Robert Blakey will speak at this November's D.C. conference: "Second Thoughts"
garag...@gmail.com
November in Washington, D.C. at the JFK conference being hosted by Jim
Lesar and Cyril Wecht.
Details are scarce, but the title of Professor Blakey's presentation
is, "Second Thoughts."
Exactly what those second thoughts might be he hasn't yet said. But
there is reason to suppose that since he discovered he'd been deceived
by the CIA, he's come to see the Kennedy case a little differently.
Careful students of the case are familiar with the following Frontline
interview Blakey did in which he repudiated his original view the CIA
had behaved honorably and honestly during his investigation in the late
1970s.
The interview follows and is available on-line at:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/oswald/interviews/blakey.html
Was Oswald recruited as a spy? What did the House Select Committee on
Assassinations conclude?
The ultimate judgment on Oswald as a recruited agent is that he was
not-either by the CIA or by the Soviets. For example, if the Soviets
had recruited him in Japan, the time and place to use him was in Japan,
not to have him defect to Russia to make radios. That just is not what
makes sense. Take a look at his character. The KGB conducted an
investigation of him in the Soviet Union by the wiretapping, the
bugging, the debriefing of all of his neighbors. None of this is
consistent with Oswald having been recruited.
Any effort to explain what happened in Dallas must explain Lee Harvey
Oswald, and Lee Harvey Oswald is a mystery wrapped up in an enigma,
hidden behind a riddle. Your explanation of him tells me more about you
than about the evidence about his life.
Would the Americans develop a false defector program and put Oswald in
it? When you look at Oswald's life, he just doesn't seem to be
emotionally stable enough to be the kind of candidate that our people
would recruit.
Was there a concern that the intelligence services simply kept that
information from you so there was no firm evidence either way?
We took very seriously the hypothesis that Lee Harvey Oswald was
connected to the CIA or our intelligence services. When we went to the
CIA files, we took very seriously the hypothesis that they had been
edited in some way. We talked to the agents who had created them, we
made sure that each of the agents was given a release from their
secrecy oath and was carefully instructed that if they lied to us,
there would be prosecution. We cross checked the references in files to
see what would be in parallel files.
It is impossible to prove a negative, but I'm always convinced that we
had sufficient access to the files themselves, I particularly, in an
unedited form. We had total access to the agents who prepared them. ...
The records are as they seem.
2003 Addendum: I now no longer feel comfortable with the conclusions I
expressed here in 1993. I set out below the reasons for this judgment.
Did the CIA and FBI give you access to the necessary files?
CIA clearly did lie about the case. For example, Helms lied about the
case. The CIA appear to have been not cooperative, to have put out
false photographs of Oswald, to have claimed they had no photographs of
Oswald, there were many cases where they seem to have tried to cover
their tracks,. How do you know that you found the underlying cause of
this? You have to draw a distinction between the FBI and the Agency in
the 1960s--and the substantial lack of candor between them and the
Warren Commission--and the subsequent behavior of the agencies as they
dealt with the congressional committee [in 1977].
Those who had a stake in what happened in 1963 and 1964 were no longer
in control of the Agency. The people in the FBI and the CIA that we
dealt with in my judgment were genuinely interested in the truth coming
out. What was the FBI's posture in 1963 and 1964? It was anything but
cooperation and, frankly, certainly there were lies by omission. When
it came time to analyze the candor that the Agency had with us, and the
FBI had with us, it's my judgment that it was difficult. Teeth had to
be pulled, but in the end we had unlimited access.
History seemingly writes with a crooked line. The best evidence of the
non-involvement of our own intelligence services comes not from our
investigations but the KGB investigations.
2003 Addendum: I now no longer feel comfortable with the conclusions I
expressed here in 1993 in reference to the Central Intelligence Agency.
I set out below the reasons for this judgment.
Is there significance in the fact that the military intelligence file
on Oswald disappeared? What happened? Many people would see a far more
sinister significance to the fact that the military destroyed a file of
obvious historic significance.
In 1972, largely as a result of the investigations into military
intelligence activities in the United States, the Defense Department
destroyed all of the military intelligence files that they had about
American citizens and things in the United States, which was shocking
from the point of view of the committee. This general order resulted in
the destruction of historically very valuable files.
Most disturbing was the destruction by the Army intelligence of
Oswald's Army intelligence file. The suspicion immediately was that
this was part of a cover up. We interviewed all of the officers who
were responsible for the order to destroy it, and while we have the
testimony of these individuals, we do not have the file.
Again, our ultimate conclusion was that in the United States, more
often than not, the better explanation for government action is not hob
nailed boots, but Keystone Cops. It's incredible how our bureaucracy
simply responds in a mindless way without any regard to the historical
significance of what they have.
There's a thesis that Lee Harvey Oswald was befriended by a wealthy
man, George de Mohrenschildt in Texas, who could have had CIA
connections and could effectively have been debriefing Oswald without
Oswald knowing it. What do you make of that theory?
We looked very carefully into the activity of a man named George de
Mohrenschildt, a Russian, like Lee Harvey Oswald. He was a
sophisticated man, a very articulate man, a world traveler, and George
de Mohrenschildt and his wife befriended Oswald and Marina in this
country and we explored very carefully whether he could have been a
contact, an indirect contact, between the agency and one of its own
agents, Lee Harvey Oswald. After a careful study, we were not able to
establish that George de Mohrenschildt was connected to the CIA.
How do you explain that the CIA did not debrief Oswald?
It is unusual for the CIA or military intelligence to debrief
Americans. That was something that the FBI should've done. In fact the
FBI did make an effort, several, to talk [to] Lee Harvey Oswald in this
country. So it's not entirely true that he was not debriefed. He was
very uncooperative with the agents. Indeed was very belligerent with
them.
We were deeply troubled by the way in which he came back. The
government financed him, they got him a visa, and he came back to this
country with great ease, the CIA then incredibly did not debrief him as
such. In the end, we found this not to be significant. Our defector
study of some 22 other American defectors indicated that it was not
uncommon, to facilitate a return, indeed not uncommon that they were
not even debriefed at any time. We drew therefore no sinister evidence
inference, in light of the pattern of the general evidence.
What was happening then in El Toro?
Oswald's Marine career continued in El Toro. His activity included
involving himself in Marxist literature. He continued to mature. Indeed
he developed an interest in Fidel Castro. From the committee's
perspective this was significant. Was this man's character being molded
either by the Soviets or by our own intelligence community? Were our
own people molding him? Why was no action taken against him? Why, when
this came to the attention of his Marine superiors was action not
initiated? This man was a man with a security clearance; this man was a
man who had access to highly sophisticated materials; and he is now
showing an interest in Marxism.
In retrospect, I think -- and this was the judgment of the committee --
that our own people aren't as efficient as we might think they ought to
be. That more often than not, it's Keystone Kops, and not stainless
steel efficiency. We drew ultimately no sinister inference from our own
people's failure to take action, or even to investigate Oswald in any
way.
So, what is the prosecution case against Lee Harvey Oswald in the
Kennedy assassination?
It's an easy case. The prosecution case against Oswald is open and
shut. If he'd shot his brother-in-law in the back seat of a
convertible, and not the President of the United States, he would have
been tried, convicted and forgotten in three days. I'm a former federal
prosecutor, I've been involved in the investigation and prosecution of
criminal cases for better than 30 years. To be sure, a defense counsel
could have raised issues. But the jury would have been convinced beyond
a reasonable doubt. His rifle did it, to the exclusion of all others.
He was in the Book Depository with the rifle. He fled the scene. He
killed a police officer. His statements to the police are false. His
palm print is on the gun.
Was Oswald a nut?
Saying that Oswald is unstable is not the same thing as saying that he
was insane. He was not. But to say that he's unstable is to say that he
does not have the kind of personality that includes dependability,
loyalty, bonding to others etc., all of which are characteristics of
someone who you would want to use in a high risk venture, and all
intelligence work is a high risk venture.
Lee Harvey Oswald was a loner. He was volatile. He was violent in
dealing with his wife and with other people. He had gone through
enormous personality changes in his life. Raised an American, he
becomes a Marxist; he leaves to go to the Soviet Union. He could not
hold a job well, he did not interact with other people, his wife, all
of these characteristics indicate that he would not be trustworthy,
loyal, honest, all the 'boy scout' attributes that government agencies,
whether they're in the Soviet Union or the United States, look for in
people in whom they put great trust.
You say you saw the visa application made in Mexico City. Could it have
been faked? Cuban Consul Eusebio Azque swore to his dying day that the
man he met in the embassy was not Oswald.
Here we have a situation where Sylvia Duran testifies that Oswald
presented the application to her, in person, and signed it in person
and the application has his photograph on it; and it is unquestionably
his photograph. It would be remarkable thing if she could not remember
or could not tell that the application didn't have the photograph of
the person who stood in front of her.
Here we have Azque, who is apparently telling the truth, and does not
remember Oswald as being there. This is, again, an example of people,
not having good memories of what was not a significant event when it
occurred; and having to go back later and interpret it in retrospect. I
believe Sylvia Duran. I disbelieve Azque.
On the other hand, the trip remains significant, as an event in
Oswald's life. Why did he go to Mexico City? Did he make statements in
the Cuban embassy indicating that he might kill the President? Did he
have associations in Mexico City, and if he had associations in Mexico
City, then were those associations part and parcel of his associations
in Dallas?
What was the significance of Kostikov? People have seen great
significance in the fact that Lee encountered Kostikov.
Among the people that Oswald met in Mexico City was a man named Valery
Kostikov in the Soviet embassy. He was in that directorate of the KGB,
to which he was assigned, which in the Russian phrase means 'wet
affairs': assassinations. Here you have, in September, a direct contact
between Lee Harvey Oswald, a defector to the Soviet Union, a committed
Marxist, and a man whose function was to set up assassinations. He
returns to the United States and within just about a month, kills the
President of the United States.
There've been many suspicions about the alleged visit to Mexico City.
Were there two visits, and was it Oswald?
The committee took very seriously the critics with suspicions about the
Mexico City trip. The suspicion was that Oswald didn't make it at all.
That there was an imposter, attempting to frame him in Mexico City. Had
that been established, it would indicate a sophisticated effort to
frame Oswald, which would immediately draw attention to American
intelligence. We obtained from Cuban officials the visa application
with his photograph on it and his signature. We verified that it was
Oswald's signature. Oswald, therefore, was in Mexico City.
Was there a connection between Oswald and organized crime?
At this point in time, New Orleans was corrupt, and the principle
figure behind that corruption, gambling etc, was Carlos Marcello.
Oswald at this time brushed up against organized crime in its worst
forms.
Oswald's uncle, a man named Charles "Dutz" Murret, [was] an ex-prize
fighter and promoter who was also a bookie. He was under the control of
Carlos Marcello, who at that time was the head of the Mafia in New
Orleans. These were the people who were in the sphere of Lee Harvey
Oswald's life as a child.
You talked about the kind of neighborhood Exchange Place [was] when
mother and son moved back to New Orleans...
When Oswald and his mother returned to New Orleans they lived on
Exchange Place above a pool hall. That street at that time was one den
of iniquity after another. Strip joints, gambling joints. It was a
place where every hustler and pimp in New Orleans plied his trade.
Oswald grew up in a community and environment of crime and corruption.
He went to Beauregard High School. It was a place that molded a
character; it was a place that distorted a character.
Mobsters talked of their hatred of Kennedy. Could you talk about that -
which mobsters, what did they say?
There is a story told by a man named Edward Becker, of a conversation
with Carlos Marcello, in which Carlos Marcello talks about getting, he
speaks in Sicilian, "getting the stone out of my shoe," and talking
about getting a nut to kill, not Bobby Kennedy, who was his nemesis,
but John Kennedy, who was the man behind the nemesis. We took that
statement very seriously and investigated Becker and Becker's
credibility. Was he associated with the people he says he was? Was he
in New Orleans at the time and place he says he was? Our judgment was
that Becker's story was true.
More significantly, in recent days, a man named Frank Ragano, who was a
long-time lawyer for Santo Trafficante, tells the story that
Trafficante, shortly before he underwent a serious operation, confided
to him that "Carlos messed up." He said that "we should have killed
Bobby and not Giovanni." This evidence is of extraordinary
significance.
A number of Mafia leaders have been overheard either threatening or
boasting about having a hand in killing Kennedy. What was the evidence?
We took very seriously the possibility that organized crime had a hand
in the President's death. I personally did not believe it at the time.
I thought we could prove that they didn't. The FBI had an illegal
electronic surveillance on the major figures of organized crime in the
major areas in this country -- in New York, Philadelphia, Buffalo and
elsewhere. We did a survey of that illegal electronic surveillance:
Eight months before the assassination and six months after. We were
looking for some indication in these men's conversations that would
connect them to the assassination - to either Lee Harvey Oswald, or to
Jack Ruby. We found no evidence in it to connect them to Oswald or
Ruby. On the other hand, what we did find, shockingly, is repeated
conversations by these people that indicated the depth of their hatred
for Kennedy, and actual discussions saying: "he ought to be killed,"
"he ought to be whacked."
Is [Oswald] acting in Dallas out of his New Orleans associations?
The question is whether you can get an answer with an ultimate sense of
confidence. Everybody wants to know what really happened. Will we ever
really know? And I think the answer is we will know with varying
degrees of confidence.
Oswald killed the President. We know that beyond a reasonable doubt. We
know that Ruby killed Oswald. We know that beyond a reasonable doubt.
Now the question is: Did either have help or did neither have help? And
it's there that we begin having less of a degree of confidence in our
judgments. And if you want to posit conspiracy, you must show
associations. And in his simple surroundings, such as David Ferrie, are
people in both organized crime and with anti-Castro Cubans.
Who is David Ferrie?
If Oswald is an enigmatic character, and he is, David Ferrie is his
soulmate. David Ferrie is a man, not well educated, but described as
brilliant. Apparently a homosexual. An airline pilot for Eastern
Airlines and a good pilot. A man who is very active in the anti-Castro
Cuban movement. A man who is close to Carlos Marcello. He is also,
significantly, a man who, in the 1950s, headed up a civil air patrol
unit in which Lee Harvey Oswald apparently was a member.
It appears that when Oswald went to Dallas, suddenly he's not with
anybody. Maybe he did it alone?
Anybody who looks at this has to be candid enough to say that the
evidence cuts in two directions. When he is in Dallas, he apparently is
alone, or largely a loner.
He gets the job at the depository by happenstance. The Kennedy
motorcade in front of the depository is by happenstance. It has none of
the earmarks of a carefully planned assassination. His flight from the
depository is by happenstance. His killing of Tippit is by
happenstance. ...
But then, you find David Ferrie, who is an investigator for Carlos
Marcello, being a boyhood friend to Lee Harvey Oswald and with him that
summer, and with Carlos Marcello at that very point in time. You have
an immediate connection between a man who had the motive, opportunity
and means to kill Kennedy and the man who killed Kennedy.
But you're pointing the finger towards Carlos Marcello and organized
crime rather than the equally violent anti-Kennedy elements in the
anti-Castro Cuban movement.
You don't have to separate the anti-Castro Cubans and organized crime.
There are substantial overlaps. Santo Trafficante [who some claim had
met Ruby] from Tampa was in Cuba, and many of his associates in illegal
businesses are Cuban and were people who were thrown out of Cuba by
Castro. They're both organized crime and anti-Castro Cubans.
On the other hand, not every anti-Castro Cuban is involved in organized
crime. Indeed most are not. They were legitimate ex-patriots.
But when you move in to New Orleans, and you move into the circle of
Lee Harvey Oswald, a loner, connected to Marxist causes, one who might
assassinate the President out of a political position on the left. This
colors the assassination as a political position on the right. It is
contradictory. There is no doubt that Oswald is seen with Ferrie. But
what is the significance?
In New Orleans, he is handing out Marxist literature for an
organization that does not exist. How do you explain the address on the
back of some of those leaflets, 544 Camp Street?
The address on the back of it, 544 Camp Street is either a coincidence,
or potentially takes significance from the fact that in that same
building there is a private detective agency by a man named Guy
Bannister. And Guy Bannister is certainly not pro-Castro; he's an ex-
FBI agent from New York who is violently anti-Castro and working
closely with the anti-Castro Cuban groups, to overthrow Castro.
If Lee Harvey Oswald is connected to Bannister, then the pro-Castro
activity seems to be a sham. If it is a sham, it's hard to see where
the second conversion occurred. If Oswald's original conversion to
Marxism was real and the Soviet Union was a real defection, whence
comes the being knocked from his horse on the way to Damascus in New
Orleans? Was there a sudden radical conversion to the anti-Castro
position? It's difficult to reconcile these things out. But there's no
satisfactory explanation.
Going back to the point about his apparent pro-Castro activity. Is this
an organization with any substance?
Every effort was made, both by the FBI in 1963, and by the committee,
to establish that the pro-Castro activity in New Orleans had a larger
group behind it. Apparently he had a unit of the 'Fair Play for Cuba'.
Apparently it had no membership other than Lee Harvey Oswald himself.
Indeed, when he distributed the literature, one of the two people was
hired. The other person we've never been able to identify. There's just
no evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald had other associates in the
pro-Castro activity.
Doesn't that argue for the whole thing just being a shell game? I mean
a pretense?
Oh it surely argues for it being a shell game. Is it a shell game by
Lee Harvey Oswald, or a shell game by Lee Harvey Oswald on behalf of
someone else?
You answer that, I think, not by what happens in New Orleans, but by
the consistent train of his character. From Japan to the Soviet Union,
to New Orleans to Mexico City, of acting, at least for his own
perspective, out of a Marxist or a pro-Castro perspective.
Now, how do you reconcile the fact that there are two contradictory
activities going on?
I'm not terribly sure that you can reconcile them. The most consistent
thing through Lee Harvey Oswald's life is his Marxist position. The
effort to talk to the anti-Castro Cubans is an effort either by Lee
Harvey Oswald, in his crazed mind, to be engaging in subterfuge
activity, or it is, in fact, Lee Harvey Oswald acting on behalf of
someone else, infiltrating anti-Castro activities.
The true Lee Harvey Oswald is the Marxist. Oswald engages in a number
of activities in New Orleans. He distributes 'Fair Play for Cuba'
literature. He apparently is the head of a unit of 'Fair Play for
Cuba'. He goes on a radio station and debates on behalf of Castro. All
of this indicates his Marxist pro-Castro leanings.
At the same time, Lee Harvey Oswald makes a contact with Carlos
Bringuier who is an anti-Castro Cuban leader in New Orleans and this is
documented and unquestioned. Which is Lee Harvey Oswald? Is he
pro-Castro? Is he anti-Castro? This man is all things to all people.
What interpretation can you make of him consistent with that terrible
event in Dallas on November the 22nd?
Is such an explanation possible?
Any effort to explain what happened in Dallas must explain Lee Harvey
Oswald, and Lee Harvey Oswald is a mystery wrapped up in an enigma,
hidden behind a riddle. Your explanation of him tells me more about you
than about the evidence about his life. He is not an easy man to
explain.
It's almost as if there was a foreground, background illusion. Here's
Lee Harvey Oswald, a Marine, working in a secure institution, having a
security clearance. At the same time, you find him reading Marxist
literature, defecting to the Soviet Union. Is that a conversion from
being an American hero to American defector? Is it what it appears to
be? You see him go to the Soviet Union. Is he going as a defector or is
he going as an agent for the American government?
You see him returning to this country. In New Orleans, you see him in
contact with anti Castro Cubans on one day, offering to help them, two
days later you see him distributing pro-Castro literature.
Here you have him meeting with Sylvia Odio, who is, in the context, an
anti-Castro Cuban. Within days, he's meeting with high-level people
involved in assassinations in the Soviet Embassy. You see him meeting
with people in the Cuban Embassy. You see him returning to this
country. You have him having conversations on the phone with people in
Spanish.
So what are the main unanswered questions?
The crucial question in 1963 is the crucial question in 1993. It's not
did Oswald kill Kennedy? He did. It's whether he had help in some way.
Was there a conspiracy? Conspiracy requires association. Anybody who's
going to make a conspiratorial interpretation of the assassination must
connect Lee Harvey Oswald to the group that they posit as the
co-conspirators. Therefore, what you begin doing is taking Lee Harvey
Oswald and asking in concentric circles: Who were his associations? Who
were their associates? And you then try to interpret those associations
as conspirators. Therefore, every connection to Oswald -- from the
Soviets to the pro-Castro Cubans - becomes a possible conspirator.
Is there strong corroborative evidence that Oswald really was the
person who shot at General Edwin Walker that night?
Marina's story is that Oswald shot at Walker. Is there evidence that
can corroborate that? There are two items. One is a note found by Ruth
Paine undated, but is consistent with Marina's story. Second, the
bullet recovered from Walker's house. The evidence apart from Marina's
testimony is substantial. The bullet recovered is consistent with
Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition. We did a study on that.
It [the shooting] tends to undermine his possible connections to the
KGB, to the pro-Castro Cubans or the anti-Castro Cubans and indeed even
to organized crime. Here is a man off shooting people almost at random.
How then is he the instrument through which a sinister conspiracy
brought down the President of the United States? On the other hand,
that evidence can be read another way: It shows his propensity to
violence and it also shows that he can be ideologically manipulated
into taking this act.
Just looking at the evidence of the bullet, this corroborates Marina's
story. How?
The weapon used to kill the President of the United States is a
Mannlicher-Carcano. The weapon used to fire at General Walker was also
apparently a Mannlicher-Carcano. The bullet recovered from Walker's
house can be scientifically linked to Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition.
Oswald's rifle was a Mannlicher-Carcano and to show that the rifle that
fired at Walker is a Mannlicher-Carcano is to give some corroboration
to Marina's story. The story itself is significant because it shows
that Lee Harvey Oswald has a propensity for violence up to and
including homicide and acts out of a political motivation.
Is there evidence that he was manipulated?
Well. there is some evidence that in the Russian community in which
Oswald was a participant, Walker was identified as a right-wing figure,
and some suggestions were made that this would be a fit candidate for
shooting. Those conversations had the effect of stimulating him into
acting, either by himself or with other people.
We also took very seriously the possibility that Oswald may have had
companions in the Walker shooting. There are police reports of two cars
driving away, and indeed a report from the Walker people that somebody
in a car may have been surveilling the housing before the assassination
effort. The significance here is obvious.
Lee Harvey Oswald didn't have a car and didn't drive. If Oswald was in
these cars and fled the scene in that fashion, he had companions. And
if he had companions in the Walker assassination effort, the inference
can be drawn that he had companions in the Kennedy assassination.The
two assassinations would be part of a common effort. That is to say, a
first failed effort to bring down Walker, a symbol of right-wing
America. The Kennedy assassination being a similar effort to bring down
the leader of right-wing America, the President of the United States.
There was also testimony that Oswald was inclined to kill Vice
President Nixon.
Marina tells another, almost bizarre story, that Nixon was in town and
that she had to lock him in the bathroom to prevent him from going
downtown and taking a shot at Nixon. This evidence again can be read
two ways. A propensity to kill any public figure that would tend to
make him a loner. A propensity to kill, and the possibility that he can
be manipulated by other people. I wish the evidence was more solidly in
one direction to show one interpretation as opposed to the other.
We move forward to Dallas. Can you describe why there is a controversy
surrounding the back yard photographs?
There are three photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald taken by Marina, each
holding a rifle and some Communist Party literature. When Oswald
himself was shown those photographs, he denied that he owned a rifle
and denies that this was him in it. He said his head was pasted on it.
The critics of the Warren Commission seized on this and did studies of
shadows. The nature of his chin, with a cleft here and shadows in the
background led to arguing that the photographs were composites or
fakes.
We took very seriously these charges. Surely, if they were faked, it
would be an indication of the most sophisticated effort to frame Lee
Harvey Oswald. We had our first bit of evidence examined by the Warren
Commission. Marina testifies that she took it; she identifies the
camera that she used. The FBI was able, to the exclusion of all other
cameras, tie that camera to these photographs.
Assuming that all that's fake, we went further with a photographic
panel and studied very carefully all of the testimony about the shadows
being inappropriate. Our photographic panel indicated in great detail
that these shadows were not inappropriate, that the critics had simply
not understood optics accordingly.
But for me at least the single most important counter indication of a
faked photograph is that we uncovered in the possession of George de
Mohrenschildt a third photograph. On the back of that photograph is an
inscription in Lee Harvey Oswald's handwriting, including his
signature. We had a panel of handwriting experts look at his
handwriting over his whole life, including on that photograph, and
their conclusion was without any doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald had
signed that photograph.
What was the connection therefore between Oswald and the assassination
weapon?
Lee Harvey Oswald in this photograph is holding the weapon that can be
identified as the weapon found in the depository. And that weapon, in
turn, can be ballistically linked to the exclusion of all others with
the bullets that killed John Kennedy.
The photograph itself does several things. One: it self-identifies
Oswald as associated with the Marxist literature. He's holding in his
hand the Daily Worker and the Socialist Worker Party literature.
Incidentally, it also indicates Oswald's confusion: These two branches
of Marxism are hardly friends.
The rifle itself can be identified as the rifle used in the
assassination. It therefore directly links, in a photographic way,
Oswald with the gun that killed Kennedy.
How do we know he wasn't just holding a rifle of the kind used in the
assassination? On the committee, we did a detailed microscopic
examination of the rifle in the photograph and compared and contrasted
it to the rifle seized from the Texas School Book Depository that can
be ballistically linked to the bullets that killed the President. You
can identify unique physical characteristics of this rifle to the
exclusion of all others between the photograph and the rifle that's now
in the National Archives.
The FBI looked at the camera and the film. What kind of tests did they
do and what did they conclude?
There are microscopic, unique indentations. Based on them, if you have
the negative and the camera you can -- just like you can match the
grooves in a bullet to the grooves created by the barrel ballistics --
you can match a camera and a negative or a photograph. That's precisely
the technique that the FBI employed. The details of it are set out for
all to read in the Warren Commission hearings and report. We undertook
a similar analysis on the committee and the photographic panel's report
is set out in our hearings as well. This is science. This is not
memory, this is not perception, and this is something that anybody with
the expertise can replicate for themselves.
G. Robert Blakey's 2003 Addendum to this Interview:
I am no longer confident that the Central Intelligence Agency
co-operated with the committee. My reasons follow:
The committee focused, among other things, on (1) Oswald, (2) in New
Orleans, (3) in the months before he went to Dallas, and, in
particular, (4) his attempt to infiltrate an anti-Castro group, the
Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil or DRE.
These were crucial issues in the Warren Commission's investigation;
they were crucial issues in the committee's investigation. The Agency
knew it full well in 1964; the Agency knew it full well in 1976-79.
Outrageously, the Agency did not tell the Warren Commission or our
committee that it had financial and other connections with the DRE, a
group that Oswald had direct dealings with!
What contemporaneous reporting is or was in the Agency's DRE files? We
will never know, for the Agency now says that no reporting is in the
existing files. Are we to believe that its files were silent in 1964 or
during our investigation?
I don't believe it for a minute. Money was involved; it had to be
documented. Period. End of story. The files and the Agency agents
connected to the DRE should have been made available to the commission
and the committee. That the information in the files and the agents who
could have supplemented it were not made available to the commission
and the committee amounts to willful obstruction of justice.
Obviously, too, it did not identify the agent who was its contact with
the DRE at the crucial time that Oswald was in contact with it: George
Joannides.
During the relevant period, the committee's chief contact with the
Agency on a day-to-day basis was Scott Breckinridge. (I put aside our
point of contact with the office of chief counsel, Lyle Miller) We sent
researchers to the Agency to request and read documents. The
relationship between our young researchers, law students who came with
me from Cornell, was anything but "happy." Nevertheless, we were
getting and reviewing documents. Breckinridge, however, suggested that
he create a new point of contact person who might "facilitate" the
process of obtaining and reviewing materials. He introduced me to
Joannides, who, he said, he had arranged to bring out of retirement to
help us. He told me that he had experience in finding documents; he
thought he would be of help to us.
I was not told of Joannides' background with the DRE, a focal point of
the investigation. Had I known who he was, he would have been a witness
who would have been interrogated under oath by the staff or by the
committee. He would never have been acceptable as a point of contact
with us to retrieve documents. In fact, I have now learned, as I note
above, that Joannides was the point of contact between the Agency and
DRE during the period Oswald was in contact with DRE.
That the Agency would put a "material witness" in as a "filter" between
the committee and its quests for documents was a flat out breach of the
understanding the committee had with the Agency that it would
co-operate with the investigation.
The committee's researchers immediately complained to me that Joannides
was, in fact, not facilitating but obstructing our obtaining of
documents. I contacted Breckinridge and Joannides. Their side of the
story wrote off the complaints to the young age and attitude of the
people.
They were certainly right about one question: the committee's
researchers did not trust the Agency. Indeed, that is precisely why
they were in their positions. We wanted to test the Agency's integrity.
I wrote off the complaints. I was wrong; the researchers were right. I
now believe the process lacked integrity precisely because of
Joannides.
For these reasons, I no longer believe that we were able to conduct an
appropriate investigation of the Agency and its relationship to Oswald.
Anything that the Agency told us that incriminated, in some fashion,
the Agency may well be reliable as far as it goes, but the truth could
well be that it materially understates the matter.
What the Agency did not give us none but those involved in the Agency
can know for sure. I do not believe any denial offered by the Agency on
any point. The law has long followed the rule that if a person lies to
you on one point, you may reject all of his testimony.
I now no longer believe anything the Agency told the committee any
further than I can obtain substantial corroboration for it from outside
the Agency for its veracity. We now know that the Agency withheld from
the Warren Commission the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. Had the
commission known of the plots, it would have followed a different path
in its investigation. The Agency unilaterally deprived the commission
of a chance to obtain the full truth, which will now never be known.
Significantly, the Warren Commission's conclusion that the agencies of
the government co-operated with it is, in retrospect, not the truth.
We also now know that the Agency set up a process that could only have
been designed to frustrate the ability of the committee in 1976-79 to
obtain any information that might adversely affect the Agency.
Many have told me that the culture of the Agency is one of
prevarication and dissimulation and that you cannot trust it or its
people. Period. End of story.
I am now in that camp.
Anyone interested in pursuing this story further should consult the
reporting by Jefferson Morley of the Washington Post. See, e.g.,
Jefferson Morley, "Revelation 19.63" Miami New Times (April 2001).
JLeyd...@aol.com
with his mob-related assassination theories, as befits a man who was the
primary author of the RICO statute (like to hear his second thoughts on
that one), but I never heard him express any doubts that Oswald was the
triggerman. In a 30th anniversary piece thaat ran in the WashPost
(11/07/93), he began by noting that "we know with a high degree of
confidence little more than we knew within 30 hours of the murder. Lee
Harvey Oswald did it." Sounds pretty definite but there's always hope for
CTs. That's what keeps these seemingly endless series of conferences
going.
JGL
------------ And now a word from our sponsor ---------------------
For a secure high performance FTP using SSL/TLS encryption
upgrade to SurgeFTP
---- See http://netwinsite.com/sponsor/sponsor_surgeftp.htm ----