WHAT
WERE THEY HIDING AND WHAT SHOULD WE LOOK FOR?
By Dan L. Hardway © October 26, 2017
(Revised October 30, 2017)
As we go into the hysteria of a
massive JFK document dump, there is one remarkably surviving document that has
already been released that we should keep in mind – especially when reading
news coverage of the documents scheduled for release under the JFK Records
Collection Act.
The
Plan for Countering Criticism
On April 1, 1967, the Head of
the Covert Action Staff of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sent a
dispatch to many of the CIA stations and bases around the world.i That the document survived may be remarkable
as it is clearly marked as “Destroy when no longer needed.” Or, then again, maybe it is not remarkable
that it has not been destroyed because the government and intelligence
community’s efforts to silence those who question the official story about John
Kennedy’s murder has never succeeded and, hence, the dispatch remains ‘needed’
from their viewpoint.
The dispatch lays out a plan
for defending the lone nut theory first advanced as the major theme of the
government cover-up of the assassination investigation. The dispatch labels people who question the
lone nut theory as “conspiracy theorists”.
It plainly states the purpose of the dispatch “is to provide material
for countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists…. Our
play should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (i) wedded to
theories adopted before the evidence was in, (ii) politically interested, (iii)
financially interested, (iv) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (v)
infatuated with their own theories.” It
goes on to suggest that critics be countered by advancing arguments such as
that they have produced no new evidence, that they overvalue some evidence
while ignoring other evidence, that large scale conspiracies are “impossible to
conceal in the United States,” that
Oswald would not have been any “sensible person’s choice for a co-conspirator”,
and by pointing out the comprehensive work of the Warren Commission which was
composed of men “chosen for their integrity, experience, and prominence.”
The
Plan in Hindsight
Many of the claims in the
dispatch are ludicrous in hindsight, but are still parroted by main stream
media sources. We’ve seen them trotted
out by lone nut theory defenders every time there has been a major breakthrough
in the assassination investigation. As
I’ll discuss below, we are already seeing some of these “plays” (as the
dispatch calls them) already before the JFK document release and I suspect
we’ll see a lot more of them in the coming days. Let’s start by looking at the
possible validity of the plays.
At this point in time,
fifty-four years after the assassination and fifty-three years after the
publication of the Warren Report,
there are researchers, analysts, historians, attorneys and many others who have
been researching this case for most of that time. Many of them do not advance “theories” about
what happened, but rather try to find and analyze the facts that have been
hidden for so long and ask questions about what they mean. Let’s be clear here; current researchers,
analysts, historians and others (hereinafter, researchers) are not wedded to
theories that were adopted before the evidence was in. But, let’s step back for a moment and examine
prior government investigations. The
cover-up of the assassination began on Air Force One as it flew back to D.C.
from Dallas. The seeds are there in the
released transcripts of Lyndon Johnson’s telephone calls. If the standard is waiting to see all the
evidence, then the Warren Commission, the first government investigatory
effort, is totally discredited.
Researchers have proved beyond any reasonable argument or doubt that not
only did the Warren Commission not have all the evidence in before issuing
their report, the very investigating agencies upon whom they relied actively
conspired to keep evidence from them – just as they have, and still do,
actively conspired to keep the evidence from the American people. Lone nut theorists appear to be the ones
wedded to the theory adopted before the evidence is in and doing all they can
to spin the evidence as it comes out to try to shore up support for their
theories.
Now, let’s look at the
political interest and financial interest argument relied upon by the CIA to
counter so-called ‘conspiracy theorists’.
Arguing that the Warren Commission members, its supporters since, and
those covering up the evidence and resisting release of documentation, were not
politically or financially interested in the cover-up should be accepted as
facially absurd at this point. Even in
1967, the CIA dispatch openly admits to such interest, pointing out that
opinion polls showing that more than half of the public was questioning the
Warren Commission’s lone nut theory reflects a “trend of opinion [that] is a
matter of concern to the U.S. Government, including our organization.” Questioning the rectitude and wisdom of the
members of the Warren Commission would “tend to cast doubt on the whole
leadership of American society.” An
“increasing tendency to hint that President Johnson himself, as the one person
who might be said to have benefited”ii could implicate him. Such concerns “affects not only the
individual concerned, but also the whole reputation of the American
government.”iii
The Chief of Covert Action then
acknowledges the Agency’s own interest: “Our organization itself is directly
involved: among other facts, we contributed information to the
investigation.” Indeed, they also
covered-up information, as they have now admitted.iv The Agency’s concern, one that continues to
this day, is plainly stated: the conspiracy theories expose them to “suspicion
on our organization, for example by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald
worked for us.” The CIA’s main personal,
if you will, stake in covering up and countering criticism has always been to
deflect any possible focus on their relationship to the purported lone-nut
assassin.
Next, let’s review the hasty and inaccurate in
their research argument. How many
documents are about to be released that have never been seen? And who is it that is sure of their
theory? What can we say now about
critics who for over fifty years have called for the release of all the
information so that the American people can see and judge for themselves?
Arguing that there is no new
evidence is like standing in front of a camel and insisting it is a horse. New evidence has dribbled out now over the
decades, in small manageable doses that can be dismissed as disconnected by the
lone-nut theorists. And the blatant
hubris of the argument is astounding.
These are people who can suppress the evidence and taunt you because you
don’t have it! It’s like prosecuting
attorneys in criminal cases who refuse to reveal exculpatory evidence while
simultaneously shifting the burden of proof to the accused. And as for the weighing all the evidence
argument, how do you expect that to go if you control the evidence and only let
the evidence out that supports your theory?
Convenient. And if someone else
does come up with a fact that contradicts your lone-nut theory, you can always
deny it even though you know your suppressed evidence supports it. Given those facts, can anyone question why
there has been such resistance by the Agency to full disclosure.
Then, there is the conspiracy
theories can’t be hidden in America argument:
Can anyone credibly make that argument after the history the last four
decades? That’s why J. Edgar Hoover was
able to do all that he did to undermine American civil liberties for fifty
years without exposure that wouldn’t have even come then had there not been a
break-in at a small FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania.v MKULTRA wasn’t as successful. It was only covered up for 25 years or so, as
was the CIA programs to save and use ex-Nazi scientists and intelligence
officers after the Second World War.
Actually, all that needs to be said in rebuttal is that for 50 years the
CIA and our government vehemently denied that there was a conspiracy to keep
information from the Warren Commission.
It is a prime tenet and support of the lone-nut theorists. In spite of the denials, finally, three years
ago, the Agency in their internal secret magazine, in an article written by
their official historian, admitted there was such a conspiracy, although they called
it benignvi. We’ll return to
this in a bit.
Next, we have a point we will
concede: Oswald as a co-conspirator. We
agree that Oswald was not the person that a rational leader might choose as a
co-conspirator. But, is he one that a rational person might choose as a
patsy? -- an entirely different
question. Remember, that being a patsy
was Oswald’s claim in one of the few brief encounters he had with the
press. That claim would have been,
presumably, a major theme developed by competent defense lawyers had he lived
long enough to be tried. But the
lone-nut theorists dismiss that possibility out of hand. Nothing to see here, folks, just move
on. There was no investigation of this
in the hasty Warren Commission investigation that led to the establishment of
the lone-nut theory.
As far as the Warren Commission
membership goes, we will concede their then-prominence, but we must wonder, in
light of the evidence that has become available since, about their integrity
and experience as support for the integrity of their work. Allen Dulles was the head of the CIA fired by
President Kennedy. His collusion with
the CIA in the pendency of the Warren Commission is shown in documents that
have been released in the last few years.
He passed out a book to Commission members at their first meeting taking
the position that American assassins are always lone-nuts. Earl Warren was coerced into serving against
his will by Lyndon Johnson. Johnson used
the supposed threat of nuclear war in convincing him to serve. Gerald Ford was in J. Edgar Hoover’s pocket. John J. McCloy was steeped in the
intelligence community and was almost single handedly responsible for the end
of prosecution of Nazi war criminals and the early release of those who had
already been convicted when he became the High Commissioner for post-war
Germany. Richard Russell, Jr., and Hale
Boggs both privately rejected the Warren Commission’s lone nut theory, as did
Lyndon Johnson, Robert F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy and many, many others. But the conspiracy of silence took years to
break, and when broken, the revelations came out piecemeal and were dismissed
at the time as insignificant, old news – just conspiracy theorists.
“Conspiracy
Theorists”
Let’s not forget that the label, “conspiracy
theorist”, is designed to be pejorative.
If you can stick it to someone, then you don’t have to listen to what
they say. Even if they are reporting new
evidence, they’re just wacky conspiracy theorists. Just like those nuts who for years said J.
Edgar Hoover was running a program to subvert dissidents illegally, or that the
CIA was illegally surveilling U.S. citizens, or that the CIA had covered up
information to keep it from other government entities that were investigating
the Kennedy murder, right? Even if the
person only reported facts and asked questions, they were (and are) labeled a
“conspiracy theorist” solely for the purpose of undermining their credibility
and lessening any impact they might have on public opinion. What happens when the answer to the question
they raised, “is it possible there was a conspiracy?’ is, “Not only is it
possible, there was indeed a conspiracy,”?
At that point, the cover-up artists note that even a blind bird
occasionally finds a worm. And the
cover-up artists say this without shame even though they have known about the
conspiracy from the get-go. The next
stage is to come up with a new spin such as, the cover-up was “benign”, or
shifting suspicion where they want it to go.
As noted by Lance
deHaven-Smith, a professor at Florida State University, the CIA in 1967 began a
campaign to “popularize the term ‘conspiracy theory’ and make a conspiracy
belief a target of ridicule and hostility.”
He notes that the campaign, “must be credited, unfortunately, with being
one of the most successful propaganda initiatives in all time.”vii He summarizes why the label has been used as
a sword by those who resist the truth: “[T]he conspiracy-theory label, as it is
applied in public discourse, does not disparage conspiratorial thinking or
analysis in general, even though this is what the term suggests. Rather the broad-brush ‘conspiracy theory’ disparages inquiry and questioning that
challenge official accounts of
troubling political events in which public officials themselves may have had a
hand. A conspiracy theory directs
suspicion at officials who benefit from political crimes and tragedies. The
theories are considered dangerous not because they are obviously false, but
because, viewed objectively and without deference to U.S. political officials
and institutions, they are often quite plausible.”viii
The
Plan in Action?
So, the first thing to remember
going into these days of disclosure is to stop when you see the label and ask,
“Why is the writer of this story disparaging this idea? Who is he trying to deflect suspicion
from? Why is he trying to direct my
suspicion elsewhere? Can I reject the label and recover an objective view about
what this so-called conspiracy theorist had to say?” Then, do your best to find out what the idea
being attacked really is rather than just rejecting it out of hand because of
the labeling. Remember, the term
“conspiracy theory” gained prominence as a result of a CIA led propaganda
initiative specifically addressed at protecting their own interests.
We see a blatant example of
this dismissive labeling in CNN’s coverage of the upcoming document
release. Jeremy Diamond writes, “A
decision to withhold even a sliver of the documents could give conspiracy
theorists more fodder to propel their claims.”ix So, what you are supposed to take away is
that if anyone raises any questions about documents being withheld after the
release date, they have to be a “conspiracy theorist” who isn’t worthy of your
time or attention. Consider, what is
there to hide at this point? If
something is not released, why is it illegitimate to ask why, especially in
view of our government’s relationship with the truth, or lack thereof, over the
past six decades? What purpose is served
by Mr. Diamond’s advance labeling?
The appeal to authority is also
used in battling “conspiracy theories.”
It is seen in the CIA dispatch’s appeal to the apparent authority of the
Warren Commission created by the then-reputations of its members and the
superficially extensive investigation.
This technique appears again in Mr. Diamond’s article: “Historians who
have closely studied the Kennedy assassination have said they do not expect the
documents to … contradict the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was solely
responsible for killing Kennedy.”x
Really, what historians? Why are
none named. Why does he not give any
consideration to people such as Dr. David R. Wrone, an emeritus professor of
history at the University of Wisconsin, and Dr. John Newman, an adjunct
professor of history at James Madison University, whose lifetime study of the
subject has led them to the conclusion that Oswald could not have been solely
responsible?xi WE haven’t
spoken to them but we would venture to guess that neither Dr. Wrone nor Dr.
Newman expect the documents to support Mr. Diamond’s lone-nut theory.
Then we have Phil Shenon’s
return to the fray in The Guardian this morning.xii Even in the
title of his article, “Files will shed light on a JFK shooting conspiracy – but
not the one you think”, Mr. Shenon starts to try to divert attention in the direction
he wants it to go. He states plainly
what he doesn’t want you to consider: first, a second assassin in Dealey Plaza
even though his assertion that “most credible” evidence supports the lone-nut
theory is patently not true.xiii
Second, about a mafia plot to
kill Oswald he asks “What half-way competent Mob boss would choose a delusional
blabbermouth like Ruby…?” echoing the CIA dispatch’s question about what
rational person would ever choose Oswald as a co-conspirator? Again, as with the CIA’s question, Shenon’s
borrowed technique avoids the important questions and shuts off the possibility
of objective investigation and consideration of other alternatives. It’s a form
of straw-man argument, but more slanderous and pernicious – you must be crazy if
you don’t accept what I say. For
example, what about the possibility that Ruby was called on as an emergency
stop gap measure only after an initial plan to dispose of the patsy failed? We are not saying that is what happened, but
we are asking why it should be crazy, then or now, to consider the possibility
and investigate it?
Third, he states that
conspiracy theorists have concocted “a sprawling coup d’état involving everyone
from President Johnson” on down the chain of command. We, too, find that less credible than most. But, then again, we have to consider that the
evidence is now pretty much indisputable that President Johnson led the
cover-up conspiracy and that his leadership and the conspiracy to cover-up
anything that didn’t support the lone nut theory began immediately after the
assassination. We have to ask, “Doesn’t
that raise questions in your mind that merit investigation and, if possible,
answers?” Why should we accept Mr.
Shenon’s belittling dismissal of any questioning or review to see what’s
actually in the evidence before we dismiss it?
The
Cover-Up Fallback
So, having told you what not to
look for because even raising the questions can undermine proper deference to
U.S. officials and institutions, he gives us the concession that we are now to
believe: The CIA has admitted they
participated in a benign cover-up of information during the Warren Commission
investigation.xiv Mr. Shenon
acknowledges that the evidence is indisputable that both the CIA and the FBI
had, at least, had Oswald under “aggressive surveillance in the months before
the assassination.”xv Mr.
Shenon then advances the spin that the CIA and FBI embarrassment over not
taking action to better protect the president in Dallas in light of what they
knew is the reason for the benign cover-up: “ [I]mmediately after the
assassination, panicked officials at both the CIA and FBI tried, desperately,
to cover up evidence of the extent of their knowledge of Oswald, fearing their
bungling of the intelligence about JFK’s assassin might be exposed – and that
they would be blamed for the president’s murder.”
Yes sir, that certainly
explains why the cover-up began immediately on Air Force One on the way back to
D.C. on November 22, 1963. As ridiculous
as that idea is, it’s even more ridiculous to think that this embarrassment of
two agencies would lead the whole government – from the president on down --
not just to cover up then, but to continue the cover-up and resist disclosure
for more than fifty years of most of the documentary evidence, not to mention
the massive destruction of evidence that has taken place already. When an offered concession is as implausible
as this one is, what is the question that the lone nut theorists are trying to
avoid being asked?
Could there have been other
motivations for such a cover-up? Are we
allowed to ask? So glad you asked. You are not only allowed to ask, you should
ask. Remember, in the 1967 dispatch the
CIA acknowledged their basis of concern and, I believe, their motivation for
participating in, if not leading, the cover-up of information for all these
years. It wasn’t just hiding information
from the Warren Commission but continuing to hide it and resist its disclosure
even up to the present. They
acknowledged that the main CIA concern was that conspiracy theories might link
them to the use of Oswald in intelligence operations. This concern is still found in David
Robarge’s article admitting CIA’s, or at least, Director McCone’s,
participation in a conspiracy to hide information from the Warren Commission. The article talks about the anti-Castro plots
and the Nosenko information that was not shared with the Commission.xvi This was used as an opportunity by Mr. Shenon
to revive the kinda-like-maybe Castro did it theory, a theory first raised on
November 23rd in a Cuban exile publication sponsored and paid for by
the CIA .xvii
But you have to read Mr.
Robarge’s article carefully. It is
always wise to carefully parse CIA pronouncements to see what they are actually
saying. Mr. Robarge never specifically
states that the CIA was mainly concerned in suppressing Kennedy murder
information in preventing information about their attempts to murder Castro
getting out. Here’s what he actually
says about the motivation for the cover-up: “Moreover, the DCI shared the
[Johnson] administration’s interest in avoiding disclosures about covert
actions that would circumstantially implicate CIA in conspiracy theories, and
possibly lead to calls for a tough US response against the perpetrators of the
assassination. If the commission did not
know to ask about covert operations against Cuba, he was not going to give them
any suggestions where to look.”xviii
Taken as a whole, the statement
would draw you to infer that the Castro assassination plots were what was being
covered up. But if that is the case, why
has the resistance to disclosure remained so fierce even after those plots were
disclosed in 1975? And earlier in the
article, Robarge clearly states that electronic intercepts had, within a few
days, convinced the administration and the Agency that neither the USSR nor
Cuba had any complicity in the assassination.xix Since they already knew that neither Soviet
Russia nor Cuba were complicit who did the Agency fear might be the objects of
calls for a tough response? Notice the
specific structure of Mr. Robarge’s statement: “avoiding disclosures about
covert actions that would circumstantially
implicate CIA in conspiracy theories.” We submit that this is the same motivation
that existed in 1967 as stated by the CIA Chief of Covert Action in the April 1
dispatch: “Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our
organization, for example by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for
us.”xx
The CIA has told us what they
were trying to hide. Not disclosures
that would implicate Cubans in Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories but
rather covert operations against Cuba that could “circumstantially implicate
CIA” in Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories. They have been trying to hide information
that could implicate them as an organization participating in a conspiracy
based on the fact that Oswald was not only under aggressive surveillance, but
was also being utilized in some capacity by them in active intelligence
operations shortly before the assassination.
Those operations were directed at Cuba.
The ones they didn’t want to be asked about, as Mr. Robarge states, were
“covert operations against Cuba,” not covert Castro assassination plans. Please note in his article that Robarge is
careful to specify the Castro assassination plots when he is talking about
them. He is equally careful here to not
reference them but, rather, more general “covert operations against Cuba.” We should be looking for information on Oswald’s
involvement in those operations in this document release. They’ve told us where to look.
A
Smoking Gun?
The most common question I’ve
been asked the past week or so is, “Do you think there will be a smoking gun in
the documents that will be released by the National Archives?xxi Let’s listen in while members of the Warren
Commission members discuss whether they might find documentary evidence, or
even truthful sworn testimony, that Oswald had some kind of working
relationship with the FBI or the CIA:
“Sen. Russell. If Oswald never had assassinated the
President or at least been charged with assassinating the President and had
been in the employ of the FBI and somebody had gone to the FBI they would have
denied he was an agent.
Mr.
Dulles. Oh, yes.
Sen.
Russell. They would be the
first to deny it. Your agents would have done exactly the same thing.
Mr.
Dulles. Exactly.
[a long discussion then follows
about whether and how the Commission should investigate the allegation that
Oswald may have been and FBI informant, then:]
Mr.
Dulles. There is a
terribly hard thing to disprove, you know. How do you disprove a fellow was not
your agent. How do you disprove it.
Rep.
Boggs. You could disprove
it, couldn't you?
Mr.
Dulles. No.
Rep.
Boggs. I know, ask
questions about something —
Mr.
Dulles. I never knew how
to disprove it.
Rep.
Boggs. So I will ask you.
Did you have agents about whom you had no record whatsoever?
Mr.
Dulles. The record might not be on paper. But on
paper would have hieroglyphics that only two pople knew what they meant, and
nobody outside the agency else could say it meant another agent.
Rep.
Boggs. Let's take a
specific case, that fellow Powers was one of your men.
Mr.
Dulles. Oh, yes, he was
not an agent. He was an employee.
Rep.
Boggs. There was no
problem in proving he was employed by the CIA.
Mr.
Dulles. No. We had a
signed contract.
Rep.
Boggs. Let's say Powers
did not have a signed contract but he was recruited by someone in CIA. The man
who recruited him would know, wouldn't he?
Mr.
Dulles.
Yes, but he wouldn't tell.
The
Chairman. Wouldn't tell it under oath?
Mr.
Dulles. I
wouldn't think he would tell it under oath, no.
The
Chairman. Why?
Mr.
Dulles. He ought not tell
it under oath. Maybe not tell it to his own government but he wouldn't tell it
any other way.
Mr.
McCloy. Wouldn't tell it
to his own chief?
Mr.
Dulles. He might or might
not. If he was a bad one then he wouldn't.
….Mr. McClou[sic]. Allen, suppose somebody when you were head of the
CIA came to you, another government agency and said specifically, "If you
will tell us", suppose the President of the United States comes to you and
says, "Will you tell me, Mr. Dulles?"
Mr.
Dulles. I would tell the
President of the United States anything, yes, I am under his control. He is my
boss. I wouldn't necessarily tell anybody else, unless the President authorized
me to do it. We had that come up at times.
Mr.
McCloy. You wouldn't tell
the Secretary of Defense?
Mr.
Dulles. Well, it depends a
little bit on the circumstances. If it was within the jurisdiction of the
Secretary of Defense, but otherwise I would go to the President, and I do on
some cases.
Mr.
Rankin. If that is all
that is necessary, I think we could get the President to direct anybody working
for the government to answer this question. If we have to we would get that
direction.
Mr.
Dulles. What I was getting
at, I think under any circumstances,
I think Mr. Hoover would say certainly he didn't have anything to do with this
fellow.
Mr.
McCloy. Mr. Hoover didn’t
have anything to do with him but his agent. Did you directly or indirectly
employ him.
Mr.
Dulles. But if he says no,
I Ididn't[sic] have anything to do with it. You can't prove what the facts are.
There are no external evidences. I
would believe Mr. Hoover. Some people might not. I don't think there is any external evidence other than the person's
word that he did or did not employ a particular man as a secret agent. No
matter what.”xxii
According
to Allen Dulles we should not expect to find anything in writing that would
finally settle the issue of whether Oswald was an agent or asset of the CIA,
let alone whether the CIA was involved in a conspiracy to kill John Kennedy. Indeed, the frequent demand for such “smoking
gun” proof in the news coverage of these released documents is just the CIA’s
1967 argument trying to put the burden on researchers to produce new evidence.xxiii Only this time those echoing the CIA’s play
are specifying the only evidence that they will consider: something that meets
their criteria of a smoking gun. In
light of what Dulles told the Commissioners, we can understand how they might
well be comfortable in making that demand while fully knowing that it can never
be met. In this way, they again try to
control the public perception of the story in advance of anything that may come
from the documents – whatever it might be, it won’t be the smoking gun they
demand.
But in the light of what Dulles
has told us, the absence of such written proof cannot be considered to be proof
of the absence of a relationship between Oswald and an intelligence
agency. According to the most
experienced CIA Director at the time, even if such a relationship had existed
it would be denied even under oath regardless of how shocking that may have
seemed to the Chief Justice. The CIA might have told the President if he
asked directly. But, in this case, the
President was Johnson and he was clearly on the cover-up bandwagon. I doubt that he ever asked Dulles. Actually, we should be quite surprised and
skeptical if we were ever to find written, official documentation of a
relationship between Oswald and the CIA.
Covert
Operations Against Cuba: What We Know and What We Might Learn.
Let’s go back to what Mr.
Robarge told us about what was being hidden by the CIA from the Warren
Commission. As we shall see, it is also
what they have tried to hide from every subsequent investigation into the assassination
as well: Covert operations that were ongoing in 1963 that might implicate CIA
in conspiracy theories about the Kennedy Assassination. Mr. Robarge has told us that the information
is circumstantial – i.e., we shouldn’t expect a smoking gun like a written
statement that Oswald was used in this or that particular covert action aimed
at Cuba.xxiv So, an
examination of what we know about some of the circumstances relating to covert
actions aimed at Cuba and Oswald’s activities in 1963 may provide some hints
about what we should be looking for in these newly released documents.
In 1977 and 1978 I looked into
some of these issues as a researcher for the House SelectCommittee on
Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives. I looked hard at the activities of David
Atlee Phillips who, in 1963, ran the covert actions against Cuba out of the
CIA’s Mexico City Station. I was able to
link almost every story appearing shortly after the assassination linking
Oswald to Cuba and pro-Castro groups to an asset or agent ran by Phillips. But in the late 90’s, with the release of
documents collected by the Assassination Records Review Board, I learned why
and how my researches into this area of investigation by been frustrated in
1978.xxv The CIA brought an officer out of retirement in May, 1978, to serve as a
liaison to the Committee, especially to work with me and my research partner,
Edwin Lopez. This officer was George
Joannides.
In August 1963 Oswald had been
involved in a street fight with members of an anti-Castro Cuban student group,
the DRE, in New Orleans. It resulted in
a lot of publicity and showed Oswald and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in a
fairly negative light. The HSCA,
naturally, wanted to explore whether there was a relationship between the CIA
and the DRE in 1963. The CIA was
officially asked about this, directly, on at least three occasions and each
time denied that there was any relationship.
When Joannides was assigned to work with as liaison, the CIA was asked
whether he had any connection with, or knowledge of, anything related to the
assassination and the CIA assured the Committee that he did not. According to G. Robert Blakey, Chief Counsel
of the HSCA, Joannides blatantly lied to him and the Committee:
“When working as Chief Counsel
for the HSCA, I requested all the Agency files on the DRE and its members as
early as March of 1978. That request
included a demand that the Agency identify any employees who had, in the period
from 1960 to 1964, worked with the DRE.
After that initial request for records, at least two additional requests
were made in May and July of 1978. The
Agency repeatedly assured the Committee that they had no contact with the DRE
in 1963, having severed all contacts in April of that year. The leaders of the DRE, in interviews with
the Committee’s staff, indicated that they worked with a CIA case officer in
1963. The Agency assured me they would
search their records to try to identify such an officer. The Agency employee who contacted me to
advise that they could find no record of any such case officer was George
Joannides. He did tell us, however, that
he would keep looking.”xxvi
As the case officer for the DRE
George Joannides had to work directly with David Phillips in anti-Cuban
propaganda operations in 1963. This is
one of the covert action operations against Cuba that we know the CIA has
fought tooth and nail to keep covered-up.
As Mr. Blakey put it, “The CIA never told the Warren Commission about
their support of, and work with, the DRE in 1963. To my knowledge, the CIA never told the
Church Committee about it. The ARRB
asked the Agency about DRE at the suggestion of Jeff Morley. The CIA initially told the ARRB the same
thing they told me and the HSCA: the Agency had no employee in contact with DRE
in 1963. The ARRB conducted its own
examination of CIA records and found Joannides personnel file with its clear
indication that he was the DRE case officer.”xxvii Jefferson Morley sued the CIA seeking more
information on Joannides’s operations in a case filed in Federal Court in 2003,
a case that is still on-going and in which the CIA has been able to
successfully use the Courts to claim that “national security” prevents the
release of any further information about what Joannides was doing in 1963 or
1978, although the CIA has admitted under oath in that case that Joannides was
acting in a covert capacity in dealing with the HSCA.xxviii
Here’s what we know now about what
Phillips and Joannides were doing in the early 1960’s that might be
relevant. David Phillips recruited a
group of students in Havana to work against Castro while Phillips was serving
under deep cover in Havana in the late 1950's.
At the time, the group was known as the Directorio Revolucionario, or
DR. Phillips was the DR’s first case officer.xxix When the DR’s leadership fled Cuba in 1960,
William Kent organized them into an effective organization in Florida, known as
the Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil, or DRE.xxx The DRE was headquartered in Miami but had
branches in other places, including New Orleans.
Most of the funding for the DRE
was provided by the CIA, but the organization resisted Agency control. The week after the missile crisis ended in
October, 1962, an article appeared in the Washington Evening Star newspaper
alleging there were still Russian missiles hidden in Cuba. The story ran with a front-page head line. The DRE was the source of the story. Shortly afterward the leader of the DRE
appeared on NBC’s “Today Show” where and claimed to have seen, with his own
eyes, nuclear missiles still hidden in caves and hills in Cuba.xxxi
This was contrary to the Agency script.
As a result, Richard Helms, the
then head of the Agency’s covert action arm met with the leader of the DRE in
the fall of 1962. Helms promised the DRE
that a case officer who would be personally responsible directly to him.xxxii
The case officer Helms assigned was George Joannides. Joannides was very effective in his work with
the DRE. His July, 1963, fitness report
noted that Joannides “has done an excellent job in the handling of a
significant student exile group which hitherto had successfully resisted any
important degree of control.”xxxiii
Not long thereafter Joannides became the manager of the propaganda
operations at the CIA’s Miami Station and the only organization that he
retained under his direct control as case officer was DRE.xxxiv By March of 1964 Joannides had been promoted
to head the Cover Action branch of the Miami Station. He continued, however, to maintain personal
oversight of the DRE.xxxv It
was in this period that Oswald who was handing out leaflets for the Fair Play
for Cuba Committee had his run-in with the DRE in New Orleans – August, 1963 –
that resulted in most of the reports tying Oswald to Castro after the
assassination. In fact, the very first
assassination conspiracy theory appeared on November 24, 1963, in the DRE’s CIA
financed newspaper, Trinchera. The
story was covered in both the Miami Herald and the Washington Post the next
day.xxxvi
In the early 1960's, David
Phillips was working at Headquarters where he, along with Cord Meyer, developed
the first disinformation operations aimed at the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.xxxvii During the Bay of Pigs, Phillips was in
charge of anti-Castro propaganda operations at Headquarters.xxxviii As such, he worked closely with Doug Gupton,
who was his counterpart at JMWAVE in Miami.xxxix Gupton was not a registered pseudonym but
was, rather, a cover name that William Kent, the officer’s true name, used in
the field.xl Phillips
described their working relationship as very close.xli Kent
acknowledged that when he was running propaganda operations in Miami, David
Phillips had been his immediate supervisor.xlii He said he was in contact by telephone with
Phillips while in that position and that Phillips visited Miami “quite
often.” He kept Phillips informed of the
propaganda operations he was running in Miami.xliii It is very likely that William Kent’s
registered pseudonym, in 1963, was Robert K. Trouchard.xliv In an attempt to prevent unnecessary
confusion, for the remainder of this paper, I’ll refer to Kent/Gupton/Touchard
as “Kent”; Phillips/ Choaden as “Phillips”; and Joannides/Newby as “Joannides.” Phillips’s work on Cuban disinformation
continued after his transfer to Mexico City in 1961 until he left in 1965.xlv
In the fall of 1962, when
Joannides was hand-picked by Richard Helms as the DRE case officer, he replaced
Ross Crozier in Miami. Crozier had been brought in earlier as the DRE case
officer to assist Kent. Joannides
reported directly to Helms.xlvi
Joannides’s registered pseudonym was Walter D. Newby. His supervisor was Kent. Up to 90% of the DRE’s operating funds came
from the CIA.
The ARRB managed to force the
CIA to declassify a few of Joannides’s fitness reports.xlvii On July 31, 1963, Joannides’ supervisor,
Kent, with whom Phillips had a “very close” working relationship, commended
Joannides for doing “an excellent job in the handling of a significant student
exile group which hitherto had successfully resisted any important degree of
control.”xlviii The same
report lists his second specific duty as “[c]ase officer for student project
involving political action, propaganda, intelligence collection and a
hemisphere-wide apparatus.”xlix Between August 9 and August 21,
1963, Oswald became something of a celebrity in New Orleans after his encounter
with the local branch of DRE while passing out Fair Play for Cuba leaflets. Joannides’s quarterly fitness report covering
this period has not been released, remaining classified and withheld in full
for reasons of national security.
At some point between July 31,
1963, and May 15, 1964, Joannides replaced Kent as chief of covert operations
at JMWAVE. While the scant release of
documents on Joannides makes it impossible to pinpoint the time, Kent
references in JMWAVE files end after 7/25/63.
By October, 1963, Kent is working at the Covert Action desk of the
Western Hemisphere division at CIA headquarters.l Where Kent was between the end of July and
October 11, 1963, is not known. It is
reasonable, therefore, to presume that Joannides became the director of covert
operations at JMWAVE sometime between the end of July and the beginning of
October, 1963.li As that
director, he is said to have had “a distinct flair for political action
operations and can translate policy directives into meaningful action
programs....”lii As director
of covert action, Joannides only retained direct responsibility for one
operation: the student project involving “distribution of printed propaganda,
production of radio programs, and the development of political action
programs.”liii
So, the DRE originated as the
DR under the tutelage of David Phillips in Havana in the late 1950's. William Kent took over running the group, now
known as the DRE, once they had fled from Havana to Miami. In his position, he was responsible to
Phillips. Crozier came in to assist Kent
with his workload. Kent and Crozier were
not too successful with the hard to control group and Richard Helms gave them
an officer responsible directly to him, Joannides. But Joannides’s performance evaluations
indicate that his immediate supervisor, prior to October 1963, was Kent. We do not know what working relationship
Joannides had with Phillips either directly, or indirectly through Kent. We know even less about reports he may have
made directly to William Helms. It is
not, however, to much of a leap to suspect that Phillips continued to be
involved in, or at least kept apprised of, operations of a group that he had
started and nurtured, both directly and indirectly, that was operating directly
in his area of responsibility. Indeed,
it would not be at all surprising that he used that group in operations against
the Fair Play for Cuba Committee or that he had continued to be involved in
disinformation operations aimed at the group, having designed the first one,
and still being tasked as the officer with executive responsibility for all
such activity in 1963.
In the month after Oswald’s
media-coverage generating encounter with DRE in August, on September 16, 1963,
the CIA informed the FBI that it was considering action to counter the
activities of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) in foreign countries.liv In New Orleans, on September 17, 1963,
Oswald applied for, and received, a Mexican travel visa.lv On
September 27 Oswald arrived in Mexico City.
On that day, and the following day, Oswald, or someone impersonating
him, may have visited the Cuban Consulate.
On those same days, the Mexico City CIA Station was testing an impulse
camera in their photo surveillance operation aimed at the door of the Cuban
Consulate. Sometime in late September
Phillips left Mexico City on a temporary duty assignment at CIA Headquarters.lvi It is at this
time that Phillips was promoted to chief of anti-Castro operations in
Mexico City – the Cuba desk.lvii
On October 1 the Mexico City Station sent “bulk materials” to
Headquarters by an allegedly untraceable transmittal manifestlviii
in a diplomatic pouchlix “to be held in registry until picked up by
Michael C. Choaden [David Phillips] presently TDY HQS.”lx In 1978 we were not able to find out what was
in the pouch. On October 8, 1963, HQ
sent a cable to JMWAVE advising them that Phillips would arrive there the
following day for a two-day visit.lxi That means he would have been
in Miami where Joannides was working on October 9 and 10, 1963, returning to
the Mexico City Station on October 11, 1963.
From all this, it appears that,
sometime in the fall of 1963, Kent was promoted from JMWAVE Miami station to
Western Hemisphere Covert Action at CIA Headquarters while Joannides was
promoted to Kent’s old position in Miami and Phillips was promoted to the Cuban
desk in Mexico City. Were these rewards
for a successful disinformation operation aimed at the FPCC in New Orleans, an
operation that the Agency thought it could export to Mexico? In August, Lee Harvey Oswald and DRE had had
their fun in New Orleans. In September
the CIA notified the FBI about exporting their successful, but unspecified,
domestic anti-FPCC operation overseas.
The day after the CIA notice, Oswald applied for a Mexico visa in New
Orleans, standing in line behind an acknowledged CIA agent. Oswald, or someone impersonating him,
visited, or at least appears in the CIA telephone tap records as visiting, the
Cuban Consulate on September 27 and 28.lxii Those days are the days
that the CIA Mexico City Station tested an impulse camera to photograph people
using the door of the Cuban Consulate that Oswald would have had to have used.
The impulse camera generated over ten feet of 16 millimeter film that has
disappeared.lxiii Phillips
was TDY at Headquarters where the Mexico Station sends him an allegedly
untraceable transmittal manifest with unspecified bulk materials-- to be
delivered to him personally. From HQ
Phillips arrived in Miami on October 9 where he spends two days on temporary
duty assignment at JMWAVE, the CIA’s large covert action station in Miami,
Florida, on his way back to Mexico City.
Did Phillips meet with Kent at
HQ? Did he meet with Joannides in Miami?
Did they review the results of a disinformation and danglelxiv
operation they had just run in Mexico City – their first attempt to export the
successful domestic anti-FPCC disinformation operation? A dangle laying the groundwork to try to
pitch a potential double agent in the Cuban Consulate? Were the bulk materials sent to Phillips in
D.C. by diplomatic pouch the photos taken of the impulse camera? Did Phillips and personnel at Headquarters
review the production from the impulse camera?
Did Phillips use it in a presentation on the progress of an
operation? We don’t know at this point
because George Joannides shut down the HSCA investigation into this area and
most of the information was effectively covered-up.lxv Given all
this, it does not take a great leap of intuition to consider that the Oswald
visit in Mexico City may have been part of an intelligence operation with both
counterintelligence and propaganda purposes.
Implications
The CIA maintains several types
of filing systems. One system, usually
considered one of the most sensitive and especially exempted from the Freedom
of Information Act requests (with a few exceptions) is a filing system for
files on operations conducted by the CIA known as operational files. Most of the information discussed in the
immediately preceding section has been gleaned from nonoperational files such
as personnel files that have been released and contain documents such as
Fitness Reports. Based on what Mr.
Robarge has told us, and what we know, we should be very interested in looking
for additional circumstantial evidence in NARA files contained in the JFK
Collection that are required by law to be released. The most telling details would likely be
contained in operational files relating to operations ran by David Atlee
Phillips in 1963, George Joannides in 1963 and 1978, and by William Kent in
1963 and 1967.lxvi The JFK
Collection at NARA includes files David Phillips’s operational files as well as
additional files and documents on Joannides.
To date, these files have not been released. They are in the group of files still being
withheld while the CIA negotiates with the President over whether releasing
them would compromise national security.
What would it mean if there are
documents in those yet to be released that show the CIA was running covert
actions against Cuba that are such that we can see that there is a very strong
likelihood that Oswald was being used, whether wittingly or unwittingly, in one
or more of them? For example, what if it
shows that Phillips was involved in trying out an anti-Fair Play for Cuba
Committee disinformation in Mexico City in September and October of 1963? Or that Joannides was working with the DRE on
an operation that resulted in the media barrage in New Orleans in August,
1963? While such evidence may be
circumstantial evidence that Oswald may have been used by the Agency, it is not
necessarily evidence that it or its officers were involved in an assassination
conspiracy. While such circumstantial
evidence coupled with the extent and rapidity of the disinformation campaign
linking Oswald to Castro after the assassination would seem to be strong
circumstantial evidence against a conclusion that the propaganda campaign was
merely ad hoc and opportunistic, it
is would remain theoretically possible that Phillips had no advance knowledge
of the assassination and may have been one of the most surprised men in the CIA
to learn that his asset had been accused of murdering the President. But, if such circumstantial evidence arising
from covert actions against Cuba is in the files, it certainly raises many more
questions, all of which will be very uncomfortable for the CIA even though the
fifty-plus year delay in letting such evidence see the light will make it much
harder to find and verify any possible answers to the questions. It is, I believe, the closest thing to a
smoking gun we’ll ever see. That does
not mean that the information should not be released, that the hard questions
that would arise should not be asked. It
does mean that America should insist on the immediate release of all documents
related to the assassination, including those not included in NARA’s JFK
Collection,lxvii and the tough questions be answered.
i Dispatch, Countering Criticism of the Warren
Report, from Chief of CA Staff to Chiefs of Certain Stations and Bases, April
1, 1967, RIF 104-10009-10022.
ii Que bono? Certainly not just Johnson, but the basic
investigative question never seems to have even been raised, let alone
considered, by the Warren Commission or the intelligence community in
1963-1964.
iii “L’Etat, c’est moi.” The
Agency’s concern was well-founded. The
JFK murder cover-up was the beginning of the unravelling of government
credibility in the United States and led directly to the growth of the secrecy
culture that subsequently allowed the Vietnam war, Watergate, Iran-Contra,
Iraqi WMD’s, etc., etc., etc.
v See, e.g., Betty Medsger,
The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI, Knopf 2014.
vi One CIA officer is also
on record calling Operation Phoenix in Vietnam that tortured and killed myriads
of Vietnamese civilians “benign”.
vii Lance deHaven-Smith,
Conspiracy Theory in America, University of Texas Press 2013, at p. 25.
viii Id., at 41. Emphasis added.
x Id.
xi See, e.g., David R. Wrone, Two Assassinations:
Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, Lincoln Fellowship of Wisconsin, Meeting
(37th: 1980 : Madison), Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana (Library
of Congress); http://aarclibrary.org/board-of-directors/ ; John Newman, Oswald and the CIA: The
Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and
the Alleged Killer of JFK, Skyhouse 2008; John Newman, JFK and Vietnam:
Deception, Intrigue, and the Struggle for Power, 2nd Ed., CreateSpace
Independent Publishing 2016; John Newman, Countdown to Darkness: The
Assassination of President Kennedy Volume II, CreateSpace Independent
Publishing 2017.
xiii Most ear and eye
witnesses on record from Dealey Plaza put a second shooter on the grassy
knoll. Any fair analysis of the Zapruder
film supports a finding of a shot from the front. The acoustics work of the HSCA showing a
shooter on the knoll is also still supported by the best scientific evidence in
spite of vigorous attempts to discredit it.
xiii Technically, the Robarge article, see note iv
above, did not concede CIA participation so much as to blame the JFK appointed
Director of Central Intelligence, John McCone, of participating in a benign
cover-up. See, Dan Hardway, A Cruel and
Shocking Misinterpretation, 2015, available at http://aarclibrary.org/a-cruel-and-shockingmisinterpretation/; Dan Hardway, Thank You,
Phil Shenon, 2015, available at http://aarclibrary.org/thank-you-philshenon/
xiv A more objective and careful review of CIA
documentation shows that there is even more documentary evidence that the CIA
was using Oswald as a witting or unwitting asset in at least one intelligence
operation. See, e.g., John Newman,
Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between
the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK, Skyhouse 2008; John Newman,
Countdown to Darkness: The Assassination of President Kennedy Volume II,
CreateSpace Independent Publishing 2017; JFKFacts, Exclusive: JFK investigator
on how CIA stonewalled Congress, http://jfkfacts.org/hardway-declaration-cia-stonewalled-jfkinvestigation/; Declaration of Dan L.
Hardway, Morley v. CIA, CA # 03-02545-RJL, D.C.D.C. 11 May 2016, Docket No.
156.
xvi Robarge above at n.
4.
xvii See, Phil Shenon, Phil
Shenon, “Yes, the CIA Director was Part of the JFK Assassination Cover-Up,”
Politico, 10/06/2015, available at http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/jfk-assassination-john-mcconewarren-commission-cia-213197; Dan Hardway, Thank You,
Phil Shenon, 2015, available at http://aarclibrary.org/thank-you-phil-shenon/
xviii Robarge, above, n. 4, at p. 9.
xix The National Security
Agency has never released such intercepts.
xx Dispatch, above at n. 1.
xxi But another one seems to be the one being
asked by most of the media today. I got
it in an email from a reporter this morning.
It goes like this: "Will the release put the conspiracy theories
surrounding the assassination to rest at last?" Don't you find it extremely interesting that
media accounts almost always phrase it like this? Why don't they ask something like, "Will
the release finally establish the truth to a reasonable degree of
certainty?" or "Will we
finally feel that we have all the evidence and the truth will be possible to
know?" No, those latter two
questions leave open the possibility that the lone-nut theory may be wrong, a
possibility that we should never entertain.
If you allowed to frame the question the way you want, you are half-way
to getting the answer you want.
xxii Warren Commission, Executive Session
Transcript, January 27, 1964, [Emphasis added.]
Available athttps://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1328
xxiv See Robarge, above, at n. xviii.
xxv For a more detailed
explanation of this, see Declaration at n. 15 above.
xxvi G. Robert Blakey, The HSCA and the CIA: The
View from the Top, Assassinations
Archive and Research Center’s Conference, The Warren Report and the JFK
Assassination: A Half Century of Significant Disclosures in Bethesda, MD, 26
Sept 26, 2014. Full text available at
http://aarclibrary.org/wp-
content/uploads/2014/09/robert_blakey_aarc_9_26_letter.pdf.
xxvii Id.
xxviii As part of its
response to Jefferson Morley’s FOIA lawsuit seeking additional Joannides
records, the CIA, in a sworn affidavit, acknowledged that George Joannides was
used by the Agency in a covert capacity at least twice: “the CIA acknowledged
Joannides participated in a covert action codenamed JM/WAVE or JMWAVE from 1962
through 1964. Second, the CIA acknowledged Joannides served as a CIA
representative to the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on
Assassinations from 1978 through 1979. Joannides
served undercover in both of these assignments.” Morley v. CIA, Civ. Act. No. 03-02545, Declaration of Delores M.
Nelson, Chief, Public Information Programs Division, Central Intelligence
Agency, p.9 ¶ 16 (D.C. Dist. Court, Nov. 21, 2008) [Emphasis added]. Think
about that for a minute: the CIA has admitted under oath in documents filed in
a Federal Court case that they ran an agent under cover in a covert operation
in connection with an investigation of the Agency by a Congressional Committee. While the Agency admitted that Joannides was
under cover in his work with the HSCA, it has not admitted that this was an
operation ran in contravention of their charter on domestic soil violating U.S.
laws against obstruction of justice – not to mention the sheer audacity of
running a disinformation operation against an investigating Congressional
Committee the object of which operation could only be the deliberate prevention
of the Committee ever finding critical information that could implicate the CIA
in other crimes. This may be the biggest
judicial admission against interest that you’ve never heard about. Joannides
was commended for his frustration of our investigation into Phillips’s covert
actions against Cuba while maintaining the cover-up of his own involvement in
those activities. In his annual review,
his boss at the CIA wrote, regarding “the firm position he [Joannides] took
with the young investigators” that “if the peculiar nature of the work did not
call on Mr. Joannides for all the talents of his wide experience, it nonetheless
was his experience and quick perceptions that ensured a superior
performance.” (George Joannides Fitness
Report, RIF No. 10410304-1000 (CIA, Jan. 8, 1979). Indeed!
His experience as the case officer for DRE and from working with
Phillips told him what to keep me and Lopez away from and slowing down and
sometimes blocking delivery of files we requested to review allowed him to
quickly perceive where we were going with our investigation and what not to let
us see. I only regret that we were not able
to mount more of a challenge to his talents.
I believe that were the iron curtain of secrecy surrounding the Agency
ever to come down and we gained access to their archives, we would probably
find that operations were also run against other investigations including the
Garrison investigation, the Church Committee and that operations in addition to
the one involving Joannides were run against the HSCA.I believe that were the iron
curtain of secrecy surrounding the Agency ever to come down and we gained access
to their archives, we would probably find that operations were also run against
other investigations including the Garrison investigation, the Church Committee
and that operations in addition to the one involving Joannides were run against
the HSCA.
xxix Bayard Stockton, Flawed Patriot, p. 210 (Potomac Books
2006).
xxx
Email, John Newman to Dan Hardway, 9/9/2014.
xxxii Id.
xxxiii Joannides, George, “Fitness Report,”
07/31/1963, RIF 104-10304-1000.
xxxiv Id.
xxxv Joannides, George, “Fitness Report,”
05/15/1964, RIF 104-10304-1000.
xxxvii Newman, Oswald
and the CIA, pp. 240-241 (Skyhorse Publishing 2008)
xxxviii Phillips, Executive Session Testimony, HSCA,
p.3 (4/25/1978).
xxxix Id. at p. 73.
xl Id.
xli Id.
xlii Notes, CIA, Files, Veciana, Antonio,
Phillips, David Atlee, RIF # 180-10141-10491, p. 7.
xliii Id. at 8.
xliv It is important here to make a few
distinctions in terminology. A “CIA
Officer” is, generally, a paid employee of the Agency. An agent may be either a witting person who
is utilized by an officer in gathering intelligence or in running a covert
operation. An asset is a person who is
valuable to, and used either wittingly or unwittingly by, an officer or
agent. Officers have a true name – their
legal birth name – and registered pseudonyms – names they are assigned for use
in Agency documentation to protect their true identities – and operational
aliases – unregistered names that the officer usually develops on his own that
he uses in connection with a particular operation(s) in his contacts with
agents/assets to protect both his true identity and his registered
pseudonym. For example, William Kent is
the true name of a CIA officer. His
agency issued registered pseudonym, initially, was Oliver Corbuston. The Oliver Corbuston pseudonym disappears
from the CIA’s records at the same time that the name Robert K.
Trouchard
appears. From the circumstances found in records it appears that the Trouchard
name was assigned to William Kent. In 1961 Trouchard was head of psychops at
JMWAVE. Trouchard is in the record as
the case officer for Bernard Baker.
Other records reveal that Baker was sent to JMWAVE to help take the work
load off William Kent. Kent’s
intelligence medal narrative also suggests that he was Trouchard. “Doug Gupton” was an operational alias given
to William Kent by his good friend, David Phillips.
xlv Phillips, Executive Session Testimony, HSCA,
p. 3, 35, 59 (4/35/1978).
xlvi Id.;
Stockton, p. 221.
xlvii Five Fitness Reports on Joannides, RIF
104-10304-10000. There are some
interesting anomalies in the disclosed Joannides Fitness Reports. The first
annual report was signed by the JMWAVE employees in pseudonym (Newby &
Trouchard) on 19 Jan 63, reviewed by the Chief of Station one month later on
2/15/63. The next report is a quarterly
report signed by the JMWAVE employees on 27 March 63, Reviewed by the Chief of
Station one week later on 2 April 63 with a date stamped 16 Apr 63 on page one
which may represent the date received at Langley HQ. The third report was signed by the JMWAVE
employees on 31 July 63, reviewed by the Deputy Chief of Station (pseudonym
Frederick J. Inghurst, most likely David Morales) on 9/24/63 (Note that the
date stamp beside the Newby and Inghurst signatures are different than any
others appearing in the fitness reports.) Note that this quarterly report was
not reviewed for three months after being signed by Newby and was not date
stamped at HQ until 17 Oct 63. The
quarterly report for 3rd quarter covering August and September 1963 is missing
from the disclosed sequence. The
quarterly report for 4th quarter of 1963 is also missing. The fourth disclosed report is the an annual
report covering 4/63 -- 3/64 (the other annual report covered 1/1/62 to
12/31/62) which was signed by the JMWAVE employees on 15 May 1964, reviewed by
the Deputy Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division at HQ two weeks later on 1
June 64 and date stamped HQ filing of 8 Jun 64.
Also interesting that the June 64 fitness report is the first indication
that Joannides has security duties and it is reviewed by Morales.
xlviii Id.
xlix Id.
l See Newman email, supra; RIFs:
104-10100-10329; 104-10100-10216; 104-10100-10210.
li This is supported by the next fitness report
available for Joannides covering the period 1 April 1963 and 31 March
1964. This report states that the
“period covered by this fitness report represents [Joannides’s] initial Agency
exposure to those first echelon management responsibilities which are implicit
in a branch chief’s assignment....”
Fitness Reports, RIF 104-10304-10000.
lii Id.
liii Id.
Interestingly enough, it was during this time frame that he also assumed
responsibility for security reviews on JMWAVE’s covert action operations and
has his fitness review conducted by David Morales, who noted “that he would be
pleased to have [Joannides] work with [me] at any other Field Station that
might be entrusted to [me].” A hope that
would be subsequently fulfilled in Viet Nam.
liv Church Committee, Vol. 5, p. 65 (The Church
Committee’s conclusion, on p. 67, that
“there is no reason to think the CIA propaganda program was underway before the
assassination” is based on the unfounded, and unsupportable, assumption that
the CIA would not have begun the operation before receiving information
requested from the FBI.).
lv Interestingly enough, the person in line in
front of Oswald to apply for a visa was William Gaudet, a known CIA agent. Gaudet claimed that this was merely a
coincidence. HSCA Report, pp. 218-219.
lvi We do not
know the date he left Mexico City. A
cable from Headquarters to Mexico City, dated September 30, 1963, indicates
that Phillips was, on that date, TDY at HQ.
Phillips, Executive Session Testimony, p. 50 (4/25/1978). While Phillips frequently lied about Oswald
and Mexico City, in a footnote in a little-known book he self-published, Secret Wars Diary, he once said: “I was
an observer of Cuban and Soviet reaction when Lee Harvey Oswald contacted their
embassies." The chapter of the book
in which the footnote occurs was first published in article about Allen Dulles,
"The Great White Case Officer", in the first issue of the Journal of
Intelligence and Counterintelligence (Spring 1986) which article did not
include the footnote. I would like to
thank Steve Rosen for calling this to my attention. It is particularly interesting, on many
levels, that Phillips here phrased his involvement as observing the Cuban and
Soviet reactions to Oswald’s visit; exactly what you would expect him to be
doing if Oswald was a counterintelligence dangle.
lvii Id. at 51.
lviii TM 251905
lix No. 4083
lx Record No. 104-10500-10077, Bulk Materials
Being Sent Under Transmittal Manifest (CIA, Oct. 1, 1963). “TDY HQS” means he
was temporarily assigned to duty at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Va.
lxi Phillips,
Executive Session Testimony, p. 50 (4/25/1978).
lxii There were
also reports that Oswald spent time with pro-Castro Mexican citizens and
students. Our efforts in 1978 to find
those people and interview them in Mexico were repeatedly blocked by the CIA.
lxiii HMMA-22433, 11/7/63.
lxiv A “dangle” is an operation run by an
intelligence agency where a controlled agent or asset is offered to a foreign
intelligence service as a potential recruit of the foreign service. If the dangle is taken and the person recruited,
then the original intelligence agency can use the agent as a double agent to
feed disinformation to the foreign intelligence service. A dangle, structured such as Oswald’s visits
to the Soviet and Cuban facilities, can also serve the purpose of allowing the
first intelligence service to monitor the reaction of the foreign service to
the person presenting himself by using other agents already in place,
electronic surveillance, etc., so as to facilitate understanding of the foreign
services processes and to facilitate planning of future operations.
xv David Phillips, in his executive
session testimony, could not even recall making this trip and was not asked
about this kind of detail, because the details were not known at the time of
our last interview with him.
xvi I am also very
interested in seeing the operational files from William Harvey’s operations, as
well as his security files although that is a different, howbeit related,
story.
xvii Those of us who worked on the HSCA
know that many of the documents we authored are not in the files listed at NARA
as composing the JFK Collection. Indeed,
I know of two documents that I authored that the Assassination Records Review
Board could not find even after they were described to them in detail. A very poor copy of one of the documents
exists and has been circulated in the critical community. At least one CIA file I saw also, according
to the ARRB, must have never existed.
Finally, I suspect there are many documents that exist that would be
highly relevant that have never been included in the JFK Collection. For example, I know as an absolute fact that
a government agency ran surveillance on me and Ed Lopez because we took coffee
to the agents manning the surveillance van and very early the next morning FBI
agents were waiting on our boss’s doorstep to report our activities – we had
been entertaining members of Cuba’s Diplomatic Interest Section in the house we
shared while working for the HSCA. To
date, FOIA requests for these records, and many others that should exist but
are not in the JFK Collection, have been resisted vehemently by the
government.
