Government should be collaborative.
Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector.
Executive departments and agencies should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new opportunities for cooperation.
I direct the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services, to coordinate the development by appropriate executive departments and agencies, within 120 days, of recommendations for an Open Government Directive, to be issued by the Director of OMB, that instructs executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing the principles set forth in this memorandum.
The independent agencies should comply with the Open Government Directive.
This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
This memorandum shall be published in the Federal Register.
BARACK OBAMA
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