Below is a list of some of the more reported upon items found in the recent JFK assassination records release, with a little trivia mixed in.
(1) The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 in large part came about due to the popularity of the 1991 Oliver Stone movie, JFK. .As former Assassination Records Review Board officers Judge John Tunheim and Assistant Commonwealth Attorney General Thomas Samoluk explained to the Boston Herald (see above):
Ah, those halcyon days of late-twentieth-century Hollywood; when Wall Street kept its greasy, greedy fingers off of movies, and pictures didn't have to bargain and negotiate content with Wal-Mart and other players for “downriver” (ancillary) sales.
Okay, I’m being flippant. Still, it’s hard to imagine someone making that movie today -- unless it somehow morphed into an action thriller, perhaps with a resurrected Lee Oswald running through the streets of Dallas with a nuclear warhead strapped to his back.
(2) The Warren Commission “pressured” a Parkland Hospital surgeon to lie under oath. In “The JFK Assassination Files Lead Back to Seattle,” a 20 November 2017 piece appearing in Crosscut, Rick Anderson wrote of how one of the recently released documents told the story of a Parkland Hospital physician, who treated President Kennedy during his last moments of life.
Dr. Malcom Perry testified before the Warren Commission that Kennedy suffered entrance wounds only on the back of his head. Perry moved to Seattle later, and told colleague Dr. Donald Miller that the entrance wounds came from both behind and in front, indicating that Kennedy had been fired upon from two different directions. Perry explained to Miller that he was “pressured” into saying that the bullet wounds came from behind by the Commission.
Dr. Perry’s confession to Dr. Miller, as documented in this recent release, really illustrates the Commission's myopic drive to find Oswald guilty at the expense of finding out who really pulled the trigger, where they pulled the trigger, and why they pulled the trigger.
(3) Oliver Stone feels that at a certain level the release is a dog-and-pony show, a public relations activity designed to confuse issues pertinent to the JFK assassination. In a guest 15 November blog done on The Wrap, the famed director largely responsible for the 1992 Act felt that President Trump “got rolled” by the “deep state.” Or in other words, Trump’s civic inexperience kept him ignorant about how the pros play realpolitik, especially when it comes to covert operations. Therefore, he had no choice but to retain classification of 300+ documents. This dovetails into his second point that the rollout of these documents was designed to be a failure.
Stone also points out that there are some documents in this release that affirm a conspiracy explanation. For example, papers indicate CIA Assistant Deputy Director of Plans for Counterintelligence James Jesus Angleton had monitored Lee Oswald since 1959. Moreover, Intel provided no (no?) evidence of Oswald’s trip to Mexico City.*
Other documents are clearly missing, among them those generated by E. Howard Hunt and George Joannides (see above post). That’s probably because the ARRB deemed them to be “irrelevant.” after deliberate misinforming on CIA's part. Other "irrelevant" files include those pertaining to Yuri Nosenko, the Soviet Intelligence officer who directed Oswald in Russia; and Dallas Mayor Earle Cabell, brother of CIA Deputy Director General Charles Cabell. Stone believes other pertinent files could have included those from the USSR, which pretty much saw the JFK assassination as a right-wing coup.
(4) Jack Ruby had foreknowledge of the assassination. You think? I mean, the man closed his nightclub, the Carousel, for the weekend on the morning of Jack Kennedy’s death. Since weekends contribute the lion’s share of revenue for a nightclub, he must have had something pretty damned important planned.
The files specifically point to another instance of prescience. As published in The Independent and numerous other sources, moments before the assassination, Jack Ruby asked FBI informant Robert Vanderslice if he would “like to watch the fireworks,” as the two stood next to each other on Dealey Plaza. After the shooting, Ruby suddenly went to the office of the Dallas Morning News, without so much as a peep to poor Vanderslice.
Perhaps Ruby was expecting an actual fireworks show? You know, 4 July and all that?
(5) At the time of the JFK assassination, the US was procuring old Soviet and Cuban aircraft from other nations in order to conduct false-flag operations. This comes from that (ahem!) bastion of journalistic integrity, Sputnik..
(Yawn.) Old news.
(6) The JFK Assassination had a Queen City connection. Cincinnati Enquirer reporter Carol Motsinger searched the newly released files for any connection to her local area, and found that the limousine bubble top that Kennedy declined to use was manufactured by Hess & Eisenhardt, a Cincinnati firm (with a very Cincinnati name). Hess & Eisenhardt subsequently participated in Project Star. As Motsinger describes it:
Another file actually concerned an issue in Youngstown (literally the opposite side of the state). It was nevertheless investigated by the Cincinnati FBI field office. The document reports that a background check on Ruth Paine’s sister, Sylvia, turned up neighbor gossip that their mother was a communist. Given Paine’s entrenchment in the ultraconservative White Russian community of Texas, that item seems rather humorous.
More humorous: In the you-gotta-be-kidding-me-(but-I’m-not) department, two FBI agents, codenamed CI-291-S and CI-300-S infiltrated Cincinnati communist organizations immediately after the assassination. Arnold Johnson, director of public relations for one such group, worried that people would blame the communists for the crime. Motsinger quotes the document as saying:
Motsinger adds:
(7) CIA confiscated the manuscript of a novel written by a case officer with ties to the assassination. Ray Locker of USA Today reported that one of these new documents centered on the confiscation of the manuscript, along with some other items. Winston Scott was the CIA case officer who ordered the arrest of Sylvia Duran shortly after the JFK assassination. After a few days in isolation, and emerging from her incarceration bearing marks of physical torture, Duran publicly agreed with Scott’s contention that Lee Oswald had stopped by her office, and not someone else posing as Oswald.**
Locker writes:
I wonder what’s in that book. Will someone make it into a movie? A political thriller? Will there be a scene of Lee Oswald running around the streets of Mexico City with a nuclear warhead strapped to his back?
(8) A University of Arkansas at Little Rock Professor reminisced about his stint as Senior Investigator of the Assassination Records Review Board to the campus newsletter. Angelita Faller spoke to Dr. David Montague, director of eLearning at UALR. As one would expect from an intellectually honest academic, he critiqued many sides of the assassination. He realizes that part of the impetus to keep this case alive in public consciousness stems from our inability to believe that a lone assassin could have done such a hideous act. At the same time, Montague makes clear that this case should continue to command our attention. As he told Faller:
He later said:
____________________
*Again, although I suspect that’s correct, we’ll need time to make sure that there isn't some kind of coded reference that wouldn't show up on a computer search.
**Duran said that the man posing as Oswald was about five-foot two inches and blond. Oswald was brunet, and stood at five-nine and a half.
(1) The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 in large part came about due to the popularity of the 1991 Oliver Stone movie, JFK. .As former Assassination Records Review Board officers Judge John Tunheim and Assistant Commonwealth Attorney General Thomas Samoluk explained to the Boston Herald (see above):
. . . Then in 1991, the controversial Oliver Stone movie, “JFK,” was released.
The movie highlighted that many records from the Warren Commission and House Select Committee were still classified. The ensuing uproar led to the creation of the Review Board.”
Ah, those halcyon days of late-twentieth-century Hollywood; when Wall Street kept its greasy, greedy fingers off of movies, and pictures didn't have to bargain and negotiate content with Wal-Mart and other players for “downriver” (ancillary) sales.
Okay, I’m being flippant. Still, it’s hard to imagine someone making that movie today -- unless it somehow morphed into an action thriller, perhaps with a resurrected Lee Oswald running through the streets of Dallas with a nuclear warhead strapped to his back.
(2) The Warren Commission “pressured” a Parkland Hospital surgeon to lie under oath. In “The JFK Assassination Files Lead Back to Seattle,” a 20 November 2017 piece appearing in Crosscut, Rick Anderson wrote of how one of the recently released documents told the story of a Parkland Hospital physician, who treated President Kennedy during his last moments of life.
Dr. Malcom Perry testified before the Warren Commission that Kennedy suffered entrance wounds only on the back of his head. Perry moved to Seattle later, and told colleague Dr. Donald Miller that the entrance wounds came from both behind and in front, indicating that Kennedy had been fired upon from two different directions. Perry explained to Miller that he was “pressured” into saying that the bullet wounds came from behind by the Commission.
‘He took that to his grave,’ Miller, a UW professor emeritus, says today. He claims that Perry, during a private conversation the two had in the late 1970s, said he’’d been pressured to change his story and agree with the government’’s theory that all entry wounds came from behind the motorcade”
Dr. Perry’s confession to Dr. Miller, as documented in this recent release, really illustrates the Commission's myopic drive to find Oswald guilty at the expense of finding out who really pulled the trigger, where they pulled the trigger, and why they pulled the trigger.
(3) Oliver Stone feels that at a certain level the release is a dog-and-pony show, a public relations activity designed to confuse issues pertinent to the JFK assassination. In a guest 15 November blog done on The Wrap, the famed director largely responsible for the 1992 Act felt that President Trump “got rolled” by the “deep state.” Or in other words, Trump’s civic inexperience kept him ignorant about how the pros play realpolitik, especially when it comes to covert operations. Therefore, he had no choice but to retain classification of 300+ documents. This dovetails into his second point that the rollout of these documents was designed to be a failure.
Stone also points out that there are some documents in this release that affirm a conspiracy explanation. For example, papers indicate CIA Assistant Deputy Director of Plans for Counterintelligence James Jesus Angleton had monitored Lee Oswald since 1959. Moreover, Intel provided no (no?) evidence of Oswald’s trip to Mexico City.*
Other documents are clearly missing, among them those generated by E. Howard Hunt and George Joannides (see above post). That’s probably because the ARRB deemed them to be “irrelevant.” after deliberate misinforming on CIA's part. Other "irrelevant" files include those pertaining to Yuri Nosenko, the Soviet Intelligence officer who directed Oswald in Russia; and Dallas Mayor Earle Cabell, brother of CIA Deputy Director General Charles Cabell. Stone believes other pertinent files could have included those from the USSR, which pretty much saw the JFK assassination as a right-wing coup.
(4) Jack Ruby had foreknowledge of the assassination. You think? I mean, the man closed his nightclub, the Carousel, for the weekend on the morning of Jack Kennedy’s death. Since weekends contribute the lion’s share of revenue for a nightclub, he must have had something pretty damned important planned.
The files specifically point to another instance of prescience. As published in The Independent and numerous other sources, moments before the assassination, Jack Ruby asked FBI informant Robert Vanderslice if he would “like to watch the fireworks,” as the two stood next to each other on Dealey Plaza. After the shooting, Ruby suddenly went to the office of the Dallas Morning News, without so much as a peep to poor Vanderslice.
Perhaps Ruby was expecting an actual fireworks show? You know, 4 July and all that?
(5) At the time of the JFK assassination, the US was procuring old Soviet and Cuban aircraft from other nations in order to conduct false-flag operations. This comes from that (ahem!) bastion of journalistic integrity, Sputnik..
(Yawn.) Old news.
(6) The JFK Assassination had a Queen City connection. Cincinnati Enquirer reporter Carol Motsinger searched the newly released files for any connection to her local area, and found that the limousine bubble top that Kennedy declined to use was manufactured by Hess & Eisenhardt, a Cincinnati firm (with a very Cincinnati name). Hess & Eisenhardt subsequently participated in Project Star. As Motsinger describes it:
Project Star aimed to create 'a research and development program in support of efforts to reduce the vulnerability of important political persons to assassination,' according to a progress report dated Dec. 12, 1963-Jan. 20, 1964.
Another file actually concerned an issue in Youngstown (literally the opposite side of the state). It was nevertheless investigated by the Cincinnati FBI field office. The document reports that a background check on Ruth Paine’s sister, Sylvia, turned up neighbor gossip that their mother was a communist. Given Paine’s entrenchment in the ultraconservative White Russian community of Texas, that item seems rather humorous.
More humorous: In the you-gotta-be-kidding-me-(but-I’m-not) department, two FBI agents, codenamed CI-291-S and CI-300-S infiltrated Cincinnati communist organizations immediately after the assassination. Arnold Johnson, director of public relations for one such group, worried that people would blame the communists for the crime. Motsinger quotes the document as saying:
Arnold explained that since Oswald was considered a communist then a wave of hysteria was about to explode against the C. party ... Arnold Johnson further stated that no real Marxist could do such a thing. There is not much doubt that since the Soviet Union had expelled him (Oswald) by not giving him citizenship in the Soviet Union because they thought him to be an Agent of Fascism.
Motsinger adds:
Johnson also talked about a letter that the party received months early from Oswald and how CBS, the TV network, had recently asked if Johnson replied, if he sent Oswald literature.
(7) CIA confiscated the manuscript of a novel written by a case officer with ties to the assassination. Ray Locker of USA Today reported that one of these new documents centered on the confiscation of the manuscript, along with some other items. Winston Scott was the CIA case officer who ordered the arrest of Sylvia Duran shortly after the JFK assassination. After a few days in isolation, and emerging from her incarceration bearing marks of physical torture, Duran publicly agreed with Scott’s contention that Lee Oswald had stopped by her office, and not someone else posing as Oswald.**
Locker writes:
Several memos related to the fate of a manuscript of a novel written by Winston Scott, the longtime CIA station chief in Mexico City, where Oswald traveled in September 1963 in an attempt to get visas to travel to Cuba and the Soviet Union.
When Scott died, [CIA counterintelligence chief James J.] Angleton appeared at his home and took copies of the manuscript, as well as other personal effects, with him. "The manuscript contains some dramatic inaccuracies about Lee Harvey Oswald's visit to Mexico City," said an Oct. 6, 1978, memo by CIA official S.D. Breckinridge.
I wonder what’s in that book. Will someone make it into a movie? A political thriller? Will there be a scene of Lee Oswald running around the streets of Mexico City with a nuclear warhead strapped to his back?
(8) A University of Arkansas at Little Rock Professor reminisced about his stint as Senior Investigator of the Assassination Records Review Board to the campus newsletter. Angelita Faller spoke to Dr. David Montague, director of eLearning at UALR. As one would expect from an intellectually honest academic, he critiqued many sides of the assassination. He realizes that part of the impetus to keep this case alive in public consciousness stems from our inability to believe that a lone assassin could have done such a hideous act. At the same time, Montague makes clear that this case should continue to command our attention. As he told Faller:
Do I think the release of these documents will shut all the questions down? No. I think it will intensify the questions for some people, and there are always going to be those that think this (Kennedy’s assassination investigation) is a dead issue.
He later said:
Given the level of access, just based on what I have seen, I just personally don’t see how Oswald could have done that by himself. . . . When I joined the agency, my hope was that we would release everything related to the assassination that was not a threat to national security or things we don’t release to the general public. I’m not surprised that there are still some documents that haven’t been released. They may be related to national security, but maybe there will be another agency investigating these documents in the future.Another agency investigating these documents in the future? We can only hope Dr. Montague is right.
____________________
*Again, although I suspect that’s correct, we’ll need time to make sure that there isn't some kind of coded reference that wouldn't show up on a computer search.
**Duran said that the man posing as Oswald was about five-foot two inches and blond. Oswald was brunet, and stood at five-nine and a half.
