A Celebration of Freedom:
Latest Research and Secrets from the Files
Part Seven of a Series
by Martin Shackelford (mshack@juno.com)
Special to Review Magazine
On this eve of the 33rd anniversary of the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy, we conclude our series on new evidence in the
case. The complete series can be found on the JFK Place web site on the
Internet.
CIA games have continued in recent years. When the 1992 JFK
Records Act was passed, the CIA set up a Historical Review program, and
sent 51 boxes of documents to the National Archives. These were not
included in the cataloguing system set up by the Records Act, used only
for documents released under the Act, and their information is much more
difficult to access. CIA records from the 1940s and 1950s, also promised
for release in 1992, remained sealed. A 91-page HSCA interview with
CIA-connected soldier of fortune Lawrence Howard was released, then
withdrawn by the CIA.
Documents released under the Act have cover sheets (called
RIFs) which provide information about the document. This information is
accessible on the Internet to anyone who wants it. If a document
interests you, it is possible to order a copy. By contrast, to access the
earlier documents, you have to physically go to the National Archives,
and examine them, box by box.
Despite continuing stonewalling on some groups of documents
by the FBI, the CIA and certain other agencies, a government report
stated that more classified documents were released in 1995 than in any
year in our history. Most, however, were a bulk release of 44 million
from World War Two.
According to a November 1995 Review Board report , the FBI
had yet to even internally process 300,000 pages of documents, and was
dragging its feet (they finally released 40 more boxes in September). The
Department of Justice, Navy, Marines and Air Force hadn't responded at
all (Justice still says it is reviewing its remaining files). The Army
files on anti-Castro Operation Mongoose remained "missing" until
recently. The Drug Enforcement Administration (with records on Ruby) had
been evasive. Poor record-keeping made some records difficult to
identify. Others were destroyed prior to the passage of the Records Act;
only the Secret Service is known to have destroyed records after the
Act's passage.
In 1963, the FBI "lost" 210 Dallas Police photos of
Oswald's possessions, despite repeated police requests for their return.
A Dallas Police inventory reveals that one showed Oswald's Minox "spy"
camera, an expensive and not yet easily obtainable item. The FBI returned
a photo which showed all items in the original police photo except the
Minox camera, found in Oswald's Marine seabag.
A December 1995 Nassau, Bahamas conference brought new
information from Cuban intelligence files. They reveal, among other
things, that the JFK administration source leaking word to Cuban exiles
about secret talks with Cuba was Viet Nam ambassador (and 1960 Nixon
running mate) Henry Cabot Lodge, via a lawyer-lobbyist for the Citizen's
Committee to Free Cuba.
The Review Board, at its most recent public hearing on
September 17 in Los Angeles, formally extended its working life until
October 1997. As if to close a circle, Warren Commission chief counsel J.
Lee Rankin's son presented 17 boxes of Commission records from his
father's just-discovered papers.
The last Commission records were finally released. In a
once-buried Executive Session transcript, Chairman Earl Warren told his
colleagues: "we can rely upon the reports of the various agencies...the
FBI, the Secret Service, and others." During another session, Sen.
Richard Russell remarked on the CIA to its former director, Allen Dulles:
"I think you've got more faith in them than I have. I think they'll
doctor anything they hand to us."
Dulles and Time-Life owner Henry Luce shared a mistress,
Mary Bancroft, the close friend of Marina Oswald's host Michael Paine's
mother. Bancroft, far from pro-Kennedy, was quite critical of the Warren
Report, to Dulles' displeasure.
Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach told the Commission
he expected one agency liaison to be "Dick Helms from CIA," the "dirty
tricks" chief who approved Clay Shaw's QK/ENCHANT "Covert Security
Approval". A new CIA document connects Shaw to a top secret project,
ZR/CLIFF, under William Harvey's super-secret Staff D along with the
ZR/RIFLE assassination program.
Although Helms placed his deputy, known only by his cover name
"John Scelso," in charge of the CIA's assassination investigation,
superspook James Angleton promptly began his own investigation, bypassing
"Scelso."
Helms arranged guides for Warren Commission staffers in Mexico
City: CIA station chief Win Scott, and FBI legal attache Clarke Anderson
(two close associates of suspect CIA man David Atlee Phillips). Previous
records indicated that when Lee Oswald and his wife traveled (after
Russia) from New York City to Fort Worth, they left some luggage during a
stopover in Atlanta. New evidence shows that Oswald took two suitcases to
Mexico City, and returned with only one. This raises the question of
whether he was a courier.
In October 1974, the FBI finally asked the CIA "to ascertain
Mr. [E. Howard] Hunt's whereabouts during the period 20 November 1963
through 24 November 1963." The CIA responded that records which might
clarify the issue "were routinely destroyed." They could say only that
"Mr. Hunt conducted no official travel during the month of November
1963."
A memo by a former CIA employee frankly describes both the
Warren Commission and House Committee investigations as cover-ups,
"ludicrous and contemptuous of the public". He stated that he had
knowledge of the conspiracy and participated in the cover-up. He
described Oswald as an agent provocateur, KGB Mexico City operative
Valery Kostikov (who met Oswald) as a double agent, and cover-up efforts
as directed by Howard Osborne of the CIA's Office of Security. He
identified the "probable main assassin behind the fence, a CIA-Mafia
contract assassin and former agent of Des[mond] Fitzgerald." Fitzgerald
was the CIA man who handed a Cuban agent an assassination device in Paris
on November 22, 1963, part of an attempt on Fidel Castro. The weapons
used, said the memo, were "directionally silenced rifles designed by
Mitch WerBell" (a weapons designer with close CIA ties) using "frangible
projectile pellets" which explode on impact. This document, given to the
Board in September, is currently being investigated.
Recently, a former FBI official told Washington-area
attorney Dan Alcorn that some upper level FBI officials believed that
Lyndon Johnson had been involved in the assassination. In a
recently-published memoir, Johnson's long-time mistress, Madeleine Brown,
confirmed that LBJ had at least foreknowledge of the assassination; she
also confirmed long-rumored reports that he and J. Edgar Hoover were
present at a gathering hosted by Texas oil tycoon Clint Murchison on the
eve of the assassination. Also in attendance, she said, was power broker
and later Warren Commission member John J. McCloy.
In mid-November, she had seen LBJ meeting at the family TV
station KTBC with aide Cliff Carter and Malcolm "Mac" Wallace, described
by LBJ crony Billy Sol Estes as the group's assassin. On November 19 or
20, Brown saw Wallace practicing with a rifle at the Dallas Gun Club. In
1984 grand jury testimony, Estes named Wallace as the 1962 killer of
Agriculture inspector Henry Marshall, who was investigating Estes. In a
three-page offer of testimony, Estes' attorney told the Justice
Department that Estes identified eight other Wallace victims, including
President Kennedy. In early 1996, Estes called Marina Oswald, to say:
"I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry."
When Brown questioned LBJ after the assassination, he
exploded, telling her that "Texas oil" and "renegade intelligence" men
had killed Kennedy.
Texan George Brown of Brown and Root was LBJ's chief financial
sponsor. He also employed, 1958-1963, George DeMohrenschildt, Oswald's
"closest friend" for the CIA in Dallas. Previously, DeMohrenschildt had
worked for LBJ backer John Mecom. Oil barons Mecom, Murchison, Sid
Richardson and H.L. Hunt were all described as his close friends, as well
as then-oilman George Bush. These men met at the Dallas Petroleum Club
and other private gathering spots. Among their associates were Harold
Byrd (owner of the Texas School Book Depository), Dallas Mayor Cabell,
Ted Dealey (publisher of the Dallas Morning News), and Abraham Zapruder,
who filmed the assassination.
DeMohrenschildt wrote to Vice President Johnson on April 17,
1963. LBJ aide Walter Jenkins replied April 18! On April 23, LBJ's
military aide Col. Howard Burris wrote to Jenkins suggesting that LBJ be
kept "informed to the maximum extent possible in as many areas as
possible...that he be more nearly prepared to assume the reins of
government in case he is called upon to do so." Three days later, Burris
(and possibly LBJ) met with DeMohrenschildt in Washington. On May 20, LBJ
and DeMohrenschildt definitely met.
In November 1964, soon after the Warren Report's release,
DeMohrenschildt's CIA affiliate personnel file was destroyed, and the
CIA's Angleton began intercepting DeMohrenschildt's mail, even though
George's brother Dimitri (formerly with Time-Life) had long published a
CIA-subsidized magazine. In 1969, DeMohrenschildt told a family friend
that H.L. Hunt was behind the assassination. Though Far Right, Hunt
supported LBJ in 1960. According to former intelligence operative Richard
Case Nagell, Hunt also ran paramilitary operations, employing some CIA
people.
Information continues to flow from the files. At the end of
October, a new release included 388 CIA documents, 288 FBI documents (the
FBI appealed another 36), and 125 from the House Select Committee on
Assassinations.
Little in our series comes from this year's releases, as there
is still much to digest, but we hope that we have given the reader a
fresh perspective to evaluate repeated major media claims that there is
"no new evidence" in the assassination of President Kennedy.