Thursday, March 24, 2022
12 Reasons Why Oswald Wasn't the 6th Floor Shooter
Friday, February 18, 2022
West Side Story with a JFK Twist
West Side Story w/ a Twist
The
recent Steven Spielberg film revival of West Side Story also presents the
opportunity to address the idea that Lee Harvey Oswald attended a Twist Party
in Mexico City where he was encouraged by Cuban embassy personnel to kill the
President.
The
original Broadway play, 1961 movie and a recent revival of West Side Story all
feature music by classical composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein. While
Bernstein said he didn’t vote for Kennedy, Bernstein introduced seven year old
Chinese cellist Yo-Yo Ma at a 1962 concert at the White House, and Kennedy and
Bernstein became friends.
Two days
after the assassination Bernstein conducted Mahler’s Symphony No. 2
Resurrection in a televised tribute to the slain president.
In 1980
Bernstein was booed and hissed on stage when he said, “We don’t dare confront
the implications. I think we’ve all agreed there was a conspiracy to kill
President Kennedy, and we just don’t want to know the complete truth. It
involves such powerful forces in what we call high places that if we do know,
everything might fall apart. We don’t dare confront the implications.”
Some of
the implications regarding the complete truth involve another aspect of West
Side Story, as it becomes entwined with the allegation that Lee Harvey Oswald,
the accused assassin of the President, attended a Twist Party in Mexico City hosted
by Silvia Duran, the Mexican national who worked at the Cuban embassy.
While
Oswald ostensibly dealt with Duran when he attempted to get a visa to Cuba, she
has continually denied meeting with Oswald outside the embassy, even though
there are a number of questionable reports that she did so. All of these
reports attempt to portray Oswald as being influenced by pro-Castro Cuban Communists
and encouraged by them to kill the President.
One
report has Silvia Duran taking Oswald to a fancy Mexico City restaurant where
he is introduced to the Cuban ambassador to Mexico who encourages Oswald to
kill the President.
Another
report that resurfaces ever so often, most recently by former New York Times
reporter Phil Shenon in his book A Cruel
and Shocking Act – The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination (MacMillan,
2013), has Oswald attending a Twist Party hosted by Duran where Cuban embassy
officials were allegedly overheard talking to Oswald about killing Kennedy.
For
those who missed the Sixties, Chubby Checker’s hit song The Twist sparked a new
dance craze that Duran and others used to host house parties.
At the
party in question, besides Duran and the Cuban embassy officials, there was Duran’s
cousin, Mexican poet and writer Elena Garro de Paz, communist writer Emilio
Carballido, Jose De Jesus Clark Flores, Oswald and “two American Gringo beat nicks.”
For most people the story originates with Viola June Cobb, an American who was fluent in Spanish and translated Castro's History Will Absolve Me speech as well as Guatemalan president Juan Jose Arevalo's story The Shark and the Sardines, which she had printed and copies of which were given out by Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans, along with his Fair Play for Cuba Committee leaflets.
When Fidel Castro went to New York to address the United Nations Cobb visited him at his hotel and gave him copies of the translations and he hired her to be a translator at his headquarters at the Havana Hilton.
After Batista fled Cuba on New Year's eve 1959, the DRE - Cuban Student Directorate, based at the University of Havana, took over Batista's city hall and Dr. Rolando Cubella (aka AMLASH), one of the DRE founders, sat at Batista's desk and smoked his cigars. When Castro arrived in Havana and learned of this, he took up the suggestion of the General Manager of the Havana Hilton, Frank Maryan "Brandy" Brandstetter, to take up residence in the penthouse of the newly built Hilton. Brandstetter was from Dallas and a Colonel in Jack Crichton's U.S. Army Reserve intelligence unit, but reported directly to Col. Rose at ACSI (Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence) at the Pentagon.
[For more on Brandy see: Havana Hilton by Render and Reiser / JFKcountercoup: Brandy's Band of Bros at Dealey Plaza / JFKcountercoup: Col. Frank M. Brandstetter ]
June Cobb was also on the CIA's payroll at $200 a month, and after leaving Castro's entourage, she moved to Mexico where she moved in with Elena Garro de Paz as a housemate. There she learned of Duran's Twist Party with Oswald, and reported it to the CIA and a US State Department official at the Mexican Embassy Charles Thomas. Thomas duly reported the story of the Twist Party to his superiors, and much of Shenon's book has to do with Thomas, how he lost his job ostensibly because of the Twist Party story and eventually committed suicide.
In a 24
page CIA report to the Rockefeller Commission, Elena Garro de Paz is quoted as
saying, “At the party she saw three Gringos, not drinking, not mixing or more
or less just standing around together like bumps on a log. They were so
obviously out of place that she asked someone in the Cuban Embassy about them
and was told that ‘they were just passing through.’” One of the Gringos was said to be Oswald, while one of the other two was an American film actor who Duran would not name.
On the
day of the assassination Elena Garro de Paz was whisked away to a hotel by
Mexican security officer Manuel Calvillo, “for her own protection.” Duran was
twice arrested and violently interrogated by Mexican security offices until she
confessed to having a sexual affair with Oswald.
In his
book Shenon says that Duran acknowledge knowing the two American Gringos, one
of whom was an American film actor, but she wouldn’t reveal his name because he
was still alive and she wanted to protect him.
Although
Shenon, with all his resources, editors, publisher, secretaries and researches
couldn’t learn their identities, there are a number of CIA documents, primarily
telephone wire tap reports that identify the American film actor as Richard
Beymer, who starred as the lead in the first West Side Story movie opposite
Natalie Wood.
Besides Natalie Wood Beymer was also associated with actress Sharon Tate, who also died under suspicious circumstances.
It was
not difficult to locate Beymer living in the Midwest, and he answered the phone
when I called. Yes, he confirmed he went to Mexico in the fall of 1963 with a
friend, Bradley Pierce, a New York City bar owner, who had become a Catholic
priest. While they went to attend an Acapulco film festival that featured
West Side Story, they also went to Mexico City where they applied for visas to
Cuba.
But no,
he did not recall attending a Twist Party, though that was something they would
have done as they were two foot lose, single Americans looking for a good time
below the border.
And no,
he did not recall meeting or knowing Silvia Duran, though I think he was lying
about that as one of the CIA wire taps, shortly after the assassination,
reveals that he asked for her personally, and inquired as to whether she was
all right, apparently knowing she was arrested and violently interrogated by
Mexican authorities.
And no,
he did not recall meeting or knowing Lee Harvey Oswald, someone he would have
remembered as the accused assassin of the President.
Bradley Pierce, Father Bradley Pierce, was also easily located at a seminary in New England, and he too recalled visiting Mexico with Richard Beymer, attending the Acapulco film festival and applying for visas to Cuba.
Bradley Pierce
[For more on Bradley Pierce: JFKCountercoup2: Father Bradley Pierce RIP /https://patch.com/connecticut/northhaven/obituary-rev-bradley-pierce-82-formerly-north-haven ]
I
mentioned to Father Bradley that he must have lived an interesting life as the
owner of a big city bar frequented by rock musicians and movie stars, and then
becoming a Catholic Priest. Yes, he acknowledged, he had lived a fascinating
life, having spent time with Sister Terresa in the slums of Calcutta, India
before entering the seminary rather late in life.
But no,
he did not recall attending a Twist Party, though he too thought that would
have been something on their itinerary, and no, he did not recall meeting Lee
Harvey Oswald, though he did recall the assassination in detail.
In fact,
he said, they were in Mexico at the time of the assassination, learning of it as they got off their hotel elevator and entered the lobby.
And
since they were only in Mexico for a few weeks, they could not have been there
in late September and early October when the historic Oswald was allegedly in
Mexico City, so they did not attend a Twist Party with Silvia Duran when Oswald
was there, if he ever was.
But don’t
think this is the end of the story, as the idea that the accused assassin of
the President was in cahoots with Castro Cuban Commies is a theme that is
continually resurrected whenever we get close to the truth, and we will
certainly here more of it in the future. It is part of an on going
psychological warfare ploy, a certified black propaganda disinformation campaign,
what the CIA calls an “active measure,” that was essentially a part of the plan
to kill the president. What Peter Dale Scott calls the “Phase One” cover story,
with the deranged lone nut case being the “Phase Two” cover story that is also
routinely brought out whenever the truth is near.
http://www.maryferrell.org/
https://www.maryferrell.org/
JFKcountercoup: Twisting With Oswald in Mexco City
https://jfkcountercoup.
Oswald in Mexico City: Shenon and the Twist Party > JFK Facts
JFKCountercoup2: Father Bradley Pierce RIP
Monday, January 31, 2022
Top Ten Record Released Under the JFK Act
TOP TEN JFK ASSASSINATION RECORDS - SMOKING DOCS
https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2018/11/top-ten-jfk-assassination-records.html
TOP TEN JFK ASSASSINATION RECORDS RELEASED UNDER THE JFK ACT
It has been repeatedly said that there have been no significant records released under the JFK Act, at least said by those who haven't bothered to read what has been released. These are just my personal favorites. If you ask Peter Dale Scott, John Newman, Rex Bradford, Malcolm Blunt, Larry Hancock, Russ Baker, Jim Lesar or anyone who is actually reading these records, they will come up with their own Top Ten documents, and I hope someone will take the time to do that.
1) Higgins Memo.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10246 - relPageId=1&tab=page
1) The Higgins Memo - is the Number One Smoking Document
released under the JFK Act for the following reasons:
THE KEY paragraph is (13) "He commented that there was nothing new in the
propaganda field. However, he felt that there had been great success in getting
closer to the military personnel who might break with Castro, and stated that
there were at least ten high-level military personnel who are talking with CIA
but as yet are not talking to each other, since that degree of confidence has
not yet developed. He considers it as a parallel in history, i.e., the
plot to kill Hitler, and this plot is being studied in detail to develop an
approach.'
D.C. attorney Jim Lesar, head of the Assassinations Archives and Research
Center (AARC) and Dan Alcorn filed an FOIA request for that "detailed
study" and the CIA apparently have lost it
Other items of relevance include:
a) It concerns a Joint Chiefs of Staff meeting at the Pentagon on a significant
date - Sept. 25, 1963 a key time in the JFK Assassination Chronology as it
occurs around the same time as some other key events, including:
1- the day Oswald left New Orleans for Mexico City,
2- the estimated timing of the Odio incident, and
3- Michael Paine's wife Ruth Hyde Paine picks up Marina, the daughter and their
belongings - including the rifle, and took them to Texas
4- after visiting Michael's mom - Ruth Forbes Paine Young - Mary Bancroft's
close friend.
5- It is also the day President Kennedy signs NSAM - National Security
Action Memorandum on the advice of National Security advisor McGeorge Bundy
approving "Four Leaves," - a secret military communications project.
6- JFK then left on his "Conservation Tour," the first stop
being the Northeast Pennsylvania home of the mother of Mary Pinchot Meyer,
JFK's paramour who accompanied him.
7- Oswald's name turns up on the list of those who visited the Tenn.
nuclear museum and news cliips of the tour are found in a box at Oswald's
rooming house.
8- Richard Case Nagel shot a gun in a bank in El Paso, Texas
and waited to get arrested, ostensibly to be in federal custody at the time of
the assassination.
So a lot of significant chronological events occurred in that 24 hour span.
b) Because Chef of Staff Gen. Maxwell Taylor was on a special mission to
Vietnam, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Curtis LeMay chaired the meeting.
c) The author of the memo - Colonel Walter Higgins was the adjunct of Gen.
Victor Krulak (USMC), the director of the military detachment responsible for
providing any assistance requested by the CIA in the course of their covert
intelligence operations.
d) Desmond FitzGerald, the CIA officer who briefed the Chiefs on CIA covert
operations against Cuba, had replaced William Harvey as chief of Task Force W -
the Cuban project based in the basement of CIA HQ, and was the case officer for
Dr. Rolando Cubella (AMLASH), a founder of the DRE who the CIA considered
their best bet to fit the disgruntled Cuban military officer who would
lead the assassination attempt and coup.
e) Fitzgerald said this adaption of the plot to kill Hitler was considered a
part of the Psychological Warfare area, which included David Atlee Phillips,
George Joannides and the DRE agents who were arrested with Oswald in New
Orleans.
f) LeMay also introduces an Air Force communications officer who had devised a
way to influence radio communications that were to be adapted for use against
Cuba.
g) The PENDELUM project is mentioned - and described as the code name of the
Security net that surrounded the covert Cuban projects they were operating.
h) The NSAM that JFK signed approving "Project Four Leaves" - a
military communications system, is only mentioned once - in JFK's daily desk
dirary at the JFK Presidential Library.
i) There is also mention of a textual letter that it so secret it could
only be read and immediately returned to the messenger. This could possibly be
a message from McGeorge Bundy regarding security for the Cuban operations then
underway or being considered.
2) HSCA Interview w/ WC attorney Sam Stern (From Howard Weisberg’s
Collection )
http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2017/02/hsca-sam-stern-interview-smoking-doc2.html
"I am less certain now that at the time we wrote the Report. Less certain that Oswald acted alone. Actually, I wasn't all that certain at the time. I thought the best evidence supported the final findings, and I agreed with them, but I wasn't tremendously firm or immovable in that, in my own mind. I just thought there were a lot of straws left.....I have become more skeptical about the Warren Commission findings and everything else that is a part of official life, I suppose. Everything has become discredited over the years since 1963. You don’t really believe in things the way you did back then."……
Mr. Stern stated that “at the outset we realized that there was no possible way to penetrate any official involvement in a cover-up or conspiracy if there was such complicity.” Stern stated that he and several of his Commission colleagues discussed what they regarded as “the fact that the agencies – the FBI and CIA – could formulate and maintain a cover-up which no one would ever penetrate. We of course did not believe that was so. And I still don’t. But we realized what we were dealing with, in the power of these agencies…
Stern stated that he had been told of FBI Agent Hosty’s allegedly threatening note received from Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the assassination, he “would have regarded it as greater identification of the possibility of potential danger in Oswald – of violence.” Stern stated that if the staff of the Commission had discovered that the Hosty note had existed and had been destroyed by the FBI in Dallas, that “if we had found out that happened, we would have gone to a full Commission meeting immediately, and would have made the big decision regarding any future relationship between the Commission and the FBI. It just would have gone to the heart of the whole relationship and the Bureau’s motivation. The destruction of that note would have resulted in the ultimate brouhaha.”
…Stern stated that had the Commission learned of the CIA-Mafia conspiracies to assassinate Fidel Castro, “we would have gone much more into Cuba, the CIA, and the Mafia. We would have had a whole host of new avenues calling for investigation. And we would have obviously had to develop some new sources of information – other than the agency.”
….When shown the CIA memorandum of November 1963 in which a CIA officer wrote that the Agency had once considered using Oswald for intelligence purposes, Stern stated that “I have never seen this. I was never given this, and we had asked for and were supposed to be given anything of relevance like this.” In reading the memo, Stern stated that “that would have definitely been relevant. If they (the CIA) were taking him that seriously, then you might think that others could or did also. If we found that had been withheld, that would have been a major explosion also.”
When shown a copy of the 1960-61 memos regarding “the possibility of an Oswald impostor,” Stern stated that he had never seen those three memos either, despite the fact that “they would have certainly been relevant. I was supposed to have been given all relevant Bureau information and files on Oswald in the pre-assassination period. They said I had everything.”
This leads us to the CIA document that was kept from the
Warren Commission that indicated Oswald was considered for “operational
use.”
3) CIA Soviet Division memo – 104-10067-10212 – That says Oswald was once
considered for operational use. Also known as the Cassin Memo.
Also see: The CIA Man who considered using Oswald:”
https://www.tpaak.com/tpaak-blog/2017/9/14/the-cia-man-who-considered-using-oswald
“25 November 1963. “…REDWOOD (CIA Soviet Division) had at
one time an OI (Operational Interest) in Oswald….”
4) Secret Service Preventive Research Section File
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32241845.pdf
http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2017/10/secret-service-protective-research.html
Former Secret Service Agent Gerald Blaine, in his book “The Kennedy Detail” (Gallery Books, 2010, p.59) writes: “The first stop before any advance was always the PRS. Located in the Executive Office Building, next door to the White House, the PRS office were the nerve center for tracking threat cases. Any time there was a threat made against the president’s life – whether it was a written letter, a phone call, details gathered from an informant, field investigation, or an unstable person trying to get inside the Northwest Gate of the White House – an investigative report was initiated and a case file number is issued. A PRS agent would type the report on carbon paper so there would be multiple copies, noting the threat maker’s name, last known address, a synopsis of the threats made, a description of the person, and their medical history, if known. Cases are analyzed and categorized according to the seriousness of the threat.”
“The records room of the PRS office contained row and rows of gray metal four-drawer file cabinets that held thousands of threat suspect files, organized by case number. There were smaller file cabinets where index cards of each suspect were organized both geographically and alphabetically. The cards were cross-referenced to the case files. Thus if you knew either the name of the suspect or their last known location you go to the small index drawers, locate the card, which would have a case number on it, then go to the large filing cabinets to get the master file.”
(p.76) “…Win Lawson had checked PRS for threat suspect in
Texas, specifically in the Dallas area, and had been pleasantly surprised to
find that there weren’t any.” More likely than "pleasantly
surprised, he was incredulous, considering US Ambassador Stevenson had been
physically assaulted a few weeks previous and known threats were coming in on a
daily basis.
5) Collins Radio – 104-10107-10191 - ARRB considered “NBR” – Not
Believed relevant
http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/jfk/NARA-July2017/jfk-july_2017_release-formerly_withheld_in_full-3of9/DOCID-32358065.PDF
[ Also see:the Collins Radio Connections: JFKcountercoup:
Collins Radio Connections ]
While this document seems unconnected to the assassination
in any way, Collins Radio comes up again and again throughout the JFK
assassination narrative, especially in regards to the Air Force One Radio
Transmissions and the Tippit murder, as J.D. Tippit’s good friend worked at
Collins Radio and his car was seen near the scene of Tippit’s murder, with a
man resembling Oswald behind the wheel. This document, lawyer’s briefs for the
taxing of American defense contractors working at a top secret ELINT base in
Australia (Alice Springs), provides the proof that Collins Radio, LTV, General
Dynamics et al, had a very close working relationship
6) Drew Pearson dinner with Khrushchev - 104-10003-10064
Soviet Primer Khrushchev told Pierson and his wife over
dinner that he disbelieved the Warren Report and criticized and suspected
American intelligence agencies of involvement in the assassination. Rather than
write a “Washington Merry-Go-Round” Column on this incredible scoop Pearson
reported it to the FBI, who noted: "Pearson repeated that the
reaction of Chairman Khrushchev and his wife was one of flat disbelief and
archtypical of the universal European belief that there was some kind of
American conspiracy behind the assassination of President Kennedy and the
murder of Oswald....(He) could not believe that the affair had happened as it
apparently did and Mr. Pearson made no headway whatsoever in trying to change
their belief that something was not on the level. Chairman Khruschev greeted
Mr. and Mrs. Pearson's efforts with a tolerant smile..."
7) Jack Anderson on Jim Garrison – Tolson – DeLoach Memo of 4/4/67
http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2016/04/jack-anderson-on-jim-garrison.html
Tolson (FBI): Pierson’s protégé also reported to the FBI rather than write a column after dinner with Jim Garrison According to the FBI report: “Jack Anderson came to see me at 11:55 a.m. today. He has just returned from New Orleans where, at the invitation of District Attorney Jim Garrison, he interviewed Garrison for approximately six hours at his home. Anderson and Garrison later had dinner at the Latin Quarter restaurant in New Orleans. Anderson stated that he went to New Orleans fully prepared to present a hostile viewpoint to Garrison. After listening to Garrison for approximately 90 minutes, he began to believe Garrison’s story. Anderson described Garrison as a very convincing talker who has considerable facts at his disposal. Anderson now believes there is some authenticity to Garrison’s claims and future plans. Garrison told Anderson that he will undoubtedly hold a full-scale trial within six months….Shaw at this point already had been approved by the CIA, through an appropriate cut-out, to engineer a plot that would result in the assassination of Fidel Castro…..I also told Anderson that, while we of course would accept any information that was voluntarily given to us, we at the same time would not take over Garrison’s ‘dirty laundry.’
Anderson told me that if the Bureau had any change of policy in the above regard he would appreciate knowing about it. I told him we would keep his offer in mind; however there would be no change of policy.
Anderson told me that he had discussed this entire matter with George Christian, the President’s Press Secretary, at the White House. He stated that Christian was also convinced that there must be some truth to Garrison’s allegations. Christian told Anderson to get in touch with the FBI. Anderson stated that he had already been planning to do this, but that he now especially wanted to advise us of the full facts because of Christian’s request.
8) The Rosselli Chronology File – RIF 157-10014-10236
http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2018/06/roselli-chronology-file-rif-157-10014.html
Drew Pearson's protege Jack Anderson also interviewed John Rosselli immediately after he testified in secret Congressional hearing about his CIA Cuban activities, four plots to kill Castro and his case officer William Harvey. "The CIA has maintained throughout that the Oswald 201 file was a complete compilation of the material related to the assassination of President Kennedy. However, information relating to who Lee Harvey Oswald was, and what he was doing are not included in their files. The Oswald 201 file does not attempt to question Oswald's connection with both pro-Castro and anti-Castro groups or any of the AMLASH information. The most notable subject missing was information relating to CIA/U.S. Government attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro."
Note: Anderson's story beings on page 27 and the Rosselli
Chronology begins on page 38. Anderson: "So here is Rosselli's own account
of a real-life 'Mission Impossible' - the attempt to kill Castro. It is a story
of cash payments, poison pellets, high-powered rifles and powerboat dashes to
Cuba."
9) NSA Defectors Martin and Mitchel - 104-10219-10088.
Report from inside Russia on NSA defectors William H. Martin
and Beron F. Mitchell, confirmed they went to Moscow via Mexico and Cuba, the
same route Oswald wanted to take. It also shows how the CIA and NSA dealt with
real defectors.
10) NPIC PATHFINDER DOCUMENT – SECU122 SECURITY FILE ON FRANK STUGIS -
Record Number 199308.05.14:42:12:750028 – JFK Record Series Agency Number
80T01357A (BK Notes: I don’t know why this records doesn’t have a RIF # number.
And Many thanks to Malcolm Blunt for providing me with document in 2013 - and
I'm sorry it took me so long to recognize its significance.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=104139&relPageId=14
In this document, improperly inserted in the middle of Frank Sturgis’ Security File, it is noted that:
1) On 19 March, Dino A. Brugioni, Chief, Western Geographic Division (NPIC), informed me (CIA Operational Division Chief) that three personnel assigned to his division had told him that while serving at JMWAVE, Miami, Florida or in the Imagery Analysis Service in Washington during the 1960’s, they had heard references to assassination plans on Fidel Castro.
2) On 20 March, I met with the following NPIC personnel who had either served in the Imagery Analysis Service or at JMWAVE on Cuban related problems: Gordon Duvall, Earl Shoemaker, Tom Helmke, Bruce Barrett, Reyes Ponce, George Arthur, Eugene Lydon, and William Hanlon. The purpose of this meeting was to ascertain whether their participation was related to case officer generated materials or bona fide operations. [ Note: that's eight witnesses, not three].
3) There appeared to be two plans involving Fidel Castro and an incident that may have been related to Raul Castro…….
4) The incident involving Raul Castro was not a formalized plan. It consisted of a paramilitary raid on Santiago de Cuba harbor. There was a rumor at JMWAVE that, while exiting the harbor, Raul Castro’s home had been fired upon by a paramilitary case officer named “Rip” Robertson.
5) To the best of my knowledge these facts represent the totality of any participation by our personnel in these matters. We have no further knowledge that the Fidel Castro operation ever advanced beyond the planning stage.
SIGNED Edward S. Cates, Chief, Imagery Exploitation Group, NPIC
While it may not have officially “advanced beyond the
planning stage” and was not implemented against the original target - Fidel
Castro, Pathfinder was an off-the-shelf tactical plan that could have, and I
believe was redirected to JFK at Dealey Plaza, and further analysis can prove
me right or wrong,
It appears that “Rip” Robertson’s ride-by shoot up of Raul Castro’s home had
already taken place, and the two Fidel Castro operations were formalized into
distinct plans that, according to the Imagery Exploitation Group at NPIC,
didn’t advance beyond the planning stage.
And there were plans to kill Castro known to the NPIC techs – two of them specifically. According to this NPIC chief the plans involving Fidel, to the knowledge of our people were:
(a) A folder stored in the Photo interpretation area at JMWAVE contained materials relating to a plan to assassinate Castro in the Bay of Pigs resort area where he maintained a yacht and was known to vacation. The plan, possibly with the code word PATHFINDER, apparently had been disapproved and was not under active consideration at the time. Our people did not participate actively in the plan in any regard.
(b) While assigned to the Imagery Analysis Service, a number of our photo interpreters supported Carl Jenkins of the DD/P concerning a plan to assassinate Castro at the DuPont Varadero Beach Estate, east of Havana. Castro was known to frequent the estate and the plan was to use a high powered rifle in the attempt. The photo interpretation support was restricted to providing annotated photographs and line drawings of the estate. To our knowledge, this plan also was never implemented.
Bonus Doc. #11) In Response the CIA wrote (1993.08.05.14:4212;750028)
[ https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=104139 - relPageId=13&tab=page ]
SUBJECT: Assassination Plans Against Castro
REFERENCE: Memorandum for the Record dated 21 March 1975 from Mr. Cates,
NPIC
1. On receipt of reference memorandum, we reviewed the official folder on Mr. Carl Jenkins, a retired Agency employee, and asked the Directorate of Operations for any available information on PATHFINDER. Both efforts were fruitless – no one in the Directorate of Operations recognized the cryptonym PATHFINDER.
2. In our search of other files in connection with other staff activities, we came, just by chance, a reference to Pathfinder in an FBI memorandum dated 20 January 1961 concerning Frank Anthony Sturgis. We are unable to offer any speculation, reasonable or otherwise, on its significance in this memorandum or in the NPIC memorandum…..[End CIA Response]
Because these were "in house" agency communications between one division of the CIA and another, and was not shared with the Church Intelligence Committee, the "official folder on Mr. Carl Jenkins" that was reviewed was not subject to the JFK Act and is not in the JFK Collection at the National Archives and available to the public. And because Jenkins is still alive, it is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). But because Jenkins is still alive, we can and will try to interview him.
Bonus Doc #12 - [ Carl Jenkins: http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2018/10/carl-e-jenkins-vita.html /
http://www.publicrecordmedia.org/wp content/uploads/2015/09/whea/WHEA_pd_GW26005.pdf]
When the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB)
interviewed former NPIC secretary Velma Reumann, she said that RFK had ordered
her to box the NPIC records on the assassination (apparently including the
Pathfinder documents) and convey to them to the Smithsonian Institute rather
than the NARA where they belonged.
Bonus Doc. #13 Interview with NPIC Secretary: http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2017/02/smoking-doc-5-npic-records.html
So the missing Pathfinder operational records were intentionally misfiled at least three times – 1) At JMWAVE the NPIC employees said the Pathfinder files were kept in their section of the station instead of the Operational Files, where they belonged; 2) the NPIC memo to CIA officials calling attention to the Pathfinder files (#1) were misfiled in the middle of Frank Sturgis’ Security File instead of being passed on to the Church Intelligence Committee; 3) the NPIC assassination records were ordered by RFK to be sent to the Smithsonian instead of the NARA.
As we have seen here, the best records lead to new names, new events and new records
Wednesday, January 19, 2022
Executive Summary - Wheaton - Jenkins - Pathfinder
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY – 2021 CAPA ON PATHFINDER - WHEATON – JENKINS
Since
there are some who don’t want to sit through an hour long talking-heads video
presentation or read the entire transcript, I thought I’d put out an Executive
Summary to set the basics story so a larger audience can appreciate the leads
we are following. Former FBI Agent William Turner best expressed the idea
behind these leads.
As
former FBI agent Bill Turner said at a COPA Conference years ago: “We now
know what happened at Dealey Plaza to a fairly good degree of certainty.
The motives were piling up – the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis,
Vietnam, the two-track back channel to Cuba – the motives were piling up to the
point they had to assassinate him. I think it’s now pretty obvious, with the
information we have today, that the mechanism of it came out of the alliance
between the CIA and the Mafia. They already had an assassination apparatus set
up for killing Castro, and they just switched targets and they killed JFK in
Instead of following all of the CIA-Mafia
plots to kill Castro, we can eliminate those involving poison, exploding cigars
and sea shells, tainted diving suits and the like, and concentrate only on
those plans, not plots, those detailed plans to kill Castro with high powered
rifles as he rode by in an open jeep, and the Pathfinder plan fits that bill.
Both
movies Executive Action and JFK portray the conspirators sitting around
smoking, drinking and talking about how to wack JFK, but that’s not how it was done.
It was done by very detailed planning, complete with U2 and ground photo
recognizance of the area, maps and surveys and blueprints of buildings, all of
which are supplied by the CIA’s National Photo Recognizance Center (NPIC).
In 1975,
when the Church Committee was investigating the CIA-Mafia plot to kill Castro,
eight NPIC technicians, who had been assigned to Task Force W – the Cuban desk
at CIA HQ in Washington, and the JMWAVE station in Florida, came forward to
make their superiors aware of two CIA plans to kill Castro that they were aware
of.
The NPIC
technicians said that they not only assisted in the contingency plans for “PATHFINDER,”
supplying photos and maps of the target areas, - the Bay of Pigs resort docks
and the DuPont Xanadu resort at Veradaro, but the PATHINDER files were kept in
the NPIC section of the JMWAVE station, rather than in the station’s
Operational Files, where they would normally be kept.
According
to the NPIC technicians, one of the two PATHFINDER plans was to kill Castro
with high powered rifles near the Bay of Pigs, which apparently became somewhat
of a tourist attraction and resort area after the failed invasion in April
1961. It was reported that Castro kept a boat docked there.
This PATHFINDER
plan was, according to the NPIC techs, “disapproved” by “higher authority” (aka
JFK and RFK), but another, similar plan also called PATHFINDER was devised to
kill Castro in a sniper attack when he drove by Veradero in an open jeep on his
way to Xanadu, the North Shore estate once owned by the DuPont family of
Delaware, and frequented by Castro.
As the
NPIC director Dino Brugioni wrote in a memo, “While assigned to the
Imagery Analysis Service, a number of
our photo interpreters supported Carl Jenkins of the DD/P
concerning a plan to assassinate Castro at the DuPont Varadero Beach Estate,
east of Havana. Castro was known to frequent the estate and the plan was to use
a high powered rifle in the attempt. The photo interpretation support was
restricted to providing annotated photographs and line drawings of the estate.
To our knowledge, this plan also was never implemented.”
[ Full doc: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=104139&relPageId=14
]
In a
follow up report from Joseph Seltzer at the CIA dated 8 May 1975, in response
to the NPIC inquiries regarding Carl Jenkins and PATHFINDER, Seltzer wrote:
“SUBJECT:
Assassination Plans Against Castro
REFERENCE: Memorandum for the Record dated 21 March 1975 from Mr. Cates, NPIC”
“On
receipt of reference memorandum, we
reviewed the official folder on Mr. Carl Jenkins, a retired Agency
employee, and asked the Directorate of Operations for any available information
on PATHFINDER. Both efforts were fruitless – no one in the Directorate of
Operations recognized the cryptonym PATHFINDER.”
When G.
Robert Blakey, Chief Counsel to the HSCA wrote to the CIA and requested, “Any and all documents concerning or
referring to OPERATION PATHFINDER, including all indices,”
the CIA responded, regarding “Operation
Pathfinder – No information.”
On hearing
the NPIC technicians mention Carl Jenkins' name and description as a DD/Plans
officer, the CIA Operations chief Mr. Cates reviewed a folder on Jenkins. But
since that communications with the NPIC’s Brugoni did not involve the Church
Committee, that was active and investigating just those issues at that time –
the Jenkins folder was not subject to the JFK Act and is not at the JFK
Collection at the NARA. And because Jenkins is still alive, that folder is
not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). But because he is still
alive, we have talked to him, and will try to do that again.
[ More
on Jenkins: https://spartacus-educational.
We know that Carl E. Jenkins was a former USMC from Louisiana who enlisted in the CIA
and was responsible for the recruitment and training of the dozen or so
anti-Castro Cubans infiltrated into Cuba a few weeks prior to the Bay of Pigs,
who became known as the Pathfinders. They were given special training and after
the failure of the invasion, some were killed and captured while others
escaped.
Back
operating out of the JMWAVE station, we know the Pathfinder plan to kill
Castro at Veradero was not "disaproved by higher authority," but implemented and put into action, as one of the original
Pathfinders, Felix I. Rodriguez wrote in his book Shadow Warrior, that: “I was given a weapon…
a beautiful German bolt-action rifle with a powerful telescopic sight, all
neatly packed in a custom-made padded carrying case… a box of ammo, twenty
rounds. I was told that I wouldn't have to sight the rifle, as it had
already been zeroed in. Apparently the resistance had obtained a building
facing a location that Castro frequented at the time....We were supposed to
debark onto a Cuban boat near Varadero Beach, an area I knew from my
childhood. From there we would be taken to rendezvous with members of the
anti-Castro resistance…..We would be provided a safe house, then move to the
room where we'd be able to shoot Fidel….” Rodriguez made three attempts to
infiltrate Cuba, but was recalled each time, increasing his frustrations.
GENE WHEATON
In the 1980s Eugene “Gene” Wheaton was one of the
first to blow the whistle on what became known as the Iran-Contra affair.
Wheaton was not a silly conspiracy theorist, but rather a former Marine,
Oklahoma police officer, military investigator (Army and Air Force), private
security consultant and Mid-eastern agent for Rockwell International, the
overseas division of Rockwell-Collins, Inc. a major defense contractor. Wheaton
had received a prestigious presidential medal and award from President Nixon
for his service in the Middle-East as a border security and drug smuggling
expert.
Wheaton worked closely with Carl Jenkins at National
Airlines, a cargo shipment company that may have been a front for the CIA (as
described JFKcountercoup:
CIAir ). As Vice President of the airline, Wheaton hired Jenkins to be
his Washington representative. When Wheaton was in Washington he stayed in a
bedroom reserved for him at Jenkin’s home, and they were close personal friends
and business partners for a number of years.
Wheaton, through his association with Jenkins, was
recruited into the Ollie North network that was running the Iran-Contra arms
network. When he realized they were raising millions of dollars to support
covert intelligence operations without the approval of Congress, Wheaton went
first to William Casey, the director of the CIA, but he realized that Casey was
involved and supported the Iran-Contra affair.
He then told the Iran-Contra story to Christic
Institute attorney Dan Sheehan, who was preparing to sue the Iran-Contra
principles in court, which resulted in Wheaton receiving a footnote in court
papers and in the book Sheehan later wrote.
After CIA contract agent and baggage kicker Eugene
Hasenfus’ plane was shot down and he was captured by the Sandinistas, he confessed that the CIA supported the Contras and Hasenfus was found to have in
his possession, the phone number of Felix Rodriguez, a Bay of Pigs veteran and
JMWAVE Pathfinder.
When Wheaton learned about the Congressional passage
of the JFK Act of 1992, unanimously passed by Congress and reluctantly signed
by President Bush, that established the Assassinations Records Review Board
(ARRB) and JFK Collection at the National Archives and Records Administration
(NARA), Wheaton wrote to ARRB chairman Judge John Tunhiam. As the law required
all government agencies to release to the public any and all records regarding
the assassination of President Kennedy, Wheaton thought the records regarding
Jenkins, Quintero, Rodriguez and the other Pathfinders should be included in
the JFK Collection.
In his letter to ARRB chairman Judge John Tunheim,
Wheaton gave him some basic background, establishing the fact that he was not
just another silly conspiracy theorists, and said he had information that might
be of interest to the Review Board that they might want to pursue. And the
Review Board took him seriously, at first.
Wheaton talked on the phone with ARRB investigator
Anne E. Buttimer, an attorney, and he gave her the basic story as he knew it, and
they arranged to meet in person in Washington D.C., when Wheaton gave Buttimer
some supporting documents, including Carl Jenkins’ vita-resume and his passport,
among other things. Those items are open to the public in the JFK Collection at
the NARA.
[BK Notes: For Jenkins’ Resume/Vita see: http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2018/10/carl-e-jenkins-vita.html -
and A JFK Counter-Coup Research Feather for your cap to anyone who comes up
with Jenkins' Passport.]
According to Buttimer's ARRB outside contact report,
Wheaton told her "Cuban exiles who were originally trained by the CIA to
kill Castro, killed Kennedy instead, considering him a traitor for his failure
to support them at the Bay of Pigs." Wheaton said that "people
above the Cubans wanted JFK killed for other reasons," and that "the
matter is not complex, but convoluted."
Buttimer then suddenly quit her job at the ARRB and
disappeared, and the Review Board never followed up on Wheaton’s information
and failed to get files on the relevant individuals named by Wheaton. He
belatedly received a ARRB form letter thanking him for contacting them.
TWO DOCUMENTARY FILMED INTERVIEWS
Then Matt Ehling, a documentary film maker from
Public Records Media in Minnesotta corresponded with and filmed a number of
extensive interviews with Wheaton, and William M. Law, based on records
released under the JFK Act, filmed an interview with Wheaton about his inside
information on the JFK assassination. Both are excertpted in the 2021 CAPA
presentation.
THE STRAIGHT STORY
When Law asked him what was the “straight story,” Wheaton
responded: “The straight story is that there was a CIA fronted program to
assassinate Castro and Carl (Jenkins) was in charge of training the Cubans
in Miami to assassinate Castro and it was paid for by the CIA. They would go
from Texas down to Mexico and take some convertibles and things into the hills
and rocky areas and set watermelons up in the back seat and they had what they
called a triangulation shooting team. And they were according to THEM, THEY
were the ones that diverted the Castro funds and training for their own agenda
to snuff Kennedy. It was a paid element and they were CIA people. They were
training to assassinate Castro, but if you are trained to assassinate one person,
you can use that training to assassinate anybody with that same training.
That’s what they were using – the paid training program to get Castro. The
Cubans, because of the imprisonment of those guys and JFK backing off at the
last moment in support of the Bay of Pigs invasion, they were still angry,
still are to this day. There was another clique above them that was worried
about Kennedy not increasing the program for escalating the hostilities in
Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. So at an extremely high level, I’m talking about
the political elite level, the shakers and movers of the country – the top guys
in the Pentagon and White House, did not want Kennedy to shut down that war
because they were just getting it warmed up and wanted to escalate.”
“Chi Chi and Carl Jenkins were in charge of the main
team. Carl Jenkins was training Chi Chi (Quintero) and several other
shooters, about five of them – and I.F. Harper helped train these guys to
assassinate Castro. According to THEM, they just went off and decided to get
their revenge on Kennedy for his failure to support the invasion of Cuba.”
[ John Henry “I.F.” Harper - https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2020/11/john-henry-iw-harper-rip.html
]
British schoolmaster John Simkin attempted to
contact Rafael Quintero via his close friend CIA media asset Don
Bohning, but Quintero refused to be interviewed though he did say that Gene
Wheaton was telling the truth as "he knew it". Quintero was also quoted
as saying: “If I were ever granted immunity, and compelled to testify about
past actions, about Dallas and the Bay of Pigs, it would be the biggest scandal
ever to rock the United States.”
[https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKwheaton.htm]
When asked why he blew the whisle on the Iran-Contra
affair, and gave up the names of his friends and associates to the AARB, Gene
Wheaton simply replied, “Because I’m a cop.”
When Carl Jenkins was asked about Gene Wheaton by
Lee Shephard, he said, “Wheaton was a nobody. We knew he was a cop so we didn’t
talk about anything important around him.”
If the assassination of President Kennedy isn’t
anything important, what else were they involved in that was more important
than that?
For more on this see: Original 2021 CAPA Conference
Presentation by Bill Kelly, Matt Ehling and W.M. Law interviews with Gene
Wheaton and Lee Shephard’s report on meeting with Jenkins and complete
transcript:
https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2021/12/bill-kellys-2021-capa-conference.html
Ed Lansdale Memo on Cuban Operations that refers to "pathfinders" and their purpose and considerations - Under PHASE I - (March 1962)
documents.theblackvault.com/documents/jfk/NARA-Oct2017/2018/docid-32206917.pdf
Carl Jenkins at the Bay of Pigs: https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2022/01/carl-jenkins-at-bay-of-pigs.html
Felix Rodrigues on Rafael Chi Chi Quintero: https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2022/01/felix-rodrigues-on-rafael-chi-chi.html
Confirming Wheaton and Jenkins: https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2022/01/confirming-wheaton-and-jenkins-i.html
Bill Kelly billkelly3@gmail.com
Tuesday, January 11, 2022
CONFIRMING WHEATON AND JENKINS
I don’t
consider Gene Wheaton a national hero, or Carl Jenkins a villain; I think they
were both patriots in their own ways and each adds important aspects to the JFK
assassination story that deserves close attention.
As this 2021-2022
New Year eve came and went I couldn’t help but think of Gene Wheaton after
spending the past two weeks transcribing excerpts of his interviews with Matt
Ehling and William Matson Law from our 2021 CAPA Conference presentation.
[https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2021/12/bill-kellys-2021-capa-conference.html ]
It was on December 31, 2015 when Gene Wheaton suffered an injury to his head that caused his death, reportedly from a fall at his home in a trailer on the side of a mountain in a remote area of California. He either got drunk and fell and hit a corner of some furniture, ala William Holden -
( https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/ - search/William+Holden/FFNDWMQWGHVzZZTLFNzcpFfqlgpbSpTm?projector=1&messagePartId=0.1 ) Or he was murdered by those trained killers who thought he talked too much. I will try to obtain Wheaton’s autopsy report for Dr. Wecht to review to see if there was any foul play involved. I think the fall is most probable, but he certainly could have been the victim of some professional killers who he accused of being involved in political assassinations, so being killed himself is certainly possibility.
In fact,
he had been sued by former FBI agent Oliver “Buck” Revell, for saying Revell,
as part of an anti-terrorist Task Force, had organized a murder squad to
assassinate those who were considered terrorists. Wheaton was later dropped
from the suit.
[https://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2021/12/oliver-buck-revell-sues-wheaton-for.html ]
While
others are interested in what Gene Wheaton has to say about Iran-Contra, OBIX, the
Revell suit, the CIA Island in the Bahamas he mentioned, his Presidential award
for his security work in the Middle East, and Jenkins operations in the Congo,
Vietnam, the Middle East and Central America, I am focused strictly on what
Wheaton and Jenkins have to say about the Kennedy assassination. But I use what
they have to say about other aspects of their careers in order to independently confirm their veracity.
Larry
Hancock and Russ Baker have said that we should treat Wheaton with skepticism,
and I do.
As Ronald Reagan said, "Trust but confirm."
Peter
Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall both talked with Wheaton around the time of
the Iran-Contra affair (1985), and Marshall said that Wheaton didn’t tell him
anything he could independently verify so he didn’t use anything Wheaton supplied
him. Scott said he was suspicious of Wheaton because of his close association
with Carl Jenkins, and
he warned Dan Sheehan not to use Wheaton as a source in his Iran-Contra suit.
Paul
Hovan, a Vietnam vet who led a group trying to expose Pentagon waste, met
Wheaton at a party and described him derisively as “someone who thought he was
a player but who was truly not,” and whose “claims were based on a mishmash of
speculative hearsay, fanciful information, and some actual facts.” But Wheaton’s
bottom line remained clear - “a rogue element in the U.S. government had
engaged in a host of nefarious activities, including assassinations,” and that
part has been sustained. And Wheaton never said he was a covert player, but
that they accepted him as one.
I have
been able to independently verify some of what Wheaton has said about various
things, such as the IBEX murders in Iran.
In
addition, Wheaton mentioned to Matt Ehling that he once worked with Dr. Cyril
Wecht as an investigator, hired by the families of the victims of the Gander,
Newfoundland plane crash on December 12, 1985 that killed 248 passengers and
crew, mainly U.S. Army soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division, an
event that Wecht remembered.
When
Wheaton was asked why he tried to blow the whistle on the Iran-Contra affair, and why he
informed John Tunheim and the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) of the
association of his friends with the assassination, he replied simply, “Because
I’m a cop.”
When
Carl Jenkins was asked about Wheaton, he said “He was a nobody. We knew he was
a cop so we didn’t talk about anything important around him.”
Well, admitting
involvement in plots to kill Fidel Castro and redirecting one of those plot to
engage in the assassination of a President,- if that is not the most important
information you have, what could be greater than that?
One of
Carl Jenkins closest protégés, Rafael “Chi Chi” Quintero, shortly before he died,
said that Wheaton was telling the truth “as he knew it,” – didn’t say he was
lying or even mistaken. And Quintero went on to say, “If I was to tell wat I
know about Dallas and the Bay of Pigs, it would be the greatest scandal that
has ever rocked the nation.”
[ Thank
you John Simkin: https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKquintero.htm
]
Quintero
was one of about twenty especially selected anti-Castro Cubans who were trained
in explosives, as snipers and in radio communications. They were commandos and
assassins, like the WWII Jedburghs before D-Day, sent into Cuba a few weeks
before the Bay of Pigs, with instructions to organize resistance cells, blow up
bridges, create general havoc and if possible, assassinate high priority targets, like Fidel Castro. They were called Pathfinders.
Felix
Rodriguez, one of the original Pathfinders, is quoted as saying (in Peter
Wyden, Bay of Pigs – The Untold Story, Simon
& Schuster, 1979 p. 75) that one of his trainers, “Carl,” – undoubtedly Carl
Jenknis, said “If this goddamn operation succeeds, it will be a goddamned
miracle.”
Some of
the original Pathfinders were captured (like Nestor Peno) and imprisoned until
they were bargained for with tractors and medical supplies and released, while
others made it out of Cuba. Eventually those that survived reunited at JMWAVE,
the CIA station in Miami, Florida, where they resumed their commando raids and
assassination attempts against Castro under the Mongoose operation and then continued even after Mongoose with commando raids and the Pathfinder plan to kill Castro.
During
the Church Committee investigation of CIA activities, eight National Photo
Interpretation Center (NPIC) technicians came forward to make it known that
there was a plan to kill Castro by snipers with high powered rifles as he rode
by in an open jeep on his way to the DuPont estate in Veradero, on the north
shore, where he was known to frequent. They said that the plan, called “Pathfinder,” and was led by Carl Jenkins,
but was “disapproved by higher authority.” That CIA NPIC memo was
intentionally misfiled in Frank Sturgis’ CIA Security File and relessed under the JFK Act.
[ https://www.maryferrell.org/
The NPIC
technicians said that the Pathfinder plan folder was kept in their section of
the JMWAVE station instead of the Operational File where it belonged. That folder has
since disappeared, but a NPIC secretary told the ARRB she received a call from
then attorney general Robert Kennedy and instructed to box all of the NPCI
records that had to do with assassination and send them to the Smithsonian Institute,
rather than the National Archives, where they belonged. When I asked the NARA
if the ARRB followed up on that with a request to the Smithsonian for any JFK,
RFK or NPIC assassination records, they responded in the negative, the ARRB did
not follow up on it. But we are and preparing a FOIA request to find out.
Gene Wheaton
said that from conversations among themselves, Carl Jenkins and the former
Pathfinders, including Rafael Chi Chi Quintero, admitted to being trained by the
CIA to kill Castro, but redirected their plan to kill Kennedy.
Wheaton
became especially close to Quintero, and asked him if he obtained immunity from
prosecution for them, would he and the others talk about what they knew about the assassination? And they would, so Wheaton
approached U.S. Senator Hugh Scott (D. Pa.) and they went to the White House
and Senate committees attempting to obtain the immunity necessary for them to
talk about the assassination but they failed. The government didn’t want to know the truth.
David
Atlee Phillips also admitted that Oswald used the same plan they had devised to
kill Castro. Just before his death Phillips told Kevin Walsh, an investigator
with the House Select Committee on Assassinations: "My final take on
the assassination is there was a conspiracy, likely including American
intelligence officers."
David Atlee Phillips died of cancer on 7th July, 1988, leaving behind an unpublished manuscript, a novel about a CIA officer who lived in Mexico City, in which the character states: "I was one of those officers who handled Lee Harvey Oswald... We gave him the mission of killing Fidel Castro in Cuba... I don't know why he killed Kennedy. But I do know he used precisely the plan we had devised against Castro. Thus the CIA did not anticipate the president's assassination, but it was responsible for it. I share that guilt."
When
asked about the assassination of President Kennedy, Carl Jenkins showed no
remorse, but said he didn’t know who killed Kennedy, and was out of the country
at the time.
That
reminded me of what Gene Wheaton told Matt Ehling in one of their interviews.
Wheaton explained that while an Air Force investigator he was approached and an
attempt was made to recruit into a military outfit that was specially trained for
“wet operations” – assassination. The procedure they used to protect the
assassins was called “Diogenes.”
Larry
Hancock, in his detailed analysis of the backgrounds of the names Wheaton
provided, asks the question of whether we can place any of them in Dallas at
the time of the assassination, and the answer is “no,” and I believe the answer
is Diogenes.
Taking
its name from Diogenes, a fourth century B.C. Greek philosopher and Cynic who made
poverty a virtue, and when asked what he was doing replied: “I am just looking
for an honest man,” but found nothing but rascals and scoundrels. In one of
Matt Ehling’s interviews with Wheaton he does touch on some interesting things
– including the Zeta-Diogenes Program.
Wheaton:
“In Italy, in 1962, I was recruited into … I was approached to become part of
an assassination network in the intelligence community. I was there (Italy)
from ’61-’63 - as an (Air Force) Office of Special Investigations (OSI) agent
working out of Aviano Air Base… In ’62, shortly after the Bay of Pigs fiasco,
and the embarrassment of the intelligence community, they … CIA covert
operators in conjunction with some people in the Pentagon wanted to set up a
secret cell – a worldwide cell of intelligence agents that would be called on
for torture, interrogations, and assassinations, if necessary….A man came out
from Washington, talked to me, and described it as - in the Air Force it
was called the Zeta-Diogenes Program, the ‘ZD Program’ for short.
And each agent that was indoctrinated, recruited into it would be given this
secret identifier on his master military record in Washington DC, and only
another ZD controlling officer would recognize it. Nobody in personnel or
anybody else would know that it was there.”
Wheaton: “They went looking for young, super-patriotic, guys … flag-wavers … with military and police background …, above-average intelligence …who could work on their own. Who would do anything for their country. I was approached because I fit that mold - conservative, Oklahoma, big family, flag wavers, patriotic. I had been in the Marine Corps before the Air Force, and I’d been a police officer before that. And I fit the mold. Because of the compartmentalization, and so forth, I never knew anybody else in that program, except I knew that General Joe Cappucci had been…for the Air Force portion of this thing."
[General Joseph J. Cappucci, head of Air Force Counter-Intelligence, and close friend of J. E. Hoover, at a party at the Rome Hilton in 1969, told his assistant Col. William Henry Amos that LBJ had JFK killed. BRIGADIER GENERAL JOSEPH J. CAPPUCCI > U.S. Air Force > Biography Display]
Wheaton: "In ’65, I transferred from the Air Force to the Army … I don’t know if I was recruited in or rejected … They just came out and interviewed me, and told me what it was about, and if they needed me, the idea was that you’d be sent on temporary duty someplace, and then you’d disappear and you’d go where you were really supposed to go. And then come back and your temporary duty would continue.”
While
that doesn’t sound too far fetched, it is confirmed by at least one other
military man - Sgt. Daniel Brad MacBolan III, who informs us that he too was
recruited into Diogenes:
“So
basically they built this platform which was built on Zeta Diogenes Clear-Eyes.
There are five levels with that. I’m a level five. Able to handle other
elements within the five membered cells. Its unacknowledged special access
programs deep coordinates cell. We are pretty much I guess you would say the
darker part of the CIA’s non official cover-type, where you got CIA agents
which have a different name. Nonofficial cover are employed somewhere and
that’s their day job. And then you turn a key and they become someone else. And
go about doing their spooking so to speak. They’re a spook and some may
know it and some may not. Most know it because they have to have special
training to make sure they’re, they’re extremely careful not to compromise
themselves…Non-official cover are employed somewhere and that’s their day job.
And then you turn a key and they become someone else. And go about doing their
spooking…..”
In the
movie The Shooter, a former expert military
sniper played by Levon Helm, says that the guys from the grassy knoll were
themselves killed before the day was out, and buried in the desert.
In fact,
as we know from Felix Rodriguez book Shadow
Warrior and the records of the Pathfinders released under the JFK Act,
after the assassination of JFK and the closing down of JMWAVE in 1964, these
men went on to work on other on other covert and “wet” operations, including
AMWORLD in Central America, and fighting Communists in the Congo, Dominican Republic, Vietnam and
Nicaragua.
So far I
have posted this Confirming Wheaton and Jenkins blog, excerpts of mainstream books
that mention Carl Jenkins, along with Felix Rodriguez’s key references to
Rafael Chi Chi Quintero in his book Shadow Warrior, and a transcript of the
2021 CAPA presentation on Wheaton, with excerpts of Matt Ehling and William
Matson Law’s interviews with Wheaton and Lee Shephard’s report on his meeting
with Carl Jenkins.
But we
are not done with this yet, as we are still pursuing a number of important
leads. Wheaton had a grandson in California we are tying to locate, as well as
the autopsy report of Wheaton’s death for Dr. Wecht to evaluate. We have also
located Sen. Hugh Scott’s papers and will go through them to see if there are
any documentary records of the attempts by Wheaton and Scott to obtain immunity
from prosecution for Quintero, Jenkins and others who would talk of what they knew of the JFK assassination.
Felix
Rodriguez is still alive and we are trying to obtain the two Oral History
interviews he did with the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas to review before we question him about these things, as we have made contact with him.
We are
also filing a FOIA request for the Smithsonian to see if they have the NPIC
documents and the Pathfinder folder that the NPIC secretary said she sent to the
Smithsonian under orders from RFK.
I am
waiting on William Matson Law to type up his notes on his telephone
conversations with Wheaton as well as any out takes of his filmed interview
that we don’t have.
After I
supplied Jefferson Morley with Carl Jenkins address in Southeast Pennsylvania,
Morley, like Shephard, went to visit him and got in the door. Morley reported
back to me that Jenkins “didn’t say anything new,” but that Jenkins did say
some things that Morley will be including in his next book on Watergate, due
out later this year. So we will just have to wait for that.
Lee
Shephard also tracked down Jenkins’ second wife, a former high level CIA
officer, and had a pleasant conversation with her and the son she had with
Jenkins, and we await his report on that.
In the
meantime, Jenkins somewhat suddenly left his home in Southeast Pa., which he
shared with his third wife, but we have located him at an assisted living
facility in Texas, and hope to question him one more time, though he is in his
90s.
Matt
Ehling is also preparing a compilation of the six interviews he did with Wheaton,
full transcripts of each, as well as all of the documents Wheaton faxed him
over the years, that will be published in a book without commentary, for use by
researchers who want to pursue the many leads he has provided on a number of
subjects. I am fixated on the JFK Assassination however, and will pursue that
angle.
I will
be leaving this subject alone for awhile as we quietly pursue these leads and will be
writing and posting on other related topics, including a review of Dr. Wecht’s
new book - “The JFK Assassination Dissected,” as well as a summary of
significant records released under the JFK Act, and a review of where we’ve
been, what we know, and where we have to go from here.
Thanks
for paying attention, as I think this is an important lead. Possibly the most
important I have tried to run down.
Send comments,
corrections and critiques to Billkelly3@gmail.com