The Pre-Assassination Framing of Lee Harvey Oswald (1)

“As Lee Harvey Oswald was being set up as an individual scapegoat, so too was the Soviet Union, together with its less powerful ally, Cuba.” -

James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 277.

As we approach within a month of the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination it is well to also focus attention on another assassination victim several days later: Lee Harvey Oswald, shot by Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas PD.

Millions, including me, watched horrified on the Sunday morning after Kennedy was killed as Oswald was shot down in cold blood. The first ever live televised murder.

Many of us smelled a rat even then, and as one of my math teachers said the next day in class: "Someone just saved the Dallas attorney's office a whole lot of money and the feds a whole lot of prosecution time and headaches."

But it goes beyond that, because the man never had a chance to defend himself against the fell and outrageous claims made against him in a court of law. His family was smeared from pillar to post by the scurrilous claims of a "deranged loner", so much so that Marina Oswald-Porter had to go into hiding with her two girls. Only years later did Marina begin to process - outside of the veil of fear (of deportation)-  how much she'd been manipulated at the time by the Warrenites.  By the time of her 1993 interview with Tom Brokaw she was no longer under any illusions regarding the bogus "lone nut" spell confected by Arlen Specter,  Gerald Ford and others - but had come to see how she had been exploited by an enclave of vermin to protect the actual perps. Brokaw, meanwhile, had been contaminated by lies, distortions and disinfo circulated in Gerald Posner's 'Case Closed' ( recycled more recently with Vince Bugliosi's ironically named  'Reclaiming History'). Those who wish to see the lowdown on Posner's shoddy work can go to this link:

http://www.assassinationweb.com/twpos.htm

But the questions that then arise are: 1) What prompted the lone nut assassin bunkum in the first place? And: 2) How is it that the narrative became so compellingly woven by the time of Oswald's arrest? We now know most of the sordid details and we have to thank deep politics expert and JFK assassination researcher Peter Dale Scott for exposing how Oswald was framed (by the CIA) in the months leading up to the assassination.

Most of this would never have become possible without the rush of documents accessible in the wake of passage of the JFK Records Act (spurred in large part by Oliver Stone's movie, 'JFK') . The release of so many critical files (now nearly slowed to a crawl since Bush  Jr. and Obama were elected) made it possible to ascertain the existence of  CIA (and other) secret files on Oswald and which were exposed in books like John Newman's 'Oswald and the CIA' and Peter Dale Scott's 'Deep Politics and the Death of JFK'.  In a 1995 essay in Deep Politics Quarterly, Scott also noted the stake Americans have "not just to learn about the government's secretiveness with respect to this one assassination" but to "create a precedent against the rule of secrecy that has so vitiated democracy in this country" since the end of WWII.

While there was an open window for critical and massive file access,  just after passage of the JFK Records Act (and following an Executive order) in Clinton's 2nd term, it slowed to a crawl once Bush Jr. was shoehorned into power then even more after 9/11 and the "war on terror". It was felt that rather than government transparency, secrecy was the order of the day and the less citizens knew about their gov't (and conversely the MORE the gov't knew about them) the better. Thus the spread of the NSA national security state, to the  insidious, monolithic beast Edward Snowden has revealed.

Despite the closure of the file release windows (the National Archives refuses to release many critical ones in this 50th marker year) Peter Dale Scott did unearth enough to expose how Lee Oswald was framed as the "lone assassin". In 1995,  Scott also advised us - based on these files- that 3 different stratagems needed to be distinguished by the researcher: 1) a sophisticated intelligence operation (or complex of operations), i.e. to frame Lee Oswald, 2) the conspiracy to kill the President and 3) the ensuing cover-up.

The problem is that all too often a lazy (or compromised) corporate media has never properly separated these stratagems. Indeed, in many cases they've ignored both (1) and (3) - the latter hardly surprising given "Operation Mockingbird"- and made fun of "tin foil hats" in (2).  Indeed, as Scott has observed, in the 30th anniversary year of 1993 - in the wake of "Posnermania" -  the corporate media simply trotted out the same recycled canards including that of a

"neurotic frustrated by neglect, and 'angered' (Posner's words) that 'others failed to recognize the stature he thought he deserved."

This codswallop was then additionally integrated into the CIA- confected narrative that Oswald was a "KGB -linked assassin"  hired to kill Kennedy. It was based on a supposed "Oswald" phone call to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City with a KGB agent, Valeriy Kostikov. From this, and the visit of a fake Oswald to the Embassy (see the asset "masquerading" as Oswald in Mexico City in the photo above - right) a series of falsified cables was generated under the fake name "Lee Henry Oswald"* . These became part of a CI/SIG (Counter Intelligence Special Investigation Group) file on Oswald dating back to 1960, and as Scott notes, has their handiwork all over the false trail.  The purpose, as noted by Peter Dale Scott, was clear:

"to incriminate him falsely as an apparent KGB assassin"

While the "Oswald as KGB assassin"  ruse was never used  or published in its Report by the Warren Commission, "it almost certainly contributed to the Warren Commission's determination to close the case as the work of a lone assassin" (Scott, Deep Politics, 113)   This is actually validated and was foreseen when one examined a key paragraph in the Katzenbach memo which readers can see in full here: http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=756877

Note in particular paragraph (2):

"Speculation about Oswald's motivation ought to be cut off, and we should have some basis of rebutting thought that this was a Communist conspiracy".

When this is interpreted in the context of the rest of the memo, and especially Part (1) pertaining to convicting Oswald, it is clear the Commission was driven to the lone assassin bunkum as the only alternative to the KGB assassin hypothesis.

The surge to do this was reinforced after the Commission was informed  by CIA head Richard Helms** of the Kostikov -Department Thirteen connection ("Department Thirteen" was that KGB Section assigned to assassinations) . Earl Warren evidently became so spooked that he felt the only alternative to a possible nuclear  confrontation  was to find for the lone assassin theory. From then, all evidence, documents and tests became devoted to nailing Oswald as the lone perp. It was either that or find him a KGB- hired contract killer, which many (including LBJ) felt would have led to war.

The point was that the CIA had compiled such a compelling false narrative and guilt trail using phony cables, photos  phone calls etc. that the Commission bit into it hook, line and sinker and never remotely considered (or seriously considered) the alternative: that a right wing based- military- intelligence operation had targeted Kennedy. One that included powerful forces enraged at his backing down (from invasion) during the Cuban Missile Crisis, his removal of Gen. Edwin Walker from command, his intent to pull out of Vietnam and his efforts at rapprochement with Fidel Castro. More to come.
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Footnotes:

* Scott conjectures that the false name of  'Lee Henry Oswald'  may have been used to deceive investigators into Kennedy's killing. It may also have been what agent James Jesus Angleton called a 'marked card' operation in which falsified information 'like a  bent card' is passed through an intelligence channel to see where it ends up.

**  Memo of 1/13/ 64 from Richard Helms to the Warren Commission Counsel J. Lee Rankin, CIA Document 509-803.

“Beware Conspiracy Theorists?” No – Beware Those Who Are Part of the Unspeakable!

Media personality Michael Smerconish in his Op-ed in today’s Denver Post, advises one and all (based on his header) to ”Beware Conspiracy Theorists”. We are supposed to be the bane of national existence, sowing paranoia with our every blog post, and hey – we are little different from the generic nuts who fret over UN helicopters and FEMA concentration camps. In this way, lumped in with whackjobs, all manner of conspiracies are instantly consigned to the dumpster of history.

But based on accumulated documents, I choose to believe something different: That REAL conspiracies DO exist and have occurred, and hiding them doesn’t help the citizens or the nation. Author Michael Parenti (The Dirty Truth) makes no bones about the fact that “most people suffer from conspiracy phobia” and “they treat anyone who investigates conspiracy as a conspiracy buff or oddball”. He also has a problem with the term “conspiracy theory” since it permits the critics and skeptics to have their intellectual cake and eat it. If the claimed conspiracy hasn’t been validated to their satisfaction, it’s merely a theory (which they erroneously equate with speculation), but if it was validated, as in Watergate, then ‘Voila!’ it’s no longer theory but an actuality! But this is essential nonsense. As Parenti observes, it means that “conspiracy can never be proven and if proven it can’t be conspiracy”.

But we know that real, bona fide conspiracies have indeed occurred and been validated. In the Watergate conspiracy, Nixon and his cronies virtually handed the evidence to investigating committees and prosecutors on a 'silver platter' since they’d taped everything! Every word and every plan or scheme was recorded, from targeting McGovern supporters using the IRS, to illegal wiretaps of those on the “enemies' list” to breaking and entering into Daniel Ellsberg’s place In the BCCI conspiracy, the machinations of a criminal bank were almost kept hidden as tens of thousands lost their money around the world and the bank funded terrorist activities. In the Iran –Contra conspiracy, Reaganites sold Israeli Hawk and TOW missiles to Iran and funneled the money from sales into Nicaragua to support the Rightist “Contras’. In the 'Operation Northwoods' conspiracy, the plot was exposed before a clique of U.S. generals could unleash terror attacks on Americans and blame Castro, to start a war in 1962.

So why not also a conspiracy to murder a popular President? Especially when that President altered his stance from being a cold-warrior to a leader committed to peace – to the extent of banning nuclear weapons tests and disciplining run amuck generals who wanted to launch a nuclear war. But as author James Douglass has noted ( JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters), too many in the media and in government have sought to protect those who killed Kennedy and prevent the truth from disclosure. .

In Douglass’ words:.

“Our collective denial of the obvious, in the setting up of Oswald and his transparent silencing by Ruby, made possible the Dallas cover-up. The success of the cover-up was the indispensable foundation for the murders of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy by the same forces at work in our government – and ourselves:

Hope for change in the world was targeted and killed four times over. The cover-up of all four murders, each leading into the next, was based – first of all –on denial. Not the government’s but our own- and the unspeakable was not far away.” .

Nevertheless, it appears those like Michael Smerconish are quite happy to go on killing hope for change in the world multiple times over, as they seek to dissuade the citizen from examining the facts of the conspiracy behind the Kennedy assassination. Smerconish begins his sarcastic attack by singling out Jesse Ventura’s book: They Killed Our President: 63 Reasons to Believe There Was A Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK. So Smerconish gets Ventura in an interview and asks the question: “Who is ‘they’?” Ventura, honest as he is, responds that he doesn’t know. The ‘they’ employed was generic, and could apply to any of the conceivable forces – or all – that had it in for Kennedy, but especially his national security state. Besides, Ventura could have told Smerconish if he really knew who ‘they’ were he likely wouldn’t be alive to say so! As per Richard Charnin’s excellent graphical proof of conspiracy based on the death of witnesses at the times of the two main investigations, see. e.g.

http://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/jfk-witness-deaths-graphical-proof-of-a-conspiracy/

So really, Smerky, if ANYONE did know who ‘they’ were, they are long since dead and buried. Smerconish then goes on to cite the infamous Katzenbach memo – which read in its intro and first section:

”"It is important that all facts surrounding President Kennedy's assassination be made public in a way which will satisfy people in the United States and abroad that all the facts have been told and that a statement to this effect be made now.

1. The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin, that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that the evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial.

He spuriously claims that (1) alone “sounds ominous” but when the whole is taken in context, not so much! Katzenbach was merely “anticipating that 50 years later guys like Ventura would seek to prosper by spinning yarns”, but fails to observe that Katzenbach himself never seriously believed anyone would challenge the words, or Warren Report in a serious way since LBJ had sealed all the records at least until 2037 when most of those who care would likely have died. It was only the passage of the 'JFK Records Act' in 1992 that averted this national travesty!

So, to Smerconish's arguments, I reply: Codswallop! To the critical thinker, the above enumerated first point of the memo provides enough evidence to disclose the true purpose of any ''official' investigation: to arrive at a preconceived and pre-accepted conclusion, that was politically and socially expedient. This was as opposed to the outcome of an open-ended, genuine investigation. This also goes under the rubric of a fundamental logical no-no called: 'Affirming the consequent' - i.e. affirming ab initio that which you need to prove. Taking the shortcut - avoiding the process, more: ensuring the outcome of the process blends with one's own 'truth'. A much more acceptable version for public consumption or to put it in blunt terms: expeditious political PR.

Smerconish ends his whiff effort at smacking “conspiracy theorists” in the JFK case by appealing to Arlen Specter, who he avers was “so passionate for the truth about the Warren Commission that he intended to maintain an active speaking schedule during the 50th anniversary year – to defend his conclusions from years ago.” We shall miss the voice of the “passionate” Mr. Specter, but it’s perhaps better he isn’t adding to all the existing noise and deception ….or the unspeakable…especially with that insane “magic bullet” fairy tale he fabricated. As I showed in my previous post (on Joe Klein's BS), it was Specter's own yarn that propelled the Warrenites to lie, debase and distort the evidence to find for one lone gunman – including to do with the autopsy – and I cited examples in that last post and in the one taking Larry Sabato to task.

I have not read Ventura’s book, I admit. He may be closer to the truth or not. But I again recommend to all serious readers, who really want to know why Kennedy was killed, to get hold of James Douglass’ book and make it your best friend for the next month. In that way, you will assure you won’t be part of the unspeakable.