JFK: What The CIA Hides

Authored by Jefferson Morley via Counterpunch.org,

When I launched JFK Facts, a blog about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, in 2012, I was often asked by strangers, “So who killed JFK?”  “I don’t know,” I shrugged. “It’s too early to tell.” Given that the handsome liberal president had been shot dead a half-century before, my answer was a lame joke based on an apocryphal story. Henry Kissinger once said that when he asked Zhou Enlai, “What was the effect of the French Revolution on world history?” the Chinese statesmen replied, “It’s too early to tell.”

True to Kissingerian form, the story turns out to be not exactly true. Zhou was actually responding to a question about France’s political convulsions in 1968, not 1789.

But Kissinger’s spin on the anecdote struck me as perceptive.

The meaning of a great historical event might take a long time–a very long time–to become apparent. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions about the causes of JFK’s murder in downtown Dallas on November 22, 1963.

It’s still too early to tell. Fifty six years after the fact, historians and JFK researchers do not have access to all of the CIA’s files on the subject The 1964 Warren Commission report exonerated the agency with its conclusion that Kennedy was killed by one man alone.  But the agency was subsequently the subject of five official JFK investigations, which cast doubt on its findings.

The Senate’s Church Committee investigation showed that the Warren Commission knew nothing of CIA assassination operations in 1963. JFK records released in the last 20 years show the Commission’s attorneys had no real understanding the extensive counterintelligence monitoring of Lee Harvey Oswald before JFK was killed. We now know that senior operations officers, including counterintelligence chief James Angleton, paid far closer attention to the obscure Oswald as he made his way to Dallas than the investigators were ever told.

To be sure, there is no proof of CIA complicity in JFK’s death. And  conspiracy theories spouted by the likes of the Alex Jones and James Fetzer deserve no attention. The fact remains some of the most astute power players of 1963–including Lyndon Johnson, Charles DeGaulle, Fidel Castro, and Jackie and Robert Kennedy–concluded that JFK was killed by his enemies, and not by one man alone.  Did these statesmen get it wrong, and the under-informed Warren Commission get it right?

The new documentary, Truth is the Only Client, says yes. The film, shown last month in the auditorium of the U.S. Capitol, features interviews with numerous former Warren Commission staffers. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who served as a fact checker for the Commission in 1964, defends the lone gunman conclusion, saying, “You have to look at the new evidence and when you do, I come to the same conclusion.”

Justice Breyer, oddly, passes judgment on evidence he has not seen. The record of the CIA’s role in the events leading JFK’s assassination is far from complete. In 2013 I reported on JFK Facts that Delores Nelson CIA’s information coordinator had stated in a sworn affidavit filed in federal court, that the agency retained 1,100 assassination-related records that had never been made public.

A small portion of this material was released in 2017, including new details about the opening of the CIA’s first Oswald file in October 1959.

Yet thousands of JFK files remain secret.  According to the latest figures from the National Archives, a total of 15,834 JFK files remain fully or partially classified, most of them held by the CIA and FBI. Thanks to an October 2017 order from President Trump, these documents will not be made public until October 2021, at the earliest.

The assumption of Justice Breyer and many others is that any and all unseen CIA material must exonerate the agency. It’s an odd conclusion. If the CIA has nothing to hide, why is it hiding so much? While 95 percent of the still-secret files probably are trivial, the remaining 5 percent—thousands of pages of material–are historically pregnant.  If made public, they could clarify key questions in the long-running controversy about JFK’s death.

These questions have been raised most concisely by Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a career CIA officer who served in senior positions. Now a senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center, Mowatt-Larssen has implicated his former employer in the Dallas ambush. In a presentation at Harvard last December, Mowatt-Larssen hypothesized that a plot to kill JFK emanated from the CIA’s station in Miami where disgruntled Cuban exiles and undercover officers loathed JFK for his failure to overthrow Castro’s government in Cuba.

Mowatt-Larssen has yet to publish his presentation and documentation, so I can’t say if he’s right or wrong. But he asks the right question: “How can intelligence operational and analytical modus operandi help unlock a conspiracy that has remained unsolved for 55 years?” And he focuses on the right place to dig deeper: the CIA’s Miami office, known as WAVE station.

My own JFK questions involve George Joannides, a decorated undercover officer who served as branch chief in the Miami station in 1963. He ran psychological warfare operations against Cuba. In 2003, I sued the CIA for Joannides’ files. The lawsuit ended 15 years later in July 2018, when Judge Brett Kavanaugh, in his last opinion before ascending to the Supreme Court, tossed my case. Kavanaugh declared the agency deserved “deference upon deference” in its handling of Freedom of Information Act requests about JFK files.

Nonetheless, my lawsuit illuminated the extraordinary sensitivity of the psy-ops Joannides ran out of WAVE station. As reported in the New York Times, Fox News, Associated Press, and PoliticoMorley v. CIA forced disclosure of the fact Joannides had received the CIA’s Career Intelligence Medal  in 1981. The honor came two years after he stonewalled the House Select Committee on Assassination about what he knew of Oswald’s contacts with pro-and anti-Castro Cubans in the summer and fall of 1963.

I believe Joannides was honored because he concealed the existence of an authorized covert operation involving Oswald that has never been publicly acknowledged. In CIA lingo, Joannides protected the agency’s “sources and methods” concerning Oswald.  And he might have done more. His actions may have also shielded other officers who knew of a scheme to kill the liberal president and lay the blame on Cuba.

Never been seen by JFK investigators, they contain details about his Joannides’ undercover work in Miami in 1963, when he funded Oswald’s antagonists among the anti-Castro Cuban exiles. They also detail his work in 1978, when he duped chief investigator Robert Blakey and the House Select Committee on Assassination. These records, the agency says, cannot be released in 2019 without risk of “irreversible harm” to national security.

It’s a bizarre claim, at odds with the law. These ancient documents, all of them more than 40 years old, meet the statutory definition of “assassination-related,” according to federal judge John Tunheim. He chaired the Assassination Records Review Board which oversaw the declassification of 4 million pages of JFK files between 1994 and 2017.  In an interview, Tunheim told me that, under the terms of the 1992 JFK Records Act, the Joannides files are subject to mandatory review and release. “It’s a no-brainer,” he said.

Yet the files remain off-limits to the public. Thanks to the legal consensus, articulated by Justices Kavanaugh and Breyer, the CIA enjoys “deference upon deference” when it comes to the JFK assassination story. As a result, the JFK Records Act has been flouted. The public’s interest in full disclosure has been thwarted.

Yet legitimate questions persist: Did a plot to kill JFK originate in the agency’s Miami station as Mowatt-Larssen suggests? The fact that the CIA won’t share the evidence that could answer the CIA man’s question is telling.

So these days, when people ask me who killed JFK, I say the Kennedy was probably victimized by enemies in his own government, possibly including CIA officers involved in anti-Castro and counterintelligence operations. I have no smoking gun, no theory. Just look at the suspicious fact pattern, still shrouded in official secrecy, and it’s easy to believe that JFK was, as Mowatt-Larssen puts it, “marked for assassination.”

* * *

Jefferson Morley is editor of the Deep State blog and author of The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton.

-----------------------------------------------------
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal

-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
Click to visit the TBP Store for Great TBP Merchandise

21
Leave a Reply

avatar
  Subscribe  
Notify of
BWD
BWD

Then again JFK may have threatened the bankers the wrong way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_11110#JFK_assassination_theory

Southern Sage
Southern Sage

Yet another in a long line of Kennedy conspiracy theories that ignores the elephant in the room: Israel. I had always dismissed the idea that my old outfit could have been involved in the murder of Kennedy. Now, I am not so sure. My doubts began one day when I was flipping through ancient files I had ordered from the archives in connection with an unrelated case. I can’t say exactly what I found but the “cleaners” had obviously missed this particular cable from an overseas station. It confirmed that Lee Harvey Oswald was being paid by a man known to be an Agency asset and who was charged with “hand-holding” Oswald after this return from his “defection” to Russia (without any doubt part of an intelligence operation).
At the time I did not give it any thought. Many years later I began to understand the full implications of that one fact.
I will make it simple. Kennedy was killed by a plot directed by Israel but involving the (Jewish-led) Mafia, rogue CIA men led by James Angleton (CIA Counterintelligence chief and an Israeli agent – see the book The Ghost), LBJ and his cronies, and embittered anti-Castro Cubans. Others, such as J. Edgar Hoover, probably knew something was up but quietly stood on the sidelines. The fingerprints of Israel literally cover the conspiracy.
The actual shooters (probably three teams) were a varied lot, but French or Italian organized crime hitmen were surely involved. It is possible Oswald never fired a shot though he was involved as a pasty. He probably thought he was involved in a fake assassination intended to provoke an invasion of Cuba. When he realized that the killing was all too real and he was the fall guy he tried to run.
Anyone with an IQ above 60 understands that Jack Ruby’s killing of Oswald is the Rosetta Stone of the killing. Oswald was supposed to be killed while resisting arrest. When that did not happen (maybe the cops charged with it lost their nerve), Plan B had to swing into action.
The key reason for Kennedy’s murder was his demand that Israel cease its nuclear weapons program. Other factors, including double-crossing the Mafia, betraying the Cubans at the Bay of Pigs, and his weakness in the face of Soviet ambitions brought others around to the idea that he had to be removed before the feckless American public re-elected him.
Yes, the Kennedy killing was a coup, a coup carried out by the alien tribe that runs this country.
Trump is in much the same situation. The endless lies of the media can be traced precisely back to who owns the media.
For all the pro-Israel hoo-haw of Trump, the Elders in Tel Aviv know very well that he is no true friend. Any goy who stands up for his own people and wins their loyalty is seen as a mortal threat to their plans. As for Trump the man, do you really think he spent his life in business in New York without coming to understand their true nature?
The 2020 election will decide the fate of the USA and the world. Think your votes does not count? Think again.

Anonymous
Anonymous

I agree with Southern Sage Jim Garrison was on the right track when he went after Clay Shaw.
It is important to remember that Meyer Lansky was head of the Mafia and very pro Israel. JFK was
not considered a friend of Israel. In remarks before the US Senate on July 2, 1957, JFK said
“It is for that reason I contend that France, as a practical matter, has, through these statements, recognized Algeria as an independent entity. In my opinion, the situation should be treated in that light, and France should carry on negotiations with the nationalists on that basis. Until that is done, obviously the situation will continue to deteriorate.” He was advocating for a free Arab state. In 1961, US spy planes(U-2) took pictures of construction of a nuclear facility being built at Dimona in Israel. JFK pressured Israel(Ben-Gurion) for an on site inspection and wanted Israel to cease it’s nuclear missile program. So, Kennedy was not considered a friend of Israel. I believe Oswald was what he said, a patsy.

Cleveland Rocks
Cleveland Rocks

There has been a book written to that effect. I can’t remember the name or author but he had been a regular contributor to The Spotlight in the 90’s.

Georgia Guidestones
Georgia Guidestones

They are waiting for all the plotters and actual killers to die of old age. It’s obvious to me that it was a combined effort involving the CIA, FBI, Mossad, the Jewish mob formally of Havana, Cuba, and the Jewish mob out of Las Vegas. The Federal Reserve was probably behind the request to exterminate him as he might be a serious threat to them. Hence the Jews.

CCRider
CCRider

“Justices Kavanaugh and Breyer, the CIA enjoys “deference upon deference”

So did you believe the bullshit story you were taught about how supremes were chosen? Now you know.

Epstein didn’t kill himself and Oswald didn’t kill Kennedy.

Solutions Are Obvious
Solutions Are Obvious

Orange man is responsible for not releasing the records on time.

He’s just another scumbag.

CCRider
CCRider

There is no other rational conclusion one can make.

PI

My old man, 82nd Airborne WWII, died in 2015 at 94. He had only an 8th grade education and was one of the most uneducated men I ever met. That night as my brother, sister and I sat on the floor in front of the television he walked in the door, stood there watching for about 30 seconds then said simply “Johnson did it”. He then walked off to take a shower. I believe he nailed it then. And I believe he nailed it now.

Southern Sage
Southern Sage

Ha! My Dad, a WWII vet who was in Texas right after the war said the same thing! He was right, partly.

Anonymous
Anonymous

My dad who worked for Joe, said the same thing.

PI

At the time Johnson because of the Billy Sol Estes affair was at best going to be ruined politically and at worst would have been indicted on felony charges. I’ve read extensively about the man. He was an egocentric sociopath of the first order, not only loathed both Kennedy’s, but felt the Presidency had been stolen from him by them. Additionally it’s been shown to my satisfaction that he set up at least 5 other murders in Texas including that of his own sister who was an alcoholic and talked too much.

Mygirl...maybe

Yup. Ol’ LBJ was a serious piece of work. I wouldn’t put anything past him and most Texans of that era would agree with me. He was a political animal through and through, he could give Hillary lessons and that’s saying something.

old white guy
old white guy

President Trump needs to make sure he has better security than Kennedy had.

TC
TC

Why hasn’t Trump released these files like he threatened to do?

CCRider
CCRider

He doesn’t have permission.

Fleabaggs
Fleabaggs

Unz Review had a very interesting article yesterday about Joe Sr. about the sins of the father being visited on the children and a man at the spot of kennedy being shot wearing a black trenchcoat and open umberella despite it being a beautiful day. Just a rabbit hole but a fun one to explore.

ordo ab chao
ordo ab chao

Flea…

A while back you dropped the mintpress series about trump history, so I searched for the ‘umbrella man’ article:

http://www.unz.com/article/the-umbrella-man-the-sins-of-the-father-and-the-kennedy-curse/

This video below was embedded in that article, and was an hour and a half of nothing but original footage from ’63…..fantastic documentary that lets the coverage of the day speak for itself. Posted 6 months ago and has only 2250 views.

annuit coeptis novus ordo seclorum

“Dallas was an Israeli coup, ordered from Tel Aviv with Johnson’s support, and supervised by the local B’nai B’rith under the cover of the Dallas Citizens Council, who was sponsoring Kennedy’s visit, and of whom Abraham Zapruder himself was a member (watch his satisfaction when interviewed two hours after JFK’s assassination in the History Channel documentary JFK – 3 Shots That Changed America , at 43:34).”

Isn’t Kushner tied to that B’nai B’rith?

The wonder of it all
The wonder of it all

It was a precision kill, not an random act committed by a looney alone in a tower. Real question will always be the ingenuity of the coverup. Answer that and you will have the answer. They have a done great job so far in making this not make sense.

KaD
KaD

Discover more from The Burning Platform

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading