Parsing Key Aspects Of The JFK Assassination Documents Release

JFK and Jackie in limo moments before he was killed by a head shot coming from the Grassy Knoll area.

Lee Oswald killed by Jack Ruby on orders from mob-CIA Staff D conspirators.

With the release of the first batch of JFK assassination files late Thursday, it is important to try to get a grasp of what they mean- including future ones.  In this post, I parse the basics. While many may find their head spinning- I have made every effort to break down the most critical elements of what you will hear and see from the media - and why various aspects are important - or not.

1. The one important thing we learned thus far:

As Chip Reid reported on CBS Early Show, the FBI  had called the Dallas police the night before Oswald's murder and cited a memo from J. Edgar Hoover in which one reads:

"We received a call in our Dallas office from a man talking in a calm voice he was a member of a committee organized to kill Oswald. We at once notified the Chief Of Police and he assured us Oswald would be given sufficient protection.  

This morning we called the Chief of Police again warning of some effort against Oswald and he assured us adequate protection would be given. However, this was not done."

Why wasn't it done?    Why did Chief Jesse Curry give assurances to the FBI that weren't followed through?  The trope that the Dallas cops let their "friend" Jack Ruby into the basement because they knew him (Jack gave them free drinks at his Carousel Club) is pure bull pockey.  Former British Intelligence officer John Hughes-Wilson concurs with former Justice Dept. agent Walt Brown ('Treachery in Dallas', Chapter 'Blue Death) ',and author James Douglass ('JFK and the Unspeakable') that the Dallas cops were part of it.   They needed a backup plan - likely in concert with the Dallas mob - to stop Oswald so he wouldn't talk.  The "committee" in Hoover's memo then was likely made of an alliance between the mob and the Dallas cops. 

Before proceeding, let's appreciate that Hoover had no soft spots for Lee Harvey Oswald. The call to Curry to ensure his safety was entirely about keeping Lee alive to extract a confession from him as the sole assassin. Of course, J. Edgar was totally delusional as there was no way in hell Lee would do that - short of ripping out his nails and water boarding - and I doubt he'd do it then. No, he wanted his public say to clear things up at a public trial and no Hoover, LBJ or others were going to take that away. But that was precisely what cost him his life and the "committee" knew it.

To the point, the Dallas cops' original orders (likely from Dallas Mob boss Joe Civello) were to kill Oswald at the Texas Theater so there'd be no chance of his ever getting his say at a public trial.   Douglass (p. 292) makes it known that the Dallas cops who entered the theater approached Oswald (in his seat) "almost as if they were provoking the suspected police killer to break away from his seat ..which would have given Tippet's enraged fellow officers an excuse to kill him".

But Oswald did no such thing. He knew their game and he wasn't that stupid.  Nor did he attempt to fire any shots. Lee clearly and obviously knew by now he'd been set up as the patsy and the last thing he wanted to do was make these Dallas cops his judge, jury and executioners. No, he wanted to have his trial and his say, and let it be known how and why he'd been set up. So, rather than mindlessly react he expressly said: "I am not resisting arrest! Police brutality!" He never said "It's all over now" - those words were put into his mouth by the WC's cavalcade of faux witnesses, puppets and liars.

Hughes-Wilson cites his own source (p. 176, 'JFK - An American Coup  d 'Etat') who overheard two Dallas cops talking about how Oswald was to have been killed before he ever arrived at the station. One, in a snarling voice, said to the other (ibid.) "You were supposed to kill Lee....you stupid son of a bitch, then you go and kill a cop". Referring to the shooting of officer J.D. Tippet.

So there were snafus along the way. Even the best planned conspiracies can go awry, but in the JFK case the architects ensured there was always a back up plan. In this case, to recruit former Chicago mobster Jack Rubinstein, aka Ruby, to snuff Oswald. Mark North, using actual, released FBI files, documents many of Ruby’s Mob connections in his book, Act of Treason- including his reported “gangster connections in Dallas”, especially to Joseph Civello, the Mafia boss in Dallas. The same files disclose that Ruby, on October 26, 1963, “placed a 12 minute person to person call to Irwin S. Weiner at Weiner’s Chicago home”.

It is further noted that Weiner was a mob lawyer:

This dovetails with what most serious researchers already know, that Jack Ruby didn't just kill Oswald out of the goodness of his little heart to spare Jackie from having to testify.

The document trail unearthed by Mark North ('Act of Treason') is revelatory here, namely the FOIA -released files retrieved in the 1990s that showed Ruby had an outstanding  debt to Uncle Sam - owing more than $40,000 in back excise taxes to the federal government, plus $20,000 in other back taxes. A phone call (also documented)  then would have assured Ruby his tax problems would “disappear” if he performed one more job: offing Oswald. Given the mob link to ZR/Rifle, such a scenario would be totally logical. Few people today, unless they've  mined the document trail, are remotely aware of the extent to which the CIA and Mob worked hand in glove, especially on the ZR/Rifle Castro assassination operations.

We also know mobster Johnny Roselli was offed before he could provide any testimony to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) about Ruby's role.  Again, this was the only legitimate government investigation to ever come about - the Warren Commission being merely an artifact created by Lyndon Johnson - mainly to cover up his own tracks.

Thus it was that prospective HSCA witness Roselli had to also meet his cruel end, as described below by Gaeton Fonzi in 'The Last Investigation', p. 375:

"In July, 1976, Roselli had disappeared and in August, the month before the Committee (HSCA) was established, Roselli surfaced in the shallows off the Intracoastal Waterway in North Miami. He had been smothered to death and shot, then cut open from chest to navel. His legs had been hacked off and stuffed with his torso into a 55-gallon steel drum which was wrapped with heavy chain and moored to a weight in the water. The mooring broke when the gases from Roselli's decomposing body forced the drum to float to the surface."

The killers wanted to make damned sure there were no flapping gums.. They wanted to ensure Roselli never talked about Ruby's role - or his connections - to do with  eliminating Oswald.. Murdering witnesses does wonders to keep a conspiracy under wraps - while moron media blabbermouths and their useful idiot lackeys keep babbling about "tin foil hats."

2. The Oswald- Russia "Association":

Anyone who pays any attention in the coming days and weeks will hear a lot about the Oswald -Russian connection, or rather alleged connection. The problem as usual is that while the mainstream media pushes this stuff out it never takes the time for any critical analysis or history. No surprise then the public only gets a half-assed version and is left to deal with the releases piecemeal and in an uninformed context via unrelated formats. So here is what you need to know in advance concerning the soon to be hyped Oswald-Russia link:

The CIA originally confected the false narrative that Oswald was a "KGB -linked assassin"  hired to kill Kennedy. It was based on a supposed "Oswald" phone call to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City with a KGB agent, Valeriy Kostikov. From this, and the visit of a fake Oswald to the Soviet Embassy (see the asset "masquerading" as Oswald in Mexico City in the photo below - right)


  A series of falsified cables was generated under the fake name "Lee Henry Oswald"* . These became part of a CI/SIG (Counter Intelligence Special Investigation Group) file on Oswald dating back to 1960, and as researcher Peter Dale Scott notes, has their handiwork all over the false trail.  The purpose, as noted by Scott, was clear:

"to incriminate him falsely as an apparent KGB assassin"

While the "Oswald as KGB assassin"  ruse was never used  or published in The Warren Commission Report, "it almost certainly contributed to the Warren Commission's determination to close the case as the work of a lone assassin" (Scott, Deep Politics, 113)   This is actually validated and was foreseen when one examined a key paragraph in the Katzenbach memo which readers can see in full here: http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=756877 Note in particular paragraph (2):

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

This was also the primary directive for J. Edgar Hoover, and why he insisted the Dallas Police keep Lee Oswald alive after a death threat was called in to the Dallas FBI office.. Hence, Hoover's warning memo (see (1)) must be interpreted in the context, i.e. convicting Oswald as the one and only assassin, So there could be no loose ends pointing to conspiracy. LBJ wanted this too, as author Noel Twyman makes clear in his book, 'Bloody Treason'.  This is why he. ordered that the entire investigation be conducted by the FBI under the supervision of J. Edgar Hoover (his dear pal) and he ordered all other investigations, i.e. under federal government or local government be stopped. As Twyman puts it:

"This placed Johnson in virtual control of the investigation through J. Edgar Hoover."

This is why serious researchers, as opposed to lone nut buffs, regard the Warren Commission as an artifact or creature of Johnson, designed for no other purpose than to cover up his own role.  As one wit once put it: "To commit the perfect crime all that is necessary is to be in charge of the investigation that follows."  Johnson totally succeeded in doing that via his "Warren Commission", even getting Hoover to threaten disclosure of an Earl Warren incident if Warren refused to bestow his name cachet.

It is clear the Commission was driven to the lone assassin bunkum as the only safe alternative to the KGB assassin hypothesis. (For which Johnson had warned of the threat of nuclear war if pursued.)

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

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


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Footnotes (2):

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

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


3, The "Oswald as Commie " myth:

The typical twaddle the corporate media and government lackeys have been trotting out for 50 years now, but which any reasonably intelligent person can disprove with just a modicum of effort and  investigation. "Oswald as communist" was actually the cover story for him to be used as a false defector to gain access into Russia. People first became aware of the CIA-ONI false defector program after the publication of 'The Cult of Intelligence' by Former CIA Agent Victor Marchetti- who  actually informed researcher Anthony Summers about this program as well, noting:

“At the time, in 1959, the United States was having real difficulty in acquiring information out of the Soviet Union. The technical systems had, of course, not developed to the point they are at today, and we were resorting to all sorts of activities. One of these activities was an ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence) program which involved three dozen, maybe forty, young men who were made to appear disenchanted, poor American youths who had become turned off and wanted to see what communism was all about.

Some of these people lasted only a few weeks. They were sent into the Soviet Union or into eastern Europe with the specific intention the Soviets would pick them up and ‘double’ them if they suspected them of being U.S. agents, or recruit them as KGB agents. They were trained at various naval installations both here and abroad , but the operation was being run out of Nag’s Head North Carolina.”

Oswald's bona fides as an intelligence asset - as opposed to a "run muck, loner psycho"-  were established by Military Science professor John Newman in his book, Oswald and the CIA. Therein he provided the documents showing three key CIA files for Oswald:  the OS-351-164 (office of security), the 201-289248 CI/SIG, and the 74-500. 

As Michael Parenti notes (The JFK Assassination  - Defending the Gangster State.):

“Lee Harvey Oswald spent most of his adult life not as a lone drifter but directly linked to the U.S. intelligence community. All of his IQ tests show that he was above average in intelligence and a quick learner. At the age of eighteen in the U.S. Marines he had secret security clearance and was working at Marine Air Control in Atsugi Air Force Base in Japan, a top secret location from which the CIA launched U2 flights and performed other kinds of covert operations in China. The next year he was assigned to El Toro Air Station in California with security clearance to work radar. “

Lee Oswald then was no "commie" dupe but an intel operative. Most researchers who've delved into this in much more depth than superficial 'buffs' come away with the conviction Oswald was set up as part of ZR/Rifle. A classic decoy.  However,  with the plot now turned against Kennedy. Oswald was likely used as the dupe or decoy so the actual perps (likely Cuban exiles, and trained assassins - from the Army's Ft. Benning Assassin school) could escape .

The proof in the pudding was the letter ‘D’ – on the cover sheet of Oswald’s 201 file – indicating a  CIA Staff D  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.”

Footnotes (3)

Newman, op. cit., p. 169.

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4.  The "Oswald In Mexico City" Canard:

This trope gained most recent currency with the book: A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination by Philip Shenon, which I posted on previously (Oct. 28, 2013).Shenon   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?  One thing we do know: A moron Oswald wasn't.  An impostor seeking to frame a patsy-  to be set up to take the fall- would do so, however.

But perhaps the most cogent evidence there was no Oswald in Mexico City  - apart from the fact no photos exist (other than of an impostor) -is the following:  The primary witness was consulate officer Silvia Duran who denied even under torture by Mexican police that the man she saw was Lee Oswald. As Peter Dale Scott reports as well as HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi [4]  she was forced to undergo brutal torture for eight hours at the hands of Mexican police in an effort to try to get her to recant her original testimony.  I.e. that the Oswald she encountered at the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City was not the Oswald she'd seen arrested in Dallas. She'd insisted instead the man she saw was "blonde and short" (The Lopez Report, p. 190).

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

So be it. Now, ask yourselves this: If Oswald was indeed guilty and performing all the guilty acts Philip Shenon claims, why did the CIA find it necessary to go to such inordinate lengths to distort, hide and even concoct fake cables to paint Oswald as the bad guy?   Not to mention recruiting Mexican police to torture a woman for eight hours merely because she refused to lie about the person she observed. The Oswald in Mexico City fable, like so much else, must be regarded as specious and a concoction of the CIA and its Mexico City station chief (David Atlee Phillips). Or to use the words of John Newman in reference to a cable that surfaced within that episode "a whole cloth fabrication."

 Footnotes (4):

[4] Fonzi. op. cit., p. 409.

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

Finally, let's not get over-excited as only 2,800 files of more than 30,000 have been released by the due date.  The spooks, as I predicted earlier, were going to invoke the specious excuse of "national security concerns" which is total codswallop given these files are over fifty years old.  It is evident to me that they are concealing connections that were operative in Kennedy's assassination that they do not wish to have uncovered, like between the Dallas cops, the Mob and CIA, NSA (in Staff D operation).  They are aware of the blowback that would explode even now 50 years in the future and that was one reason why LBJ originally wanted to keep all files under wraps until 2049 - by which time all who knew or cared about the assassination would likely have died. 

What you can be sure of in the days and weeks to come is that the mainstream media still has not gotten its act together on the one true conspiracy to come along, and which they remain committed to trying to skewer - even as they mock the 60 percent of the public who accepts a conspiracy in the case. Let's just remind ourselves here that the only valid gov't investigation (the HSCA) DID find for a conspiracy in its conclusion.

Something that is too often overlooked!

See also:

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article181380611.html

The Myth of the "Lone Gunman" Resurfaces in Dallas Shootings - But Don't Compare to November, 1963

Echoes from the triangulated sniper assassination of JFK on November 22, 1963, rebounded in many viewers' minds last night as Dallas sniper killings unfolded.

For a while, maybe 18 hours, the tragic scenes unfolding last night in downtown Dallas (not far from Dealey Plaza)   had the corporate media's heads exploding. As the violence played out, 5 Dallas police officers lost their lives and 7 more were wounded amidst staccato bursts of rifle fire from different locations - to judge by police, and onlookers' reactions recorded on assorted popular media. On one Facebook-posted  video I viewed on the nola.com website, bullet tracers could be seen fired from a high rise.  Dallas cops pointed up to it, several others ducked or sought cover near their vehicle. This morning another shooter could be seen firing from ground level. I suspect this ground level guy was Micah Johnson (soon to emerge as the media's lone gunman.) The typical ambush strategy: fire from multiple heights and locations to keep the targets confused.

 As the carnage played out, causing many of us to gasp, others were reminded of the similar carnage from November 22, 1963 - even as names of similar landmarks (e.g. Parkland Hospital) were referred to.

The mainstream media's heads were (temporarily) confounded because right before their eyes as the hours dragged on and more lives were lost, it was evident a terrible conspiracy to kill police had manifested. For the media that has so long denied that conspiracies were even possible - more in the realm of nut whacks and tin foils -  there was one happening in real time.  By the end of the terrible hours, three suspects were claimed to be in custody - one (Johnson)  killed after an "hours long" standoff with Dallas police. I repeat that again, FOUR suspects, not one,  i.e. no lone gunman to pin the evil act on. However, that was last night. By mid-morning one could see the narrative begin to change as more and more media credence was placed on Johnson's claim he acted alone.

So as is their wont, and acknowledging they'd have to embrace the  dreaded c-word at last,  the media began to use Johnson's own words to alter the narrative. This despite multiple sight lines from different altitudes made by trained law enforcement officers - and we're now to believe only one perp  acted all by his lonesome. So now the media expects us to buy that this one guy - on HIS say so -  simultaneously fired from different triangulated positions and shot 12 officers.

If you actually buy that garbage ...well... I have a choice plot of land on Barbados' east coast to sell you - for a buck - which may be all it's worth after the sea gobbles it up.

To reinforce the media's idiotic take,  the new line appearing on CNN  (at 12:50 p.m. local time) was 'Sources: Dallas Gunman was the lone shooter'  Well, maybe - if from the FB videos I watched last night the guy was operating 4 AR-15s at the same time from different positions. Hey, maybe it was possible for him to move at the speed of light - from a high rise to ground level etc. But see, that's at least as lame as the Warrenites (and 1963 media)  insisting Lee Oswald used an unworkable, ancient Italian carbine to make three world class shots in 5.6 secs and take out JFK.

 Of course, just as Lee Oswald in 1963,  this new "lone gunman" (military- trained Army reservist  Micah Johnson)  was killed, taken out by a bomb-laden robot. So alas,  he can never come to trial and like Lee Oswald - we can never learn the full story or whether Johnson had co-conspirators in at least the planning,  choice of sniper spots. (As the Dallas Mayor still appears to suspect.)  Look for accidents or other "clarifications" to emerge, i.e. 'Well we made a mistake there.....", to account for there now being only one suspect.

But long time CBS journalist Bob Schieffer, himself dismissive of conspiracy in the Kennedy case, was compelled to admit this morning in an appearance on CBS Early Show:

"This was not a random act by some deranged person. This was a carefully planned, military -style operation. This was a classic ambush where the ambushers put their shooters on the high ground, surrounded a certain area..."

Interestingly, Schieffer was suddenly cut off midway through his last sentence and the usual CBS Early show presentation was replaced by a live feed out of CBS New York.  A planned 'hit' by the network who feared Bob's words may elicit memories of that other ambush? Who knows?

Enough of Schieffer's interview made it out  (and I still have it on my DVR list) that even a dolt would grasp that he meant a planned and strategically coordinated act:  a conspiracy. Schieffer's words, indeed, might also have been used to describe the event that unfolded near the same area in Dallas over 52 years ago, and which former British Intelligence officer Col. John Hughes-Wilson also described as a classic, military-style  ambush. ('JFK - An American Coup  D'Etat')

Hughes-Wilson, whose exposition of how the JFK kill was done also has received the acknowledgement of Rolf, a former Swiss Spezialdienst. Rolf affirmed "Hughes -Wilson nailed it" in a recent email.   Hughes-Wilson - like Rolf- enumerated a total of TEN shots on Nov. 22, 1963 (pp. 188-89):

Shot 1: Struck sparks behind JFK's limo, observed by Royce Skelton and Austin Miller

Shot 2: Struck curb on the north side of Elm and a fragment struck bystander James Tague

Shot 3: Struck across a manhole cover and embedded in the grass, later DPD officers photographed removing it. It never was assayed in official documents and supports Carl Oglesby's argument the Dallas police were conscripted to remove evidence.

Shot 4: Frontal shot struck JFK in the throat, and he's visible clutching his throat. See e.g. below


Shot 5: Struck Kennedy in the upper back (in line with fifth thoracic vertebra) and came from a "relatively flat trajectory"  (see image in photo- right)

Shot 6: Misfire but struck limo - causing indentation in limo's windscreen  (see image below as well as image of where Tague shot struck)

(N.B. These images from other sources, not Col. Hughes-Wilson's book)

Shot 7: Bullet punched hole through Stemmons Freeway sign.("The bullet had punched through from the direction of the grassy knoll and blown the rim backwards")

Shots 8, 9: Two bullets struck Gov. John Connally: - Shot from the back that smashed into his chest and shot that shattered his wrist.

Shot 10: The fatal head shot from direction of grassy knoll.

Col. John Hughes-Wilson, a trained intel operative like Rolf, never bought the "legend" that one magic bullet created all the 7 wounds in JFK and Connally and emerged pristine.  Both, again, could easily spot the hands of the propaganda teams.

Thus, we beheld a planned, military -style ambush that occurred in each case, EXCEPT that in the JFK events all the conspirators got away, in the Dallas sniper shootings last night they didn't. Those who seek to make comparisons to the events of 1963 have to take that into account, and some commentators  - talking call in heads on MSNBC last night did not. One guy interviewed by Brian Williams even went so far as to praise the actions of the 1963 Dallas PD, but such praise is misplaced - as Col. Hughes-Wilson has noted (pp. 324-25), as well as former Justice Dept. prosecutor Walt Brown ('Treachery in Dallas', 'Blue Death', e.g. p. 124:

"Dealey Plaza was the kill zone all along, and elements of the Dallas police, hardly friendly to Kennedy, had the weapons, skill and ability to blend into the scenery and come and go casually....this section of the book will show how the Dallas police controlled the motorcade route, the manpower allotments, the interrogation of the one serious suspect, and the safety of the prisoner..."

Meanwhile, Brown recites a litany of either ineptitude - or possible planned indifference -  to the whole Nov. 22, 1963 crime scene (in contrast to the Dallas sniper shootings where a five block area was made an "active crime scene".  As Brown notes (p. 125):

"No crime scene involved in the assassination was ever truly sealed. They (Dallas police) rushed to the grassy knoll, stayed only long enough to take a cursory look and sniff gunpowder, to which they attached no significance. ...There was a pervasive pattern of not taking names and addresses as if they did not want to know. Certain witnesses were totally ignored. No impedimenta were placed in the way of potential fleeing assassins."

The last is key to grasping the difference of why the conspirators in the Dallas sniper shootings were apprehended but not the snipers-mechanics in the JFK assassination. In a nutshell, the latter snipers were allowed to go undoubtedly as Col. Hughes -Wilson notes, as part of a national security pact with the elements of the CIA, NSA that orchestrated the strategy for Kennedy. As Hughes-Wilson notes the background details from a source (p. 142): "In the first week of November, three Corsican gunmen slipped across the Mexican border using Italian passports. They were ensconced in a CIA house by Dallas policeman Roscoe White, acting for the CIA".

The point is, if elements of the then Dallas PD were charged with hiding the mechanics, they wouldn't also set up blockades after the events to apprehend them. This distrust of the then Dallas cops was also a theme that ran through Carl Oglesby's book, ('JFK - The Facts and the Theories', p. 94) Oglesby points out that there was NO chain of credible evidence connecting Oswald to the casings or the rifle found  at the Book Depository. Neither proves Oswald fired from there- or fired at all, a point with which Col. Hughes-Wilson concurs. . Further, Oglesby himself suspects they were planted compliments of the Dallas PD. - a point that conforms with Walt Brown's take in his section 'Blue Death'.

Col. Hughes-Wilson also concurs with Brown and author James Douglass ('JFK and the Unspeakable') that the original plan was to knock off Oswald at the Texas Theater so there was no chance of his ever getting his say at a public trial  Douglass (p. 292) makes it known that the Dallas cops approached Oswald (in his seat) "almost as if they were provoking the suspected police killer to break away from his seat ..which would have given Tippet's enraged fellow officers an excuse to kill him".

But Oswald did no such thing. Nor did he attempt to fire any shots.  Lee clearly and obviously knew by now he'd been set up as the patsy and the last thing he wanted to do was make these Dallas cops his judge, jury and executioners. No, he wanted to have his trial and his say, and how and why he'd been set up. So, rather than mindlessly react he expressly said:  "I am not resisting arrest! Police brutality!"  He never said  "It's all over now" - those words were put into his mouth by the WC's cavalcade of faux witness puppets and liars.

Col. Hughes-Wilson cites his own source (p. 176) who overheard two Dallas cops talking about how Oswald was to have been killed before he ever arrived at the station. One,  in a snarling voice,  said to the other (ibid.) "You were supposed to kill Lee....you stupid son of a bitch, then you go and kill a cop". Referring to the shooting of officer J.D. Tippet.

So there were snafus along the way, even the best planned conspiracies can go awry, but in the JFK case the architects ensured there was always a back up plan. In this case, to recruit former Chicago mobster Jack Rubinstein, aka Ruby, to snuff Oswald. Mark North, using actual,  released FBI files, documents many of Ruby’s Mob connections in his book, Act of Treason- including his reported “gangster connections in Dallas”, especially to Joseph Civello, the Mafia boss in Dallas. The same files disclose that Ruby, on October 26, 1963, “placed a 12 minute person to person call to Irwin S. Weiner at Weiner’s Chicago home”.

It is further noted that Weiner was:

 “a prominent Chicago Mafia associate” and “instrumental in coordinating the flow of cash between the Teamsters and Las Vegas casinos." (North, op. cit., pp. 333-34).  

All of this Col. Hughes-Wilson agrees with. North (like Hughes-Wilson)  conjectures that  the phone call concerned Ruby 's outstanding  debt to Uncle Sam - owing more than $40,000 in back excise taxes to the federal government, plus $20,000 in other back taxes. A phone call could then have assured Ruby his tax problems would “disappear” if he performed one more job: offing Oswald. He did, but as Hughes-Wilson has observed, the Warrenite puppets and propagandizers are still trying after 52 years to "rubbish" it.

Let us agree then that while last night's horrific events and the slaying of five Dallas policemen might have triggered echoes from the past, there is not a one to one correspondence to Nov. 22, 1963.  Many of the Dallas cops at that time, in particular, were not working overtime to nab the shooters- but actually enabling their escape in conformance to orders from higher ups and especially the national security state.  Their sole objective was concerned with ensuring Kennedy never left Big D alive.

By contrast, the Dallas cops last night had sworn to protect the lives of the protestors downtown and they were. The sniveling cowards who opened fire on them waited until the main crowd of protestors had dispersed. Two traumatic events taking place in Dallas, but worlds apart in outcomes and dynamics.

For this reason, talking heads in the 24/7 media especially need to take care when they try to formulate comparisons to past events, namely the Kennedy assassination in the same city.

In the meantime, in classic MSM -style,  look for the story to continue to mutate away from the "military -style ambush" of multiple shooters described by Bob Schieffer, and one Dallas law officer, to the "acts of a crazed lone gunman, angry at white police officers".  Our useless corporate media accepts at face value the words of Micah Johnson - doing all that rapid shooting himself from obviously different locations-  but 52 years ago refused to believe Lee Oswald when he insisted "I am just a patsy!". Go figure!

We've been played a similar tune before, but by now I hope we've wised up. So far the "lone gunman" narrative is only on CNN but look for it to migrate. (Ooops! I see it already made it to the headlines on USA Today!)

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End Note:

Might I eventually accept Johnson as the lone gunman? Sure, once  I see a map of the "active crime scene"  showing all the presumed locations with line of sight distances indicated and the targets hit from those positions. If it all adds up satisfactorily, then yeah, I'll bite. Maybe!

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.