President Bush nominated an Orthodox Jew to be U.S. attorney general.

September 17, 2007

jta.org

Michael Mukasey, a retired federal judge from New York, is a conservative who has criticized Bush administration policies that have kept detainees from consulting with lawyers.

Democrats have praised Mukasey, and his selection represents a shift from Bush's combative defense of the most recent attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, who resigned last month.

Mukasey's Jewishness became an issue when a defendant in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing filed a motion to remove the judge, arguing that his allegiances to fellow Jews and Israel would create a bias against Muslim defendants. The motion was dismissed as "utterly irrelevant."

Mukasey's wife, Susan, is a former headmistress of the Ramaz Lower School, an Orthodox Jewish school in New York City.

If confirmed, Mukasey would be the second Jewish attorney general. The first, Ed Levi, served under President Ford.

The CIA Comments on the Kennedy Assassination

TO: Mr. James J. Rowley

Chief, U.S. Secret Service

FROM: Mr. John McCone

Director, Central Intelligence Agency

Subject: Central Intelligence Report on the assassination of John Kennedy.

In response to the request made by your office on 24 February 1964 re: Lee Oswald's activities and assignments on behalf of this agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, there follows a narrative summary of the internal subversive activities of the Oswald subject.

I recommend that unless the Commission makes a specific request for specific information contained herein, that this information not be volunteered. This agency has reason to assume that some junior Commission staff members may be potential sources of leaks to the news media or to other agencies; due to the highly sensitive nature of the enclosed material, it would certainly be in the national interest to withhold it at this time -- unless there is, of course, a specific request made.

It is my understanding that Mr. Hoover has certain sensitive information within his agency, which has be transferred to his own personal files for safekeeping; he concurs that no material should be voluntarily given to the Commission which might affect the status of field operatives or their safety. He is particularly concerned about the De Bruey memorandum, which Central Intelligence has obtained and which, I understand, you have obtained. It is imperative that this information, at least for the time, remain under wraps.

Oswald subject was trained by this agency, under cover of the Office of Naval Intelligence, for Soviet assignments. During preliminary training, in 1957, subject was active in aerial reconnaissance of mainland China and maintained a security clearance up to the "confidential" level. His military records during this period are open to your agency and I have directed they be forwarded to the Commission.

Subject received additional indoctrination at our own Camp Peary site from September 8 to October 17, 1958, and participated in a few relatively minor assignments until arrangements were made for his entry into the Soviet Union in September 1959. While in the Soviet Union, he was on special assignment in the area of Minsk. It would not be advantageous at this time to divulge the specifics of that assignment; however, if you wish this information, it can be made available for your personal inspection within the confines of our own offices, or I can send it by courier on the condition that it not leave the custody of the courier. I am concerned that if this information were in any way disclosed to the wrong persons, it would lead the media to erroneously claim this agency, and perhaps others, were directly involved in the Dallas action. While the persons involved were in the employ of this agency, as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, it is virtually impossible for this or any agency to maintain full, 24-hours-a-day responsibility over its operatives.

At the time of the Dallas action, the Oswald subject was only seldom in our employ; after the Soviet assignment, we found him to be unreliable and emotionally unstable. He was of little use to us after his marriage and De Bruey, from what I understand, concurred in this. He was provided with a few unimportant infiltration assignments and proved of little or no value. It is possible that Oswald, given his instability, might have been involved in some operation involving Hoffa, as noted in SAIC Bertram's report to your agency dated 1/3/64. Mr. Hoover advises that his agency is trying to determine whether Hoffa might have been involved laterally or vertically with the Dallas assassination I have advised that I would be interested in seeing the results of that investigation.

Mr. Hoover advises that the facts given in SAIC Bertran's [ed. note: "Bertram" in first usage, Bertran" here] 1/3/64 report are basically correct. His agency has advised Deputy Sweatt against any further unauthorized statements to the news media which might adversely affect the investigation. Mr. Hoover advises he has no knowledge of how Deputy Sweatt obtained his information, as there is no record of the agency distributing any such information to Sweatt or any other member of Dallas Sheriff's office. It is regrettable that this information has come to the attention of the news media, but I am sure Mr. Hoover will be able to clarify the situation.

Speculation within this agency -- and this is only speculation at this point -- is that Oswald subject became unstable following surgery April 1, 1961, in the Minsk Hospital. He may have been chemically or electronically "controlled"... a sleeper agent. Subject spent eleven days hospitalized for a "minor ailment" which should have required no more than three days hospitalization at the most. Six days after his release, he met Marina Prusakova. This agency is particularly interested in her intelligence background and I have requested a report on same from our Soviet Embassy contact.

After his return to the U.S., Oswald worked in New Orleans through the Anti-Communist League of the Caribbean and Friends of Democratic Cuba; his case officer was SAIC Guy Bannister from the Chicago F131 office. He was transferred from his assignments there after he was arrested and fined stemming from an incident of his distribution of pamphlets for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. While our files here show no flirther assignments or contact, I am requesting an (xx) check on the subject from our New Orleans and Ft. Worth offices.

Please direct any further communication on this matter to my personal attention so that your requests may be expedited, or feel free to call me anytime. My office is always available to you.

When I looked at it I knew instantly that it was a fake. How? It is not written in the proper format using the proper CIA style. One tip off is the marking "CO-2-34,030." That is actually from a Secret Service report. How would I know? Because I had obtained and used on my Web site some of the pages from that SS report, so the notation jumped out as a fabrication. What someone did was take a page from the SS report, maybe even downloaded it from my Web page, removed the original text and wrote their own. Also the wording is not how the CIA would word a document of that type at that time. They would not refer to Hoover by name or agencies by common names. Instead you would see code words like ODACID. You need to look at hundreds of thousands of genuine CIA documents as I have to develop a mental database of what genuine CIA documents look like. I have no doubt that the hoaxer really thought that something like that was said. I don't think the intent was like the other hoaxes to discredit all JFK assassination research. I think someone just assumed that he knew enough to create a realistic fake to incriminate the CIA. Anthony Marsh

Comment: And for the disbelievers, here is a copy of another in-house memo from the CIA’s Robert T. Crowley to James J. Angleton, concerning the Kennedy assassination. One can confidently anticipate a flood of fury from other ‘researchers’ claiming with great outrage that as they have never seen this document in their readings, it cannot be genuine.” Since,”  they will say, ’’we all know the man in the storm drain did  the shooting, the fact that this memo does not talk about that at all, that makes it a fake.” In short, the ‘researchers’ agree that if they or their friends have not thought of this, it cannot be real. And then they talk excitedly about the story that a rogue Secret Service agent, hiding in the trunk of Kennedy’s car, shot him through the back seat. Just imagine the thrill of coming home from your job as a deodorizer of dead dogs for the SPCA, eating a can of cold dog food, sitting down at your old computer, logging in and becoming a ‘researcher’ and an expert on top secret documents, not one of which you have ever seen. A short trot with an empty mind is so exciting.  Brian Harring