Do NOT Believe the Lying CIA Torture Apologists!

The lying swine Cheney - ought to have been hung by now.

"If you are in favor of the torture, fine. But I am begging you, spare me any sermons about the law ever, ever again." - Chris Hayes, last night on MSNBC

After the aborted Bay of Pigs operation in 1961, John F. Kennedy loudly proclaimed that he wanted to "smash the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the four winds."  If he had expeditiously gone through with that intent, we'd likely not now be having to digest a revolting summary report of CIA tortures - debasing our nation, our claimed aspirations, our claim to being a "nation of laws" and exceptional in the world.  Kennedy's mistake was in trying to rope in the CIA incrementally, using 17 proposed oversight rules and creating an alter-agency - the DIA or Defense Intelligence Agency. The spooks got onto him and well, the rest is history.

Most of the day yesterday, the CIA  - as per its wont, and as they did 40 years earlier with "Operation Mockingbird" - trotted out their lying PR flunkies to try to tell the American people that what was done in our name wasn't torture. But they were exposed for the fucking liars and tools they are, as on Rachel Maddow's show last night - using historical documents as well as the actual report.

This was good because as numerous moral philosophers have observed, all that is often needed to commit mass moral outrage is to alter the language. This tends to alter thought so the weak -minded will succumb as the amoral employ euphemisms to try to justify what is a moral outrage. And so the Nazi scum referred to "cleansing" when they herded Jews into the gas chambers,  just as now these miscreant apologists are adopting the euphemism "enhanced interrogation" to try to make us believe what they did was A-ok. No it wasn't. And anyone who buys into this crap- including into former CIA Director George Tenet's denial of euphemism-  is guilty of normalizing the torture that these rats seek to justify retrospectively. They then arguably aren't any better than the perpetrators. Such is the case with that screeching harpy and former BushCo operative, Nicolle Wallace - who almost climaxed-  yapping about why we "need"  CIA torture the other day. Maybe she's into torture porn too! Who knows?

Not so with Norah O'Donnell who surely got it this morning on CBS Early Show when scumbag and tool Mike Morell was being interviewed. While the weasel and liar Morell tried to claim that what his men did "wasn't torture", Norah,  to her credit- wasn't having any of it. She said:

"I don't understand how waterboarding someone one hundred eighty three times isn't torture. I don't understand how giving forced enemas isn't torture."

The monkey Morell actually replied with a straight face that on "pouring over' the program he was even more convinced that it "was effective in getting information that stopped plots that would have killed Americans".  Which is arrant horse pockey.

Gail King then asked Morell to respond to the issue of morality- never mind the dubious authorizations from the Bush Justice Dept. which we now know were fabricated out of whole cloth - as Maddow showed - and I will get to. Morell responded it is "the central question" but then added this is what we "should be debating as a society - was this right or was this wrong?". Uh no! We don't need any debate because it was patently wrong! Morally evil! Never mind the claimed ends  - a first moral principle is that the ends NEVER justifies the means. I don't care if 10,000 might have been killed you don't use these abhorrent methods to obtain  suspect info. (Which is never reliable given the extreme methods used when the tortured will cop to anything under duress - as records show occurred!)

Even the CIA's 1989 Report to the then Senate Intelligence Committee flatly observed:

"Inhumane physical or psychological techniques are counterproductive because they do not produce intelligence and will result in false answers."

So Morell asking if this was really wrong is like asking if  herding Jews into gas chambers was wrong. Yes it emphatically was!  I mean, good God, the Senate report even documented CIA officers choking and vomiting as well as crying and some having to leave the scene of some of the tortures. This only occurs, my friends, when one's moral conscience so recoils at actions that a sense of revulsion overtakes the person. Most humans possess this moral sense, but clearly most of the CIA's torturing fiends didn't. Many howled with laughter when the "rectal feedings" they delivered caused the person to crap all over themselves as they hung upside down!

These rat vermin were even afraid to broach what they were doing to Colin Powell because they thought he'd "blow his top". Well, yes he would because though he's a military man he's also a moral man and would recognize evil if he saw or heard of it!

I ask, when considering what these CIA monsters did, to think of your own loved ones in those torture scenes - which I will examine shortly.

Rachel Maddow merits many kudos for her segment on the history of CIA torture including the creation of its first torture manual in July, 1963. Most savvy researchers of the JFK era and the conspiracy to kill him agree Kennedy was unaware of the manual, and would have really "smashed the CIA" if he knew of it but was already overwhelmed with fighting off their attempts to undermine him -including his implementing curbs on their covert actions. (Kennedy was also likely unaware of the ZR/Rifle assassination program, and especially the Staff D CIA connections which would be used later to turn it against him).

Maddow's piece showed how the CIA manual was used to torture former KGB man Yuri Nosenko who defected to the U.S. in late 1963. During his debriefing he evidently gave the spooks cause to subject him to assorted "enhanced measures" - but officially called torture at the time, including: sleep deprivation, being forced to stay nude for long periods at a time, pummeling and punching -including his kidneys, sleeping on stone floors and being fed a ghastly gruel.

The spooks didn't believe his debrief that Lee Harvey Oswald was of zero or minor import to the KGB.  (Sadly, Maddow again muddied her otherwise impeccable reporting by recirculating the canard that "the other thing that happened right before he (Nosenko) got there was the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The man who killed President Kennedy was Lee Harvey Oswald". Uh no he wasn't,  Rachel, and you need to clean up your act to confer more gravitas on your historical reporting).

Maddow went on to claim:  "Lee Harvey Oswald had spent time in the Soviet Union before killing President Kennedy" which is again, only partly true, part lie. He spent time in the Soviet Union - most likely as a CIA contract agent, according to his CIA CI/SIG files- before returning to the U.S. in 1962 when - interestingly - he was removed from the FBI's Watch List.

Nosenko was one of the KGB agents who interviewed Oswald, and claimed Oswald was unfit for any kind of spy work. Of course, as later released records showed, this story didn't jibe with what the CIA wanted at the time - which was to paint Oswald as a Soviet agent out to kill Kennedy- which could then be used to justify aggression- against Russia as well as Cuba. (Peter Dale Scott has uncovered most of this and interested readers can find more details in my  two October, 2013 posts on the pre-assassination framing of Oswald.)

Anyway, what Maddow did get right is that Nosenko was locked up in 1964, at Camp Peary, given no sensory stimulus whatsoever - except for a light kept on in his room 24/7. He was given nothing to read, and given purposefully revolting food. When he did have human contact it was to abuse him - described by one author (Tim Weiner, 'Legacy of Ashes') as "the same treatment his fellow Russians received in the Gulag."

In 1967, he was released to some unknown location in the south when the spooks realized he really was a defector.  And only when he was 81 years old, in 2008, did another lying CIA worm -Michael Hayden - come to apologize to him - likely because he knew the shit would hit the fan with the next election: either a former Constitutional lawyer elected, or a former prisoner of war who himself underwent torture.

As Maddow points out, the CIA in the wake of the wrongful torture of Nosenko realized that they couldn't afford to make such costly mistakes again. There followed, in 1978, a formal study of what went wrong with the conclusion that "the agency's handling of the Nosenko case was an abomination"

The CIA then got rid of the interrogation manual and as Maddow put it:

"Not because it's not tempting to use fear, and degradation and solitary confinement to try to get information out of people- when you're sure they're lying to you, and you're sure its a very dangerous situation and the country is very upset.and stressed out about it's safety. Not that it isn't tempting, it's tempting, But it doesn't work. It's a bad idea. We tried it and it's a bad idea."

Maddow further notes that despite the initial rejection there remained those CIA personnel who still wanted to be able to use torture from time to time, including one who "dug up the old manual" in 1983. The manual was then used in the 1980s (during the Reagan era)  in Latin America. In Honduras as well as Guatemala hundreds of thousands were tortured by the methods in the manual. The methods came to also be associated with those from "death squads" in those countries, as well as in Nicaragua.

At last in 1988 a new CIA report declared again: "Physical abuse or other degrading treatment was rejected not only because it was wrong but it has historically been proven to be ineffective."

Maddow then put up on the screen a portion of a memo released in November, 2001 right after the 9/11 attacks. It reads:

" A policy decision must be made with regard to U.S. use of torture."

Note the word used: torture - NOT "enhanced interrogation".

The sentence was written by CIA lawyers in the office of the CIA General Counsel. So much then for the horse shit that what was presented in the Senate report wasn't torture!

Maddow notes the CIA didn't have prisoners in custody at the time, but was only thinking prospectively - e.g. "ahead" - to what  the agency could do if and when prisoners came into their hands. They then batted it around how they could justify it, including:

"CIA could argue torture was necessary"

This was the CIA now, early 2001 - likely under pressure from the criminal Bushies- cooking up a new policy to justify torture though they rejected it earlier. Again, this was no accusation that others made about them it was what THEY called it themselves - TORTURE!  And to this end, the need for psyops as part of the operations, two psychologists were recruited: Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell. (Which showed the spooks firmly believed psychology wasn't entirely useless!). This pair developed the manual to help captured U.S. troops survive torture from enemies, then extracted the tortures those troops might face to use on U.S. "enemies".

And what kind of tortures are we talking about when these fiends finally got their hands on prisoners (up to 26% of whom they (CIA) didn't even know why they were being held, or what they had done)? Chris Hayes elaborated some of it on his own 'ALL IN' show:

- Threats to sexually abuse the mother of a detainee and also to cut her throat

- Abu Zubaydah lost his left eye while in CIA custody - from being gouged out slowly.

-Two detainees were shackled in stress positions after their bones were broken (this was also often used by the Inquisition on apostates)

- One CIA officer played Russian roulette with a detainee

- Another held a gun and power drill to the detainee's head threatening to let his brains leak out

- Five detainees were subjected to rectal rehydration - a  method also used by the Gestapo to try to wrest information, as my friend Kurt Braun told me. In this method of torture massive amounts of fluid -water are pumped into the colon until the victim feels as if his innards will burst open. The pain is agonizing  - and most people would be vaguely aware of what that is like if they allowed themselves to be fully awake during a colonoscopy (the difference being that gas is pumped into the colon in the latter case)

- Rectal feeding - wherein a blenderized mix of humus, pasta and pureed raisins are forced into the rectum causing an exploding sensation in the bowels. Anyone who's ever had a barium enema  - and the agony produced for even five minutes holding it - would be aware of this one.

Another asshole, who forced a detainee to sit naked on a bare floor in a freezing room for 24 hours and who later died of hypothermia, was given a $2,500 award for his "superior work". In another case, the top torture director was an immature goofus, lacking solid experience, putting the lie to Michael Hayden's malarkey the interrogators were all "well trained". No they were not!

The program was also subject to incompetence, including one case where two victims were subject to sleep deprivation and dietary manipulation and later found out to be CIA assets!

Can we say delirious assholes here? Yes we can! And yet these pieces of refuse want to try to justify what they did as preserving freedom or preventing another 9/11. Sadly, a majority of dopey, dumbass Americans agree (in recent polls) which confirms my suspicions too many are zombies who are unable to put themselves in the position of others.. Next time these yahoos get a colonoscopy I want them to do it with no sedation  - then imagine something ten times worse being done to them - and tell me they are pro torture! Damned fools and hypocrites!

Don't believe it! These are filth and maggots acting under their own arrogant, inhuman banner and have no connection to the rest of us who are sane and moral. Their own people performing these atrocities were often brought to the point of such revulsion they cried, choked and vomited. So don't ever tell me these vermin were doing the "right thing".

If true justice reigned all would be hung by the neck, as well as the Bushie assholes who contrived to let them get away with it by fiddle-fucking with the laws and interpretations thereof. Hell, if it were up to me I'd let Colin Powell be the presiding judge. Line 'em all up, including the 3 former directors spewing justifications in yesterday's WSJ piece, and hang 'em en masse or one at a time. I don't give a shit which.

But we can't let this sorry episode ever be normalized or come back to haunt us again. Strangely, or maybe not, the only person on the Right that seems to get it is John McCain. But maybe that's because he once experienced torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese. He said on the Senate floor yesterday:

"I know from personal experience, that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence. I know that the use of torture compromises that which most distinguished us from our enemies. Our belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights which are protected by international conventions- the United States not only joined but for the most part authored. "

Well said. Let us also bear in mind above all, that declaring torture of any kind off limits means when our own personnel are captured they will be less likely to be exposed to it. It therefore redounds to our benefit to take the higher moral ground rather than take the lower ground of rats and vermin - including defending it after the fact.

See also more proof we are not a nation of laws:

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/10/torture_reports_big_bombshell_how_a_glaring_double_standard_was_exposed/

Rebuttal of Scott Aaronson's "20 Reasons" Oswald Dunnit (Conclusion)

We now pick up at Aaronson reason No. 16, as we try to wade through more of his codswallop:

16. JFK was not a liberal Messiah.  He moved slowly on civil rights for fear of a conservative backlash, invested heavily in building nukes, signed off on the botched plans to kill Fidel Castro, and helped lay the groundwork for the US’s later involvement in Vietnam. 

This one shows glaringly how out of touch Aaronson is with JFK and the politics of the time. It also shows him to be either a know-nothing or troll regarding JFK. As James Douglass has clearly shown (Chapters 1-3, in JFK and the Unspeakable') the Cold warrior shtick was purely a political ruse to ward off Nixon's expected attacks - and it worked! JFK was elected, not Tricky Dick. JFK was, in fact, perhaps the most liberal president of the past 50 plus years.  Aside from creating the Peace Corps (which I served in for four years) he also created the Alliance for Progress to deliver low interest loans to South American nations - for which he was pilloried by the financial press.  In case Aaronson forgot, he also signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in August, 1963 which had all the right winger military types going nutso - including when anti-missile systems were banned as well.

There were no "botched plans" by JFK himself to kill Fidel Castro, these were hatched by William Harvey & Company as part of the Staff D, and the  ZR/ Rifle programs which were really designed for the assassination of heads of state and later manipulated as a cover for the  executive action on Kennedy.

 JFK's reluctance to move aggressively on civil rights (until the fall of 1963) was understandable given the disastrous consequences he knew would befall the Democratic Party. Hence, it was a step not to take precipitously. But despite that,  he went ahead with the federalization of National Guard troops in AL and MS, thereby essentially ceding the South to the Republicans in perpetuity. And he knew this would transpire.

Make no mistake that after that seminal executive act, JFK was regarded as a “race traitor” by most Southerners –and many deep politics researchers believe it contributed to one more “nail” in his coffin, along with his NSAM (263) to pull out of Vietnam, his refusal to invade Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and his circulation of U.S. Notes outside the Federal Reserve system.

Historian Arthur Schlesinger, in his book A Thousand Days, pulls no punches on how Kennedy was vilified after his courageous act: “…in the domain of the radical right it all became much sicker and nastier. Not since the high point of the hate-Roosevelt enthusiasm of the mid-thirties had any President been the target of such systematic and foul vilification. Everything about Kennedy fed resentment: his appearance, his religion, his wealth, his intelligence, his university, his section of the country, is wife, his brothers, his advisers, his support of the Negroes, his refusal to drop the bomb.”

Re: Vietnam, Aaronson is totally uninformed, The first personnel in 'Nam actually had been dispatched under Eisenhower (following the 1954 French defeat at Dien Bien Phu).  Kennedy did send in personnel ca. 1961 - non-combat forces- but after several trips by McNamara realized that U.S. involvement would be a disaster so authorized National Security Action Memorandum 263 - which document Aaronson clearly knows nothing of.

What is often actually cited as the NSAM, i.e.
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/w6LJoSnW4UehkaH9Ip5IAA.aspx


Is in fact only the cover letter by McGeorge Bundy. It has only passing relevance to the actual content of the NSAM, but it does clearly state “the President approved sections IB(1-3) of the report". Which report? To find these, the researcher must turn to Document 142 in The Pentagon Papers: ‘Report of McNamara Taylor Mission to South Vietnam'. Then the serious researcher will read:

IB(2) A program be established to train Vietnamese so that essential functions now performed by U.S. military personnel can be carried out by the Vietnamese by the end of 1965. It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. military personnel by that time.

IB(3): In accordance with the program to train progressively Vietnamese to take over military functions, the Defense Department should announce in the very near future presently prepared plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963.

Note the wording and that a partial drawdown of 1,000 was due for the end of 1963 and the bulk by 1965. Most lazy wannabes never get this far while some others that do mistake the "1,000" total for the entire intended lot.

By this time, all I could do is regret that Aaronson knows so little about the historical background of which he babbles. It's a good thing his main discipline is quantum physics - he would flunk 20th century history!

17. By the same token, LBJ was not exactly a right-wing conspirator’s dream candidate.  He was, if anything, more aggressive on poverty and civil rights than JFK was.

Please. This bumpkin simply took Kennedy's already existing programs (Medicare originally proposed by him in the 1960 campaign) and ran with them. LBJ hid under the cover of his civil rights legislation but in reality was a crude racist who'd often refer to "niggers" and really launched into denigration whenever he and Hoover (a neighbor in D.C.) got together.   LBJ also had to know his Great Society programs were doomed to fail on account of ramping up the Vietnam War where hundreds of billions would go. Even an idiot could see the 'guns and butter' budgets were unsustainable.

Oh, then there was the Texas grand jury finding LBJ guilty of the murder of Henry Marshall, e,g,


For more on LBJ see:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/02/lbj-was-reluctant-warrior-it-doesnt.html


18.  As far as I can tell, the conspiracy theorists are absolutely correct that JFK’s security in Dallas was unbelievably poor; that the Warren Commission was as interested in reassuring the nation and preventing a war with the USSR or Cuba as it was in reaching the truth

At least here, he shows some small residue of sense and a  micro-effort to grasp the big picture. Not much, but we give him partial credit. He is also "generous" enough to concede the "screw ups" as he calls them - manifested in the Warren Commission and in addition,  "agencies like the CIA and FBI keeping records related to the assassination classified for many years" could have spawned some conspiracy thinking. DUH! Yuh think?

But at root what is most missing is any sense that he's actually READ  any of the documents and files that HAVE been released himself. Specifically those to do with what the CIA had on Oswald - particularly the 201 CI/SIG file. Thus, his generosity simply doesn't extend far enough - else he'd not have seen fit to put forward 20 such specious "reasons" while making serious JFK assassination researchers out to be the next thing to Bigfoot trackers.  

Had Aaronson the energy to have gone further, and actually examined the Oswald files himself (especially the cables dispatched over October, 1963 by David Atlee Phillips from Mexico City) he'd have seen how the CIA had set up Oswald as the fall guy. But no, that was too much trouble. Too many details for Aaronson to bother with - and yet, he sees fit to skewer researchers who have done the spade work.

This is again, sad, because as physicists one thing we're trained to do is not let evidence pass us by, no matter where it is. (I can't begin to relate how many ancient solar records I've looked up!)

19.  In the context of the time, the belief that JFK was killed by a conspiracy filled a particular need: namely, the need to believe that the confusing, turbulent events of the 1960s had an understandable guiding motive behind them, and that a great man like JFK could only be brought down by an equally-great evil, rather than by a chronically-unemployed loser

This canard has been circulating for decades - mostly in the media but also more and more by many would be critics and wannabe dime store psychologists. It makes sense at one level but as Michael Parenti ('The Dirty Truth') has observed, commits a basic error: mistaking the low political value of the person for the high political value of the assassination.  It also (magically) imparts an almost saint- like aura to Kennedy that is believed by these critics to have mesmerized most of us who are researchers into attempting an escape from reality. Oh no, our heads would simply explode if in fact a "lone loser" by himself had actually killed Kennedy! Please!

Of course, this is patent bunkum. The Warrenites' own rifle tests disclosed the Oswald - Lone gunman tripe for what it is,  and is obvious to any intelligent person, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/frequently-asked-questions-on-fhe-jfk.html

Also, let me be blunt: none of us who are diligent researchers are the least bit blind to Kennedy's faults, foibles and realities, including his carousing. We don't need to be reminded of that by upstart, Johnny-come-lately pipsqueaks who couldn't tell the NSAM-263 cover letter from the actual body of the memorandum.

 The point is that the assassination was the primary event, not John F. Kennedy or his life per se. It was the assassination that altered the arc of American history for the worse. It was the assassination  that had the high political value, since with Kennedy out of the way, many more nefarious initiatives could be undertaken, including assassinations (e.g. of Salvador Allende in Chile) and launching an 8-plus year undeclared war in Vietnam, for the benefit of war profiteers and oil companies.

Of course, many like Aaronson fail to make the distinction, probably because they are too lazy, or else have an agenda (c.f. promoting their own conspiracy theories, a la Matt Ridley, to negate all real conspiracy theories) . In the Kennedy case, they not only err by mistaking the low political value of the person for the high political value of the assassination,  they similarly err by believing any choice to embrace or accept conspiracy is contingent on the shock effect of an emotional loss to a "loser". But had they enough history and deep politics education they'd see how stupid this sounds. Further, if they knew how hard many of us worked to dig up the FACTS through filing requests, they'd give the emotional resonance meme a rest.

As Michael Parenti has pointedly noted ('The Dirty Truth'. p. 186), we:

"are raising grave questions about the nature of state power in what is supposed to be a democracy."

Parenti also notes (op. cit., p.174):

" Those who suffer from conspiracy phobia are fond of saying: 'Do you actually think there's a group of people sitting around in a room, plotting things?' For some reason that image is assumed to be so patently absurd as to invite only disclaimers.  But where else would people of power get together - on park benches or carousels?"

As Michael Parenti observes we are really trying to expose the hidden forces of power at work in a supposedly free society.  Those who choose not to see this, as Aaronson obviously seems to, can be excused - but then they need to back off from making spurious attacks on those who do. Unless, of course, they undertake the same level of research!

20. At its core, every conspiracy argument seems to be built out of “holes”: “the details that don’t add up in the official account,” “the questions that haven’t been answered,” etc.  What I’ve never found is a truly coherent alternative scenario: just one “hole” after another.  This pattern is the single most important red flag for me, because it suggests that the JFK conspiracy theorists view themselves as basically defense attorneys: people who only need to sow enough doubts, rather than establish the reality of what happened.


Really? Built of "holes"? This is your final reason?  Well, you're lucky to have someone like me to fill them in for you - including providing a background which can easily be verified if you have the gumption and energy to do so.

Let me then provide this alternative scenario for Aaronson, which I hope he will find as convincing as the Aspect experiment showing nonlocal connections between separate photons - over a ~12 m distance.

First,  background to why the CIA was the primary force to take him out:

By late 1962, Kennedy had earned (by his actions) way more enemies than friends in the military and national security establishment.  The fears had especially ramped up - during the October, 1962 missile crisis - that he'd gone soft on Castro and Cuba. Much of this was released in the tapes made during the actual period, later emerging as transcripts in the book: The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis’, by Ernest R. May and Philip K. Zelikow (1997, President and Fellows of Harvard College).

Of particular interest is the reaction of Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay to Kennedy's refusal to bomb and invade Cuba, reported originally in The Baltimore Sun, Oct. 26, 1996, 'Bomb Cuba!Le May Urged JFK', p. 2A):

"Tapes of secretly recorded White House conversations released this week show that President John F. Kennedy's military advisers strongly pressured him to bomb and invade Cuba during the missile crisis 34 years ago this month. Indeed, they forecast that war would occur whether he invaded Cuba or not.

Blasting Kennedy's cautious approach, the Air Force Chief, Gen. Curtis LeMay, told the President at a White House meeting on Oct. 19, 1962, "This is almost as bad as the appeasement at Munich......"

If that would have been all it might have been ample to put JFK in the sights of the security state and military - but he went even further.  In retrospect we learned that in brokering a deal with Khrushchev to resolve the missile crisis, Kennedy promised 1) to attempt no further invasions of Cuba if all Soviet hardware was removed, and (2): to remove ALL U.S. Jupiter missiles based in Turkey - 6 months later. ( HSCA Volume 10, 1979: ‘Anti-Castro Activities and Organizations: Investigation of the Assassination of    President John F. Kennedy’, in Appendix to the Hearings Before the Select Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives (U.S. Government Printing Office, p. 82)

But this wasn't all. Not long on the heels of these moves, JFK had begun a rapprochement with Fidel Castro through his aide-de-camp Rene Vallejo and Kennedy's emissary, William Attwood. (See, e.g. Peter Kornbluh: ‘Kennedy and Castro: What Might Have Been’, in The Baltimore Sun, Aug. 22, 1999. )  In addition, despite the CIA- military wanting to bring Castro down, not prop him up, Kennedy had secured key medical assistance  - which he thought he could do sub rosa. However, in all likelihood, Richard Helms and his CIA Directorate of Operations knew exactly what he was up to every minute - and they didn't like it. Indeed, it enticed them to brand Kennedy with the T-word. Traitor. No surprise that on the day of the assassination those thousands of treason posters appeared in Dallas - but not by accident, e.g.


Helms was already well aware of the bile held toward Kennedy by anti-Castro groups, especially the DRE ( Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil ) - trained by CIA operatives, David Atlee  Phillips and George Joannides with the DRE  described as: “one of the most bitter toward President Kennedy for his deal with the Russians." (HSCA, Vol. 10, 1979, ibid.). Helms, as well as William Harvey (coordinator for Staff D and the ZR/Rifle program) knew this hatred could be directed purposefully and what better way than an executive action. Since an assassination program (ZR/Rifle) had already been running since 1961, why not turn it from Castro to JFK and use some of the well motivated angry Cubans of the DRE to help carry it out?

Imagine, just imagine - how riled and furious that same Phillips-Joannides anti-Castro Cuban group would be when it learned (compliments of their CIA handlers, no doubt) that Kennedy was in the process of establishing normalized relations with Fidel via a rapprochement with his aide-de-camp. Hell, these DRE miscreants would have gone ballistic and begged Joannides and Phillips for anything they might do, any role, to exact payback.

Too extreme? They'd never do it? Hey ....this was the same basic bunch that blew a Cubana Airline plane (Flight 455) out of the skies off Barbados  SW coast on Oct. 6, 1976! If they could kill 73  innocents that day don't tell me they wouldn't volunteer to put one or more bullets into a prez that: a) they believed 'betrayed' them by not providing air cover for Operation Zapata (the Bay of Pigs invasion), and b) had begun rapprochement with Fidel - their most hated enemy.

Thus was born the conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, out of the pre-existing Staff D- ZR/Rifle operation. The motive - given how Kennedy had tried to hide his Cuban rapprochement - was basic:
kill Kennedy, link the already prepped and ready patsy Oswald to Castro, and use this as a pretext to invade Cuba.  What better way to get back at all three, especially Kennedy and Khrushchev, who the CIA believed suckered Kennedy into signing the "giveaway our security" Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in August, 1963?  As for Oswald, he was always to be used as a pawn, expendable - but his speech to a Jesuit College (Spring Hill, Mobile, AL)   in July, 1963 (see James Douglass' book for details), warning of a military coup, and also his previous likely warning the Chicago FBI of the Nov. 2 assassination attempt (by Thomas Arthur Vallee)  - put him in the target sights much earlier.

The actual shooters were configured in 3 separate teams in Dealey Plaza: one firing from the Texas Book Depository  - but not Oswald's location, The Dallas County Records Bldg. (2nd floor) and from behind the grassy knoll stockade fence. The bullet numbers and trajectories all point to these locations, and the teams included at least one with disaffected DRE Cubans (already trained by Joannides), one with grassy knoll shooter Jean Souetre (Organisation de l'armée secrete, aka Secret Army Organization or OAS connection - already with an attempt on Charles  DeGaulle)  and one with perhaps a specific CIA hit team - comprised of rogue agents with a score to settle personally.

The validity of the knoll shot based on ballistics and the acoustics was originally shown by me in this post from last year:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/10/larry-sabatos-new-book-does-not.html

Readers can examine it and judge for themselves.

The main takeaway from all this is the actual shooters were able to escape via various routes, easily accomplished with the right tools,  implements, e.g. rifles which could be disassembled in seconds and put into a toolbox with a worker leaving - say from the TSBD and Records Bldg. - carrying it. Grassy knoll killer Souetre escaped by using the ruse of a Dallas PD uniform. In all the commotion his getaway was perhaps easiest of all. See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/09/switzerland-destination-for-kennedy.html

Look, no one has to believe this scenario, least of all Aaronson, who hasn't done any real work. I only offer it up - based on mining the documents trail, and putting two plus two together as it were - as the most feasible and plausible way the killing of JFK played out.

But you judge for yourselves!

Intriguing Addendum:

Gen Curtis Lemay - who compared JFK to Neville Chamberlain and said his actions were "appeasement" during the Cuban Missile crisis -  was airborne, even as JFK's body was being flown back to Washington. He was also incommunicado.  Of interest are 50+ year old tapes made available last year. Go to:


http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505266_162-57368696/chilling-tape-from-air-force-one-on-day-jfk-shot/?tag=cbsContent;cbsCarousel

Rebuttal of Scott Aaronson's "20 Reasons" for Oswald Dunnit - Continued

We now continue as I rebut more of quantum physicist Scott Aaronson's 20 specious reasons that Oswald was the lone gunman in the JFK assassination:

5.  A half-century of investigation has failed to link any individual besides Oswald to the crime.

True, but that is because it wasn't one "individual".  All the evidence amassed so far from the existing files (especially Oswald's CI/SIG files, the Staff D connection) shows the hit was an executive action masterminded by the CIA probably in collusion with NSA assets. That no individual has been identified isn't surprising at all to any who have examined the detailed documents in depth - as Peter Dale Scott has published in his most recent book, cited in Part One.

The original plan, gleaned from multiple documents- interviews,  was to kill Kennedy, link Oswald to Castro, and use this as a pretext to invade Cuba.  Note the parallels here to the October, 1962 Missile crisis- when the Joint Chiefs tried to get Kennedy to invade Cuba on the basis of the Soviet missiles there. JFK refused, and in so doing put another nail in his coffin, while his enemies looked for other ways to achieve their goal- ending up at assassination of Kennedy - by a Castro dupe. Or so the CIA hoped people would believe. Former CIA accountant James Wilcott, however, noted the phony link to Castro could not be established firmly enough to hold and hence the need to brand Oswald as the lone assassin.

In other words, the CIA aimed for a 'trifecta' - blaming the USSR as an accomplice, invading Cuba and killing Kennedy, but they ended up with only one of the three - but to be sure a huge one - as it's distorted this nation's history ever since. (Along with shattering all confidence and trust in gov't - given the government still hold to the phony Warrenite story.)

Interestingly, CIA asset -accountant James Wilcott's narrative was also confirmed by a former Military Affairs editor at LIFE, J. Garrett Underhill, a CIA informant. Underhill related that a "small clique in the CIA" killed Kennedy and he was prepared to 'blow the whistle" on them. Alas, it didn't happen. He was found with a bullet wound behind his left ear on May 8, 1964. He thereby became one of the numerous witnesses dead under suspicious circumstances - which Richard Charnin has shown proves a conspiracy. See:
http://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/jfk-witness-deaths-graphical-proof-of-a-conspiracy/

Underhill, like many other witnesses, is believed to have been taken out by assets used from ZR/Rifle and Staff D. - after being either manipulated by psych-tactics (such as used in the CIA's MKUltra) or by other coercive means. (See Paul Nolan's book, 'The Sociopathy Test', p. 41)

One more little aspect Aaronson overlooks: the continued secrecy in many critical CIA files - i.e. associated with George Joannides - has assured few individual names associated with the actual commission of the killing will ever be known, though the National Archives is obligated to release the remaining files by 2017.

6. Oswald had previously tried to assassinate General Walker—a fact that was confirmed by his widow Marina Oswald, but that, incredibly, is barely even discussed in the reams of conspiracy literature.

More evidence of Aaronson's lackadaisical style of work, inattention to detail.  Marina, in her 1993 interview with Tom Brokaw, denied any involvement of Lee in the Walker shooting. She said that at the time she was under pressure by the FBI, Secret Service to "cooperate" with the Warrenites or face deportation. This meant her adding to the portrayal of Lee as the lone nut assassin. Marina didn't want to disrupt her family so cooperated.

Re: the Walker shooting, Mark North (Act of Treason) aptly points out  that the Walker shooting – "like other media myths” -  was totally unrelated to the assassination and further[1], “would have faded into total obscurity but for the fiction that would be created on 11/22/63”

 Was Walker fired upon? Yes, but not by Oswald! The most likely perpetrators, based on the car description and James Douglass’ own research, were two males - one a Latino, one a shorter Caucasian - neither Oswald. . Many like Aaronson are hoodwinked by the Walker story, as if it is a dry run for the assassination. Nowhere on their radar do a number of strange and odd facts play out – including that a young male witness, Walter Coleman (standing in the doorway of a nearby house) heard the shot and saw at least two men – neither of whom looked like Oswald. The lad added that he observed a car with door open, a ’58 or so Chevy- and a man bending over the back seat.

 This evidence was supported by Robert Surrey, one of Walker’s aides who spotted two men prowling around the residence days before the shooting.  The car was described as a 1957 Chevrolet and one of the man as dark-complexioned. This description of two men and the car exactly fits the description given by James Douglass of Sergio Archacha Smith and an Oswald double who drove with him out to the Trinity River after the assassination.

 The fact that Oswald never learned to drive is also critical here. Given a Warren Commission file photo showing the (actual ’57) Chevy parked next to Walker’s home – but with the rear license plate cut out from the image, why would anyone want to protect Oswald if he really was the perp? It makes no sense. The only reason anyone – likely the Dallas PD or FBI – cut out the plate identification is to protect someone else other than Oswald! Thus, either Oswald did not do it, or he had an accomplice do it.

 

 Another salient point: the slug found at the scene was from a 30.06 as reported from the FBI files cited in Mark North’s excellent book Act of Treason (page 255). So how did a 30.06 rifle mutate into Oswald’s alleged 6.5 mm Mannlicher –Carcano some months later, when all the evidence is Oswald never fired such or was ever photographed with such?

7. There’s clear evidence that Oswald murdered Officer Tippit an hour after shooting JFK—a fact that seems perfectly consistent with the state of mind of someone who’d just murdered the President

 More nonsense. There is no "clear evidence" at all.  Perhaps the nearest witness of all to the shooting was a courageous African-American woman Aquilla Clemmons - who pointedly noted that a heavyset man shot Officer J.D. Tippitt, not Oswald.

Tippit was shot to death in Dallas' Oak Cliff area, at the intersection of 10th Street and Patton Avenue - of that there is no doubt. The question is:  WHO did it? Officer Gerald Hill had custody of the .38 supposedly found on Oswald - but given the existence of the Oswald "ghost" photo (at Dallas P.D. HQ - see my March 13, 2013  post for the image, details) this could well have been a plant. Hill testified to the Warren Commission that he'd found six live rounds in the chamber and two empty cartridges  (that came from an automatic weapon) at the murder scene. (Revolvers don't discharge shells after firing)

Given Oswald failed a paraffin test for nitrate residue, and given the preceding account, the evidence indicates Oswald never fired a gun that day, period. Full stop.  Further, all the original witnesses asserted in  their original statements to the Dallas cops that the man who fired on Tippit did not resemble Oswald - but rather a heavy set male (Oswald was about 5'9" and 160 lbs. - not heavy set by any means - bordering more on thin.)

Under furious pressure from authorities, most of the original  Tippit killing witnesses subsequently changed their testimony to saying the killer "looked like Oswald." What they were threatened with we don't know, but it's interesting that a number of other  witnesses who came forward that day (e.g. Julia Ann Mercer, Lee Bowers, S.M. Holland et al) were threatened or cajoled into conformity if they insisted anyone but Oswald was the perp - whether in the assassination or the Tippit killing.

Two witnesses never did alter their words: Jack Tatum and Aquilla Clemmons, mainly because the WC never called them or took statements. But Tatum later testified to the HSCA  and Clemmons related to researcher Mark Lane (in the documentary 'Rush to Judgment')  that the killer was clearly a heavy set white male. Ms. Clemmons also confided to Lane that she was admonished by the Dallas Police to remain silent.

Her subsequent silence may well have been warranted given the deaths of dozens of witnesses and people directly involved in the case, including those designated to be called by the HSCA to testify. See e.g.

http://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/a-probability-analysis-of-witness-deaths-within-one-year-of-the-jfk-assassination/

 

8. Besides being a violent nut, Oswald was also a known pathological liar. 

 More codswallop  consumed from Posner and mindlessly parroted, so we can take with a grain of salt most of the examples he gives. Also,  there is no cognizance - none- of the simultaneous presence and operations of the Oswald Double, intended to further paint the real Oswald into a corner as the assassin.

9. According to police accounts, Oswald acted snide and proud of himself after being taken into custody: for example, when asked whether he had killed the President, he replied “you find out for yourself.” 

Ah yes, the infamous Texas Theater altercation, which continues to be muddled in the minds of most dilettantes like Aaronson, as well as many media.   In fact, the Dallas cops descended on the theater in droves and Oswald, again, never had any chance to fire a shot - even if he'd had a gun. Contrary to the words put into Oswald's mouth by Posner-Aaronson, all the odd witnesses there reported the words Oswald actually shouted aloud were: "I am not resisting arrest! Police brutality!"  Clearly, Oswald had figured out by then he'd been set up as the patsy - and the cover story he'd been fed (that he was to expose the plot) had now turned on him instead. Author James Douglas (op. cit.) conjectures the plot rebounded on Oswald after a phone caller named "Lee" exposed the earlier (Nov. 2, 1963) plot by Thomas Arthur  Vallee to assassinate Kennedy in Chicago. When that executive action was scrapped, Oswald became the target...now in Dallas.

Another sub-plot to the primary plot involved Assistant District Attorney William Alexander being called to the Texas Theater for Oswald's arrest. Why? Also, why did he accompany officer Gerald Hill to the scene of the Tippit murder? Planting evidence? Confecting it? As per an account cited in the book, 'The Killing of a President' by Robert Groden (p. 101) the real madman appears to be Alexander, who allegedly "once threatened a man in the course of trying to extract a confession by holding a gun to his head and exclaiming, "You son of a bitch! I will kill you right here!'"

Meanwhile, not to disappoint, after Oswald's arrest Alexander evidently shouted loudly enough for the next door shop keepers to hear: "You're a god damned communist!" at Oswald. One supposes he was in the loop to tag Oswald with the most horrific label and epithet one could muster at the time, again to make most people believe a lone commie loon killed Kennedy as opposed to one of the right wing extremist crackpots known to inhabit Big D, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/dallas-city-with-death-wish-in-its-eye.html

10. Almost all JFK conspiracy theories must be false, simply because they’re mutually inconsistent.

 Truly naïve to the point of almost being childish. Of course many are "mutually inconsistent"  because the earlier ones didn't gain access to the critical documents and CIA files released much later, under the JFK Records Act. Like the conspiracy zeitgeist in general, not all theories are created equal because not all theorists put in the same amount of research, hard work. This ought to be self-evident, particularly to Aaronson, who clearly hasn't put in one hundredth the work and research of most of us.  Yet he feels entitled to dispense his "reasons" and critiques as if a wizened expert!

Another aspect: an apparently "mutually inconsistent" hypotheses may in fact be complementary to one or more others. For example, the CIA masterminding the hit through the ZR/Rifle program (under Staff D) whereby the ostensible plan to assassinate Castro was used as a foil to kill Kennedy is not mutually exclusive with the presence of other banking, financial, or Mob & Cuban interests which were already tied to the CIA in multifold ways (as shown by Donald Gibson in his trenchant work, Battling Wall Street - The JFK Presidency and by James Douglass in his own book, JFK and the Unspeakable.  

Thus, analogous to the illustration I gave for the complementarity of the liquid drop and shell model in nuclear physics (See my blog yesterday on Pt. 1, Introducing Nuclear Physics) , two or more theories could be complementary in the Kennedy case.

11. The case for Oswald as lone assassin seems to become stronger, the more you focus on the physical evidence and stuff that happened right around the time and place of the event.  To an astonishing degree, the case for a conspiracy seems to rely on verbal testimony years or decades afterward—often by people who are known confabulators, who were nowhere near Dealey Plaza at the time

Another red herring, most of it parroted almost word for word from Posner's disreputable playbook. If in fact Aaronson really did focus on the physical evidence at the time- especially the Zapruder film (see Jackie's motion over the BACK of the limo) :

 and remove the blinders from his eyes and use physics - he'd see the evidence is staring  him straight in the face, i.e. the kill shot -head shot had to have come from the opposite direction as the Texas School Book Depository.  Aaronson might also want to take a gander at the actual autopsy photo - with the massive head wound in the rear of the head - compared to the faux version of the Warren Commission, e.g.

 Another straw man he babbles is that we "rely on verbal testimony decades afterward". I will refer him once again to the autopsy photos - fake and real - of JFK's head wound. Does that look like 'verbal testimony"?  He also needs to look at the analysis I did of the bullet wounds  - so as to better clear the uncertainties fogging his brain:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/frequently-asked-questions-on-jfk_15.html

12. If the conspiracy is so powerful, why didn’t it do something more impressive than just assassinate JFK? Why didn’t it rig the election to prevent JFK from becoming President in the first place?

 Truly naïve and shows how out of touch Aaronson is with the facts of the case and reality. No one claims the conspiracy was "all powerful" or even "powerful", only effective. That is, it had to be effective enough to ensure it succeeded in taking out Kennedy  at the most propitious time and place - especially in Dallas, given that an earlier attempt in Chicago on Nov. 2 (by lone assassin Thomas Arthur Vallee) had failed. (See James Douglass' book for the evidence of Vallee being involved - pulled from the same CIA false defector program as Oswald.)

Executive action was the surest method (highest probability) to take Kennedy out with minimal risk and fallout. Leaving it to the 1964 election would have encumbered the architects with all kinds of additional complexities - including stuffing ballot boxes for Barry Goldwater in hundreds of precincts all across the country, Thousands would have been needed  for it to succeed, as opposed to a hundred or so - and besides, the chance simply couldn't be taken that Kennedy would live - as he'd betrayed too many powerful interests, from the Joint Chiefs, to the CIA (after firing its Chief Allen Dulles and Deputy after the Bay of Pigs).

No one who is sane ever stated that the Kennedy assassination conspiracy was "all powerful". How could it be if managed and implemented by humans?  Still, the actual architects knew only that it only had to succeed at the specific time and place to ensure no further Kennedy presidency, policies, or power - period.  No more interference in military engagements, no more trying to lord it over the CIA, or NSA by "directives", no more secret deals with Khrushchev and especially no more hidden schmoozing via rapprochement to make nice with Castro - who the national security establishment detested.

13. Pretty much all the conspiracy writers I encountered exude total, 100% confidence, not only in the existence of additional shooters, but in the guilt of their favored villains (they might profess ignorance, but then in the very next sentence they’d talk about how JFK’s murder was “a triumph for the national security establishment”). 

This is more mush, as well as a veritable straw man.  I am unaware of any serious researcher who has "100 percent confidence"  that such and such person or even agency was involved. (Hell, I'm unaware of any solar physicist who's 100 percent confident that his flare model is correct in every respect!) "Favorite villains"? How about the likely people most enraged at JFK's actions? Say like the CIA for firing two of their own, Allen Dulles and his deputy Charles Cabell, after the Bay of Pigs. (Cabell's brother, Earl, was the then mayor of Dallas. What better position to occupy to set up a motorcade route meandering through the concrete canyon of Dealey Plaza - enabling a classic triangulation scenario for assassination?)

How about JFK seeking to impose his will on the spooks by setting up a Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board - the express purpose of which was to bring the CIA under the control of the President. Kennedy addressed the group on May 15, 1961 and informed them he was "undertaking a total reassessment of U.S. covert action policies and programs".

Kennedy went further, creating a Defense Intelligence Agency, responsible to him, and soon mandating all overflights of Cuba be done by the Strategic Air Command, not the CIA. He also defined a list of directives on what the CIA could and could not, do. By the end of 1961, JFK's 'Special Group' had no less than 17 recommendations for the "reorganization and redirection of the CIA".

The CIA, however, retaliated by withholding intelligence from Kennedy. By June, 7, 1961, Kennedy was complaining that he was receiving "inadequate developments" concerning events in a number of countries. As his ally, Gen. James H. Doolittle had put it, it was a case of the  "covert operations dog wagging the intelligence tail".

Kennedy got his  final wake up call on who was controlling his government when, in an early September, 1963 meeting he was informed by a David Bell of AID (a CIA cover organization) that the funds from the Commodity Import Aid Program had “already been cut off”,  essentially assuring a coup would ensue with the Diem government in South Vietnam. (James Douglass, 2008,, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, Orbis Books, p. 192.   )  Kennedy was evidently livid and directly asked Bell who had told him to do that, to which Bell replied, “No one” (ibid.). The will to power disclosed here indicates the CIA felt it more powerful than Kennedy’s government. If it felt that, it would also feel it could take him out if he crossed them any more - which threshold was likely transgressed when he commenced a secret  rapprochement with Castro in late 1962.

14. Every conspiracy theory I’ve encountered seems to require “uncontrolled growth” in size and complexity: that is, the numbers of additional shooters, alterations of medical records, murders of inconvenient witnesses, coverups, coverups of the coverups, etc. that need to be postulated all seem to multiply without bound

Nonsense.  There are definite limits, but again, like other proven and manifest conspiracies (e.g. Iran-Contra, BCCI) the components must be sufficient for success.   As for dismissal of the importance of the cover up, Aaronson ought to know better.  For the early success - and also later- the planning and implementation of the cover up process had to run almost automatically. This was largely accomplished with the release of the Warren Whitewash Report - which served the purpose of cover up uniquely and powerfully,  Apart from the Warren Report (and bear in mind the Commission was a creature of LBJ) - what primary components would be needed for the plan to eliminate JFK and also ensure no compromises in the future? And how  much manpower would each component require? I’ve broken it down as follows:

1)     A pool of likely or plausible decoys who’d be recruited later as potential patsies. One would not be enough in case anything happened to him, so redundancy was needed (» 5)

2)     A select group of psy-op specialists to steer the selected patsy into the desired mode so he’d be easily tarred ex post facto as the “assassin”. Preferably the steering or sheep dipping would be to make him appear to be a communist extremist, since the State Dept. had already targeted right extremists in the military as possible threats (4- 10, including George Joannides, and David Atlee Phillips with members of the CIA-sponsored DRE)

3)     Documents/ technical specialists, to be used to alter evidence, manipulate film or photography (e.g. autopsy photos), or “Frankenstein” new photos to show what was needed (e.g. the notorious Oswald photo showing him holding a Russian magazine with a rifle in one hand) (» 5-8)

4)     Direct evidence confiscators: Pre-placed teams at strategic points throughout Dealey Plaza where photos would most likely be attempted (e.g. either side of Elm St.). In the wake of the hit, their job would be to show a “badge” of authority then confiscate any cameras or photos as evidence.  Skeptics or resisters would be intimidated with the T-word. (11-12)

5)     Mechanics-kill squad. Three teams to execute a triangulated crossfire to ensure Kennedy’s killing and also confuse the issue with multiple shots and missed shots. Ideally placed in: a) Dal-Tex bldg., b) Texas School Book Depository, but at lower, e.g. 4^th floor level, not 6^th) and c) near or behind the stockade fence at the grassy knoll. At least three per team, with one shooter, a spotter and one to pick up any spent casings. Ideally, the teams would be non-Americans who had experience in sniper assassinations or were trained as such. (6)

6)     Disinformation specialists to infiltrate the media and in so far as possible undermine, or minimize any claims or stories circulating to the effect that Oswald “didn’t do it”. (» 50) (These may not all have been involved with covering up the assassination proper.)

7)     “Clean up” ops-hit men: eradicate any material witnesses including those called by the Warren Commission and also called to testify in other investigations (e.g. by Garrison, or the House Select Committee) or anyone possessing evidence (e.g. William Bruce Pitzer) that contradicted the Warren conclusion.  These would plausible have been trained out of the Staff D assassinations program of William Harvey(4)

     At first glance, the numbers might appear draconian and huge, but let’s break it down while also bearing in mind any effective conspiracy of this magnitude would be compartmentalized, i.e. with 1 or 2 exceptions no group would no what the others were doing. ("Need to know" basis). Thus, the psy ops specialists wouldn't know who the documents technicians are and neither of these would know who the mechanics are, and vice versa.

So there are barely 100 individuals needed to make every facet work, not counting the actual architects or planners.  This is barely half the number involved directly or indirectly in the Watergate Conspiracy and barely one-fourth the number involved in the Iran-Contra conspiracy.  It is also barely 1/100 the number involved in the BCCI banking conspiracy. We can simplify things greatly by placing each category of action or function with its proper agency. It turns out (1), (2), (3), (5) and (6) can all be linked to one single faction: the CIA. We already know from Victor Marchetti’s book (The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence) that the CIA had a false defector program from as early as 1958, if not sooner. Enough of these false defectors were around by 1963 to provide a pool of possible patsies or decoys for framing in assassinations.

     We know further that (2) was the province of a core group of elite specialists that included CIA psy-ops officer George Joannides  who financed and ran the Revolutionary Cuban Student Directorate or DRE, and David Atlee Phillips, who set up the specious confrontations between Oswald and anti-Castro Cubans, while engineering the fake Oswald in Mexico city caper, see, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/10/author-philip-shenon-is-he-idiot-or-dupe.html

  Element (3) meanwhile was fully in the province of CIA technical specialists, including removing or exchanging frames in the Zapruder and Nix (actually Beverly Oliver) films, and creating false images such as the one of Oswald that appeared on the cover of LIFE, holding a Soviet propaganda paper and a rifle, while wearing a holstered pistol. Today, using Photoshop, we easily can remove the “head” of one image and transfer it neatly to the body of another person using the software’s cut and paste function. In those days, it required great attention to detail, using an exacto knife to carefully cut a head from a pre-existing photo, then splice it to the body of a person on another photo and re-photograph it. The CIA was more than able to do this, even perfect it.  We know, for example, that the Zapruder film was in the possession of the National Photographic Interpretation Center, run by the CIA, as early as the night of the 22nd November. It is estimated that the film left Dallas at 4 p.m. CST and arrived in D.C. by 10 p.m. EST. It was then reprocessed and returned to Dallas by 7 a.m. CST the following morning, three copies and one original.

Quantitatively assessing the human resources (maximum numbers) capacity alone, we see that nearly 85 of the 100 or so conspirators to be credibly based in the CIA, and the journalists recruited were likely told their (contract) mission was tied to “national security”  (and Operation Mockingbird) so they wouldn’t question (or disclose!) too much.

Again, and surely, if reason is a guide, complexity will plausibly be proportionate to the magnitude of the effects of the conspiracy and its import. Thus, murdering a president (as in the case of JFK), or "executive action", would likely tally a number of complex aspects and certainly if success was paramount, exposure of the perps unacceptable. To carry it out effectively, and not do it half-assed, the architects would have to take the time to plan for any and all contingencies and have manpower at every phase to deal with them. This could surely be expedited if key personnel in one or more government agencies were also involved, for example, in eliminating key evidence or even witnesses that could unravel the efforts. The problem with most people whose minds boggle is that they lack the insight capacity or information to appreciate the resources available at the time.

Thus, in the case of the BCCI banking conspiracy, since it entailed moving money to thousands of "dummy accounts" all over the world, the complexity was implicit. In fact, reams of evidence were culled from that criminal bank's operations in 73 countries and exposed. But whether anyone could comprehend all aspects of its workings - which were deliberately rendered complex- is another matter.

This brings up another mistaken assumption peculiar to conspiracy naysayers:  that Ockham's Razor (The simplest explanation for something is almost always the correct one) applies equally to conspiracies as it does to explaining natural phenomena, like lightning or solar flares.

This assumes that the non-conspiracy model will always be correct because it is 'simpler'. This is almost invariably true in the realm of natural sciences, such as physics, but it is dubious that this can be applied to the realm of human affairs. For one thing, humans are enmeshed in complexes of emotions and ideological agendas that can't be quantified like Newton's laws of motion, or simplistically reduced to one cause-one effect relationships. In addition, humans - unlike natural laws -are capable of deceit and misdirection. So, from many points of view, it would be foolhardy to reduce the realm of human behavior - including conspiracy - to the model applicable to simple natural laws. It would require something basically approaching a general denial that humans would or could ever act with duplicity. Which is nonsense.

Final Six  Responses to Come Tomorrow!

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[1] North, Mark: op. cit., p. 256.