Frequently Asked Questions On the JFK Assassination (2): Oswald's Sheep-Dipping

What exactly is sheepdipping? Was Oswald sheepdipped, as I've heard some say?

'Sheep-dipping' is a code word employed by the CIA to refer to the manipulation of a 'sponsor'(decoy) to be used in one or more operations. The goal of the manipulation is generally to associate with the 'sponsor' some image, to enable the more ready belief later, that the decoy-patsy is solely responsible for a given course of action  Even one  leading to executive action (assassination of a head of state).  In Oswald’s case, the sheep-dipping would have been initiated years in advance from the time of his fake defection (in the CIA’s Fake Defector Program).


Thereafter, bogus communications and even body doubles would have been employed to advance and consolidate the ruse. Fake communications such as the letter to the Soviet Embassy alleging a meeting with the KGB’s top assassination operative (Valery Kostikov) in the Western Hemisphere, and Oswald doubles such as the one documented by James Douglass and seen by Sgt. Robert Vinson near Red Bird Air Field hours after the assassination would all have a role in driving later perceptions, media accounts.

This would be critical (especially) to have ready after Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, in order to drive an investigation that would find him guilty of being the lone assassin.  Peter Dale Scott, invoking the resources of HSCA investigator Dan Hardway and as also reported by HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi (The Last Investigation,  p. 292 ) discerned that  “most of the individuals originating the false reports (in cables etc.) were assets of the Mexico City Station’s Chief of Covert Action and Cuban Operations, David Atlee Phillips.”   Phillips is shown below:


It had been Phillips who ran all the cut outs (fake personae, duplicate Oswalds, fake files etc. ) to implicate Oswald as a commie nut in league with the KGB and Soviets – all the better to paint him as the one lone nut assassin in Dallas, on Nov. 22, 1963.   The Warren Commission was "suspiciously 'quiet' on the subject of Oswald's CIA files"[1], the OS-351-164 (office of security), the 201-289248 CI/SIG, and the 74-500. However, this should not astound anyone aware of the fact that a former CIA Director (Allen Dulles) sat on the Commission. Logically, therefore, if his latter day descendants are so reluctant to divulge the truth[2], he would have been no different. Moreover, as primary liaison between Commission members and the Agency, he could easily determine in advance what would be advisable for them to see, and what wouldn't. 


What is more astounding is the level of machinations the CIA used to conceal the files and their import from the Warren Commission. For example, no one informed the Commission that the letter ‘D’ – on the cover sheet of Oswald’s 201 file – indicated CIA Staff D, a SIGINT or signals intelligence operation run in concert with the National Security  Agency or NSA. As pointed out by Peter Dale Scott (Deep Politics Quarterly, Jan. 1994): “In 1961, when William Harvey headed Staff D, he was assigned the task of developing the CIA Assassinations Project, ZR/Rifle”

 In addition, when they submitted Oswald’s 201-file to the Warren Commission (under the header of Commission Document 692) they did not indicate it clearly or mark it as such. Instead, as Dale Scott (and also John Newman) observed the CIA buried it in a  Sept. 24 “memorandum”  relocated to a much later position in the file , making it appear as if it had been falsely drafted after the culpable Oct. 10 fake cables.  (Scott writes that technically this subterfuge and dodge was a “felony under Section 1001 of the U.S. Criminal Code".)

All this needs to be seen in the context of the five documents the CIA released on Oswald in October of 1963.  As noted by Peter Dale Scott (‘Oswald, Mexico and Deep Politics’, 2013, p. 25) : “at least three show signs of CIA doctoring and the first, which does not, was nevertheless so misleading as to be possibly dishonest.” This was the cable from the Mexico City Station on Oct. 8 that claimed Oswald had appeared at the Soviet Embassy on Oct. 1, claiming  he had spoken with Valeriy Kostikov three days earlier. (Kostikov was top man in the KGB's "Department Thirteen" - responsible for assassinations. As Scott notes, ibid., this is why American Rightists made use of any sources they could to try to parlay this into something to force the WC's hand into a "phase one" conclusion. That included using Oswald's brother, Robert.)

More sobering is Newman’s apt reflection on Oswald’s activities in New Orleans from May –Sept, 1963 (Oswald and the CIA, p. 292):

"The record of Oswald's stay in New Orleans, May to September 1963, is replete with mistakes, coincidences, and other anomalies. As Oswald engaged in pro-Castro and anti-Castro activities, the FBI says they lost track of him. The Army was monitoring his activities and says it destroyed their reports. The record of his propaganda operations in New Orleans published by the Warren Commission turned out to have been deliberately falsified."

Even more vexing and worrisome, is that the CIA had spies squirreled away inside the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City  who could have pulled off all manner of chicanery, including altering the impostor Oswald's documents (substituting the real Oswald's photo, signature, etc.). As HSCA Investigator Fonzi  notes (using research by two staffers, Dan Hardaway, and Eddie Lopez - whose work led to the  Lopez Report, still in CIA files (Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation, pp. 293-94)

 
"In questioning (David Atlee)Phillips, Hardway was also working from information that had been dug up on a couple of secret trips to Mexico City made by Lopez, and investigator Harold Leap. Without the Agency's permission, they had located and interviewed a couple of CIA assets who had worked inside the Cuban Consulate at the time. The Agency never revealed this to the Warren Commission, but it actually had planted spies within the Cuban compound. That may be relevant to the fact that, in the end, the only 'proof' that the real Oswald was inside the Cuban Consulate were his photographs and his signature on his visa application.”

While in Mexico City, Lopez and Leap also spoke with the agency personnel who had listened to and were involved in translating and transcribing the tape of the man who called the Soviet Embassy. They said that after Oswald's Dallas arrest, when they heard his voice on radio and telecasts, it wasn't the same voice they remembered from the tape. The man who called the Embassy had a “huskier voice and didn't speak as fast as Oswald” , and perhaps most revealing, spoke in very poor, broken Russian  (Oswald's Russian wasn't excellent, but Marina Oswald later  said that when she first met Oswald in Minsk she thought his accent was from another part of the Soviet Union.) The Oswald arrested and the impostor headed to the Cuban Embassy are shown below:

Fonzi noted that Lopez and Hardway observed that David Atlee  Phillips seemed to be especially nervous when Hardway began questioning him about the lack of photographs of Oswald. He maintained that the surveillance cameras at both Soviet and Cuban Embassies were “not functioning at the time of Oswald's visits” . Phillips stuck to the story that the Agency didn't maintain an around-the-clock  and weekend surveillance of the Soviet Embassy. He also said the Cuban Embassy camera “happened to be malfunctioning”  during the time of Oswald's visit.

 So, despite the fact that Oswald had allegedly made five visits to the Cuban Consulate and Soviet Embassy, there were no photographs to substantiate it.

As Gaeton Fonzi observes (p. 295)

"In the end, Phillips couldn't explain the contradictions in his testimony about the Agency's surveillance capabilities or why, if the cameras at the Soviet Embassy were working on October 1^st -when it photographed the unidentified man passed off as Oswald, there was no photograph of the real Oswald."

It seems more than evident that the reason Propaganda meister Phillips 'couldn't explain' the contradictions in his testimony, is because the real Lee Harvey Oswald was never in Mexico City. Like so many other smoke and mirrors tactics invoked by the Agency, this was no different. It is merely another layer/level of sheep-dipping to target the unwary Oswald for his pre-determined patsyhood role in Dallas 7 weeks later.

Sadly, another casualty of the CIA sheepdip, dodge and spin hijinks was an innocent woman, the consulate officer Silvia Duran. As Scott reports, as well as Gaeton Fonzi (op. cit., p. 409)  she was forced to undergo brutal torture for eight hours at the hands of Mexican police to get her to recant her original testimony that the “Oswald” encountered at the Cuban Embassy in Medico City was not the Oswald arrested in Dallas.(She had insisted in her original testimony- account that the Oswald she encountered “was blonde and short” – The Lopez Report, p. 190).

 

Ed Lopez,  who’d sought to interview Duran again in the wake of her torture,  found she was unable, and broke down and wept merely at the thought of it. She also feared reprisals as a citizen of Mexico.

Why is it so hard to accept this, as opposed to asserting the person himself is responsible?

Unfortunately, most people are not aware (or if they are, are in denial) of how clandestine services like the CIA really work. Their (disbelievers') mindset and thought processes are simply unable (or unwilling) to comprehend the Machiavellian minds and strategies at work. They do not understand that such tactics – as well as assassinations of heads of state-  are viewed as a valid means to an end. In addition, they fail to process that  concatenating these misdirection tactics is all they have to do! 

With ample time and resources, therefore - it is not at all unthinkable or 'incredible' that they could engage in things such as 'double agents', setting up corporate fronts as 'dummies' for agency activities (i.e. the JM/WAVE station in Miami to run 'Operation Mongoose' ; the use of impostors to stage 'scenes' - as the actors used to pose as Silvia Duran and Oswald in Mexico City ; or manipulating a particular profile person into being a 'decoy' (sponsor) for an agency operation. That one can't  or won't believe this, doesn't mean it doesn't occur.

How would one know - say from documents- that sheep-dipping was  taking place?

One thing we do know, is that the Agency is not going to stamp all salient records and documents (that pertain to covert manipulation of a sponsor toward a directed goal) with a big 'S' for sheep-dipping! So no, it’s not likely to be a 'gimme'. One needs to exercise a critical mind, and look at information disclosed (e.g. through FOIA, or the latest initiative to declassify) records, with a cold, dispassionate view- rigorously applying logic all time. One also needs to accept the conclusions of that logic - no matter where it leads  and  no matter how much the conclusion may violate one's subjective temperament or emotional or other affiliations. Too often, in this respect, people who assert such evidence 'does not exist' - are either allowing their emotions to rule their logic, or have some other agenda, which is probably not beneficent.

In terms of specifics  and applied strategies for ferreting out clues, one would look for files, and ancillary evidence, including Agency actions, cables and what is covered here, is mainly based on those which have been released - which are significant. As Newman notes, of all  the quarter million pages released up to the time he wrote his book (Newman, op. cit., p. 168):

"no single page ...so far released by the CIA can compare in significance to the piece of paper that opened his 201 file."

As for 'easy' - no one who has pursued this case any length of time would ever arrive at such a naive conclusion. The labyrinth of files by itself is enough to deter many from sorting through them to extract or deduce cause and effect relationships. 

This  is at the core of the difference between the official (lone nut) and conspiracy viewpoints. The first believes that all the truth has essentially been told, and one single person is guilty with no external involvement. The latter believe the whole truth has not been told, and that there is clear evidence of duplicity permeating the files that have so far been released.

If one single person were indeed guilty, this degree of duplicity and outright lying would not be necessary. Nor is it adequate for the official adherents, to claim that the duplicitous sources, agencies are merely 'covering their tracks' to hide errors. To such a claim, the conspiracy theorist has but one rejoinder:  What is the cut off point for errors and 'coincidences'? Ten thousand coincidences?  Ten million?  One hundred billion? At what threshold does mischief begin and honest error  or 'honest defense of honest error- end? When do the probabilities for 'coincidence' or multiple errors become too vanishingly small to accept? When?

 This is the pivot point about which most of the discussion occurs, and into which sheep dipping figures. Indeed, one could argue that the successful basis of the fact that the real architects and perpetrators got away with Kennedy’s murder, was precisely Oswald’s meticulous sheep dipping.

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[1] John Newman, Oswald and CIA, p. 169.

[2]  I refer to  the files on CIA Station Chief George Joannides, who single handedly funded and orchestrated the Cuban elements in New Orleans, and orchestrated Oswald’s associations with them.

Author Philip Shenon: Is He An Idiot or A Dupe?

It's hard to know. But I lean to perhaps a mix, so being an idiot, he emerged as a dupe for the Warrenites (and CIA)  in his book, 'A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination” - the first phrase of which  takes its name from the first sentence of the Warren Commission’s report: “The assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on November 22, 1963, was a cruel and shocking act of violence directed against a man, a family, a nation, and against all mankind.”

In his appearance this morning on CBS Early Show, former NY Times reporter Philip Shenon tried to make the case that the CIA, FBI "failed to connect the dots" in nailing Oswald after "threats made against Kennedy's life in Mexico City". Also, on account of inadequate information from the CIA, FBI, the Warren Commission failed to report this. He claimed (via Bob Schieffer's voice over) that "not only did the FBI and CIA withhold information from the Commission but prior to the assassination the agencies did not tell FBI agents and law enforcement officers in Dallas all that they knew about Oswald. Had they done so, Shenon averred the assassination "might well have been prevented."

How so? According to Shenon, answering Charlie Rose: "The FBI and CIA failed to tell the authorities in Dallas about the threats Oswald made in the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City."

Shenon - incredibly for a supposed "investigative reporter" (who took five years to dig this up) - points to a statement Oswald purportedly made when at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City and related by J. Edgar Hoover in declassified FBI files:

"He (Oswald) stormed into the Embassy, demanded the visa, and when it was refused him, headed out saying: 'I'm going to kill Kennedy for this.!"

So, basically, Shenon places his faith in one of the most ardent Kennedy haters of the era, J. Edgar Hoover. The same Hoover who possessed information about a proposed assassination plot on Kennedy from New Orleans' gangster Carlos Marcello in 1962 and who failed to disclose it! (See the documents presented in Mark North's book Act of Treason).  Meanwhile, Shenon lets himself be played and led into a blind alley by a CIA determined to frame Oswald using the 'Oswald in Mexico City' fiction.

Shenon goes on to say that the "document then disappears" intimating that had it been circulated to the Dallas' authorities in timely fashion,  the assassination would have been prevented, Why? Because  "people in Mexico City knew Oswald was talking openly about killing President Kennedy.".

In a pig's eye.

Besides, what moron for an assassin "talks openly" about killing an American President at a foreign embassy? An impostor seeking to frame a patsy-  to be set up to take the fall- would do so, however. This makes one wonder if Shenon's IQ even reaches double digits. But again, a CIA media shill, using the ploy of a "soft" conspiracy (powerful forces agreeing not to release key information)- could also work wonders to take the heat off the agency and obfuscate the REAL conspiracy. In this case, Shenon may be merely a "useful idiot" - though doubtless rewarded with terrific book sales- thanks to CIA help in PR promotions. (Google his book and you'll see it everywhere.)

First,  Oswald was NEVER in Mexico City! The "Oswald" reported there was an impostor (also supported by documents presented in John Newman's 'Oswald and the CIA'), and even captured as such on CIA cameras (also presented in Newman's book), e.g.

The "Oswald" that made the proclamations to which Shenon refers was none other than the character on the right - not the Lee Harvey Oswald falsely arrested in Dallas.

That Shenon didn't know this, or why the accounts never reached Dallas' authorities, is troubling, because such a monumental blind spot after "five years" investigation points to another CIA dupe. Or maybe an idiot who himself is incapable of "connecting the dots"- even when they're staring him in the face.

Second, recall if you will, a long standing CIA document (1035-960) that strongly advises for use of "propaganda assets" to protect the Warren Commission from critics (and also to protect the CIA's ass from scrutiny).  Paragraph (2) of the document notes, in regard to mounting criticisms of the Warren Report in the 1960s:

 " This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization." 

Then, later on we read:" Innuendo of such seriousness affects not only the individual concerned, but also the whole reputation of the American government.  Our organization itself is directly involved: among other facts, we contributed information to the investigation"

Ah, but that "information" was mainly disinformation, felonious misdirection and lies. Such as concerning Oswald's CIA files (withheld from Warren Commission), as well as fake cables dispatched from Mexico City (chronologically mis-arranged in files given to the Commission), and the fake FPCC handbills submitted to the Warren Commission as exhibits but which John Newman (in his "Oswald and the CIA") referred to as "whole cloth fabrications.") For more in depth insights into the CIA chicanery see my October 22 blog post, on the Pre-Assassination Framing of Lee Harvey Oswald (link below) which evidently Philip Shenon himself now wants to be a part of, ex post facto.

As I noted, all of the above were part of a covert action effort headed by David Atlee Phillips, and documented in Gaeton Fonzi's The Last Investigation with techniques exposed in Peter Dale Scott's book, ‘Oswald, Mexico and Deep Politics’.  (Which I suggest Shenon read to get his head on straight).

Anyway, moving back to the CIA document, it continues with two singular objectives:

"to discuss the publicity problem with [?] and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors), pointing out that the Warren Commission made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible, "

and

"To employ propaganda assets to [negate] and refute the attacks of the critics.  Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose".

Ah, but it turns out that lately books have also become "appropriate" including Vince Bugliosi's "Reclaiming History", former CIA hack Brian Latell's "Castro’s Secrets: The CIA and Cuba’s Intelligence Machine" and earlier Gerald Posner's "Case Closed". Shills anyone? Now add to that constellation Philip Shenon's effort.

Those readers who'd like a cogent synopsis of how and why Philip Shenon is far off the beam, and has actually helped deliver and advance CIA mischief, can read my blog posts of Oct. 21 and Oct 22. If you don't wish to read both, then at least read the one from Oct. 22nd: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-pre-assassination-framing-of-lee_1807.html


which gives the skinny on how Oswald was set up from the Mexico City Station (compliments of David Atlee Phillips)  via a trip there that never occurred - but which helped later with the Oswald as deranged, angry assassin narrative.

Keep alert, as there's bound to be much more codswallop on the "Oswald did it" theme to come. It seems the media evidently  loves the dupes and deceivers more than truth tellers, but this ought not surprise anyone familiar with "Operation Mockingbird".

For all those not in the know, or who need a deep politics refresher, please Google it! To see a Youtube video on 'Mockingbird', with open admissions,  go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDCfTIapds0


Footnote on Operation Mockingbird: Kathryn Olmstead, in her book, Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI, Univ. of North Carolina Press, p.21 notes:

According to the Church committee's final report, approximately fifty U.S. Journalists had covert relationships with the CIA, about half of which involved money. Watergate investigative reporter Carl Bernstein charged that the total number of U.S. journalists who worked for the CIA was actually much higher. In a controversial article in 'Rolling Stone', Bernstein claimed that more than 400 American journalists secretly carried out assignments for the CIA from the early 1950's to the mid-1970's. The 'New York Times' alone, Bernstein insisted, provided cover for ten CIA officers from 1950 to 1966.

The Pre-Assassination Framing of Lee Harvey Oswald (2)

David Atlee Phillips, who conducted the main operation to frame Oswald - from Mexico City and the Miami JM/Wave CIA station.

“Put together, we see how those in power suppressed false evidence that Oswald was a Communist or a KGB or Cuban agent in order to arrive at the least disturbing alternative: that he acted alone.” –   Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics Quarterly, Sept. 1994

Between the resourceful work of John Newman and Peter Dale Scott, among others, we’ve learned that Lee Oswald actually had a CIA file : 201-289248 CI/SIG[1], opened on December 9, 1960, more than one year after his defection to the USSR (Oct, 1959) The ostensible reason given for opening the file in the first place was Oswald's defection, and possible “continuing intelligence interest”.. However, this makes no sense in the light of the  delay of more than one year (Oct. '59 to Dec, '60) to get the job done.

The actual fact,  in light of what I noted in the previous post, is that the file had been opened by the CI/SIG (Counterintelligence Special Investigations Group) of the CIA to paint a trail of fictitious suspicion on Oswald and especially have it ready after Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, in order to drive an investigation that would find him guilty of being the lone assassin.  Peter Dale Scott, invoking the resources of HSCA investigator Dan Hardway and as also reported by HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi (The Last Investigation,  p. 292 ) discerned that  “most of the individuals originating the false reports (in cables etc.) were assets of the Mexico City Station’s Chief of Covert Action and Cuban Operations, David Atlee Phillips.”

It had been Phillips who ran all the cut outs (fake personae, duplicate Oswalds, fake files etc. ) to implicate Oswald as a commie nut in league with the KGB and Soviets – all the better to paint him as the one lone nut assassin in Dallas, on Nov. 22, 1963.

The Warren Commission was "suspiciously 'quiet' on the subject of Oswald's CIA files"[2], the OS-351-164 (office of security), the 201-289248 CI/SIG, and the 74-500. However, this should not astound anyone aware of the fact that a former CIA Director (Allen Dulles) sat on the Commission. Logically, therefore, if his latter day descendants are so reluctant to divulge the truth[3], he would have been no different. Moreover, as primary liaison between Commission members and the Agency, he could easily determine in advance what would be advisable for them to see, and what wouldn't. 

What is more astounding is the level of machinations the CIA used to conceal the files and their import from the Warren Commission. For example, no one informed the Commission that the letter ‘D’ – on the cover sheet of Oswald’s 201 file – indicated CIA Staff D, a SIGINT or signals intelligence operation run in concert with the National Security  Agency or NSA. As pointed out by Peter Dale Scott (Deep Politics Quarterly, Jan. 1994): “In 1961, when William Harvey headed Staff D, he was assigned the task of developing the CIA Assassinations Project, ZR/Rifle”

In addition, when they submitted Oswald’s 201-file to the Warren Commission (under the header of Commission Document 692) they did not indicate it clearly or mark it as such. Instead, as Dale Scott (and also John Newman) observed the CIA buried it in a  Sept. 24 “memorandum”  relocated to a much later position in the file , making it appear as if it had been falsely drafted after the culpable Oct. 10 fake cables.  (Scott writes that technically this subterfuge and dodge was a “felony under Section 1001 of the U.S. Criminal Code".)

All this needs to be seen in the context of the five documents the CIA released on Oswald in October of 1963.  As noted by Peter Dale Scott (‘Oswald, Mexico and Deep Politics’, 2013, p. 25) : “at least three show signs of CIA doctoring and the first, which does not, was nevertheless so misleading as to be possibly dishonest.” This was the cable from the Mexico City Station on Oct. 8 that claimed Oswald had appeared at the Soviet Embassy on Oct. 1, claiming  he had spoken with Valeriy Kostikov three days earlier. (Kostikov was top man in the KGB's "Department Thirteen" - responsible for assassinations. As Scott notes, ibid., this is why American Rightists made use of any sources they could to try to parlay this into something to force the WC's hand into a "phase one" conclusion. That included using Oswald's brother, Robert.)

More sobering is Newman’s apt reflection on Oswald’s activities in New Orleans from May –Sept, 1963 (Oswald and the CIA, p. 292):

"The record of Oswald's stay in New Orleans, May to September 1963, is replete with mistakes, coincidences, and other anomalies. As Oswald engaged in pro-Castro and anti-Castro activities, the FBI says they lost track of him. The Army was monitoring his activities and says it destroyed their reports. The record of his propaganda operations in New Orleans published by the Warren Commission turned out to have been deliberately falsified."

 

Even more vexing and worrisome, is that the CIA had spies squirreled away inside the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City  who could have pulled off all manner of chicanery, including altering the impostor Oswald's documents (substituting the real Oswald's photo, signature, etc.). As HSCA Investigator Fonzi  notes (using research by two staffers, Dan Hardaway, and Eddie Lopez - whose work led to the  Lopez Report, still in CIA files)[4]:

"In questioning (David Atlee)Phillips, Hardway was also working from information that had been dug up on a couple of secret trips to Mexico City made by Lopez, and investigator Harold Leap. Without the Agency's permission, they had located and interviewed a couple of CIA assets who had worked inside the Cuban Consulate at the time. The Agency never revealed this to the Warren Commission, but it actually had planted spies within the Cuban compound. That may be relevant to the fact that, in the end, the only 'proof' that the real Oswald was inside the Cuban Consulate were his photographs and his signature on his visa application.”

While in Mexico City, Lopez and Leap also spoke with the agency personnel who had listened to and were involved in translating and transcribing the tape of the man who called the Soviet Embassy. They said that after Oswald's Dallas arrest, when they heard his voice on radio and telecasts, it wasn't the same voice they remembered from the tape. The man who called the Embassy had a “huskier voice and didn't speak as fast as Oswald” , and perhaps most revealing, spoke in very poor, broken Russian  (Oswald's Russian wasn't excellent, but Marina Oswald later  said that when she first met Oswald in Minsk she thought his accent was from another part of the Soviet Union.)

Fonzi noted that Lopez and Hardway observed that David Atlee  Phillips seemed to be especially nervous when Hardway began questioning him about the lack of photographs of Oswald. He maintained that the surveillance cameras at both Soviet and Cuban Embassies were “not functioning at the time of Oswald's visits” . Phillips stuck to the story that the Agency didn't maintain an around-the-clock  and weekend surveillance of the Soviet Embassy. He also said the Cuban Embassy camera “happened to be malfunctioning”  during the time of Oswald's visit.

So, despite the fact that Oswald had allegedly made five visits to the Cuban Consulate and Soviet Embassy, there were no photographs to substantiate it.

As Gaeton Fonzi observes (p. 295)

"In the end, Phillips couldn't explain the contradictions in his testimony about the Agency's surveillance capabilities or why, if the cameras at the Soviet Embassy were working on October 1^st -when it photographed the unidentified man passed off as Oswald, there was no photograph of the real Oswald."

It seems more than evident that the reason Propaganda meister Phillips 'couldn't explain' the contradictions in his testimony, is because the real Lee Harvey Oswald was never in Mexico City. Like so many other smoke and mirrors tactics invoked by the Agency, this was no different. It is merely another layer/level of sheep-dipping to target the unwary Oswald for his pre-determined patsyhood role in Dallas 7 weeks later.

Those lone nut mythologists who maintain (in the face of the above facts) that Oswald was there, are obligated to provide us with first order evidence to substantiate that. (Hotel records don't cut it since they can easily be based on forged signatures. "Witnesses", i.e. on alleged buses, are only useful if they're able to compare the one they claim to have observed with images of the Lee Oswald arrested in Dallas. Sylvia Duran was such a witness, but she was tortured to recant - see below- when she denied that the Oswald encountered in the Cuban Embassy was the same as the one arrested in Big D) At the very least then, we need a verifiable photograph that can unimpeachably be used to put Oswald there. Until that time, the entire 'Oswald in Mexico City' episode must be regarded as specious and a probable concoction of the CIA and their many 'assets' deployed in Mexico City at the time. Or to use the words of John Newman in reference to a 'cable' that surfaced within that episode, “a whole cloth fabrication”[5]

The 'Oswald in Mexico City' caper, like so much else, also provides a cautionary tale about accepting anything in this case at face value, especially if it emanates from 'official sources', departments, or agents- who have a vested interest in keeping the “lone nut” myth alive and well.

By the spring of 1963 we know that the Psychological Warfare branch of the CIA's JM/WAVE station in Miami was being led by one George Johannides- who  was busy “guiding and financing” members of the Revolutionary Cuban Student Directorate or DRE, one of the largest anti-Castro groups in the United States[6].  This attention included providing the DRE with up to $25,000 a month, so long as they submitted to CIA discipline (Jefferson Morley, ‘The George Johannides Cover-up’, in JFK LANCER, May 19, 2005.)

At the same time, as documented by Peter Dale Scott,  CIA spin meister David Atlee Phillips- having been cross-posted to both stations.  was shuttling between Mexico City and Miami (the CIA’s JM/Wave station based at Zenith Technical Enterprises near Crandon Park) and helping Joannides confect and consolidate the “Oswald as commie perp” narrative, including using DRE assets to play Oswald in New Orleans. (See the previous quote from Newman on the May-Sept. Oswald story). They also were alternating between a “phase one” and “phase two” narrative, with the first linking Oswald to Soviet or Cuban Intelligence, and the second painting him as just a deranged lone nut. Most of the “phase one” stories originated as Scott notes from “ a single milieu of anti-Castro Cubans in Miami, close to, and in some cases supported by the CIA’s JM/Wave station there.”

Sadly, another casualty of the CIA sheepdip, dodge and spin hijinks was an innocent woman, the consulate officer Silvia Duran. As Scott reports, as well as Gaeton Fonzi (op. cit., p. 409)  she was forced to undergo brutal torture for eight hours at the hands of Mexican police to get her to recant her original testimony that the “Oswald” encountered at the Cuban Embassy in Medico City was not the Oswald arrested in Dallas.(She had insisted in her original testimony- account that the Oswald she encountered “was blonde and short” – The Lopez Report, p. 190).

Ed Lopez,  who’d sought to interview Duran again in the wake of her torture,  found she was unable, and broke down and wept merely at the thought of it. She also feared reprisals as a citizen of Mexico.

So be it. Now ask yourselves this: If Oswald was indeed “guilty” why did the CIA go to such inordinate lengths to distort, hide and obfuscate the truth (i.e. Oswald’s CIA files, fake cables etc.) as well as engage in such a complex plan to paint Oswald the bad guy (using Oswald impersonators in Mexico City)  – not to mention- recruiting Mexican police to torture a woman for 8 hours merely for telling the truth – to make it presentable for the Warren Commission’s (“phase two” or lone nut) narrative?

Mayhap Mr. Tom Hanks finally  asked himself those questions - before his “Bugliosi Bunkum Binge” next month on HBO –  which is why he cancelled it. Or perhaps HBO thankfully cancelled it realizing that all the money invested would be a waste. Poor Tom, guess he will have to wait a bit before “preventing the American people from being snookered”.   But as my German friend Reinhardt put it, we - the American people - can be thankful that HBO didn't expend millions to allow Hanks to try to snooker US!

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[1] CI/SIG =  'Counter Intelligence/ Special Interest Group'

[2] Newman, op. cit., p. 169.

[3] I am referring, of course, to the files on CIA Station Chief George Joannides, who single handedly funded and orchestrated the Cuban elements in New Orleans, and orchestrated Oswald’s associations with them.

[4] Fonzi. op. cit., pp. 293-94.

[5] Newman, op. cit. p. 408.

[6] Jefferson Morley, ‘The George Johannides Cover-up’, in JFK LANCER, May 19, 2005.