2800 JFK files released. 300 redacted by request CIA/FBI for "national security"

[gary]

If you visit the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, site of the
former Texas Schoolbook Depository, there are long queues that flow
outside.

Dealey Plaza and the museum is Dallas's premier landmark.

Public interest with regards the events that took place there on
Friday, November 22, 1963 at 12:30 p.m still run high.

However, for history buffs anxiously awaiting the release of previously classified
documents related to the John F. Kennedy assassination, you will be disappointed.



Story here in the Sydney Morning Herald :-
http://www.smh.com.au/world/donald-trump-orders-some-jfk-assassination-documents-released-officials-20171026-gz9a30.html

[LewisM]

The Inside Job continues to be covered up in perpetuity....

[astroron]

One should have expected nothing less.
This will go on for ever.
They will never tell the whole story, even in 100 years time.

[xelasnave]

One can only wonder why the need to hold something back.
Presumably national security is the reason for things being classified as secret so what could be the threat if the remaining stuff must remain secret.
Another question would be who stands in the way of release and if they can be identified what reasons do they offer as to why some things must still stay secret.
Alex

[gary]

The Guardian is running live updates (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2017/oct/26/jfk-files-released-assassination-documents-conspiracy-theories)of some of the more interesting files
that have been released today.

Obviously a lot of people scouring these as fast as possible to glean
what they can from them.

And some of the documents do make for fascinating reading and provide
further insight into the tensions of the Cold War.

For example, some of the documents are revealing that sources within the KGB were
equally shocked over the assassination of JFK and that some Soviets,
like many in the United States, were convinced of a conspiracy.

One document cites a "source" that stated some members of the Soviet
Communist Party were convinced of an organized "ultraright" conspiracy.
These Soviets feared a coup within the United States that might see
a rogue general launching a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union.

Obviously in the aftermath of the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald, there was
a lot of hatred within the United States for the alleged assassin.
Documents reveal that the FBI had received a call from someone
the night before Ruby shot Oswald who said that they were a
member of a committee who planned to kill Oswald.

It may have been a crank call, but ...



Live feed :-
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2017/oct/26/jfk-files-released-assassination-documents-conspiracy-theories

[Wavytone]

usually things redacted concern people who are still alive, or would create a threat to their immediate family, or expose aspects of the methods used by the CIA/FBI which if exposed would be useful to those intending to commit a crime.

And whether they were redacted because they implicate CIA/FBI involvement... we’ll never know.

[gary]

This previously Top Secret document released today (https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32112745.pdf), dated 30th May 1975,
details CIA plans and attempts to assassinate various foreign leaders.

It is entitled "Summary of Facts. Investigation of CIA Plans to Assassinate
Foreign Leaders" and was gathered by the Executive Director of the CIA,
who would have been William Colby at the time.

No surprises that Fidel Castro was one target.

It reveals that when Robert Kennedy was Attorney General, that when
he learnt of one assassination plan for the CIA to kill Castro, that
he ordered no such attempt be made without checking with the
Department of Justice. Likewise, if the CIA were to use the Mafia
in such an attempt, it was not to do so without checking with
the Department of Justice.

Richard Helms, who was CIA Director 1966-1972, said he was "vaguely
aware" of some of the CIA assassination schemes on Castro
and called them "hairbrained".

Which adds some weight to the talk for years of the various crazy plots.

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32112745.pdf

[gary]

We've known for years of Lee Harvey Oswald's visit to the Soviet Embassy
in Mexico City on 1 October 1963.

It was alleged by the CIA he met with the consul, Valeriy Vladimirovich Kostikov,
who the CIA identified as a KGB officer and a member of a unit “responsible
for sabotage and assassination”.

So even the CIA were thinking of a Soviet conspiracy.



But a 2013 Frontline story by John Newman states that a CIA intercepted phone call to Kostikov was made by someone impersonating Oswald.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/oswald-the-cia-and-mexico-city/

We know that the CIA had two phone tapping ("teltaps" in CIA jargon) operations in progress in Mexico City targeting the Soviets and Cubans and that
one of these was done in collaboration with the Mexican Government with whom they shared some of the intelligence.

The CIA and the Mexicans were certainly keen not to reveal to anyone they were doing this.
Echoes of the Zimmermann Telegram (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram)in not wanting to tip their hand.

[gary]

JFK Assassination Records - 2017 Additional Documents Release
https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/2017-release

[JA]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRsybOdm2Fg

[gary]

A memo on 23 Nov 63 from the CIA to J Edgar Hoover reported that MI-5 informed the
CIA London Station that a senior reporter at the Cambridge News in
England had received an anonymous call 25 minutes before the assassination.

The caller told the reporter that he should call the American Embassy in
London for some big news and then hung up.

The reporter, upon later hearing news of the assassination, called the
police and they in turn contacted MI-5.

Document here :-
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32389606.pdf

[xelasnave]

It would seem it is now too late to work out if the Warren Commission had it right or if there were other folk involved in the assasination.

I had a look around to find stuff on this on utube and it seems we have various people confessing to being the second shooter and all sorts of versions of events etc...how will we ever know what really happened.

I think probably the release of more documents may only muddy the water further.

I recall seeing a movie wherein the author presented the case that a hung over FBI or CIA agent in a following car slipped and his gun went off and it was he who shot the president.

One thing is clear the person or persons responsible never faced court ... even Oswald did not have his day in court.

And I expect even if he had gone to trial there would be those in the public that would believe he did it acting alone and others who would read into the facts various conspiracies.

alex

alex

[JA]

The US House Select Committee on Assassinations (JFK & Martin Luther King) in the mid 70's, many years after the Warren Commission Investigation, concluded that there was in fact a conspiracy in the case of the JFK assassination, but largely otherwise somehow(?) supported some other aspects of the Warren commission's earlier findings. They were apparently able to conclude that the conspiracy didn't involve Russia, Cuba, the FBI or the CIA. I suppose atleast not overtly or directly anyway..

Best
JA

[gary]

Hi JA,

Thanks for the post.

For interested readers, a copy of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) Final Report can be found here :-
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=800

Appendices, etc. found here :-
https://www.maryferrell.org/php/showlist.php?docset=1001

The starting page of HSCA section that states "The Committee believes on the
basis of evidence available to it, that President John F Kennedy was
probably assassinated as a result of conspiracy. The Committee is
unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy"
can be found here :-
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=800#relPageId=12 5&tab=page

[Visionary]

It all makes for excellent Hollywood fodder.

[clive milne]

One thing you can take home as a surety is that; "IF" the CIA, FBI, military industrial octopus / deep state were involved, with the assistance of the main stream media maintaining the olive leaf of credibility over the stinking carcass of utter implausibility....
You ain't gonna hear an honest and truthful account from the CIA, FBI, military industrial octopus, deep state or the lame stream presstitutes..

Look over here... look at the left hand...

Behold: Unicorns and magic bullets.


.... An interesting gambit by Trump, however...



Also, it's a fascinating insight in to the priorities of the 'Octopus' wherein terabytes of information pertaining to financial scandals and terrorist actions (re -911) were destroyed after a few years (because they were no longer relevant... apparently) .... enter that as a search string on something other than Google... just for fits and giggles..
Yet, the actions of a lone, non-state assisted gunman is a critical secret of immediate concern.... half a century later...

You can see the logic there..

[Shano592]

This is where Wikileaks' value would be. They could leak them on a subscriber basis, and make their own money!

Imagine trying to sneak the 300 held-back documents out though! They would have a thousand tripwires on them, guaranteed.

[clive milne]

Don't kid yourself... Assange is controlled opposition.

It's all pablum for the prol's

Hegelian dialectic 101

[clive milne]

In a nut shell:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout

[Merlin66]

Come on guys, we all really know it was Marilyn Munro's boyfriend....

[AussieTrooper]

If any conspiracy theorists wish to test out the scenario, I'd be happy to shoot at them from that window whilst they drive along slowly in a convertible with the top down. ;)

I vaguely remember seeing some news crew actually tried to simulate this. Does anyone have the details?

I doubt we'll ever know the full story on this. There's about as much chance as Harold Holt cruising up the Yarra in a Chinese submarine to apologise from being away from parliament for so long.

[gary]

Hi Ben,

There was the 1967 CBS tests :-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WovyEqfR8Hg

"Those individuals show what one motivated Marine and his rifle can do ..." -
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket :-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5IWK9sRYTs

A lot of mystery still surrounds the Lee Harvey Oswald one-week
visit to Mexico City two months prior to the shooting.

Oswald was there to obtain a visa to the Soviet Union and he wanted to
transit via Cuba, so he was seeking a Cuban visa as well.

Though the CIA was keeping close tabs on all the comings and goings
from both the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico city, were tapping
all their phone lines and opening and reading their mail, for some reason
they appear to have put out some misinformation and possibly some
fabricated information with regards Oswald's visits and communications
with those embassies.

Certainly we know the CIA were not wanting to tip their hand at the
technical means of their information gathering operations at the time.

We know from first source documents from the LBJ Library that 14 minutes
was erased from the tape recording of a conversation between J. Edgar
Hoover and LBJ the day after the assassination where Hoover briefs
LBJ.

We also know from a written transcript of that same recorded conversation
from the LBJ Library that Hoover tells LBJ in a segment that was erased :-



Transcript :-
https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/lbjlib/phone_calls/Nov_1963/html/LBJ-Nov-1963_0030a.htm

Like all aspects of the Lee Harvey Oswald case, even with the Mexico
City visit, it gets much, much more complex and layered.

Were some of the Oswald phone taps in Mexico City fabricated and if so,
why?

Consider, as one example for the interested, the fascinating
chapter surrounding Slivia Duran, a Mexican who was working at the
Cuban Embassy and who had tried to assist Oswald in getting a visa :-

https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/lopezrpt_2003/html/LopezRpt_0198a.htm

When LBJ tells Senator Richard Russel that he will be serving on the
Warren Commission and Russel protests. Johnson replies :-



Mp3 recording of conversation :-
https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/lbjlib/phone_calls/Nov_1963/audio/LBJ-Russell_11-29-63_2nd.mp3

[rustigsmed]

yes I wonder what will happen to those 300 files after the 180 days ...

[LewisM]

Not much...

https://media.giphy.com/media/ToAj74r6xxRK0/giphy.gif

[rustigsmed]

yes that or some extensive black pen work!

[clive milne]

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32144493.pdf

Final paragraph on page 3 is interesting....

[AussieTrooper]

Yep, that's the one. Thanks.
Rapid fire shooting with a bolt action rifle is quite difficult. Re-cocking it really wrecks your sight picture, and ideally you want about 2 seconds to track the target. With a semi-automatic, a reasonably skilled operator will get 3/3 pretty reliably.

[billdan]

ABC is reporting that Trump will now release those files early,

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-29/donald-trump-vows-to-release-further-jfk-files/9097190

"After strict consultation with General Kelly, the CIA and other Agencies, I will be releasing ALL #JFKFiles other than the names and addresses of any mentioned person who is still living," Mr Trump wrote in a series of tweets, referring to his chief of staff John Kelly."

In this same ABC report its interesting that LBJ thought Kennedy was murdered as payback, because LBJ claims Kennedy assassinated the Sth Vietnamese president 3 weeks earlier.

[xelasnave]

I find it curious that if the plot was wider than say just our lone shotter that no group claimed responsibility.
Possibly fear of retaliation?
However one would think, if say those getting payback for the Viet Pres, were responsible that they would boast it to the world.
That points to either a lone shooter with no group hence no boasting or claiming responsibility... or a secret conspiracy where those involved wish to remain hidden so no claim or boast...but I dont think that takes us anywhere.

And when you think of it imagine how many various groups or individuals who would have problems with potus such that they would kill him or her at any time past or future..thats the office it will have enemies.

A sad affair.

alex
alex

[clive milne]

It's interesting to note what the ABC are not telling you.

Kennedy had a lot of implacable enemies in the CIA.

Kennedy was incensed by the agency after being misled by CIA director, Allen Dulles resulting in the bay of pigs fiasco. Dulles bet the farm on the assumption that Kennedy would have no option but to fully mobilise the military, but instead he withdrew support and had Dulles sacked. Interesting that the ABC article neglects to mention this point, nor that Dulles was subsequently appointed to the Warren commission... LBJ would later claim that it was at the suggestion of Bobby Kennedy! Which would be an extraordinary admission considering that they absolutely loathed each other.


To be continued....

[clive milne]

And here's a name you probably haven't heard before: Lyman Lemnitzer, chair of the joint chiefs of staff.

... Proposed a false flag operation against the Cuban government called Operation Northwoods... It originated within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) of the United States government in 1962. The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or other U.S. government operatives to commit acts of terrorism against American civilians and military targets, blaming it on the Cuban government, and using it to justify a war against Cuba. The plans detailed in the document included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities. The proposals were rejected by the Kennedy administration...

Within a few months, after the refusal to endorse Operation Northwoods, Lemnitzer was denied another term as JCS chairman

You can see it here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

tbc...

[gary]

Hi Clive,

One of the people featured on the Wikipedia page you cited is Edward
Lansdale (http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/07/26/article-2378472-1AFF2C40000005DC-531_306x423.jpg).

Now I can tell you a little about Lansdale because he is such an interesting
character and plays a key behind-the-scenes role in the history of
South-East Asia during the Cold War.

There is a wonderful book by an author named Neil Sheehan called
"A Bright Shining Lie" (https://www.amazon.com/Bright-Shining-Lie-America-Vietnam/dp/0679724141/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1509518934&sr=8-1&keywords=a+bright+shining+lie) that won the 1989 Pulitzer Prize that provides
a history of the Vietnam War, told by way of an 800+ page biography
about an American officer by the name of Vann.

Sheehan writes about Lansdale in this book.

Lansdale was an officer in the US military, which is to say he was
an OSS/CIA agent with the front of a US military officer.

In the early 1950's, Lansdale was in the Philippines and he successfully
guided a Filipino leader in a campaign to crush Communist rebels
in the countryside and jungles.

Not an easy thing to do.

For his successes he was sent to Vietnam in the early 1950's to see
if he could pull off the same trick there.

One of the first things he did was to find a politician who he could
orchestrate into the position of President.

The individual needed to be determined and staunchly anti-communist
but someone who could still be controlled.

He found the right man in one Ngo Dinh Diem (http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1955/1101550404_400.jpg). Through Lansdale's
coaching and some classic CIA black-ops, Diem rose to power.

Lansdale went to Washington and commended Diem as being "our
man" and Washington sanctioned his rise to President, even if it meant
rigging a plebiscite here and there.

Lansdale would spend many evenings with Diem at the Presidential Palace
in Saigon advising him on politics and power plays.

But like many politicians, Diem's primary ambition was Diem.

When Kennedy became President, Lansdale met with him and praised
the merits of Diem.

But as the Communist insurgency grew, suspicions grew in Washington
as to whether Diem was the right person to quell it.

Diem, like Kennedy, was a Catholic. But many of Diem's policies were
persecuting Buddhists and this was not going down well in the United
States or the rest of the world.

When Buddhist monks started to set themselves on fire, Diem's wife,
Madame Nhu, who was a beautiful but diabolical "Dragon Lady (https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/140729-madame-nhu-1.jpg?w=720)", famously
quipped, "If the Buddhists want to have another barbecue, I will be glad
to supply the gasoline."

Kennedy sent a couple of envoys to Vietnam to find out what was going on.
When one reported that everything was fine and the other reported it was
not, Kennedy asked them if they had gone to the same country.

The difference, they explained, was that one had visited in the cities,
where everything was fine, but the other, who had visited the rural areas
reported that the Communist insurgency was out of hand.

When some of the South Vietnamese generals reported to the US
Ambassador, Henry Cabot Lodge, that they were planning a coup,
Lodge secretly reported it to Washington.

Lodge was of the opinion that Diem should go.

But Kennedy was supposedly not in favour of a coup, thinking it could
make things worse.

Lodge instructed the coup leaders that they were on their own.

But they launched the coup anyway.

Surrounded, Diem telephoned Lodge and asked for advice. Lodge said,
look, I can help protect you and your brother physically but you have
to resign.

Diem wouldn't have anything to do with it and he and his brother
made their escape via a secret passage.

But the generals knew where to find them, gathered them up and shot
both in the back of a van.

When another of Diem's brothers approached Lodge for protection, Lodge
put him on a US military aircraft that he said would take him to the
Philippines. Instead, it landed elsewhere in South Vietnam where he was
executed on arrival.

Lodge had figured that Diem and the brothers were going to be a liability
as long as they were alive.

Lansdale by this stage was a Brigadier General and had been assigned a
post with the CIA in Washington to try and look at ways to kill Castro.

But Lansdale's old friend, Diem, was now dead.

A few weeks later Kennedy himself was assassinated.

A famous snapshot (https://www.prouty.org/photos.html)taken in Dallas of the police
escorting some hobos they rounded up after the shooting shows the back
of a passer-by walking in the opposite direction.

Despite the fact that the face of this individual can't be seen, many who
knew Lansdale well claimed they recognized him as the individual.
See https://www.prouty.org/photos.html

This would then give rise to conspiracy theories that Lansdale and
possibly the CIA had some involvement in Kennedy's death.
Some would claim it was retribution for the Diem assassination or
the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba.

Lansdale later returned to Vietnam but by then the war had got even bigger
than him and his role then appears to have become marginalized.

But during the 50's and early 60's, Sheehan described him in his book as
"the attending physician at the birth of South Vietnam".

[clive milne]

Cheers Gary... much appreciated.. ;)

Another interesting character worth having a look at is E Howard Hunt...

If you want the sanitised version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Howard_Hunt

Former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern alludes to him here:
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/10/30/the-deep-states-jfk-triumph-over-trump/

During McGovern's 27-year career at the CIA, he prepared the President’s Daily Brief for Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, and conducted the one-on-one morning briefings from 1981 to 1985.


I might also direct your attention to E Howard Hunt's wife... or more specifically the circumstances of her death....

best
~c

[gary]

Thanks Clive,

When I was perusing some of the newly released Kennedy archive documents
the other day, I happened across Hunt's name several times in declassified
CIA documents.

I knew who he was but had not realized until reading them that he had
been Station Chief down in Mexico City in the early 50's.

He is perhaps most infamously remembered of course for being
indicted as one of the key organizers of the Watergate break-in.

But I hadn't realized that his first assignment for the Nixon White House
had been to break into the Los Angeles office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist!

Daniel Elsberg, of course, was the famous leaker of the Pentagon Papers
out of the RAND Corporation to the New York Times.

And who was the journalist that Elsberg leaked them to?
None other than Neil Sheehan, the author that later wrote the book
"A Bright Shining Lie" that I cited in the post above. :)

And who did Daniel Elsberg work for when assigned to Vietnam with
the State Department? None other than Edwin Lansdale. :)

So it appeared to be a small world if you moved in the shadows of the
Cold War in the 50's and 60's and 70's. :) Everyone seemed to
know everyone.

And of course Hunt is cited by some conspiracy theorists to be in the
same famous snapshot of the police rounding up the hobos after the
Kennedy shooting.

I didn't know about the story of Hunt's wife's death in the plane crash.
Thank you. I will read it now with interest. :thumbsup:

[billdan]

I think what Clive was eluding to with Hunt's wife, in the plane crash she was found with $10K cash in her purse.
This alerted the Washington Post journalists to follow the money trail.

Hunt and others involved who were arrested for the Watergate bugging were being paid off by the White House (aka Nixon), for legal expenses and to keep quiet and plead guilty. This way they would not be cross examined and potentially reveal other people involved, especially Nixon.

Washington Post journalists believed Hunt's wife was the money carrier delivering money to those arrested and the Post published articles that revealed the White House payoff scheme. This forced the prosecutors to look deeper into the scandal.

The crash itself is surrounded in conspiracy, with the CIA accused of sabotage to kill Hunts wife. Unusually within 45minutes of the crash, there were 50 FBI agents around the crash scene as if they were tipped off.

[clive milne]

Hi Bill,
Yep, you are on to it.

fwiw) I seem to recall Hunt clearing Kennedy of ordering the assassination of Diem ... this was part of the tapes / notes / confessions released by his family after his death, iirc.