TBR News October 20, 2017

Oct 20 2017

The Voice of the White House

Washington, D.C., October 20, 2017:” Official Washington, used to routine, is nonplussed by the seemingly erratic actions of President Trump. He blusters, threatens, back off, compromises and then bluster and threats again. Not only is the bureaucracy unnerved but so are America’s putative allies in Europe and Asia and the media, generally left wing, runs around squawking like duck on speed. In general, the public likes what appears to be organization, leadership and dependability but with Trump these are consummations, devoutly to be wished. We are including in today’s posting an excellent article on what is going on behind the scenes in Washington. It is a bit long but well worth reading.”

Table of Contents

  • Spain Sets Stage to Take Control of Catalonia in Independence Fight
  • Low pay, no bonus: U.S. retailers struggle with hiring
  • Poll: Three Quarters of Americans Support the Iran Deal
  • The Attack on Iran
  • FAKER! Man admits he lied to Fox News about Navy SEAL service
  • Regicide: The CIA’s role in the Kennedy Assassination

 

Spain Sets Stage to Take Control of Catalonia in Independence Fight

October 19, 2017

by Raphael Minder

The New York Times

BARCELONA, Spain — The standoff over Catalonia intensified significantly on Thursday as the Spanish government said it would take emergency measures to halt a secessionist drive in the economically vital and politically restive northeastern region.

The announcement came almost immediately after the Catalan leader, Carles Puigdemont, facing a second deadline to clarify Catalonia’s intentions since it held an Oct. 1 referendum on independence, warned that regional lawmakers were prepared to break from Spain.

The government in Madrid, in turn, announced that it would convene an emergency cabinet meeting on Saturday “to defend the general interest of Spaniards, among them the citizens of Catalonia.”

The rapid succession of events moved what was already one of the gravest crises in Spain’s relatively young democracy to a far more serious and unpredictable stage, with the prospect that Madrid could take over the running of Catalonia. At the most extreme, the Spanish government could arrest Mr. Puigdemont and charge him with sedition, as it has done with two other separatist leaders.

But such a step would risk provoking a popular backlash and new street demonstrations in a region where many are already bridling at what they see as a heavy hand by the government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

“A bad situation has become even worse today,” said Argelia Queralt, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Barcelona. “Neither side seems really willing to yield an inch, which means there is only a very limited chance of any positive outcome to this conflict.”

The Catalan government has said that 90 percent of those who voted in the referendum supported independence. But Mr. Rajoy’s government and the courts had declared the vote illegal, and the police officers sent to block polling places wounded hundreds in clashes.

Only about 40 percent of the Catalan electorate took part, after Madrid advised those who opposed secession to stay away from polling stations.

The latest statements from each side now move the dispute to the brink of a potentially explosive confrontation.

Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, spokesman for the Spanish government, said at a news conference that Madrid was ready to use “all the means within its reach to restore the legality and constitutional order as soon as possible.”

Yet such steps are fraught with uncertainty in a country that adopted its democratic constitution only in 1978, after the death of its longtime dictator, Gen. Francisco Franco.

Last week, Mr. Rajoy initiated a request to invoke a broad and forceful tool that has never before been used — Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution — which would allow him to take direct control of Catalonia.

He said he could resort to such a step if Mr. Puigdemont did not clearly back down from a threat to declare independence.

But on Thursday, Mr. Puigdemont sent a defiant letter to Mr. Rajoy, blaming him for escalating the conflict by refusing to meet and negotiate.

“If the government continues to prevent dialogue and maintains the repression,’’ he wrote, “the Parliament of Catalonia could go ahead, if it deems it opportune, and vote the formal declaration of independence.”

Officials in Madrid have repeatedly warned in recent days that Mr. Rajoy would consider anything short of a clear withdrawal of the declaration of independence to be unacceptable, after what he deemed an unsatisfactory response from Mr. Puigdemont on Monday.

Article 155 would give Madrid the authority to suspend Mr. Puigdemont and other Catalan lawmakers, and to take charge of the region’s autonomous administration, including the Catalan broadcaster and autonomous police force, although Mr. Rajoy has not publicly committed to an emergency intervention.

It is unclear what Mr. Rajoy will propose to his cabinet on Saturday, but he may try to gradually raise pressure on the fragile coalition of Catalan separatists rather than risk a forceful intervention that could further galvanize the independence movement.

José Luis Ábalos, an official from the main opposition Socialist party, indicated at a news conference on Thursday that the party would support Mr. Rajoy — as long as the prime minister made limited and short use of Article 155, and also somehow kept “self-government” in Catalonia.

Using constitutional powers, Mr. Rajoy could appoint a caretaker administration in Catalonia. Mr. Puigdemont, on the other hand, could face sedition charges and ultimately a long prison sentence for presenting a unilateral declaration of independence that violates Spain’s Constitution.

Politicians in Madrid have recently demanded that Catalonia hold regional elections as soon as possible, but Mr. Puigdemont made no mention of such a vote in his letter on Thursday.Hard-line secessionists want an abrupt and unilateral rupture with the central government in Madrid, while conservative and more moderate separatists are increasingly worried about the economic consequences for Catalonia.

Luis de Guindos, the Spanish economy minister, told Parliament on Thursday that the relocation of Catalan companies was “only an appetizer of what could happen if independence was confirmed — something that the government will not allow.”

Mr. Puigdemont sent his latest letter after an emergency meeting of his conservative party late Wednesday, during which lawmakers gave clear support for not withdrawing the declaration of independence, according to local news reports.

Still, secessionism has divided Catalonia. Separatist parties won control of the regional Parliament in 2015, but with only 48 percent of the vote.

Núria Marín, the Socialist mayor of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, the second-largest city in Catalonia, just southwest of Barcelona, said on Thursday that politicians on both sides should take the blame for plunging Catalonia into a crisis.

“I believe that with threats on the part of one side or the other, we won’t now solve this situation,” she said. “We are sadly seeing that companies are leaving while we are sending letters to one another.”

Whatever the government decides on Saturday, the Catalan crisis is set to drag on: Mr. Rajoy would need approval from the Senate before intervening in Catalonia.

Mr. Rajoy’s governing Popular Party has a majority in the Senate, and Podemos, a far-left party, is the only major opposition group that is opposed to using Article 155 in Catalonia. Instead, Podemos has suggested that Spain should hold a nationwide referendum over Catalonia’s future statehood.

Pablo Iglesias, the leader of Podemos, said Thursday morning that “Spain can’t appear to be like a banana republic that has problems of democracy.” He added, “We don’t want to threaten or repress Catalonia, but we want to convince Catalonia that Spain is a collective project that is worth it.”

The separatist leaders of Catalonia are already claiming that Madrid has used disproportionate means to push them out of office, with the help of the Spanish police and the courts.

About 200,000 demonstrators gathered on Tuesday in central Barcelona, according to the local police, to demand the release of two separatist leaders who were sent to prison without bail, pending a trial on sedition charges. In his letter on Thursday, Mr. Puigdemont mentioned the arrest of the two leaders as evidence of Spain’s repressive stance.

Catalonia, which has its own language and culture, is an important engine of the Spanish economy. Independence aspirations have built in recent years over a host of social and economic grievances.

Those tensions grew as Mr. Rajoy and Catalan leaders talked past one another, turning the kind of dispute that might have been defused years ago into a full-blown constitutional crisis.

The rising uncertainty and the threat of declaring independence have already prompted hundreds of companies to relocate their headquarters outside Catalonia, further straining the unwieldy separatist coalition that holds a majority of the seats in the regional Parliament.

 

Low pay, no bonus: U.S. retailers struggle with hiring

October 20, 2017

by Sruthi Ramakrishnan and Vibhuti Sharma

Reuters

(Reuters) – U.S. retailers are finding it increasingly difficult to hire employees for stores and for middle and higher management as low pay and a feeling of uncertainty clouds the industry following a spate of bankruptcies and store closures.

Retailers including Macy’s Inc and J.C. Penney have said they will hire the same or fewer seasonal workers for the holidays this year than last, while some, like Wal-Mart Stores Inc, have chosen not to hire temporary workers at all.

Sector observers have attributed this to brick-and-mortar retailers’ retreat under pressure from online players including Amazon, and firms themselves say they have simply taken a staggered approach to hiring this year that fills gaps slowly. Macy’s said holiday hiring was “off to a great start”.

But staffing companies that hire employees for the industry say the problem is deeper and is putting pressure both on the quality of staff retailers can hire and, sooner or later, wages that potential candidates will demand.

The staffing firms say it may also create a squeeze on retailers as they seek to hire heavily for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas — the biggest drivers of retailers’ annual profits.

“Where we have a problem hiring is the lower level, the seasonal or entry-level employees,” said Melissa Hassett, vice president of client delivery for ManpowerGroup Solutions.

Her clients include Lowe’s Cos Inc, Staples and auto parts firm Pep Boys and she says employees are seeking more flexibility with their schedules, training and pay, which is competitive with other entry-level jobs.

U.S. unemployment levels have hit their lowest in more than 16 years and recruiters say the rise of the “gig economy” and new occupations, such as driving for Uber [UBER.UL] or Deliveroo, is shrinking the youth talent pool.

The hourly mean wage for entry level sales personnel at retailers, including at clothing, sports goods and department stores, was $11.96 as of May 2016, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In comparison, an Uber driver earns $14.76 per hour, according to data Glassdoor posted on its site earlier this month.

The job search and review site listed 829,500 retail job openings as of mid-October, compared with 875,000 at the same time a year ago.

“There just aren’t enough people who are looking for work … to be put in those positions,” the site’s chief economist, Andrew Chamberlain, said.

NO BONUS

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ JOLTS survey on job openings also shows that more people have quit retail by August this year than in the past decade, with 3.74 million giving up their jobs.

Recruiters say that reflects the growing stresses of working for companies who have cut costs, closed stores and asked staff to adapt and do more.

“The jobs have become bigger,” Manpower Group’s Hassett said. “A manager will do more at the stores, they’ll even pick up and join a register, help stocking if they need to.”

Wal-Mart said that it has not hired for the holiday-season in part because they are paying existing employees more.

“We think it just makes sense to partner with the associates who know the business, are trained in serving customers and the operations of the stores, and who know the customer better than anyone,” said Erica Jones, Wal-Mart’s senior manager of corporate communications.

J.C. Penney said it was introducing paid time off for part-time hourly associates, starting from early 2018, to entice seasonal hires to stay beyond the holiday season.

Higher up the food chain, recruiters also point to bonuses that have lagged other industries as harming efforts to draw in and keep talented regional managers or heads of business lines.

“They (retailers) are paying lower bonuses and some companies have paid lower bonuses for a couple of years,” talent acquisition firm Korn Ferry’s retail expert Craig Rowley said.

An analysis by Korn Ferry of 40 big North American retailers showed that 73 percent paid little to no bonuses to senior executives for their performance in 2016. Thirty five percent paid no bonus, up from 25 percent last year.

“It’s the perception of where retail as an industry is going,” Manpower’s Hassett said. “So when the brick-and-mortar retail is really struggling, at that executive level, people are concerned about staying in retail.”

Additional reporting by Siddharth Cavale in Bengaluru; editing by Patrick Graham and Savio D’Souza

 

Poll: Three Quarters of Americans Support the Iran Deal

October 20, 2017

by Derek Davison

lobelog

If Donald Trump succeeds in pulling the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA), he won’t just face opposition from Tehran or from America’s European allies: he’ll have to deal with opposition from the American people. That’s one takeaway from a new poll, “American Attitudes on Middle East Policies,” released by the Middle East Institute this week. The survey, conducted in June by the polling firm Ipsos, found that 30 percent of Americans strongly support and 45 percent somewhat support “the deal with Iran to limit their development of nuclear weapons.” That level of support was relatively consistent across gender, age ranges, geography, and income and education levels.

Americans are overall less enthusiastic about opening diplomatic channels between the U.S. and Iran, but a majority (54 percent) still supports the idea, against 32 percent opposed. Men, young people, and people with college degrees are more likely to support opening relations with Iran than women, older people, and those without college degrees.

The survey found most Americans (55 percent) opposed to Trump’s “position towards the Muslim world,” and it’s not hard to see why. Asked to agree or disagree with the statement “respecting the Muslim-American community in the U.S. is vital to prevent future terror attacks,” 68 percent agree, compared to 24 percent who disagree. Although Trump personally may or may not be to blame, there’s no doubt that his election has coincided with an increase in hostility toward the Muslim-American community. Additionally, 58 percent of Americans agree with the statement that “countries of the Muslim world are allies in the fight against terrorism.” With rare exceptions—Saudi Arabia and Egypt most prominently—Trump has not done much to strengthen U.S. relations with majority Muslim states.

Opposition to Trump’s Middle East policies may also have something to do with the fact that most Americans don’t think the war against the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) is going well. About 73 percent believe either that “the war with ISIS is basically a draw” (47 percent) or that “the U.S. and allies are losing the war with ISIS” (26 percent). This is certainly an interesting result given the steady stream of news about major IS defeats (in Mosul, Hawijah, Raqqa, Deir Ezzor, and elsewhere) coming out of Iraq and Syria of late.

It’s not clear what has caused this level of pessimism, but it clearly hasn’t dampened Americans’ interest in continuing the anti-IS fight: 82 percent support “U.S. involvement in the fight to defeat ISIS.” Meanwhile, 75 percent agree either that “the U.S. has a responsibility to try to limit or end the conflicts in the Middle East” (25 percent) or that “the U.S. should stay engaged in the Middle East, but let them resolve their own conflicts” (50 percent). Only a quarter of Americans believe the U.S. “should get out of the Middle East.”

A plurality of Americans (48 percent) does agree with Trump’s policy toward (or rather, against) admitting refugees from the Middle East, against 43 percent who believe that the U.S. should admit more Middle Eastern refugees. According to the Pew Research Center, the share of the world’s refugee population accepted by the U.S. has dropped to its lowest level (0.2 percent) since at least 1980, far lower than its historical average of 0.6 percent. The Trump administration has asked Congress to reduce the ceiling for refugee admissions to the U.S. in future years as part of its overall immigration policy, at a time when refugees coming to the U.S. are increasingly likely to come from the Middle East or Africa.

The MEI poll included one other finding of note. Although a substantial majority of Americans (73 percent) support “America’s military backing of Israel,” a smaller majority (54 percent, with 32 percent opposed) believe that “the United States should push Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians for peace.” There’s no evidence that Israel is prepared to make concessions to the Palestinians, and nothing but some occasional rhetoric from the Trump administration suggests that this president has any interest in pushing Israel to do so.

 

The Attack on Iran

October 20, 2017

by Christian Jürs

 

1.The problem under consideration here is that Iran has, or will have, a nuclear weapon within a two year time span. If Iran gets a nuclear bomb, Israelis are afraid Iran will use it on them.

2.Israel would have logistical problems attacking Iran. Any attack would have to be an aerial attack, using fighter-bombers to pin-point known Iranian nuclear facilities.

The current opinion in some circles, mostly in the United States, is that at some point in the near future, the growing threat or re-imposition of devastating economic sanctions on Iran will convince its radical religious leaders to terminate their pursuit of nuclear weapons. Also, there is the growing hope that the CIA’s funded Iran’s Green Movement will overthrow, a la the Ukrainian Orange Revolution and replace the Muslim fundamentalist regime, or at the very least find the means to modify and secularize the regime’s ideological extremism. It is also possible that disrupting operations  now being implemented by the intelligence agencies of Israel, the United States, Great Britain, and other Western powers—programs designed to subvert the Iranian nuclear effort through physical sabotage and, upon occasion, the carefully engineered disappearances of nuclear scientists—will have derailed Iran’s progress towards achieving the capacity to produce nuclear weapons.

It is now planned in Tel Aviv that senior Israeli officials, representing both their political and military establishments, will come to Washington for conferences both with their American counterparts and, eventually, with President Trmup. These conversations, which have been carefully planned and scripted, will have the Israelis advising their American counterparts that they are planning an attack, nuclear or non-nuclear as the situation develops, on Iran because a nuclear Iran poses the ‘gravest threat since Hitler’ to the physical survival of the Jewish people. The Israelis will also state that they believe that  by launching a preemptive strike at all possible Iranian sites suspected of participation in their nuclear program they have a reasonable chance of delaying the Iranian nuclear program for at least three to five years,. Further, talking-point secret Israeli memos state: Israel will inform their American counterparts that Israel has no other choice than to launch this attack. They will not ask for permission for this attack, because it will soon be too late to ask for permission.

Insofar as President Trump is concerned, the Israelis are considering the most important point of these interviews would be to discover as to what would be the circumstances under which President Trump would move to halt the Iranian projects. The primary point, then, is to convince the Americans that only military force, i.e., heavy bombing raids, would be able to “totally obliterate Iran’s attempts to get a nuclear weapon and, further, to prevent them from rebuilding their infrastructure in the foreseeable future.” From the Israeli point of view, all of their future actions, which also include the use of their own nuclear weapons on Tehran depends entirely upon the answers, primarily of the President but also of the American military leadership..

Also, in the possible event that the American President were to agree fully with Israeli wishes, i.e., to use American aircraft to obliterate the perceived Iranian threat by bombing specific, and even general, Iranian targets, could an Israeli-sponsored domestic American propaganda campaign to encourage sections of the American public, outside of the fully-cooperative Jewish community, to support such an American attack.

At the present time, it is well-established that Israeli agents, Mossad and others, have inserted themselves into all the instruments of power and propaganda in the United States where they have sent any pertinent information to Israel and kept up a steady offensive against the minds, and wills, of the American people. Also, many of the more prominent American newspapers, such as the New York Times is entirely Jewish-owned, this is stated to be the most receptive to the needs of both Washington and Tel Aviv.

Israel is fully prepared to take a chance on permanently alienating American affection in order to make a high-risk attempt at stopping Iran. If Iran retaliates against American troops in Iraq or Afghanistan, the consequences for Israel’s relationship with America’s military leadership could be catastrophic.

It has been seriously discussed in Tel Aviv and in the Israeli Embassy in Washington, that probably the best way to compel the American public and through them, the President, to unilateral action, would not be to launch an attack on Tehran but instead, attack America through a false-flag operation. This would consist of a believable attack, or attempted attack, on a major American target a la the 9/11 Saudi-supported attacks.

The most current plan would be for a known militant Arab anti-Israel group, Hezbollah, to actually deliver an atomic device to the city of New York, or, alternatively, to Washington.

The American Central Intelligence Agency, now seeking to reshape its negative image, would report to the Federal Bureau of Investigation the exact details of the arrival and placement of the bomb.

The actual bomb would be genuine but would have a part that was malfunctioning, thus rendering the weapon impossible to detonate. The Arabs involved in this delivery would have in their number, a Yemeni Jew, such as the ones that instigated the 9/11 Saudi attacks, and this sleeper would carry numerous forged documents “proving” that Tehran was directly behind this planned attack.

Revelation of these documents by the fully-supportive New York Times and Washington Post would immediately swing a significant bulk of the American public behind an immediate attack on Tehran with the purpose of neutralizing its atomic weapons capacity.

This program is now on the table and undercover Israeli agents, posing as top-level Iranian operatives, have located a small group of Hizbollah in Lebanon who would be willing to deliver and prepare this device in New York or, as an alternative, Washington itself. Israeli intelligence feels that the use of Hizbollah personnel would entirely justify their obliterating Hizbollah-controlled territory in southern Lebanon that now house many thousands of long-range surface to surface missiles that could easily reach Tel Aviv and other vital Israeli targets.

This action, which has already been planned in detail, would be conducted by Israel alone and would compliment the projected American attack on Tehran. Israel stresses the fact that both attacks must be simultaneous lest a forewarned Hezbollah launch rocket attacks on Israel upon hearing of the American attack. Timing here is considered to be absolutely vital.

Both Israel and Hezbollah have accused UNIFIL of bias. Israel again accused them of failing to prevent, and even collaborating with, Hezbollah in its replenishment of military power. Hezbollah, in turn, said “certain contingents” of UNIFIL are spying for, if not assisting, Israel.

Israel has long been a serious planning for a future invasion of Lebanon and such an assault would continue attacking until both Hezbollah’s membership and their system of tunnels and bunkers was completely destroyed, because Israel will never tolerate a “zone of invulnerability” occupied by a sworn enemy, or a double threat posed by Hezbollah’s rockets.

In the event that Israeli military aircraft attack Tehran, there is the vital necessity that these Israeli military aircraft would be under great pressure to return to base at once because Israeli intelligence believes that Iran would immediately order Hezbollah to fire rockets at Israeli cities, and Israeli air-force resources would be needed to hunt Hezbollah rocket teams.

Israel’s Northern Command, at its headquarters near the Lebanese border, is ordered that in the event of a unilateral Israeli or American strike on Iran, their mission would be to attack and completely destroy any and all identified Hezbollah rocket forces, by any and all means necessary, to include small nuclear devices that could destroy a number of square miles of what is called ‘terrorist territory’ and render it useless as any future base of attack against Israel. At the present time the Iranians are keeping their Hezbollah firm ally in reserve until Iran can cross the nuclear threshold.

During  the years since the 2006 Israeli attack on Lebanon Hezbollah has greatly increased its surface-to-surface missile capability, and an American/Israeli strike on Iran, would immediately provoke all-out retaliation by Iran’s Lebanese subsidiary, Hezbollah, which now possesses, by most Israeli/American intelligence estimates, as many as 45,000 surface-to-surface rockets—at least three times as many as it had in the summer of 2006, during the last round of fighting between the group and Israel. It is further known that Russia has sent large numbers of longer range surface-to-surface missiles to Syria which has, in turn, shipped them to Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon. These missiles have the capacity to easily reach Tel Aviv and Israelis are very concerned that a massive rocket barrage deep into Israel could not only do serious damage to their infrastructure but could easily provoke a mass immigration of Israelis to other areas, thus depriving Israel of both civilian and military personnel it would certainly need in the event of increased Arab military actions against Israel.

Even if Israel’s Northern Command successfully combated Hezbollah rocket attacks in the wake of an Israeli strike, which American experts have deemed to be “nearly impossible” political limitations would not allow Israel to make repeated sorties over Iran. “America, too, would look complicit in an Israeli attack, even if it had not been forewarned. The assumption—that Israel acts only with the full approval of the United States is a feature of life in the Middle East, and it is one the Israelis are taking into account. A serious danger here to Israeli attack plans would be if the United States got wind of the imminence of such an attack and demanded that Israel cease and desist in its actions. Would Israel then stop? Though highly unlikely, this is an unpleasant and unacceptable

At this time, the Israelis have drawn up specific plans to bomb the uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz, the enrichment site at Qom, the nuclear-research center at Esfahan, and the Bushehr reactor, along with four other main sites of the Iranian nuclear program that have been identified by joint past and present Israeli-American aerial surveillance.

If Israeli aircraft succeed in destroying Iran’s centrifuges and warhead and missile plants, all well and good but even if  they fail to damage or destroy these targets ,such an attack is feared by American and other nations as risking a devastating change in the Middle East. Such an attack could initiate immediate reprisals such as a massed rocket attack by Hezbollah from southern Lebanon as well as other actions from neighboring Muslim states.

This could become a major diplomatic crisis for President Trump that will dwarf Afghanistan in significance and complexity; of rupturing relations between Jerusalem and Washington, which is Israel’s only meaningful ally; of inadvertently solidifying the somewhat tenuous rule of the mullahs in Tehran; of causing the international price of oil to spike to cataclysmic highs, launching the world economy into a period of turbulence not experienced since the autumn of 2008, or possibly since the oil shock of 1973; of seriously endangering Jewish groups around the world, and especially in the United States by making them the targets of Muslim-originated terror attacks and most certainly accelerating the growing immigration of many Israelis to what they felt might be much safer areas.

An Israeli political and military consensus has now emerged that there is a better than 50 percent chance that Israel will launch a strike by December of 2010. (Of course, it is in the Israeli interest to let it be known that the country is considering military action, if for no other reason than to concentrate the attention of the Trump administration. The Netanyahu government is already intensifying its analytic efforts not just on Iran, but on a subject many Israelis have difficulty understanding: President Trump.

The Israelis argue that Iran demands the urgent attention of the entire international community, and in particular the United States, with its unparalleled ability to project military force. This is the position of many moderate Arab leaders as well that if America allowed Iran to cross the nuclear threshold, the small Arab countries of the Gulf would have no choice but to leave the American orbit and ally themselves with Iran, out of self-protection. Several Arab leaders have suggested that America’s standing in the Middle East depends on its willingness to confront Iran. They argue, self-interestedly, that an aerial attack on a handful of Iranian facilities would not be as complicated or as messy as, say, invading Iraq. The basic question then is why the Jewish state should trust the non-Jewish president of the United States to stop Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold.

For more than a year, these White House officials have parried the charge that their president is unwilling to face the potential consequences of a nuclear Iran, and they are frustrated by what they believe to be a caricature of his position. It is undeniably true, however, that the administration has appeared on occasion less than stalwart on the issue.

One question no administration official seems eager to answer is this: what will the United States do if sanctions fail?

In Israel, of course, officials expend enormous amounts of energy to understand President Trump, despite the assurances they have received from others. Delegations from Netanyahu’s bureau, from the defense and foreign ministries, and from the Israeli intelligence community have been arriving in Washington lately with great regularity. As an alternative to cooperation by Trump, Israel, through her supporters and lobbyists in the United States are preparing to offer extensive financial and other incentives to political opponents of Trump, mostly the right-wing Republicans and American Christian groups and cults. Both of these groups are being cultivated currently with the idea that if Trump will not cooperate, the Republicans will in the future as they always have before. Also to consider is the current antipathy of American Jews for Netanyahu’s Likud Party, and these American Jews, who are, like the president they voted for in overwhelming numbers, generally supportive of a two-state solution, and dubious about Jewish settlement of the West Bank.

Both Israeli and American intelligence agencies are of the firm belief that Iran is, at most, one to three years away from having a breakout nuclear capability, which is the capacity to assemble more than one missile-ready nuclear device.. The Iranian regime, by its own statements and actions, has made itself Israel’s most zealous foe; and the most crucial component of Israeli national-security doctrine, a tenet that dates back to the 1960s, when Israel developed its own nuclear capability as a response to the Jewish experience during the Holocaust, is that no regional adversary should be allowed to achieve nuclear parity with the reborn and still-besieged Jewish state, the Iranian desire for nuclear weapons and the regime’s theologically motivated desire to see the Jewish state purged from the Middle East

Patriotism in Israel runs very high, according to numerous polls, and it seemed unlikely that mere fear of Iran could drive Israel’s Jews to seek shelter elsewhere. But one leading proponent of an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, If Iran crossed the nuclear threshold, the very idea of Israel as a Zionist entity would be endangered. “These people are good citizens, and brave citizens, but the dynamics of life are such that if someone has a scholarship for two years at an American university and the university offers him a third year, the parents will say, ‘Go ahead, remain there,’ If someone finishes a Ph.D. and they are offered a job in America, they might stay there. It will not be that people are running to the airport, but slowly, slowly, the decision-making on the family level will be in favor of staying abroad. The bottom line is that we would have an accelerated brain drain. And an Israel that is not based on entrepreneurship that is not based on excellence will not be the Israel of today.”

Most critically if a Zionist Israel is no longer seen by its 6 million Jewish inhabitants and also by the approximately 7 millions of Jews resident outside of Israel that because of continuing threats from outside the country as no longer a natural safe haven for Jews then the entire concept of a Zionist haven/state is destroyed

To understand why Israelis of different political dispositions see Iran as quite possibly the most crucial challenge they have faced in their 62-year history, one must keep in mind the near-sanctity, in the public’s mind, of Israel’s nuclear monopoly. The Israeli national narrative, in shorthand, begins with shoah, which is Hebrew for “calamity,” and ends with tkumah, “rebirth.” Israel’s nuclear arsenal symbolizes national rebirth, and something else as well: that Jews emerged from World War II having learned at least one lesson, about the price of powerlessness.

If Israel is unable to change Trump’s mind, they will continue to threaten to take unilateral action against Iran by sending approximately one hundred F-15Es, F-16Is, F-16Cs, and other aircraft of the Israeli air force to fly east toward Iran—by crossing Saudi Arabia, and along the border between Syria and Turkey, and, without consulting the Americans or in any way announcing their missions by traveling directly through Iraq’s airspace, though it is crowded with American aircraft. (It’s so crowded, in fact, that the United States Central Command, whose area of responsibility is the greater Middle East, has already asked the Pentagon what to do should Israeli aircraft invade its airspace. According to multiple sources, the answer came back: do not shoot them down.)

The first belief by Israeli military planners is that Israel would get only one try. Israeli planes would fly low over Saudi Arabia, bomb their targets in Iran, and return to Israel by flying again over Saudi territory, possibly even landing in the Saudi desert for refueling—perhaps, if speculation rife in intelligence circles is to be believed, with secret Saudi cooperation.

Israel has been working through the United States to procure Saudi cooperation with an Israeli air strike against Tehran and other targets inside Iran.. The Saudis are treating this subject with great caution lest other Arab states learn of their putative cooperation in an Iranian attack with over flights of Saudi territory by Israeli military aircraft.

The current American/Israeli military plans are for the Saudis to turn off their radar after they have been noticed by the American embassy that an Israeli attack is imminent and also to permit the Israeli aircraft to land in their country for refueling The Israelis are not concerned with any kind of Iranian aircraft resistance because their airfields have been pinpointed by American satellites and one of the attacking groups would use low-yield atomic rocketry on all the identified Iranian bases. It is obvious that when, not if, the Saudis part in this becomes public, it will create immense ill-will in neighboring Muslim states, an impression the Saudi government is most anxious not to deal with.

Israel has twice before successfully attacked and destroyed an enemy’s nuclear program. In 1981, Israeli warplanes bombed the Iraqi reactor at Osirak, halting—forever, as it turned out—Saddam Hussein’s nuclear ambitions; and in 2007, Israeli planes destroyed a North Korean–built reactor in Syria. An attack on Iran, then, would be unprecedented only in scope and complexity.

The reasoning offered by Israeli decision makers was uncomplicated: At the present moment, Israel possesses 135 nuclear weapons, most of them  mainly two-stage thermonuclear devices, capable of being delivered by missile, fighter-bomber, or submarine (two of which are currently positioned in the Persian Gulf). Netanyahu is worried about an entire complex of problems, not only that Iran, or one of its proxies, would, in all probability, destroy or severely damage Tel Aviv; like most Israeli leaders, he believes that if Iran gains possession of a nuclear weapon, it will use its new leverage to buttress its terrorist proxies in their attempts to make life difficult and dangerous; and that Israel’s status as a haven for Jews would be forever undermined, and with it, the entire raison d’être of the 100-year-old Zionist experiment.

Another question Israeli planners struggle with: how will they know if their attacks have actually destroyed a significant number of centrifuges and other hard-to-replace parts of the clandestine Iranian program? Two strategists told me that Israel will have to dispatch commandos to finish the job, if necessary, and bring back proof of the destruction. The commandos—who, according to intelligence sources, may be launched from the autonomous Kurdish territory in northern Iraq—would be facing a treacherous challenge, but one military planner I spoke with said the army would have no choice but to send them.

Netanyahu’s obvious course is to convince the United States that Iran is not Israel’s problem alone; it is the world’s problem, and the world, led by the United States, is obligated to grapple with it, not Israel alone. It is well-known that Israel by itself could not hope to deal with a retaliation against it by Iran and other Arab states but that a confederation of other nations, led, of course, by the United States could defend Israel against her enemies. The Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu, does not place and credence in the current sanctions against Iran, even the ones initiated by the United States at Israel’s urgent request. Is it known that Netanayahu is not happy with President Trumps’s reluctance to support an Israeli attack on Iran and has brought a great deal of political pressure to bear on the President by American Jewish political and business groups.

Netanyahu understands, however, that President Trump, with whom he has had a difficult and intermittently frigid relationship, believes that stringent sanctions, combined with various enticements to engage with the West, might still provide Iran with a face-saving method of standing down.

Israel’s current period of forbearance, in which Israel’s leadership waits to see if the West’s nonmilitary methods can stop Iran, will come to an end this December.  The American defense secretary, said at a meeting of NATO defense ministers that most intelligence estimates predict that Iran is one to three years away from building a nuclear weapon. “

One of the consistent aims of Israel is to pressure President Trump, who has said on a number of occasions that he finds the prospect of a nuclear Iran “unacceptable,” into executing a military strike against Iran’s known main weapons and uranium-enrichment facilities.

Donald Trump is steadfastly opposed to initiating new wars in the Middle East and an attack by U.S. forces on Iran is not a foreign-policy goal for him or his administration. The Israeli goal is to compel him by public, and private, pressure to order the American military into action against Iran

President Trump has said any number of times that he would find a nuclear Iran “unacceptable.” His most stalwart comments on the subject have been discounted by some Israeli officials

If the Israelis reach the firm conclusion that Trump will not, under any circumstances, launch a strike on Iran, then the countdown will begin for a unilateral Israeli attack.

 

FAKER! Man admits he lied to Fox News about Navy SEAL service

October 19, 2017

by Geoff Ziezulewicz

Navy Times

Navy veteran John Garofalo appeared on a Fox News segment this month, showing off a massive presidential seal he carved for President Trump while receiving praise for his service in Vietnam as a SEAL.

The piece was broadcast nationally and featured cascading shots of all Garofalo’s medals. Online, it went viral, racking up 1.5 million Facebook views on Fox’s Facebook page.

“The Vietnam War veteran served seven years as a member of the nation’s first Navy SEAL team,” Fox News reporter Bryan Llenas said. “He was awarded 22 commendations, including two Purple Hearts.”

Llenas later called the 72-year-old New York State resident a “tough, tough man.”

“He was listed twice during his service in Vietnam as missing in action,” Llenas noted at the segment’s close.

“God bless John Garofalo,” an anchor said. “We certainly hope maybe the president is listening.”

But when Navy Times contacted Garofalo Thursday, Garofalo admitted he had lied and never served in Vietnam, never received a Purple Heart and was never a SEAL.

Garofalo said he had falsely portrayed himself as a Vietnam vet and a SEAL for years.

“It got bigger and bigger,” Garofalo told Navy Times in a telephone interview. “What I did I‘m ashamed of, and I didn’t mean to cause so much disgrace to the SEALs.”

Records show Garofalo did serve in the Navy from Sept. 6, 1963, to Sept. 6, 1967, as an aviation boatswain’s mate ― aircraft handling, or ABH, a job that involves overseeing various ground-based functions involving aircraft.

The closest he ever got to Vietnam was a tour in Rota, Spain.

Former SEALs who first confirmed Garofalo’s lie, and family members of the man, both said they have contacted Fox about retracting the segment.

The Fox segment was still up on its Facebook page as of Thursday afternoon. A Fox representative said in an email that it would run an on-air correction Sunday and corrections would be made on its website and Facebook page.

“Fox News not withdrawing that story has drove me nutty,” said Don Shipley, a retired SEAL who outs bogus military service claims and was the first to obtain official records disputing Garofalo’s story.

Shipley said he contacted Navy Times after Fox News failed to retract the bogus piece.

Shipley provided copies of Garofalo’s official military records and Navy Times confirmed the records’ authenticity with the National Personnel Records Center and Naval Special Warfare Command.

Shipley said he approached Fox about retracting the story the day after it ran.

Facebook correspondence provided by Shipley shows he messaged Llenas about inconsistencies in Garofalo’s military history and asked Fox to retract the story.

“I don’t know who has the balls in this day and age to do something like that,” he said of Garofalo’s lies in an interview.

According to Shipley’s correspondence with Fox’s Llenas, the reporter told Shipley he had a request out for Garofalo’s records.

“You can turn this story around,” Shipley wrote to Llenas, according to a screenshot of his Facebook correspondence with the Fox reporter that Shipley provided to Navy Times. “I‘ll help you but avoiding it won’t help.”

One Twitter user tweeted at the Fox News account on Oct. 10, asking them to retract Garofalo’s segment as well.

Service records not only show that Garofalo did not serve as a SEAL, but that he did not receive a Purple Heart and did not deploy to Vietnam.

A Freedom of Information response shows Naval Special Warfare Command having no records of Garofalo in the history of the elite units’ ranks.

“Despite this diligent search, which included variations in spelling and order of name,” no records could be found that Garofalo ever qualified or participated in the SEAL, UDT or SWCC communities, the command’s FOIA response states.

National Personnel Records Center documents show Garofalo coming aboard at U.S. Navy Recruiting Station in New York and heading to basic training at Naval Station Great Lakes, Illinois.

After that he reported to Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia, in December 1963, according to personnel records.

He headed overseas and reported to Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron (VQ) 2 in Rota, Spain, in January 1966, according to records, and separated from the Navy in September 1967.

While the Fox News segment pans across a variety of medals and decorations in the Garofalo story, including a Purple Heart, personnel records do not show Garofalo receiving such medals and decorations.

A form dated 1993 entitled “transmittal of and/or entitlement to awards” only lists Garofalo as authorized for a National Defense Service Medal.

“Did not served (sic) with a unit/vessel awarded the Vietnam Service Medal, or any unit citations,” a staff comment reads.

The form lists Garofalo as the requester of the 1993 review.

In the Fox News segment, Garofalo was reluctant to be referred to as a “hero.”

“You are a hero,” Llenas told Garofalo in the segment. “But like most heroes—“

“I don’t like to hear that,” Garofalo said, cutting him off.

“Why don’t you like to hear it?” Llenas asked.

Garofalo appeared to choke up.

“Heroes,” he said, “are the ones that didn’t come home.”

 

Regicide

The Official Assassination of John F. Kennedy

by Gregory Douglas

Foreword

The assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, continues to generate an enormous amount of popular controversy, more so than any other historical happening in recorded memory. The killing took place in a major American city in full view of hundreds of people and in broad daylight, yet years after the event, a dispassionate overview of the incident is impossible to achieve. The act and its consequences are as cluttered as the dense Indian jungle that so thoroughly hides the gaudy tiger from the sight of its prey.

The initial stunned confusion in Dallas has continued, with much official connivance, into succeeding decades, with an immense proliferation of books, magazine articles, motion picture productions, and television dramas, which are equally divided between assaults on previous productions and the presentation of even more confusion, theory, and supposition.

One camp consists entirely of what can best be termed the “official version” and in the other camp are the “revisionist versions.” There is only one of the former and a multitude of the others.

There is no question in the minds of anyone that John F. Kennedy was shot dead in Dallas, Texas, in November of 1963. The real issue is who shot him and why.

Is the report of the official Warren Commission correct?  Was the President killed by a disaffected man who acted entirely alone? Was his subsequent murder perpetrated by another disaffected man who also acted entirely alone?

Are the legions of revisionists correct? Was the Kennedy assassination the result of a plot? And if there was a plot, who were the plotters and what were their motives?

The overwhelming majority of the public, who are the final arbiters of whatever may pass for historical truth, has, in the intervening years, come to believe less in the determined certainty of officialdom and more in the questions raised by those who cannot accept official dictums.

In a very strong sense, the Kennedy assassination marked an important watershed in the relationship between the American public and its elected and appointed officials. Before that event, what the government said was almost universally accepted as the truth. There was unquestioning and simplistic belief, and more, there was trust in the pronouncements from the Beltway and its numerous and often very slavish servants in academia and the American media. It is true, people would say, because it is printed in my newspaper and supported by important and knowledgeable savants.

That the media and academia might be influenced by, if not actually commanded by, the government rarely occurred to anyone outside of a small handful of chronic malcontents.

The questions that were raised by the Warren Commission’s lengthy and thoroughly disorganized report were certainly in many cases very important. That there were many errors in this hasty attempt to allay national anxieties is clearly evident, but in retrospect, and in view of recently disclosed evidence, these are more errors of commission than omission.

The Warren Report was prepared and released to the public not to encourage questioning but to silence it as quickly as possible. There are many cogent reasons for this desire for silence and acceptance, not the least of which was the urgent desire for self-preservation and the maintenance of the integrity of the governmental system.

In actuality, the American currency is not backed by gold or silver holdings but by the blind faith of the public. If the concept of unquestioning belief in governmental currency stability is questioned, economic chaos can be the result and this applies equally to government probity.

To quote from the title of the first and very important revisionist work on the Kennedy assassination, there was a great “rush to judgment” and a frantic desire on the part of the official establishment to completely bury not only the murdered President, but also any questions his killing might have engendered with him.

Was the primary reason for this desire for closure merely a desire to placate public opinion or were there other, and far more sinister, reasons for this rush to judgment?

Those who question the official chronicle have been severely hampered by the fact that all the records, documents, interviews, and other evidentiary material are securely under governmental custody and control. It is beyond the belief of any reasonable person to think that an official agency would release to the public any material that would bring the official judgment into question. This is not only institutional maintenance but also, all things in evidence now considered, a frantic effort at self-preservation.

Not all documents, however, lie under government control, and there exist reports that do not only question the Warren Report’s findings but are also of such a nature as to both thoroughly discredit it and, in the final analysis, bring it to ruin.

Such a historical land mine lay for years in the personal files of Robert Trumbull Crowley, once Deputy Director for Operations for the Central Intelligence Agency. Crowley, who had authored books on Soviet intelligence, died in October of 2000 after a long illness.

When Crowley retired from the CIA in the 1980s, he took a significant quantity of important historical documents with him and, prior to his death, gave a number of these to various historians with whom he occasionally cooperated.

Among these documents was a lengthy paper prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in 1978 as a commentary on Soviet intelligence evaluations of the Kennedy assassination.

The Defense Intelligence Agency, a branch of the Department of Defense, specializes in the analysis of foreign military technical intelligence.

This document was considered highly sensitive, for reasons that shall shortly become very evident, and its distribution was limited to a handful of copies with severely restricted circulation.

Crowley had a copy of this explosive document because he had personal knowledge of the factors and personalities behind the assassination and had, in fact, prior professional knowledge of the information contained in the DIA secret paper.

The second and certainly even more important document is a 98 pages long paper entitled “OPERATION ZIPPER Conference Record.” This document is a long list of decisions and activities of various U.S. authorities in a project with the code name “Operation ZIPPER.”

The distribution of this document was restricted to five persons, one of them being R. T. Crowley, in whose papers a copy of it was found.

This book uses the official DIA Report and the “Operation ZIPPER” document as its framework. In addition to that, the author uses the notes he made during endless hours of conversation he had with R. T. Crowley in the years between 1993 and 1996, and has dug deeply into the great body of literature on the assassination of J. F. Kennedy to flesh out what has proven to be a very ugly skeleton. In sum, it puts sinews and flesh on the bones of a monster.

The loss of faith is a terrible matter and one can say after reading these papers and with bitter truth: “Who then will guard the guardians?”

 

 

Acknowledgments

It is generally the custom for beginning writers to thank anyone and everyone even remotely connected with his book. Book editors, typists, library personnel, former teachers, family members, and pets are all given their five seconds of fame (or far less depending upon the sales of the book).

However, that having been said, the author would like to offer the most sincere and grateful, albeit posthumous, thanks to the late Colonel Robert T. Crowley of Washington, D.C., and his co-worker, Colonel William Corson, USMC (United States Marine Corps), of Potomac, Maryland, for all of the very important advice and assistance they have rendered to the grateful author. Also their friend and co-worker, Joe Trento of Front Royal, Virginia, for his valuable commentary and excellent advice, especially concerning the activities of James Jesus Angleton.

As opposed to acknowledging others who aided in the actual preparation of this study, recognition ought to be given on the author’s part for research into American intelligence matters.

David Lifton’s work, Best Evidence,  is a brilliant analysis of the Kennedy autopsy; Thomas C. Reeves, A Question of Character  is one of the best revisionist views of the life and political career of John F. Kennedy; Thomas Dale Scott’s work, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK  is a sensible and studied work on the backgrounds of Kennedy adversaries; and Seymour Hersh’s work The Dark Side of Camelot  gives a far more detailed revisionist look into JFK and provides considerable background on his Soviet connection. Almost every book on the subject, regardless of how bizarre it might appear to the average reader, contains small nuggets of value to be mined by the thorough researcher.

Former CBS news director and documentary producer, Los Angeles-based Ted Landreth has done prodigies investigating certain highly sensitive CIA operations inside the United States.

Also, an important work is Gerald Posner’s Case Closed.  This work is an excellent overview and defense of the official establishment point of view. That the American media lavishly praised it when it appeared in 1993 is a commentary on the objectivity of the media.

 

Obituary

Tuesday, October 10, 2000: Page B06, Washington Post:

“Robert Trumbull Crowley

Senior CIA Officer

Robert Trumbull Crowley, 76, a senior CIA officer whose career spanned from the agency’s inception in 1947 until his retirement in the mid-1980s, died Oct. 8 at Sibley Memorial Hospital. He had congestive heart failure and dementia.

Mr. Crowley became assistant deputy director for operations, the second in command in the clandestine directorate of operations. After retiring, he co-wrote a book with former CIA intelligence officer and Marine Corps officer William R. Corson, “The New KGB: Engine of Soviet Power,” published by William Morrow in 1985.

Mr. Crowley, a Washington resident, was a Chicago native and attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. He served in the Army in the Pacific during World War II and retired from the Army Reserve in 1986 as a lieutenant colonel.

Survivors include his wife since 1948, Emily Upton Crowley of Washington; a son, Greg Upton Crowley of Washington; and two granddaughters.”

In 1996, Robert Crowley entered a Washington hospital for major surgery. It was believed that he might have cancer of the lungs. The operation was successful but Crowley, who had been suffering from short-term memory problems, slipped into a state of chronic dementia from which he never recovered.

Before entering the hospital, Crowley, known in the CIA as the “Crow,” sent off two packets of documents from his extensive files to the author of this book with instructions to return the papers if he survived the operation. After the operation, it was evident to Crowley’s family that he would do no more writing and I was told to keep the papers and not to return them.

As one of the most powerful men in the Central Intelligence Agency and one of the least known outside of the Agency, Crowley was involved in most of the important CIA operations during his tenure. His personal files are of great value to researchers and cover both foreign and domestic intelligence operations.

Among these papers was the above mentioned DIA Report, a 1978 in-depth analysis of a Soviet intelligence report on the assassination of President John Kennedy. At one time, the Russians were held suspect in this act, and in the intervening years, their intelligence organs had been compiling data in refutation of this thesis. It should be noted that Lee Oswald, the purported assassin, had defected to the Soviet Union and, while resident in that country, married the niece of an MVD  intelligence officer.

Although the DIA Report makes it very clear that Oswald was a source for the Office of Naval Intelligence and that his defection was spurious, his openly avowed Marxism, public support of the Communist government of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and his repeated pro-Communist utterances made him a very handy weapon with which to attack the Russians.

The DIA Report, signed by Army Colonel Vedder B. Driscoll, chief of the Soviet Intelligence division of the DIA, appears to be the first official analysis of the Kennedy assassination that does not follow the official line, and which survived the post-assassination shredding frenzy that seized the American intelligence community.

Theories, opinions and arguments abound concerning the Kennedy assassination and while many authors will applaud Driscoll’s DIA Report, others will reject it. Rejection or acceptance depends entirely on what an author may have previously published on the subject.

The other surviving official paper, the already mentioned “Operation ZIPPER” document, will most likely cause an even more heated controversy, since it does not have a cover document and consists merely of a brief listing of persons and agencies involved, decisions made, and events that took place during and after the preparation of Kennedy’s assassination.

Over 2,500 works on the assassination have appeared in print to date but nothing approaches what can best be termed the “Driscoll Report” and the “ZIPPER Document” for brevity and accuracy. The reader is given a unique view of the events in Dallas and Washington post-November 22, 1963.

The facts behind the Kennedy assassination are found in the Driscoll Report and the ZIPPER Document. For the first time, the actual motives of those who organized and instigated the act are clearly and decisively exposed, as are the techniques of the actual shooting, the nature of the weapons used, and the means by which the shooters escaped.

These documents do not challenge the famous Warren Report that has been ridiculed by many and supported by few; they merely supersede it.

The ZIPPER Document reveals, most importantly, the names and official positions of those who directed the killers. For example, the man who instigated the attack was one of the highest level American intelligence officials, and the man to whom he entrusted the supervision of the assassins was someone who had been involved in one of the most important American intelligence-gathering actions against the Soviet Union, an operation that the Driscoll Report now reveals had been known to the Soviets even before it was launched! The fate of the shooters is also revealed; only one of them lived more than a month after Kennedy died.

In this work, rather than present the endlessly chewed arguments of others to dazzle or bore the reader, the reports are presented in excerpt (Driscoll) or in full (ZIPPER) with appropriate commentary.

This study is organized into a number of chapters. The assassination itself is covered by a translation of the Soviet intelligence report, followed by pertinent and parallel excerpts from the official Warren Commission Report and the Defense Intelligence Agency analysis. The observations of the author conclude each section.

The next chapters will cover the more important players. Again, first a Soviet report, followed by the pertinent sections of the Warren Report, the DIA analysis, and concluding with the author’s comments. The Warren Commission Report basically covered the actual assassination and the subsequent murder of the alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. Both the Soviet and Driscoll Reports contain additional material not covered in the Warren Commission Report.

Subsequent chapters addressing the real history of the Kennedy assassination are based mainly on the ZIPPER Document with some use of the Driscoll Report, and are backed by information the author received during his many conversations with R. T. Crowley.

Long years of suspicion, investigation and revisionist commentary have ended with the discovery and publication of the Driscoll Report and the ZIPPER Document from the papers of top CIA official, Robert Crowley.

The deadly international plots, assassinations of unpopular foreign politicians, active involvement in the world-wide drug market, ruthless manipulation of the United States government to include the office of the President, counterfeitings, the fomenting of revolts and bloody uprisings in nations friendly to the United States, the infiltration and control of the American and foreign print and film media, and the general belief that their opinions should dictate America’s domestic and foreign policy have led directly to such anti-American incidents as the murder of American citizens and such explosive outrages as the recent attack on the World Trade Center.

The Central Intelligence Agency, which likes to picture itself as the protective shield of the American people, has proven itself to be consistently wrong in its analysis of almost every problem presented to it, and has alienated by its actions a good part of the world which at one time had been neutral in its opinion of America if not sympathetic. It is beyond belief that a complicated, yearlong international plot against America, which culminated in the WTC attack and which involved hundreds of people, could not have been observed by the CIA. This is either an example of gross incompetence at best or connivance at worst.

The Crowley Papers give all of us a true understanding of the meaning of Lord Acton’s dictum, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

 

The Assassination

The following chapters will consist of facsimile reproductions of the DIA’s translation of the Soviet intelligence study, of its own analysis, and of quoted excerpts of the official Warren Commission Report, followed by commentary.

 

The Facts of the Assassination

The Soviet Intelligence Study (translation)

  1. On 22 November, 1963, American President John Kennedy was shot and killed during a political motor trip through the Texas city of Dallas. The President was riding at the head of the procession in his official state car, seated in the right rear with his wife on his left side. Seated in front of him was the Governor of Texas and his wife, also on his left side. The vehicle was an open car without side or top protection of any kind. There was a pilot car in front, about a hundred feet, and the President’s car was flanked by motorcycle outriders located two to a side roughly parallel with the rear wheels of the State car.
  2. The President and his party were driving at a speed of about 20 kilometers per hour through the built-up area of Dallas and greeted the many people lining the streets along his route. Security was supplied by the Secret Service supplemented by local police. There were two Secret Service agents in the front of the car. One was driving the car. Other agents were in cars following the Presidential vehicle and Dallas police on motorbikes were on both sides of the Presidential car but at the rear of it. There was a pilot car in front of the President’s car but it was at some distance away.
  3. The course of the journey was almost past all the occupied area. The cars then turned sharply to the right and then again to the left to go to the motorway leading to a meeting hall where the President was to speak at a dinner. It is considered very bad security for such an official drive to decrease its speed or to make unnecessary turnings or stops. (Historical note: It was just this problem that led directly to positioning the Austrian Heir in front of waiting assassins at Sarajevo in 1914.) The route was set by agents of the Secret Service and published in the Dallas newspapers before the arrival of the President and his party.
  4. After the last turning to the left, the cars passed a tall building on the right side of the street that was used as a warehouse for the storage of school books. This building was six stories tall and had a number of workers assigned to it. There were no official security people in this building, either on the roof or at the windows. Also, there were no security agents along the roadway on either side. All security agents were riding either in the Presidential car (two in the front) and in the following vehicles.
  5. As the President’s state car passed this building, some shots were heard. The exact source and number of these shots was never entirely determined. Some observers thought that the shots came from above and behind while many more observers in the area stated that the shots came from the front and to the right of the car. There was a small area with a decorative building and some trees and bushes there and many saw unidentified people in this area. Many people standing in front of this area to watch the cars stated that shots came from behind them.
  6. When the first shots were fired, the President was seen to lean forward and clutch at his throat with both hands. Immediately when this happened, the Secret Service driver of the President’s state car slowed down the vehicle until it was almost stopped. This was a direct breach of their training which stated that in such events where firing occurred, the driver of the President’s car would immediately drive away as quickly as possible.
  7. At the same time as the first shot, there was a second one, this one from behind and above. This bullet struck the Governor, sitting in front of the President and slightly to his right, in the right upper shoulder. The bullet went downwards into the chest cavity, breaking ribs, struck his wrist and lodged in his left upper thigh. There were then two shots fired at the President’s car. The first shot initiated the action and this one appears to have hit the President in the throat. If so, it must have been fired from in front of the car, not behind it.
  8. Right at that moment, there was one other shot. The shell obviously struck the President on the upper rear of the right side of his head, throwing him back and to the left. Also, at this time, blood, pieces of skull and brains could be seen flying to the left where the motorbike police guard was struck with this material on his right side and on the right side of his motorbike.
  9. Immediately after this final shot, the driver then began to increase his speed and the cars all went at increasing speed down under the tunnel.
  10. The fatally injured President and the seriously injured Governor were very quickly taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. The President was declared as dead and his body was removed, by force, to an aircraft and flown to Washington. The badly wounded Governor was treated at the hospital for his wounds and survived.
  11. Within moments of the shots fired at the President, a Dallas motorcycle police officer ran into the book building and up to the second floor in the company of the manager of the establishment. Here, the policeman encountered a man later positively identified as one Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the book storage company. Oswald was drinking a Coca-Cola and appeared to be entirely calm and collected. (Later it was said that he had rushed down four flights of steps past other employees in a few moments after allegedly shooting the President. It is noted from the records that none of the other employees on the staircase ever saw Oswald passing them.) The elevator which moved freight and personnel between the floors was halted at the sixth floor and turned off so that it could not be recalled to persons below wishing to use it.

 The Warren Commission Report

At 11:40 a.m., CST, on Friday, November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy, Mrs. Kennedy, and their party arrived at Love Field, Dallas, Tex. Behind them was the first day of a Texas trip planned 5 months before by the President, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, and John B. Connally, Jr., Governor of Texas. After leaving the White House on Thursday morning, the President had flown initially to San Antonio where Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson joined the party and the President dedicated new research facilities at the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine. Following a testimonial dinner in Houston for U.S. Representative Albert Thomas, the President flew to Fort Worth where he spent the night and spoke at a large breakfast gathering on Friday.

Planned for later that day were a motorcade through downtown Dallas, a luncheon speech at the Trade Mart, and a flight to Austin where the President would attend a reception and speak at a Democratic fundraising dinner. From Austin he would proceed to the Texas ranch of the Vice President. [WCR, pp. 1-2.]

The Secret Service was told on November 8 that 45 minutes had been allotted to a motorcade procession from Love Field to the site of a luncheon planned by Dallas business and civic leaders in honor of the President. After considering the facilities and security problems of the several buildings, the Trade Mart was chosen as the luncheon site. Given this selection, and in accordance with the customary practice of affording the greatest number of people an opportunity to see the President, the motorcade route selected was a natural one. The route was approved by the local host committee and White House representatives on November 18 and publicized in the local papers starting on November 19. This advance publicity made it clear that the motorcade would leave Main Street and pass the intersection of Elm and Houston Streets as it proceeded to the Trade Mart by way of the Stemmons Freeway.

By midmorning of November 22, clearing skies in Dallas dispelled the threat of rain and the President greeted the crowds from his open limousine without the “bubbletop,” which was at that time a plastic shield furnishing protection only against inclement weather. To the left of the President in the rear seat was Mrs. Kennedy. In the jump seats were Governor Connally, who was in front of the President, and Mrs. Connally at the Governor’s left. Agent William R. Greer of the Secret Service was driving, and Agent Roy H. Kellerman was sitting to his right. [WCR, p. 2]

At the extreme west end of Main Street, the motorcade turned right on Houston Street and proceeded north for one block in order to make a left turn on Elm Street, the most direct and convenient approach to the Stemmons Freeway and the Trade Mart. As the President’s car approached the intersection of Houston and Elm Streets, there loomed directly ahead on the intersection’s northwest corner a seven story, orange brick warehouse and office building, the Texas School Book Depository. [WCR, p. 2]

The President’s car which had been going north made a sharp turn toward the southwest onto Elm Street. At a speed of about 11 miles per hour, it started down the gradual descent towards a railroad overpass under which the motorcade would proceed before reaching the Stemmons Freeway. The front of the Texas School Book Depository was now on the President’s right, and he waved to the crowd assembled there as he passed the building. Dealey Plaza—an open, landscaped area marking the western end of downtown Dallas—stretched out to the President’s left. A Secret Service agent riding in the motorcade radioed the Trade Mart that the President would arrive in 5 minutes.

Seconds later shots resounded in rapid succession. The President’s hands moved to his neck. He appeared to stiffen momentarily and lurch slightly forward in his seat. A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine. It traveled downward and exited from the front of the neck, causing a nick in the left lower portion of the knot in the President’s necktie. Governor Connally had been facing towards the crowd on the right. He started to turn toward the left and suddenly felt a blow on his back. The Governor had been hit by a bullet which entered at the extreme right side of his back at a point below his right armpit. The bullet traveled through his chest in a downward and forward direction, exited below his right nipple, passed through his right wrist, which had been in his lap, and then caused a wound to his left thigh. The force of the bullet’s impact appeared to spin the Governor to his right, and Mrs. Connally pulled him down into her lap. Another bullet then struck President Kennedy in the rear portion of his head, causing a massive and fatal wound. The President fell to the left into Mrs. Kennedy’s lap. [WCR, p. 3]

The first person to see Oswald after the assassination was Patrolman M. L. Baker of the Dallas Police Department. Baker was riding a two-wheeled motorcycle behind the last press car of the motorcade.

Baker testified that he entered the lobby (of the Texas Book Depository) and “spoke out and asked where the stairs or elevator was*** and this man, Mr. Truly, spoke up and says, it seems to me like he says ‘I am a building manager. Follow me, officer, and I will show you.’”

Meanwhile, Truly had run up several steps towards the third floor. Missing Baker, he came back to find the officer in the doorway to the lunchroom “facing Lee Harvey Oswald.” Baker turned to Truly and said, “Do you know this man, does he work here?” Truly replied, “Yes.” Baker stated later that the man did not seem to be out of breath; he seemed calm. [WCR, p. 152]

That Oswald descended by stairway from the sixth floor to the second-floor lunchroom is consistent with the movements of the two elevators, which would have provided the other possible means of descent. When Truly, accompanied by Baker, ran to the rear of the first floor, he was certain that both elevators, which occupy the same shaft, were on the fifth floor. In the few seconds which elapsed while Baker and Truly ran from the first to the second floor, neither of these slow elevators could have descended from the fifth to the second floor. Furthermore, no elevator was at the second floor when they arrived there. [WCR, p. 153]

The DIA Analysis

  1. The Dallas trip had been in train since late July of 1963. Texas was considered to be a key state in the upcoming 1964 Presidential elections. It was the disqualification of over 100,000 Texas votes, in conjunction with the known fraudulent voting in Chicago in 1960 that gave President Kennedy and his associates a slim margin of victory.
  2. The actual route of Kennedy’s drive through downtown Dallas was made known to the local press on Tuesday, November 19. The sharp right turn from Main St. onto Houston and then the equally sharp left turn onto Elm was the only way to get to the on ramp to the Stemmons Freeway. A traffic divider on Main St. precluded the motorcade from taking the direct route, from Main St. across Houston and thence right to the Stemmons Freeway exit.
  3. Just after the President’s car passed the Texas Book Depository, a number of shots were fired. There were a total of three shots fired at the President. The first shot came from the right front, hitting him in the neck. This projectile did not exit the body. The immediate reaction by the President was to clutch at his neck and say, “I have been hit!” He was unable to move himself into any kind of a defensive posture because he was wearing a restrictive body brace.
  4. The second shot came from above and behind the Presidential car, the bullet striking Texas Governor Connally in the upper right shoulder, passing through his chest and exiting sharply downwards into his left thigh.
  5. The third, and fatal shot, was also fired at the President from the right front and from a position slightly above the car. This bullet, which was fired from a .223 weapon, struck the President above the right ear, passed through the right rear quadrant of his head and exited towards the left. Pieces of the President’s skull and a large quantity of brain matter was blasted out and to the left of the car. Much of this matter struck a Dallas police motorcycle outrider positioned to the left rear of the Presidential car.
  6. Photographic evidence indicates that the driver, SA Greer, slowed down the vehicle when shots were heard, in direct contravention of standing Secret Service regulations.
  7. Reports that the initial hit on the President came from above and behind are false and misleading. Given the position of the vehicle at the time of impact and the altitude of the alleged shooter, a bullet striking the back of the President’s neck would have exited sharply downward as did the projectile fired at Governor Connally purportedly from the same shooter located in the same area of the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository.
  8. The projectile that killed the President was filled with mercury. When such a projectile enters a body, the sudden decrease in velocity causes the mercury to literally explode the shell. This type of projectile is designed to practically guarantee the death of the target and is a method in extensive use by European assassination teams.
  9. The disappearance of Kennedy’s brain and related post mortem material from the U.S. National Archives was motivated by an official desire not to permit further testing which would certainly show the presence of mercury in the brain matter.
  10. Official statements that the fatal shot was fired from above and behind are totally incorrect and intended to mislead. Such a shot would have blasted the brain and blood matter forward and not to the left rear. Also, photographic evidence indicates that after the fatal shot, the President was hurled towards his left, against his wife who was seated to his immediate left.
  11. The so-called “magic bullet” theory, i.e., a relatively pristine, fired, Western Cartridge 6.5 Mannlicher-Carcano projectile produced in evidence, is obviously an official attempt to justify its own thesis. This theory, that a projectile from above and behind struck the President in the upper back, swung up, exited his throat, gained altitude and then angled downwards through the body of Governor Connally, striking bone and passing through muscle mass and emerging in almost undamaged condition is a complete impossibility. The bullet in question was obtained by firing the alleged assassination weapon into a container of water.
  12. Three other such projectiles were recovered in similar undamaged condition. One of these was produced for official inspection and was claimed to have been found on Governor Connally’s stretcher at Parkland Hospital. As a goodly portion of the projectile was still in the Governor’s body (where much of it remained until his death some years later), this piece of purported evidence should be considered as nothing more than an official “plant.”

Author’s Comments

Almost all of the revisionist works on the Kennedy assassination deal with forensics. The main, and only, purpose for the existence of the Warren Commission was to firmly establish that a lone individual who had no accomplices had shot President Kennedy. Any evidence in existence at the time the commission sat that furthered this thesis was used; any evidence that would refute their thesis was ignored.

Oswald, the lone individual with no accomplices, had to have shot the President, and Governor Connally, with a surplus Italian Army 6.5-mm Mannlicher-Carcano rifle equipped with a cheap telescopic sight. He had to have fired from the sixth floor of a building, down at a moving target and have fired three shots in a five-second period of time. The Carcano was a very clumsy bolt-action rifle. The turned-down bolt handle was difficult to manipulate and the field of vision of the scope was so small as to virtually render it useless against a moving target.

Tests by numerous firearms experts were never able to duplicate either the rate of fire or the alleged accuracy of the weapon purported to have been the sniper’s only weapon.  While the muzzle velocity of the 6.5-mm round tip bullet was very low, nevertheless, if it hit a human being within a reasonable distance, it could inflict a fatal shot.

The “magic bullet” thesis is a piece of impossible nonsense that nevertheless was eagerly accepted and promulgated by the Warren Commission and, decades after the event, is still shrilly supported by those members of the media who have a vested interest in doing so. The nearly pristine bullet conveniently planted on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital could never have hit or passed into anything other than a container of water.

 

Lee Harvey Oswald

The Soviet Intelligence Study (translation)

  1. During the course of the interrogations, Oswald was repeatedly led up and down very crowded corridors of the police headquarters with no thought of security. This is an obvious breach of elementary security that was noted at the time by reporters. It now appears that Oswald’s killer was seen and photographed in the crowds in the building.
  2. The American Marine defector, Lee Harvey Oswald, entered the Soviet Union in October of 1959. Initially, Oswald, who indicated he wanted to “defect” and reside in the Soviet Union, was the object of some suspicion by Soviet intelligence authorities. He was at first denied entrance, attempted a “suicide” attempt and only when he was more extensively interrogated by competent agents was it discovered that he was in possession of material that potentially had a great intelligence value.
  3. Oswald, who as a U.S. Marine, was stationed at the Atsugi airfield in Japan, had been connected with the Central Intelligence Agency’s U-2 intelligence-gathering aircraft program and was in possession of technical manuals and papers concerning these aircraft and their use in overflights of the Soviet Union.
  4. The subject proved to be most cooperative and a technical analysis of his documentation indicated that he was certainly being truthful with Soviet authorities. In addition to the manuals, Oswald was able to supply Soviet authorities with a wealth of material, much of which was unknown and relatively current. As a direct result of analysis of the Oswald material, it became possible to intercept and shoot down a U2 aircraft flown by CIA employee Gary Powers.
  5. On the basis of the quality of this material, Oswald was granted asylum in the Soviet Union and permitted to settle in Minsk under the supervision of the Ministry of the Interior. This was partially to reward him for his cooperation and also to remove him from the possible influence of American authorities at the Embassy in Moscow.
  6. Oswald worked in a radio factory, was given a subsidized apartment in Minsk and kept under constant surveillance. He was very pro-Russian, learned to speak and read the language, albeit not with native fluency, and behaved himself well in his new surroundings.
  7. Although Oswald was a known homosexual, he nevertheless expressed an interest in women as well and his several casual romantic affairs with both men and women were duly noted.
  8. Oswald became involved with Marina Nikolaevna Prusakova, the niece of a Minsk-based intelligence official. He wished to marry this woman who was attractive but cold and ambitious. She wished to leave the Soviet Union and emigrate to the United States for purely economic reasons. Since his marrying a Soviet citizen under his circumstances was often most difficult, Oswald began to speak more and more confidentially with his intelligence contacts in Minsk. He finally revealed that he was an agent for the United States Office of Naval Intelligence and had been recruited by them to act as a conduit between their office and Soviet intelligence.
  9. The official material on the CIA operations was entirely authentic and had been supplied to Oswald by his controllers at the ONI. It was apparent, and Oswald repeatedly stated, that the CIA was completely unaware of the removal of sensitive documents from their offices. This removal, Oswald stated, was effected by the ONI personnel stationed at Atsugi air field. Oswald was unaware of the reasons for this operation but had been repeatedly assured that the mission was considered of great national importance and that if he proved to be successful, he would be afforded additional and profitable future employment. It appears that Oswald was considered to be a one time operative and was expendable. His purpose was to establish a reputation as a pro-Russian individual who would then “defect” to the Soviet Union and pass over the U2 material. He did not seem to realize at the time he “defected” that once he had been permitted to live in the Soviet Union, on an official governmental subsidy, returning to America would be very difficult, if not impossible.
  10. Now, with his romantic, and very impractical, attachment to Prusakova, he was being pressured by her to marry and then take her with him back to the United States. Oswald was informed that this was not a possible option for him. He became very emotional and difficult to deal with but finally made the suggestion that if he were allowed to marry and return to the United States, he would agree to work in reality for the Soviet Union.
  11. After referring this matter to higher authority, it was decided to accede to Oswald’s requests, especially since he was of no further use to Soviet intelligence and might well be of some service while resident in America.
  12. Marriage was permitted and his return was expedited both by the Soviet authorities and the Americans who were informed, via a letter from Oswald, that he was in possession of intelligence material of value to them. This valuable information was duly given to him, a reversal to be noted on his original mission!
  13. Oswald was given prepared information of such a nature as to impress American intelligence and permitted to contact intelligence officials in the American Embassy in Moscow. He was then permitted by the Americans to return to the United States with his new wife.
  14. In America, Oswald no longer worked with the ONI because he was not able to further assist them. Besides, he was viewed as dangerous because he had knowledge of the ONI theft and use of CIA documents.
  15. While in America, Oswald then worked as a paid informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation who had contacted him when he returned and requested his assistance with domestic surveillance against pro-Soviet groups. He was assigned, in New Orleans, the task of infiltrating the anti-Castro groups which were nominally under the control of the CIA.
  16. It is noted that there exists a very strong rivalry between the FBI and the CIA. The former is nominally in charge of domestic counterintelligence and the latter in charge of foreign intelligence. They have been fighting for power ever since the CIA was first formed in 1947. Oswald has stated that the FBI was aware of this ONI-sponsored defection with stolen CIA U2 documents but this is not a proven matter.
  17. Later, Oswald was transferred to Dallas, Texas, by the FBI and he then secured a position at a firm which dealt in very secret photographic matters. Here, he was able to supply both the FBI and Soviet intelligence with identical data.
  18. FBI reports, kept secret, show clearly that Oswald was paid by the FBI as an informant.
  19. In New Orleans, a center of Cuban insurgent activity, Oswald was in direct contact with FBI officials and worked for a Guy Bannister, former FBI agent. Oswald infiltrated the ranks of Cuban insurgents and reported his findings to the FBI .

 

  1. Oswald was a part of the FBI surveillance of the Cuban insurgents in the New Orleans area.
  2. Oswald made a number of public appearances passing out pro-Castro leaflets in order to ingratiate himself with the insurgents.
  3. At the FBI request, a local television station filmed Oswald passing out these leaflets and had this film shown on local stations in order to enhance Oswald’s image. When his mission was finished, Oswald was then sent to Dallas to observe and penetrate the Russian colony there.

 

The Warren Commission Report

Lee Harvey Oswald was openly committed to Marxist ideology; he defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, and resided there until June of 1962, eventually returning to the United States with a Russian wife. [WCR, p. 254]

According to Oswald’s diary he attempted suicide when he learned his application for citizenship had been denied. [WCR, p. 260]

While in Atsugi, Japan, Oswald studied the Russian language, perhaps with some help from an officer in his unit who was interested in Russian and used to “talk about it” with Oswald occasionally. [WCR, p. 257]

He may have begun to study the Russian language when he was stationed in Japan, which was intermittently from August 1957 to November 1958. [WCR, p. 256]

According to Oswald’s “Historic Diary” and the documents furnished to the Commission by the Soviet Government, Oswald was not told that he had been accepted as a resident of the Soviet Union until about January 4, 1960. Although November 13 and 16 Oswald informed Aline Mosby and Priscilla Johnson that he had been granted permission to remain in the country indefinitely, the diary indicates that at that time he had been told only that he could remain “until some solution is found with what to do with me.” [WCR, p. 265]

Once he was accepted as a resident alien in the Soviet Union, Oswald was given considerable benefits which ordinary Soviet citizens in his position in society did not have. The “Historic Diary” recites that after Oswald was informed that he could remain in the Soviet Union and he was being sent to Minsk he was given 5,000 rubles by the “Red Cross*** for expenses.” He used 2,200 rubles to pay his hotel bill and another 150 rubles for a train ticket. [WCR, p. 269]

[…] about 6 weeks after his arrival he did receive an apartment, very pleasant by Soviet standards, for which he was required to pay only 60 rubles ($6.00) a month. Oswald considered the apartment “almost rent free.” Oswald was given a job in the “Byelorussian Radio and Television Factory,” where his pay on a per piece basis ranged from 700 to 900 rubles ($70-$90) a month. [WCR, p. 269]

The Commission has also assumed that it is customary for Soviet intelligence agencies to keep defectors under surveillance during their residence in the Soviet Union, through periodic interviews of neighbors and associates of the defector. Oswald once mentioned that the Soviet police questioned his neighbors occasionally.

Moreover, it is from Oswald’s personal writings alone that the Commission has learned that he received supplementary funds from the Soviet “Red Cross.” In the notes he made during the return trip to the United States Oswald recognized that the “Red Cross” subsidy had nothing to do with the well-known International Red Cross. He frankly stated that the money had come from the “MVD.” [WCR, p. 272]

Marina Oswald said that by the time she met him in March 1961 he spoke the language well enough so that at first she thought he was from one of the Baltic areas of her country, because of his accent. She stated that his only defects were that his grammar was sometimes incorrect and that his writing was never good. [WCR, p. 257]

Oswald’s marriage to Marina Prusakova on April 30, 1961, is itself a fact meriting consideration. A foreigner living in Russia cannot marry without the permission of the Soviet Government. [WCR, p. 274]

When Oswald arrived at the Embassy in Moscow, he met Richard E. Snyder, the same person with whom he had dealt in October of 1959. Primarily on the basis of Oswald’s interview with Snyder on Monday, July 10, 1961, the American Embassy concluded that Oswald had not expatriated himself. On the basis of this tentative decision, Oswald was given back his American passport, which he had surrendered in 1959. The document was due to expire in September 1961, however, and Oswald was informed that its renewal would depend upon the ultimate decision by the Department of State on his expatriation. On July 11, Marina Oswald was interviewed at the Embassy and the steps necessary for her to obtain an American visa were begun. In May 1962, after 15 months of dealing with the Embassy, Oswald’s passport was ultimately renewed and permission for his wife to enter the United States was granted. [WCR, p. 277]

The Director of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover, Assistant to the Director Alan H. Belmont, FBI agents John W. Fain and John L. Quigley, who interviewed Oswald, and FBI Agent James P. Hosty, Jr., who was in charge of his case at the time of the assassination, have testified before the Commission. All declared, in substance, that Oswald was not an informant or agent of the FBI, that he did not act in any other capacity for the FBI, and that no attempt was made to recruit him in any capacity. [WCR, p. 327]

On October 4. 1963, Oswald applied for a position with the Padgett Printing Corp., which was located at 1313 Industrial Boulevard, several blocks from President Kennedy’s parade route. Oswald favorably impressed the plant superintendent who checked his prior job references, one of which was Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall, the firm where Oswald had done photography work from October 1962 to April 1963. [WCR, p. 246]

The DIA Analysis

  1. Soviet commentary on Oswald is basically verified from both KGB and CIA sources. Oswald, however, was not being run by the ONI (note here that the USMC is under the control of the USN and that ONI would be the appropriate agency of initial contact) but instead by the CIA. Their personnel files indicate that Oswald was initially recruited by ONI for possible penetration of the very pervasive Japanese communist intelligence organization. Atsugi base was a very important target for these spies.
  2. Because of a shift in their policy, the CIA found it expedient to exploit their U2 surveillance of the Soviet Union as a political rather than an intelligence operation.
  3. The Eisenhower administration’s interest in the possibility of achieving a rapprochement with the Soviet Government created a situation that might have proven disastrous to the CIA continued functions.
  4. Internal CIA documents show very clearly that as their very existence was dependent on a continuation of the Cold War, any diminution of East-West hostility could easily lead to their down-sizing and, more important, to their loss of influence over the office of the President and also of U.S. foreign policy.
  5. It was proposed, according to top level CIA reports, to somehow use their own U2 flights to create an increase in tension that could lead to a frustration of any detente that might result from a lessening of international tensions.
  6. It was initially thought that certain compromising documents could be prepared, sent to the CIA base at Atsugi, Japan, and then somehow leaked to the aggressive Japanese communists. However, it was subsequently decided that there was a strong possibility that the documents might not be forwarded to Soviet Russia and kept in Japan for use in the anti-West/anti-war domestic campaigns.
  7. CIA personnel stationed at Atsugi conceived a plan to then arrange for select documents to be given directly to the Soviets via an American defector. It was at this point that Oswald’s name was brought up by an ONI man. A CIA evaluation of Oswald convinced them that he would be the perfect defector. Psychological profiles of Oswald convinced them that he was clever, pro-Marxist, a person of low self-esteem as manifested in his chronic anti-social attitudes coupled with homosexual behavior.
  8. As Oswald had developed a strong friendship with his ONI control, it was decided to allow him to think that he was working for the U.S. Navy rather than the CIA. (Note: This has always been a hallmark of CIA clandestine operations. Source agents are always considered expendable by that agency and their record of abandonment of these non-CIA agents if felt necessary is well-known to the intelligence community.)
  9. Oswald was told that he was performing a “special, vitally important” mission for the ONI and would be given a very good paying official position when he “successfully returned” from the Soviet Union. CIA and ONI reports indicate that he was never expected to return to the United States after he had fulfilled his function of passing the desired documentation to the Soviet intelligence community.
  10. The subsequent interception and shooting down by the Soviets of a U2 piloted by CIA agent Gary F. Powers using the leaked CIA material was sufficient to wreck the projected Eisenhower/Khrushchev meetings and harden the Soviet leader’s attitude towards the West.
  11. It should be noted that the Powers U2 was equipped with a delayed action self-destruct device, designed to be activated by the pilot upon bailing out. This device was intended to destroy any classified surveillance material on the aircraft. In the Powers aircraft, the device was later disclosed to have been altered to explode the moment the pilot activated it. This would have resulted in the destruction of both the pilot and his aircraft.
  12. After his return to the United States, Oswald was a marked man. He was a potential danger to the CIA, whose unredacted personnel reports indicate that Oswald was considered to be unstable, hostile, intelligent and very frustrated. He was, in short, a loose cannon.
  13. While resident in Dallas, Oswald became acquainted with George S. DeMohrenschildt, a CIA operative. DeMohrenschildt, a Balt, had family connections both in Poland and Russia, had worked for the German Ausland Abwehr and later the SD during the Second World War. He “befriended” Oswald and eventually an intimate physical relationship developed between the two men. This infuriated Marina Oswald and their already strained relationship grew even worse. She had come to America expecting great financial rewards and instead found poverty, two children and a sexually cold husband.
  14. It was DeMohrenschildt’s responsibility to watch Oswald, to establish a strong inter-personal relationship with him and to learn what information, if any, Oswald might possess that could damage the CIA if it became known.
  15. The CIAs subsequent use of Oswald as a pawn in the assassination was a direct result of this concern

Author’s comments

On November 25, 1963, three days after Kennedy’s assassination, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, later a high Department of State official under Lyndon Johnson, wrote the following memorandum to Bill Moyers, aide to President Lyndon Johnson:

“It is important that all of the facts surrounding President Kennedy’s assassination be made public in a way which will satisfy people in the United States and abroad that all the facts have been told and that a statement to this effect be made now.

  1. The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that the evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial.
  2. Speculation about Oswald’s motivation ought to be cut off, and we should have some basis for rebutting thought that this was a Communist conspiracy or (as the Iron Curtain press is saying) a right-wing conspiracy to blame it on the communists. Unfortunately the facts on Oswald seem too pat—too obvious (Marxist, Cuba, Russian wife, etc.). The Dallas police have put out statements on the Communist conspiracy theory, and it was they who were in charge when he was shot and thus silenced.
  3. The matter has been handled thus far with neither dignity nor conviction. Facts have been mixed with rumor and speculation. We can scarcely let the world see us totally in the image of the Dallas police when our President is murdered.

I think this objective may be satisfied by making public as soon as possible a complete and thorough FBI report on Oswald and the assassination. This may run into the difficulty of pointing to inconsistencies between this report and statements by Dallas police officials. But the reputation of the Bureau is such that it may do the whole job.”

On November 29, FBI Director Hoover wrote an in-house memo that, in part, stated:

“I told him [President Johnson] I thought it would be very bad to have a rash of investigations. He then indicated the only way to stop it is to appoint a high-level committee to evaluate my report and tell the House and Senate not to go ahead with the investigation. I stated that would be a three-ring circus.”

And, in fact, the reputation of the Bureau was such that the whole job was well and truly accomplished. The FBI was in sole charge of assembling evidence for the Warren Commission and, almost simultaneously with the Katzenbach letter, Director Hoover had been committing himself on paper to express his firm determination that Oswald, and Oswald alone, was responsible for the assassination.

This determination was reflected in a flood of teletypes from FBI headquarters to the agency offices in Dallas, New Orleans, Miami, and Chicago. Regardless of what information was uncovered by local agents, all of it had to be given to the local agent-in-charge who then forwarded it to Washington. There, the numerous reports on Oswald’s activities and personal connections, along with reports on the Chicago mob, the CIA activities in Louisiana and Florida, and the late President and his activities and personal connections, were skillfully tailored to present a seamless series of reports, interviews, photographic and other forensic evidence for presentation to the waiting commission.

Any witness statements that contradicted the official version of events were excluded from this presentation, as were photographs that might have contradicted the lone-assassin theory.

The Soviet intelligence report mentions the discovery of Oswald in the second floor employee’s lounge by a Dallas police officer immediately after the shooting. It is commented by them, and reflected in the official report, that Oswald appeared to be very calm and certainly not out of breath as he would have been from running down four flights of steps only moments before. Further, other employees of the Texas Book Depository who had been using the stairs had not seen Oswald rush down past them. He could not have used the building’s elevators to go from his work area on the sixth floor to the lunchroom because persons unknown stopped one on the sixth floor and the other was on another floor. There were no elevators stopped on the second floor near the employee lunchroom.

The forensics have been equally confusing. Dallas Deputy Sheriff Seymour Weitzman was one of three deputy sheriffs who discovered a rifle on the sixth floor of the Book Depository. Weitzman was a firearms expert and owned two gun shops. He initially, and positively, identified the rifle as a German Mauser, 7.65-millimeter weapon. This is the so-called Argentine Mauser, which was manufactured by the Germans for the Argentine army. Unlike later models of the Mauser, it has a straight bolt handle and the top of the receiver is plainly marked with the coat of arms of Argentina. The Argentine Mauser, a very well built and easy to use weapon, had been offered as military surplus to the buying public for some years previously and was easily available to collectors, gun shops, and hunters.

The physical differences between the 7.65-mm Argentine Mauser surplus rifle and the 6.5-mm Italian Mannlicher-Carcano surplus rifle are very evident and no one with the professional background of Deputy Weitzman could possibly mistake one for the other.

In his book, Case Closed, New York author and avid Warren Commission supporter Gerald Posner states:

“Seymour Weitzman and Luke Mooney, two Dallas policemen [sic], thought at first glance that the rifle was a 7.65 [mm] bolt action Mauser. Although the officers quickly admitted their mistake, that initial misidentification led to speculation that a different gun was found on the sixth floor and that Oswald’s Carcano was later swapped for the murder weapon. There are considerable similarities between a bolt-action Mauser and a Carcano. Firearms experts say they are easy to confuse without a proper exam.” [Emphasis added]

Aside from his slavish adherence to the conclusions of the Warren Commission Report, Posner has obviously no knowledge of firearms whatsoever. The immediate visual differences between the two weapons are very clear and obvious. The Carcano has a distinctive box magazine protruding in front of the trigger guard and the Mauser has none. The Mauser has a straight bolt handle and the Carcano has a turned-down bolt handle.

Weitzman was a gun dealer and both surplus weapons were very common in the trade at the time of the assassination. The supporting comments by Posner attributed to government experts are obviously self-serving, like the majority of such statements found in the Warren Commission Report, and have absolutely no probative value whatsoever.

After the Mauser was turned in to local authorities, it suddenly was transformed into a Carcano rifle, one that allegedly had been purchased by Oswald using an alias. The Mauser vanished from the sight of living men but the Carcano was presented to the world as the murder weapon.

The so-called “magic bullet” was certainly fired from the suspected Carcano but by whom, and when, is certainly not known at this remove. Because of the pristine condition of the bullet, it is clearly evident that it had never, under any remote circumstances, been fired into or passed through a human body.

In his November 29, 1963 report, FBI Director Hoover said:

“I said no, that three shots were fired at the President and we have them. I stated that our ballistic experts were able to prove the shots were fired by this gun; that the President was hit by the first and third bullets and the second hit the Governor; that there were three shots; that one complete bullet rolled out of the President’s head; that it tore a large part of the President’s off; that in trying to massage his heart on the way into the hospital they loosened the bullet which fell on the stretcher and we have that.”

When he was arrested, Oswald proclaimed to the media that he was a patsy and had nothing to do with the killing of John F. Kennedy. Katzenbach’s dictum that the evidence had to be such as to secure a conviction was certainly quickly and officially implemented.

Since Oswald was very shortly, and most conveniently, dead, all manner of innuendo, deliberate error, and patently manufactured evidence was put together into a pastiche that never needed to be examined and cross-examined in a court of law. Oswald had been tried and found publicly guilty in absentia, and in the event that there existed other, even more provable suspects, they were entirely safe in the knowledge that they had escaped whatever manipulated creativity had passed for the process of justice and were certainly well protected.

The few works that support the findings of the Warren Commission contain a number of errors, which strongly indicate that their authors have done little research and have no genuine understanding of their subjects. As a case in point, referring once again to the Posner book, this author shows an appalling lack of knowledge of the Soviet intelligence structure in the 1950s and 1960s.

Posner comments on a statement allegedly made by a faux Soviet defector that the uncle of Marina Oswald was “MVD. It’s like being a local policeman, nothing more. He was completely unimportant.”  At another point, Posner shows a picture of Oswald and his wife’s relatives with the comment that Colonel Ilya Vasillyevich Prusakova, her uncle, was mistakenly believed to have been a KGB officer when he was “actually the equivalent of a local U.S. policeman.”

Posner is referring here to the false Soviet defector Nosenko who was sent by the Soviet government to the United States immediately after the assassination to allay American fears that the Soviets had been involved with the Kennedy assassination via Oswald. He very obviously had no knowledge of the intelligence agencies he purported to have served. The MVD was, at that time, the name of the Soviet secret police controlled by the State Security Committee. It was later renamed into KGB.  A serving colonel in the Minsk office of the MVD was most certainly not the “equivalent of a local U.S. policeman.”

The Warren Report and its supporters have attached a considerable amount of importance to the comments and very supportive testimony of Oswald’s Russian wife, Marina. On this subject, Hoover wrote in his November 29 memo:

“I advised the President that his wife had been very hostile, would not cooperate and speaks only Russian; that yesterday she said, if we could give assurance she would be allowed to remain in the country, she would cooperate; and that I told our agents to give that assurance and sent a Russian-speaking agent to Dallas last night to interview her.”

 

 

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