Free Videos Show Shocking Claims About CIA, JFK Murder Probes

 

A former anti-Castro assassination squad leader confessed last fall that he saw his CIA handler meet with accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas six weeks before President Kennedy’s death on Nov. 22, 1963.

The powerful lecture by former Alpha 66 leader Antonio Veciana, 85, is one of nearly 44 hours of video lectures and panel discussions recently posted for free on the website of the Assassination Archives and Research Center Antonio Veciana(AARC), which organized a major research conference for three days last September in Bethesda, MD.

The Justice Integrity Project was an active participant in the conference, which this editor helped open Sept. 26 by describing how Kennedy assassination research provides a key to understanding of current intrigues that are too recent for reliable documentary and witness evidence. Our JIP "Readers Guide" to the assassination below contains catalogs of materials and links research collections, as well as analytic commentaries pointing out flaws in the Warren Commission's official accounts of Kennedy's murder.

Veciana, shown at right in a file photo, spoke through a translator in a dignified and compelling manner at the AARC conference. He recalled that he, other anti-Castro militants, and some of their CIA handlers hated Kennedy during that era for failure to overthrow Castro after the Bay of Pigs amphibious invasion in April 1961 that the CIA and Kennedy's White House had mishandled.

David Atlee PhillipsBut, Veciana said, he has come to appreciate Kennedy and his search for a balance of peace and strength. Therefore, the onetime prominent accountant in pre-Castro Cuba said he wanted to set the historical record straight even though doing so undercut the reputation of his late friend David Atlee Phillips, the CIA’s primary organizer of anti-Castro rebels and a man Veciana recalled as meeting Oswald within Veciana’s sight in advance of the assassination.

The identification has long been rumored in research circles based on comments by Veciana, who was seriously wounded more than three decades ago by unknown assailants who shot him in the head after he testified to House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) investigators. At the hearing, Veciana came close to naming Phillips, a prominent CIA covert action operative, but did not make a specific identification.

Phillips responded by denying that he knew Oswald. Phillips founded the influential Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) in 1975 following his retirement from the agency. Phillips, shown in an autographed photo, ended his 25-year CIA career as chief of Latin American operations and died in 1988 at age 65.

AARC ad

The non-profit AARC organized "The Warren Report and the JFK Assassination: A Half Century of Significant Disclosures," one of history's most important JFK assassination conferences. Forty-four authors, medical doctors, academics, lawyers, and other research experts convened to reveal recent findings differing from the Warren Commission's 1964 report that claimed that Oswald acted alone in killing the president with three shots fired from the rear.

A list of the opening morning presentations is immediately below, with links to the videos. AARC, whose mission is to provide public access to national records, released video recordings of the presentations without charge.

Full DVDs are expected soon to be available for sale. Viewers are encouraged to support the work of the AARC by making a tax-exempt donation. AARC's executive director is James Lesar.

The full agenda with links is here, with opening sessions listed below. The videos were produced by long time JFK researcher and video instructor Randolph Benson of Duke University, whose private company R Benson Film is wrapping up The Searchers, a documentary he produced about JFK researchers scheduled for fall release.

Conference Opening and Preliminaries

  • Alan Dale: Kickoff and Introduction of AARC President James Lesar: “Why This Conference Matters” (55 minutes)

  • Jerry Policoff: “Historical Background and Conference Preview”

  • Andrew Kreig: “Current Implications of JFK Assassination Cover-Up”

  • Alan Dale: “What We Now Know that the Warren Commission Didn’t Know”

Second Segment: Dan Hardway and Edwin Lopez – and G. Robert Blakey: The HSCA and the CIA: The View from the Trenches and the View from the Top

“Initially, the CIA was cooperating — we had no reason to think that they weren’t… [It was] when we started pushing… on investigating the disinformation efforts after the assassination, and realizing that I could tie just about every single disinformation effort directly back to David Phillips, that George Joannides gets involved.”

Dan Hardway, J.D.: An attorney in private practice and former researcher for the House Select Committee on Assassinations from 1977-1978.

Ed Lopez, J.D.: is the General Counsel for the Rochester New York City School District. From 1977 to 1979 he served as Researcher/Investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations where he researched the “Pro-Cuban” issue and co-researched with Dan Hardway the “Oswald Mexico City” issue, a report that was only recently declassified. Lopez interviewed over 100 witnesses, and analyzed numerous Top Secret documents. In connection with his official duties he traveled to Cuba and interviewed President Fidel Castro.

Robert Blakey recent file photoProf. G. Robert Blakey, HSCA General Counsel and Staff Director (shown at left in a file photo). “So my position about the agency is they didn’t cooperate with us, they affirmatively made an effort not to cooperate with us, and therefore everything that they told us is a lie. And all the statements in the report about cooperation, it’s just false. We were had.”

In this unprecedented address, Professor Blakey reflects upon his experience as Chief Counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, detailing the impact and consequences of having relied upon promises of cooperation by the CIA during that investigation. The recounting of his experiences, and subsequent realizations that his investigators were undermined by a concerted defiance of the spirit and authority of constitutional checks and balances, raises issues of continuing relevance to public interest and concern over the meaning and effectiveness of congressional oversight. These issues are significant as they relate not exclusively to our government’s investigation of President Kennedy’s murder, but also to today’s revelations about the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities and its investigation of allegations against the CIA. These questions force us to examine our most basic assumptions about democratic accountability.

Prof. G. Robert Blakey, J.D.: An attorney and law professor. Special Attorney in the Justice Department under Robert Kennedy. Chief Counsel and Staff Director of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) from 1977 to 1979.

Several videos from the opening day have not yet been posted, including that by author, professor and former military intelligence analyst Dr. John M. Newman, who undertook an extensive analysis of false identities used by the CIA's David Phillips. Newman estimated that Phillips used approximately one hundred false identities structured so that he fooled even close CIA colleagues about the nature of his work. C-SPAN broadcast the Newman lecture in its entirety. C-SPAN has posted it, however: Oswald, the CIA, and Mexico City, Sept. 26, 2014 (90 min.). Newman discussed declassified documents and code-names related to the CIA, Cuba and the assassination. A longtime professor, Newman is the author of JFK and Vietnam and Oswald and the CIA. His background includes two decades in Army Intelligence and duty tour as executive assistant to the National Security Agency's director.

Among other first-day conference videos on the AARC site are:

JJefferson Morleyefferson Morley – The CIA and the Culture of Secrecy. “We have a new fact pattern about the JFK story that demands attention. This fact pattern is both growing in scope and detail over time… I think what we are doing is, we are getting to the point where we can describe a fact pattern rather than argue about theories, and we can transcend the old lone nut/conspiracy debate.”

Author and former Washington Post reporter, Jefferson Morley (shown at right in a file photo), is the moderator of JFK Facts and plaintiff in the lawsuit, Morley v. CIA, seeking release of long-secret JFK records. Morley is a 25-year veteran of Washington journalism. His book “Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA” was published in 2007.  He is the plaintiff in a lawsuit against the CIA demanding the release of records pertaining to CIA officer George Joannides who was called out of retirement in the 1970s to serve as liaison with the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Unknown to the HSCA, Joannides had in 1963 been the case officer for the Student Revolutionary Directorate, the Cuban exile group with whom Lee Harvey Oswald had multiple interactions in New Orleans.

Malcolm Blunt, Q&A – JFK Records and NARA. “The IDN system was a parallel system of files to the 201 files. IDN files were ‘individuals connected to targeted organizations.’ In other words, if you had a targeted organization, something like the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, these were individuals that were connected to that organization. That whole filing system got junked while the Warren Commission was sitting. It’s never been done before, and it’s never been done again.; a whole filing system just completely dismantled inside the Records Integration Division… One name jumps out: Lee Harvey Oswald.”

One of the most distinguished JFK assassination scholars, Malcolm Blunt is an independent investigator of the truth with an unbiased instinct for what is important and what is not in the details of President Kennedy’s assassination. He is regarded within the assassination research community as an esteemed authority on the CIA and the JFK records held at the National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, MD. He is the 1998 recipient of JFK Lancer’s New Frontier Award in appreciation for his contribution of new evidence in furthering the study of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and he is an influential consultant to many of our best authors and researchers.

Rex Bradford C-SPAN 2013Rex Bradford – The Church Committee and The Warren Commission. Rex Bradford (shown in a file photo at right), founder of History-Matters.com is an essayist and lecturer, Vice-President of the Assassination Archives and Research Center, created its website, and has published several CD-ROMs, including the JFK Assassination Archive. The transcript of his 2008 address, “Whispers From A Silent Generation” and his essay on “The Fourteen Minute Gap” are among his insightful articles which focus upon under-reported areas of JFK related issues. He is a consultant, analyst, and electronic archivist for the Mary Ferrell Foundation.

Panel: The Continuing Cover-Up: New and Newsworthy. Jefferson Morley, Dr. John Newman, David Talbot, Alan Dale (moderator) 

  • Jefferson Morley: Author of Our Man In Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA (2008), and Snow-Storm In August: Washington City, Francis Scott Key, and the Forgotten Race Riot of 1835 (2012).

  • Dr. John Newman: Author of JFK and Vietnam (1992), Oswald and the CIA (updated 2008), Quest For the Kingdom: The Secret Teachings of Jesus in the Light of Yogic Mysticism (2011), and Where Angels Tread Lightly, The Assassination of President Kennedy, Volume 1 (2015).

  • David Talbot (via telephone): Author of Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years (2008), and The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, John Kennedy and the Dark Game of Power (2015).

  • Alan Dale is the host of JFK Lancer: Conversations, an on-line interview program featuring discussions with prominent authors, historical researchers and notable personalities associated with the study of President Kennedy’s assassination.

Anthony Summers – After ‘Not In Your Lifetime.’  Summers: “What we really have cause to think we know is that after all this time, and the efforts of so many people, so much remains unknown.”

Anthony SummersA former senior BBC journalist, Anthony Summers (shown at left) is the author of nine major non-fiction books. His investigative work has ranged from the fate of the last Russian Tzar in 1918 to Britain’s Profumo sex/spy scandal, to the John F. Kennedy assassination, to the September 9/11 attacks. He has written biographies of Marilyn Monroe, J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Nixon, and Frank Sinatra. His book on the Kennedy assassination, originally published in 1980, has been updated several times – most recently in 2013 – with the title of Not In Your Lifetime. Summers was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for History with his book, with co-author Robbyn Swan, on the 9/11 attacks. He is the only two-time winner of the British Crime Writers’ Association top award for crime non-fiction – once for his book on Dallas.

Erst TitovetsDr. Ernst Titovets – Oswald: Russian Episode. Dr. Ernst Titovets (shown at right in a file photo): “With Norman Mailer, it was sort of unfortunate. He wanted to find black things to represent ‘his’ Oswald. Unfortunately, we didn’t see eye to eye… and I just didn’t want to figure to give evidence against Oswald in that negative way because it wasn’t true, you know? Never for a moment I believed that he was capable of pulling a trigger at a president whom he loved, admired.”

Lee Harvey Oswald’s closest English-speaking friend when Oswald lived in Minsk, then part of the Soviet Union, from 1959-1962. “Erich [Ernst Titovets]…is my oldest existing acquaintance…a friend of mine who speaks English very well…” as Oswald would put it in his Historic Diary. In his book Oswald: Russian Episode, Dr. Ernst Titovets investigates the Russian period of life and activity of Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of JFK. The book is based mainly on the author’s first-hand experience of knowing Oswald. It also includes the author’s interviews with many Russians who met Oswald, there are documents with Oswald’s longhand never published before, unique transcripts of the audio recordings of Oswald and Titovets reading stories, enacting plays, giving mock interviews to one another. The book presents a culmination of the Author’s painstaking research conducted over many years to reveal the true character of Oswald, a close-up of this still largely misunderstood man.

Buell Wesley Frazier – Recollections and Reflections: Lee Harvey Oswald. "How did the rifle get there? I have no idea. But, Lee did not take a rifle with him that morning.”

Buell Wesley Frazier was born in Texas in 1944. He went to work at the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas and in September, 1963 met and befriended Lee Harvey Oswald. On the morning of November 22, 1963, Frazier drove Oswald to the Texas Book Depository. He later told the Warren Commission that Oswald carried a small short thin package to work that day that he claimed contained curtain rods. The Warren Commission concluded it was the murder weapon it alleged Oswald used to assassinate President Kennedy. This was despite the fact that both Frazier and his sister insisted the package was a good eight inches shorter than the disassembled Mannlicher-Carcano, and that Oswald carried it cupped in his hand and tucked underneath his armpit so that it was not visible from behind. Only one other person is known to have seen Oswald enter the Depository that day, and that person told the Warren Commission Oswald was not carrying anything in his hands when he arrived at work that morning.

Frazier shares his recollections of Oswald the person he remembers as being very intelligent and well-read, and who was very fond of children, as children were of him.

Antonio Veciana – Admissions and Revelations. Antonio Veciana: “Like many of my exile contemporaries, at the time, in the early 1960’s, I believed John F. Kennedy was a traitor to the Cuban exiles and to this country. Yet, over time, I came to recognize that President Kennedy was not a traitor, but someone who acted in the interests always of the United States of America. In my research of President Kennedy’s life, I came upon the American University speech, which, to me, was one of the greatest speeches ever given by an American president. After studying that speech, I decided I couldn’t go from this world without saying that John F. Kennedy was a great man and a great president who had great vision for this country and the world.”

AARC: We owe a major debt to the late Senate and House investigator Gaeton Fonzi for what we now know about Antonio Veciana and his CIA contact Maurice Bishop, and the meeting he attended when Bishop appeared in the company of Lee Harvey Oswald. Veciana was the founder of the anti-Castro organization known as Alpha 66, and was himself involved in two CIA assassination attempts on Cuban President Fidel Castro. He calls Fonzi’s book, The Last Investigation, the “best book that has been written” about the Kennedy Assassination, and on the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination on November 22nd, 1963 he confirmed to Gaeton’s widow, Marie, the major premise of Gaeton’s book: That Maurice Bishop was in fact the person he also knew as David Atlee Phillips, the high-ranking CIA official in charge of all CIA operations in the Western hemisphere.

Coming soon: The Justice Integrity Project will examine in two separate columns in our JFK Assassination "Readers Guide" series hidden if not mysterious career changes for Lee Harvey Oswald and little known career progressions of several leading journalists prominent in assassination coverage. The columns will document the little-discussed government ties of the ex-Marine Oswald and, separately, of a generation of journalists and media owners heavily involved in World War II and post-war national security.
 
 
      
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Justice Integrity Project Readers Guide To JFK Assassination

* Denotes major articles in this Readers Guide series

Dealey Plaza Panorama (Andrew Kreig Photo)At right is a photo by this editor in Dallas showing Dealey Plaza. The Texas Book Depository Building where Oswald worked is behind the row of trees. The car in the center lane is near the location of President Kennedy's limo at the time of his fatal shooting.

  1. Project Launches JFK Assassination Readers' Guide, Oct. 16, 2013.
  2. Project Provides JFK Readers Guide To New Books, Videos , Oct. 26, 2013. This is a list of new books and films in 2013.
  3. Project Lists JFK Assassination Reports, Archives, Videos, Events, Nov. 2, 2013. Leading video, events and archives from the last 50 years. *
  4. Disputes Erupt Over NY Times, New Yorker, Washington Post Reviews of JFK Murder, Nov. 7, 2013. *
  5. Self-Censorship In JFK TV Treatments Duplicates Corporate Print Media's Apathy, Cowardice, Nov. 7, 2013.
  6. 'Puppetry' Hardback Launched Nov. 19 at DC Author Forum on ‘White House Mysteries & Media,'  Nov. 19, 2013.
  7. Major Media Stick With Oswald 'Lone Gunman' JFK Theory, Nov. 27, 2013. Self-censorship.
  8. JFK Murder Scene Trapped Its Victim In Kill Zone, Nov. 30, 2013.
  9. JFK Murder, The CIA, and 8 Things Every American Should Know, Dec. 9, 2013. The CIA implicated itself in the cover-up, according to experts who have spoken out. *
  10. JFK Murder Prompts Expert Reader Reactions, Dec. 19, 2013. Reactions to our Dec. 9 column. 
  11. Have Spy Agencies Co-Opted Presidents and the Press? Dec. 23, 2013. *
  12. Don't Be Fooled By 'Conspiracy Theory' Smears, May 26, 2014. *
  13. Experts To Reveal Secrets of JFK Murder, Cover-up at Sept. 26-28 DC Forum , Sept. 5, 2014. 
  14. Washington Post Still Selling Warren Report 50 Years Later, Sept. 22, 2014. *
  15. JFK Experts To Explode Myths, Sign Books In DC Sept. 26-28, Sept. 24, 2014.
  16. Former Cuban Militant Leader Claims CIA Meeting With Oswald Before JFK Killing, Sept. 27, 2014. *
  17. JFK Readers Guide: Assassination Books, Reports, Oct. 15, 2014. *
  18. Former House JFK Murder Prober Alleges CIA ‘Lied,’ Seeks Hidden Records, Oct. 18, 2014. *
  19. The JFK Murder 'Cover-up' Still Matters -- As Does C-SPAN's Coverage, Nov. 11, 2014. *
  20. JFK, Nov. 22 and the Continuing Cover-Up, Nov. 24, 2014. *
  21. JFK Assassination Readers Guide To 2013-14 Events, Nov. 28, 2014. *
  22. CIA, Empowered by JFK Murder Cover-up, Blocks Senate Torture Report, Dec. 1, 2014. *
  23. Nearly Too Late, Public Learns of Bill Moyers’ Conflicts Over PBS, LBJ, Jan. 2, 2014.
  24. Why Bill O'Reilly's Lie About JFK's Murder Might Matter To You, March 17, 2015.
  25. Free Videos Show Shocking Claims About CIA, JFK Murder Probes, June 29, 2015.

 President Johnson Accepts Warren Commission Report in 1964

At center, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren presidents a copy of the Warren Commission's report on the murder of President Kennedy in 1964 to President Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy's successor, as the other six members of the commission and its chief counsel look on.

 

Related News Coverage 

The Warren Report and the JFK Assassination: A Half Century of Significant Disclosures, Hyatt Regency Bethesda, Bethesda, MD, Sept. 26-28, 2014. Organized by Assassination Archives and Record Center (AARC). AARC adForty-four prominent research experts convened to reveal recent findings undercutting the Warren Commission’s 1964 report ascribing President Kennedy’s murder to a sole assassin. Among those making unprecedented or rare speaking appearances were: Alpha 66 founder Antonio Veciana, leader of the CIA-backed Cuban exile group that tried to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro; and Prof. Ernst Titovets, who was Oswald’s best friend in the Soviet Union. Other speakers included: Prof. Robert Blakey, Ed Lopez and Dan Hardway of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), which concluded in 1979 that JFK fell victim to a conspiracy by unspecified parties. Among others were: Dr. Gary Aguilar, Russ Baker, Brenda Brody, Rex Bradford, Jim DiEugenio, Robert Groden, Eric Hamburg, Dr. Peter Kornbluh, Andrew Kreig, Dr. Joan Mellen, Jefferson Morley, Prof. John Newman, Jerry Policoff, Dr. Randolph Robertson, Peter Dale Scott, Dr. Wayne Smith, Pat Speer, Anthony Summers, David Talbot, Dr. Donald Thomas, and Dr. Cyril H. Wecht,

Advocacy for Release of Hidden JFK Murder Records

President John F. Kennedy is shown in a file photo with his vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson.

James LesarOpEdNews, CIA and the National Archives Thwart The JFK Act and Obstruct Democratic Accountability, Jim Lesar (shown in file photo, president of the AARC), Sept. 16, 2014. All records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy ("JFK") are already supposed to be public. That's what Congress intended when it unanimously passed the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 ("JFK Act"). It hasn't happened. The National Archives and the CIA are still withholding thousands of pages of JFK Act records in their entirety, even though it has been more than a half century since the Warren Commission issued its Report on the murder of the President. NARA's actions violate the law and its intent, and severely erode the principle of democratic accountability, on which America's government is based. This violation directly raises the issue of who writes the law, who rules in the United States: the elected representatives of the people in Congress or the intelligence agencies? Over 1,100 CIA files dealing with the John F. Kennedy assassination remain classified in apparent defiance of the JFK Records Act, which requires them to be speedily reviewed and made public.

Boston Globe, Answers sought on CIA role in ‘78 JFK probe; Investigators say files could prove interference, Bryan Bender, Oct. 15, 2014. It was nearly four decades ago that Eddie Lopez was hired by a congressional committee to reinvestigate the 1963 murder of President John F. Kennedy, a role that had him digging through top secret documents at the CIA. In the end, the House Select Committee on Assassinations reported in 1978 that it believed the assassination was probably the result of a conspiracy, although it couldn’t prove that, and its conclusions are disputed by many researchers. But now Lopez is seeking answers to a lingering question: Could still-classified records reveal, as he and some of his fellow investigators have long alleged, that the CIA interfered with the congressional investigation and placed the committee staff under surveillance? “It was time to fight one last time to ascertain what happened to JFK and to our investigation into his assassination,” Lopez, who is now the chief counsel for a school district in Rochester, N.Y., said in an interview. He is joined in the effort by two other former investigators, researcher Dan Hardway and G. Robert Blakey, the panel’s staff director.

JFK Facts, National Archives Details Plans for JFK Disclosures in 2017, Jefferson Morley, June 23, 2015 (2:04 hour video.) The Justice Integrity Project's questions and answers by this editor are in a five-minute period Lyndon B. Johnson, John Kennedyfrom 1:37 to 1:42 on the video's time clock.)  The National Archives is getting serious about a big JFK records data dump in October 2017, according to officials who spoke at a public meeting in Washington. At the 25:00 mark in this video Martha Murphy of the National Archives outlines plans for declassification of still-classified JFK files in 2017. A JFK Facts reader was there and filed this report. “The program consisted of two presentations and a panel. The second presenter was Martha Murphy whose topic was an update on how the Archives are handling JFK Assassination records. She said the JFK collection consists of approximately 5 million pages. During fiscal 2014 they analyzed the scope of the project to release withheld records in 2017. As of Oct. 2014 they have assigned four archivists to work on the project along with three technicians for scanning.

“The date Murphy posted for the effective date of the JFK Act was October 26, 1992, so presumably the release date is October 26, 2017, twenty-five years later. She used a slide that said 88 percent of the records in the collection were released in full; .01% were withheld in full; and 11% were partially withheld .... Murphy made it clear that in 2017 all withheld information will be released unless the President orders otherwise, whether withheld in full or partially withheld. She said they are currently perfecting the index because there are errors or missing information in the index as to the status of records. Also they are notifying agencies that information will be released in 2017 unless the President orders otherwise, i.e. that release is the default position.

AlterNet, Dear Mr. President, It's Time to Obey the Law: Release the JFK Secret Service Records and End Other Needless Secrecy, Thom Hartmann and Lamar Waldron, Sept. 25, 2014. It's time for the Secret Service, CIA, and FBI to obey the law by releasing their 50-year old files, and to pardon the first Secret Service whistleblower. Last week's problems with the Secret Service and White House security also warrant your attention. Lamar WaldronSecrecy is especially ironic since this week marks the 50th anniversary of the release of the Warren Report, the book-length finding issued by the Warren Commission, appointed by President Lyndon Johnson and chaired by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren. The Secret Service was one of several government agencies -- along with the CIA, the FBI, and the Office of Naval Intelligence--that were found by later government committees to have withheld crucial information from the Warren Commission. Congress passed the 1992 JFK Records Act unanimously, to release all of the files related to the JFK assassination, including records about the covert US operations against Cuba in the early 1960s that surfaced in so many of the official JFK investigations.

JFK Facts, What is the CIA hiding about Orlando Bosch? Jefferson Morley, June 25, 2015. Orlando Bosch fled Cuba in the early 1960s and settled in Miami and began working with the CIA. For decades, he used the United States as a base for attacks on Cuban civilians and Cuban government targets. Bosch is associated with one of the most infamous acts of terrorism in the Americas. In October 1976 a Cubana airliner was blown out the sky by an bomb hidden in a suitcase; seventy three passengers were killed. Bosch was arrested in Venezuela in connection with the bombing. After being imprisoned for nearly four years, Bosch was acquitted along with three co-defendants. The court found that the plane had been brought down by a bomb but that there was insufficient evidence to prove Bosch and his associates were responsible. Bosch was given safe haven within the United States in 1990 by President George H. W. Bush, the father of 2016 candidate Jeb Bush. What do we know now? The CIA is still keeping secrets about Orlando Bosch. According to the National Archives online data base, the CIA retains six files on Orlando Bosch that have never been made public.

Boston Globe, Government still withholding thousands of documents on JFK assassination, Bryan Bender, Nov. 24, 2013. There were the Pentagon’s top-secret reviews of Lee Harvey Oswald — before and after the assassination. The files about the CIA operative who surveilled the alleged assassin and whose knowledge was purposely hidden from congressional investigators. The sworn testimony of dozens of intelligence officials and organized crime figures dating back nearly four decades. And the government personnel files of multiple figures officially designated as relevant to the investigation. The documents are just some of the collections that the law stipulates are relevant but government archivists acknowledge have not been released to the public a half a century after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Jerome CorsiWND, JFK theorists gather, press for document release, 50th anniversary of controversial Warren Commission Report, Jerome R. Corsi (shown at left), Sept. 27, 2014. On this 50th anniversary of the publication of the Warren Commission Report, the Washington-based Assassinations Archive and Research Center, or AARC, opened a three-day conference Friday featuring an all-star cast of JFK assassination “conspiracy theorists.” AARC President James Lesar began the conference by urging attendees to lobby Congress in support of a Freedom of Information Act request his organization has filed with the National Archives and Records Administration, or NARA. AARC is protesting a NARA decision to withhold from the public until at least 2017 more than 1,000 classified government documents on the JFK assassination. Lesar and his organization argue the 1992 JFK Records Act mandated the public release of all JFK assassination files in the government’s archives.

Boston Globe, A dark corner of Camelot, Bryan Bender, Jan. 23, 2011. 50 years after President Kennedy asked his brother Robert to oust Castro, RFK’s files at the JFK Library remain in family control, largely out of view. Documents on Robert F. Kennedy’s service as attorney general could help fill gaps in the history of US covert operations against Cuba, relations with Fidel Castro, and the Cuban missile crisis, but many are secret. Documents on Robert F. Kennedy’s service as attorney general could help fill gaps in the history of US covert operations against Cuba, relations with Fidel Castro, and the Cuban missile crisis, but many are secret.  Stacked in a vault at the John Robert F. KennedyF. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Dorchester, individually sealed and labeled, are 54 crates of records so closely guarded that even the library director is prohibited from taking a peek. And yet, archivists contend, the trove contains some of the most important records of Cold War history: diaries, notes, phone logs, messages, trip files, and other documents from Robert F. Kennedy’s service as US attorney general, including details about his roles in the Cuban missile crisis and as coordinator of covert efforts to overthrow or assassinate Fidel Castro. A half-century after those critical events, a behind-the-scenes tussle continues over the Kennedy family’s refusal to grant permission for researchers to freely review them. The disagreement lingers even as the JFK Library this month celebrated the 50th anniversary of John Kennedy’s inauguration by providing “unprecedented’’ access to thousands of records of his presidency. “The RFK papers are among the most valuable, untapped archival resources of foreign policy and domestic history left to be excavated,’’ said Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at George Washington University’s National Security Archive, who has been rebuffed several times in his attempts to gain access to the papers. 

Jefferson MorleyJFK Facts, 1,100 JFK documents ignored in Obama’s push to open records, Jefferson Morley (shown at right), May 14, 2013. The Obama administration has declassified 175 batches of long-secret government records, the National Declassification Center announced last week, a milestone in a government-wide push to make public 404 million documents that have been deemed unnecessarily classified. Yet the NDC effort will not make public 1,100 long-suppressed CIA records related to the assassination of President Kennedy. Why not? The National Archives says the CIA lacks the “time and resources” to review the records, which were known to, but not reviewed by, the staff of the independent Assassination Records Review Board in the 1990s. In a public forum last summer, NDC and National Archives announced they would not challenge the CIA’s claim. The records will now be released in 2017 at the earliest, and maybe not even then. The CIA’s claim that it lacks the time and resources is curious. The agency has had the time and resources to review and release records related to the Katyn Forest massacre of 1942 in which Soviet army killed thousands of Polish military officers, a tragedy in which no Americans died. The NDC has boasted publicly about declassifying records about “How to build a flying saucer,” not exactly a matter of widespread public interest. Yet the NDC and CIA officials contend — with straight faces — that they lack the time and resources to review and release records related to the murder of a sitting American president. The CIA itself deemed the records to be related to JFK’s assassination in the 1970s. In 1976. Agency officials collected the files from agency archives as they prepared to respond to the first congressional investigation of JFK’s death. The records were not shared with the House Select Committee on Assassinations unless they specifically asked for them. The CIA now claims that the records are “Not Believed Relevant” to JFK’s assassination. That claim has never been confirmed by anyone outside of the agency and is probably factually incorrect. In two posts earlier this year:  JFK Facts has identified seven important JFK files among the 1,100 documents.

Cafe Fuerte, Exiliado cubano se roba show en foro sobre asesinato de JFK y la Comisión Warren, Miguel Fernández Díaz, Oct. 6, 2014. Una conferencia sobre el informe de la comisión presidencial que investigó el magnicidio de John F. Kennedy y la presunta “conexión cubana” en el caso acaba de celebrarse en Washington, sin que los diligentes medios informativos y expertos dedicados a los “asuntos cubanos” parezcan haberse enterado del evento.

 

JIP Editor's Other Recommended Columns

Bill SimpichSan Francisco attorney and prominent JFK Assassination researcher Bill Simpich (shown in a file photo) has published on OpEd News a series so far in 12 parts on "The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend." The series began in 2010 with: The JFK Case: The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend (Part One: Mother, Meyer, and the Spotters)

The most relevant segment to George de Mohrenschildt is Part 7: The hand-off from De Mohrenschildt to the Paines:

OpEdNews, The JFK Case: The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend (Part 7: The hand-off from De Mohrenschildt to the Paines), Bill Simpich, Oct. 22, 2011. When Oswald and his family returned to the Dallas-Fort Worth area from the Soviet Union, they knew that they had make contacts if they were going to put food on the table. Dallas oilman/spy George de Mohrenschildt became a benefactor to the Oswald family, providing them with money and contacts after their return to the US from the Soviet Union. De Mohrenschildt's lawyer Max Clark was also General Dynamics' industrial security consultant and a leader within the White Russian community. Oswald contacted Max Clark's wife shortly after his return, explaining that the Texas Employment Commission had referred her to him as a Russian-speaker and that his wife would like to spend time with another Russian-speaker. Oswald had legend makers precisely because he and his wife presented a perceived threat to national security. De Mohrenschildt visited and exchanged cards and letters with CIA official J. Walton Moore on a regular basis during the fifties and sixties. Moore wrote a memo in 1977 claiming that he only met de Mohrenschildt twice, in 1958 and in 1961. Moore's hazy memory on the number of visits was exposed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. De Mohrenschildt revealed a few hours before his death that Moore took him to lunch in late 1961, and described to him an ex-Marine in Minsk in whom the CIA had "interest."  In the summer of 1962, an associate of Moore suggested that de Mohrenschildt might want to meet Oswald. De Mohrenschildt then called Moore, suggesting that suitable payback would be a little help by the State Department with an oil exploration deal in Haiti.

The first part of the series is, with additional segments listed below in reverse chronological order. A photo of the Oswalds at right is via the National Archives:

Lee Harvey Oswald and Marina Oswald National ArchivesOpEd News, The JFK Case: The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend (Part One: Mother, Meyer, and the Spotters), Bill Simpich, Aug. 22. 2010. With millions of documents released in the years since the JFK Act was passed in the nineties, the intelligence backgrounds of the twelve who built the Oswald legend have come into focus. A legend maker can range from a "babysitter" who just keeps an eye on the subject to someone handing out unequivocal orders. I count twelve of them, and I'll tell you about them here in this series of essays here.

  1. 08/22/2010     The JFK Case: The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend (Part I:   Mother, Meyer, and the Spotters)
  2. 09/02/2010     The JFK Case: The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend (Part 2:  An Instant Visa Gets The Marine Into Moscow)
  3. 12/06/2010     The JFK Case: The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend (Part 3:  Counterintelligence goes molehunting with Oswald's file)
  4. 11/16/2010     The JFK Case: The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend (Part 4:  When the U-2 Goes Down, Oswald is Ready to Return)
  5. 12/27/2010     The JFK Case: The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend (Part 5:  The Double Dangle)
  6. 11/22/2011     The JFK Case: The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend (Part 6:  White Russians Keep An Eye On Oswald In Dallas)
  7. 06/03/2012     The JFK Case: The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend (Part 7:  The hand-off from De Mohrenschildt to the Paines)
  8. 06/04/2012     The JFK Case: The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend (Part 8:  The CIA-Army Intelligence Mambo)  
  9. 08/30/2012     The JFK Case: The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend (Part 9:  Oswald Takes Center Stage As An Intelligence Asset) 
  10. 07/26/2013     The JFK Case: The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend (Part 10: Nightmare in Mexico City)  
  11. 12/21/2014     The JFK Case: The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend (Part 11: The Paines Carry the Weight)
  12. 12/31/2014     The JFK Case: The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend (Part 12: The Endgame)