Why did it say "Catholic"?
elec...@my-deja.com
--==Sorry this is so late, I am a very busy lady these days, but you know that Lee was raised Lutheran...and yes, under ordinary circumstances, Catholic looks better....but Lee was trying to get into (now Communist) Cuba, where to put "Catholic" would not be to his advantage. Thanks for your response. It tells me how you approach LHO.
On Wed, 12 May 1999 07:21:08 Barb Junkkarinen wrote:
>On Wed, 12 May 1999 05:52:26 GMT, elec...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>
>>Note that on the request for VISA while in Mexico City, Oswald put
>>"Catholic" instead of "Lutheran" as his religion. Why do you think
>>he did this?
>
>Maybe because Mexico and Cuba has got to be something like 99.9%
>Catholic. When in Rome...or when trying to get into Rome.....
>
>Barb :-)
>>
>>
>>--== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==--
>>---Share what you know. Learn what you don't.---
>
>
>
>>
>
--== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==--
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
elec...@my-deja.com
--
On Wed, 12 May 1999 23:00:44 american wrote:
>In article <7hb4uk$cdh$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, elec...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>
>> Note that on the request for VISA while in Mexico City, Oswald put
>> "Catholic" instead of "Lutheran" as his religion. Why do you think
>> he did this?
>>
>>
>> --== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==--
>> ---Share what you know. Learn what you don't.---
>
>Because he was raised Roman Catholic?
>===Sorry I'm so busy. No,Lee was raised Lutheran, and at this time in his life, he didn;t believe in God, but on the application he put "Catholic" because toput "atheist" would have looked commie-suspicious. Because he knew both me and david ferrie, and because his cousins were catholic, Lee began using "Catholic" rather than "Lutheran" or "none." Simple as that. Thanks for your response.Judyth
>--
>Novus Ordo Seclorum : The New Secular Order
american
>
> --==Sorry this is so late, I am a very busy lady these days, but you
know that Lee was raised Lutheran...
I've read he was raised in the Roman Catholc faith.
Jfkcia
hadn't done his homework. If it had been the real Oswald the CIA would have
had a dozen photographs of Lee walking in and out of the Counsulate. Check me
out at JFKCIA.com
John Ritchson
The Nature of Clandestine Operations
A LIGHT PLANE SKIMMED THE TREE-TOPS OF THE dense hardwood
forest of northern Maine. It dipped from view, and was gone. To
anyone who might have been watching, the lake where the plane
landed was too small for any pontoon equipped plane. However, the
landing was safe, and the plane taxied toward two men sitting in
a small inflated boat. One of them had been winding the hand
crank of a small generator. The other was tuning a transceiver.
As the plane approached, the pilot cut the throttle, and the men
paddled to the nearest float and climbed aboard.
The pilot reported that he had picked up the homing beacon
several times at distances of from thirty to sixty miles. He
could have gotten more range, but the flight plan called for a
low altitude flight, so he had to do the best he could from
tree-top height. The beacon, newly modified to give a stronger
signal, satisfied them. Further testing would take place at
Norfolk. The men stowed the gear aboard the plane and deflated
the raft. The co-pilot, who spoke no English, helped them up. The
pilot restarted the engine and gunned the throttle to take them
to the far side of the pond.
With everything ready for take-off and the plane heavy with
four men aboard, the pilot waited for a slight breeze, which
would put ripples on the water and help them get off more
quickly. A technician would have noted that large leading-edge
slats on this plane were extended before take-off and that the
large trailing flaps were also down for maximum lift. With the
breeze, some steady ripples, and a full throttle, the pilot let
the plane accelerate for about twelve seconds and then lifted it
clear. Once off the water, he began an easy spiral climb to get
up and out of the tree-lined valley.
A month of special training had paid off. The new Helio
"Courier" had proven itself to be the best and most rugged
short-field plane available. The floats were not too heavy, and
the plane handled well on the water. Most important, the new
co-pilot had transitioned quickly and had handled the plane like
an old pro. He needed more instrument work for weather flying,
and he needed some navigational experience. He would get that
training at Norfolk. He had liked flying in Maine, and he
reported that "it looked like my homeland". After a short hop,
the plane landed on Moosehead Lake, and everyone went back to
Greenville to prepare to close the camp.
In Germany, hundreds of thousands of displaced persons and
repatriated refugees had been interrogated and debriefed as they
came through the military processing centers. A small fraction of
this horde of people, fleeing the Communists and the reprisals of
their own countrymen, possessed information that was useful
intelligence. This select group was turned over to professional
interrogators who worked for military intelligence and the CIA.
Only the very best were reserved for CIA questioning; and these
were screened carefully to assure accuracy and integrity and to
spot the inevitable planted agent. Among this group, the Agency
had found several who had given evidence of a military buildup by
the early 1950s, of a very special nature far north of Moscow.
This intelligence had been screened, evaluated, and analyzed to
see what it meant. About the best that the refugees and defectors
could provide was that new interceptor fighter bases were being
built farther north than ever seen before and a vast array of
radars, indicating the development of a sophisticated air defense
network, was being installed.
One day, a young Polish defector, who claimed to have been
a pilot, turned himself in, and after careful screening and
background checking, he was brought to the "safe house" not far
from the I. G. Farben building in Frankfurt for further
interrogation. In the course of this work, he said he had made
several trips as a co-pilot delivering cargo to the new
construction sites at these fighter bases in the Soviet
northwest. As if to prove his point, he said he could find his
way back there anytime.
Clandestine operations take form through such small and
unexpected leads. The agent who had been working with this pilot
was not on the Directorate of Intelligence side. He was a member
of the Central European staff of DD/P, the special operations
staff of the Agency. Up to the time of that last statement he had
been interested only in a secret intelligence project designed to
obtain all the information it could get on Soviet air defenses.
That evening when he stopped at the officers club in Frankfurt,
he met a few other agents who were visiting from Washington. He
mentioned the chance remark of the Polish pilot.
A few months earlier, there had been a meeting in the
Pentagon in the Air Force Plans offices, where the vast Air
Resupply and Communications program was managed. These special
Air Force units, called ARC Wings, were stationed in strategic
locations all over the world. Included among their special
classified missions was the task of providing wartime support of
the CIA. Several CIA men attended the meeting in the Pentagon,
and when it broke up, one of them stayed behind to ask the Air
Force pilots what they thought was the best light plane for
rugged, special-operations-type business. One of the officers
reported that a small company, consisting for the most part of
ex-Massachusetts Institute of Technology aeronautical engineering
men, was building and flying a plane called the Helio Courier. If
it was really as good as it was reported to be, it might be the
plane the CIA wanted.
About one week later, a man reported to the Helio Aircraft
Corporation in Norwood, Massachusetts, to learn more about this
plane. He gave his true name, showed the identification of a U.S.
Air Force civilian employee, and said he worked in Air Force
headquarters. He spent several days with the Helio company and
returned with an enthusiastic report. He actually worked for the
Air Division of the DD/P in the CIA, and his boss at that time
was an Air Force colonel on duty with the CIA.
After proper testing and evaluation, the CIA decided to
purchase several of these aircraft. However, the Air Force had
none of these planes, and the plane could not be purchased by the
Air Force for the CIA because it could not be "covered" unless
there were others like it in the Air Force. The CIA decided to
buy these planes anyway and set up a civilian cover unit for them
putting them under commercial cover. At the same time the agent
in Frankfurt was talking with the Polish pilot, these same
aircraft had just been delivered to the CIA and were being shaken
down for special operations work.
Thus it happened quite by chance that this agent told his
friends in Germany that the CIA had just the plane that could
make the flight, if they could get the Polish pilot sufficiently
trained for it and if they could get the operation approved
"through the Old Man". They knew "Air Division" would back them.
It wanted more action than border flying and training exercises.
They counted on the approval of Richard Helms and Frank Wisner
(both men at that time were in DD/P; Wisner was the chief) and
felt sure General Cabell would go along with the idea, since the
Air Force could use any information it could get about the
Russian air defenses, to support the growing B-52 strategic
bomber flight budget. They knew the ultimate decision would be up
to Allen Dulles.
During the next weeks the agent in Frankfurt worked very
hard with the young Pole to see just how much he knew, whether he
really knew the Soviet Union, and whether he really could fly an
airplane. Everything seemed to work out, the information the Pole
gave him checked out with everything the Frankfurt station could
get.
With this under way, the Frankfurt station agent kept a
friend in Washington informed of all developments. Between them,
they kept feeding "business" messages, designed to heat up the
subject of "new Soviet air defenses", into intelligence channels.
Everything possible was done to increase intelligence
communications traffic on this subject. The Air Force
intelligence office at U.S. Air Forces, Europe headquarters
(USAFE), in Weisbaden was put on the task. It quite willingly
picked up the ball because that headquarters had a very active
border flying activity, and this would give them something to do
besides dropping leaflets and furnishing tens of thousands of
weather balloons. USAFE increased its traffic on this subject to
the U.S. Air Defense Command in Colorado Springs and to the
Strategic Air Command headquarters in Omaha.
At the same time, the Frankfurt station agent arranged to
have the Air Force group at the Weisbaden air base set up a
light-plane flight reorientation course for the Polish pilot. An
Air Force light plane was made available and to the relief of
everyone, the Pole proved to be a good pilot. It was easier get
him through the refresher course than it had been to get the
plane for him.
If this mission were to operate into the Soviet Union, the
pilot must never know who was supporting him. Therefore, he was
told that a German air operator had a Polish pilot and a plane
and that they would give him some refresher flying so that he
could seek employment. He was never told that he was being
prepared to fly to the Soviet Union. The Air Force plane was put
into the hangar and stripped of all USAF identity. Then German
instrument decals were put in the cockpit and a Polish pilot, one
whom the Agency had ready at a special billet in Greece, was
transferred to the Frankfurt station.
Every day, the Polish defector would be driven to the
airfield for his lesson. The older, CIA "stateless" pilot, not
only gave him transition flying but tried in every way to test
the newer man and to break his story. But the facts held up, and
the young pilot proved to be sincere and reliable.
With this success, the idea of the project had begun to
take shape. Air Division plotted several flight plans from a
secret location in Norway into the Soviet Union. Because the
Courier performed so well on water, and a water landing at an
"unknown" destination seemed to offer the most chance for
success, it had been decided to operate from a water departure
point to a water destination. Also, each flight plan called for a
low "under radar canopy" tree-top level pattern.
Long-range, low-level navigation is difficult because
visibility pilotage purposes is reduced to a narrow track. This
was doubly true for this flight, because any radio aid that might
exist was limited and hostile. Border electronic information
flights had pinpointed some radio fixes that could be used; but
even at best these were quite unreliable. A Loran navigation fix
would be ideal; but none was in operation that far north. This
was overcome by having the U.S. Navy agree to put a
Loran-carrying ship in the far north as part of a "NATO
exercise". This would give a good, reliable, and secret
navigational and code signal system for most of the flight. The
mission plane would not be required to make any transmissions in
order to use Loran for navigational purposes. It would simply
receive the signals it needed.
Meanwhile, Air Division did not wish to pin all of its
hopes on the young Pole. He would fly the plane, but an agent
would be trained to help him navigate and to serve as a helper
for the two-man team that would be infiltrated into Russia. A
series of long-range navigation missions was set up and all
systems thoroughly tested.
By this time DD/P had accepted the proposal and had become
its sponsor. The U.S. Air Force and Navy had been fully sounded
out, and they went along with the idea. At that point, a meeting
was set up in the OSO/OSD[1] office to soften up any possible
opposition and to prepare for the crucial vote of the Secretary
of Defense in the NSC Special Group meeting. Since the operation
would have a vital military intelligence tie-in, the OSD vote was
just about assured. This was the period of the Allen W.
Dulles-John Foster Dulles partnership; so no meeting was
scheduled at the Department of State. "The Old Man will handle
that" was sufficient to assure that vote at the NSC. With all of
this preparation, it was no problem for DD/P Wisner to sell the
idea to General Cabell. The way was cleared for the meeting with
Allen Dulles.
The agent from the Frankfurt station flew into Washington
on a "deep water" flight -- a clandestine flight with a cover
flight plan and no customs intervention -- on a ClA-owned U.S.
Air Force C-l18 transport, with the Polish pilot as a passenger.
The Pole was kept at a "safe house" near Andrews Air Force Base,
just a few miles from Washington. The Frankfurt station agent
attended the meeting with Dulles, as did General Cabell, Wisner,
and a few others. The idea was accepted by Mr. Dulles, and he
asked his executive to put it on the agenda for the next Special
Group meeting. That evening, before his usual tennis game on his
backyard court, Allen Dulles dropped by his brothers secluded
house just off Massachusetts Avenue and discussed the operation
with him. Foster agreed that Eisenhower would go along with it.
He walked over to the wall lined with book shelves and picked up
the special white telephone that connected directly with the
White House operator. All he said was, "Is the man busy?"
Foster Dulles opened with, "Boss, how did you do at Burning
Tree today? . . . well, six holes is better than nothing . . .
Yes, I've been talking here with Allen. He has a proposal he
wants to clear with you. He feels it is very important, and it
will lift the morale of Franks [Wisner] boys. You know, since
Korea and Guatemala you havent had them doing much. Will you see
him tomorrow morning? Fine. Hows Mamie, O.K. boss, I'll speak to
Allen... 9:30... Thank you; good night." There was not much
left to do. The flight would be scheduled.
First, the Polish pilot was given a briefing on his cover
story. He was "being employed by a foreign company to do some
bush-flying, and he would get some training with one of their men
in the United States". The "company" man was the CIA agent from
Air Division; he would be the mission commander. Shortly after
their first meeting they were flown to Maine, where they met the
pilot -- also an Agency employee -- of the Courier. The plane had
a cover company name on it and a special FAA registry number,
which would never show on official FAA records if it were to be
challenged. The flight indoctrination concentrated on float
techniques, short-field landing and take-off, and low-level,
long-range navigation. The Agency mission commander had been
trained to take the Loran fixes for navigation.
When the pilot had passed all of his flying tests, he was
introduced to the two-man "stay-behind" team. These men would be
infiltrated on one flight and then recovered on another. These
"passengers" went about their business by themselves and were
always, except on the flights, accompanied by a case officer. It
seemed that they did not speak English, and they made no attempt
to speak to the Polish pilot. If this mission failed and any of
them were interrogated, they would know nothing about one
another.
At Norfolk, the final phase of training took place. A
secluded cove near the mouth of the York River on Chesapeake Bay
had a very small section roped off to simulate the tiny landing
area they expected to find in Russia as target of this
infiltration mission. Day after day, the pilot practiced from
that tree-bordered cove so that he would be instinctively used to
flying that way. Short take-off and landing (STOL) flying is a
real high order skill, and he needed all the training he could
get. The next thing he needed was long-range navigation
experience -- much of it over water and out of sight of land.
Flight plans, as much as possible like the one he would fly from
Norway into Russia, were set up. He flew these at extended range
day after day until he could hit his target accurately. The
Agency man helped him with Loran navigation and taught him how to
fly in such a manner that he would conserve his fuel. On the real
flight he would have to get in and out of Russia without
refueling, and he would have very little reserve. The next step
was to ask the Frankfurt station liaison officer, who had contact
with the British intelligence service, to set up a meeting
somewhere in England for the Polish pilot and a very reliable,
high-level Russian defector who was being debriefed secretly at
that time. The British agreed to the meeting and suggested it be
held at the CIA sub-base near the U.S. Air Force base of the Air
Resupply and Communications Wing stationed in England. Thus the
meeting would be very secret and could be covered adequately by
the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Air Force.
Finally, everything was ready. The Courier was left at
Norfolk because another new plane had been built for this flight,
one with absolutely no identification markings of any kind -- no
paint, no decals, no serial numbers. Even the tires, battery,
radio parts, etc., were either stripped clean or had been
purchased from various foreign sources. If this plane were lost
in Russia, no matter what the Russians might try to charge, this
Government would say nothing at all, and if pressed, would deny
everything. The plane had been totally sanitized from the start.
The new plane had its wings removed and was placed aboard a
U.S. Air Force transport plane. All of the mission personnel were
placed aboard the same plane and flown from Andrews Field on a
black flight to England. There, at the same base where the pilot
had first met the Soviet defector, a final briefing was held. At
this time the pilot was told what he was really going to do. He
agreed to go ahead and was briefed by the Russian, along with
Agency personnel. Later, the same Russian briefed the two
passengers separately. They knew what to do.
A few days later, the whole team was flown to an airfield
in northern Norway. The Oslo CIA station chief had cleared the
operation with the contact man in the Norwegian Government. He
was told about the flight and given only a cover story about the
real reason for it. Foster Dulles had told the American
ambassador as little as possible; he had simply been
"informed". If by some chance any of the stateless personnel were
compromised by a take-off crash or other incident, the ambassador
would be prepared to act. Otherwise, he had no role to play.
The mission commander led the whole team through the entire
exercise on several dry runs until they all knew their roles
perfectly. The U.S. Navy, British Navy, and a Norwegian ship or
two were participating in a NATO northern exercise. Fleets of
transport aircraft flew from various northern bases back and
forth over the Arctic, making obvious use of the Loran network.
All was in readiness. Border reconnaissance flights were
intensified out of Athens and Weisbaden. RB-47 high altitude
flights were stepped up off Murmansk. Then, with a report of good
weather and clear skies, the Courier left Norway with its four
occupants and secret equipment.
For hours the plane skimmed the waves, staying below radar
surveillance. U.S. ELINT monitors listened for increased "alert
level" activities. All were silent. Suddenly in the Loran carrier
wave, a final "all clear" signal was given. It was a simple code
flashed in microseconds and unintelligible to all but the most
sophisticated equipment. Then the Courier turned to the southeast
and toward landfall. The barren coastline rose quickly. A heavy,
dark forest grew right to the sea. The horizon was low and
rolling as the plane sped on its way. Although the plane lands at
a very slow speed, it cruises at a relatively high speed, even
with floats. Just as dawn broke gray and heavy, they neared the
destination. The only identifiable landmark they had passed was a
single-track railroad cutting a long straight furrow through the
forest. After the railroad there was a stream that led to the
pond where they would land. The pilot made only the slightest
half-turn pattern, cut the power, dropped full flaps, and slipped
over some pine trees and landed with an easy splash. They were
down. The Maine short-landing techniques had paid off.
With the engine off they paddled the plane to the shore,
where they hastily concealed it with netting and evergreen
branches. The stay-behind team unloaded all of its gear and moved
well into the woods. The pilot and the mission commander slept.
Later in the twilight of the brief northern day, the crew waved
to the men on shore, and the Courier flashed across the pond, up
over the trees, and away into the darkness. An hour after
crossing the coastline, the M/C flashed a simple signal on the
carrier wave. Right away, a "welcome" flash came back on Loran
and an "all clear" radio signal, which meant destination weather
was all right. A few hours later, the plane landed in Norway.
The training had paid off. Ten days later, the stay-behind
team was recovered. This time they had helped the pilot by using
the hand-cranked generator to put out a signal to guide him to
the pond. All four men returned to the base in Norway. The M/C
was debriefed in England, with certain British agents present.
Then he flew back to Washington. The two infiltrated team men
were not seen again by anyone of the early group, and the young
Pole was transferred to his new civilian job in Athens.
The instrument team made their secret intelligence report
to the appropriate staff sections of DD/I in the old CIA
buildings near the reflecting pool beside the Mall in Washington.
Their report was properly evaluated, analyzed, and disseminated
to the military. They had heard, aurally and electronically, much
fighter aircraft traffic and had picked up radar signals, which
they had recorded. This team and the M/C received -- silently --
the highest award the CIA can give. In their profession the fact
of the award was known; but elsewhere, even the award itself
was a classified subject.
Meanwhile, certain very closed and select meetings were
being held in the Agencys inner sanctum in a nondescript office
building in the "H" Street NW area of downtown Washington.
Designated need-to-know staff members from the CIA, the White
House, Defense, State, the NSA, and the AEC (Atomic Energy
Commission) had a number of sessions with the men who had been in
the USSR. Their report was of great value. This whole
fighter-base-radar-defense operation was real. But it was itself
all part of another layer of cover story. These two men of the
stay-behind team had recorded a Soviet nuclear explosion. They
had, by unexpectedly lucky timing, actually witnessed the faraway
glow of that tremendous explosion, and they had left in Russia
very sensitive earth-sounding sensors, which would give limited
but valuable signals whenever they were activated by further
Soviet nuclear tests.
As in the case of other CIA undercover missions, most of
what was known, even by those who knew that a plane had been
flown into and back from Russia, was a cover story. State and
Defense had benefited from the Air Defense intelligence. The real
story, all of the facts, were reserved for the inner team of the
CIA and for their co-workers secreted throughout the Government.
This flight into Russia was for them simply a step on the road to
Indonesia, to Cuba, to Tibet, and ultimately to Vietnam.
This had been a well-rehearsed and well-developed small
operation, in the style and manner of true covert intelligence
work. When the leaders of the U.S. Government use such operations
for positive purposes, they may be expected to do some good. When
they are repeated too frequently, when they grow too large, and
when they are poorly developed and directed, they are harmful and
they destroy any good that might ever come from them.
The operation described was real; but it was not a single
operation and it did not happen exactly as described. Even though
it took place many years ago and the significance of that project
has been lost in time, some of the people involved are still in
the business and some of the places used may still be used from
time to time. It serves to demonstrate how a really professional
special operation can be done, as contrasted with some of the
haphazard and careless missions that are often carried out by
some of the irresponsible non-professionals who so easily slip
under the cloak of secrecy.
For example, we have said that the country involved was
Norway. This was selected because the U-2 did not use Norway on
certain flights over the Soviet Union. In most cases, the host
country is told the truth, or at least all the truth that is
known at the time of the first briefing. In a case such as this
one, the station chief in Norway would tell his counterpart that
we were preparing an operation in which a plane would be sent
into Russia with a team and then would return there ten days
later to pick them up.
Since the Norwegians share NATO secrets, it is possible
they would be promised some of the data acquired. In this case,
where the flight had more than ordinary significance, the
Norwegians might only be told about the Air Defense mission and
not about the nuclear weapons test. The host country might wish
to have a representative at the scene before departure to satisfy
itself that should the plane crash in Russia and be found there,
nothing on it should give evidence that it had taken off from
Norway.
The Norwegian Government would be asked to participate in
the NATO exercise that was laid on to provide cover for the use
of LORAN navigation equipment and generally to soften up the
Soviet attention to activity in the area. For this the Norwegians
would be permitted to bill the United States for all
out-of-pocket costs incident to such activity. In other words,
the United States would pay for any part of the exercise that the
Norwegians could not have paid for had they not participated in
it. This can run into an appreciable amount of money and
equipment.
Norway might ask for and could expect to be granted
assurances that in the event the exercise was uncovered for any
reason, the United States would positively ignore and if
necessary deny any participation in it and would guarantee that
no mention be made of Norway in any event. (This did not happen
in the case of the Powers U-2 flight, and Norway and Pakistan
were forced to make their own embarrassing public statements.) It
might also require that, in the event the plane was detected and
had to flee the area, it would fly away from Norway to an
alternate landing near a U.S. ship or submarine. In other words,
Norway or any other host country would have a lot to say about
their own involvement.
This, of course, varies a lot with the country and the
situation. If by some chance we were helping one country against
a traditional enemy and our special operation was inadvertently
discovered, the country being helped would be glad to have its
enemy know that the United States was helping it. As a matter of
fact, such a situation usually leads to a so-called "inadvertent"
disclosure, so anxious is the first country to let the second
country know that the United States is on its side. But this
would not have been the case in our example.
There would also be some arrangements that involved the
minor participation of the West German Government and the
British. Each of these countries would be handled separately, if
possible, to keep the primary mission from being exposed. This is
not possible sometimes, and the responsible agent may have to
brief his counterpart in West Germany and in England.
Ted Gittinger
John Ritchson wrote in message <377DAB92...@worldnet.att.net>...