Dead Wrong: Straight Facts on the Country's Most Controversial Cover-Ups (35 page)

FBI agent James Hosty (who was Oswald’s “handler” for the FBI), wrote that he learned of the near attack from two independent sources, and that shortly after Oswald’s arrest:

“... fully armed warplanes were sent screaming towards Cuba. Just before they entered Cuban airspace, they were hastily called back. With the launching of airplanes, the entire U.S. military went on alert.”
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The United States military went to the alert level “DEFCON 3” (Defense Condition 3) immediately after the assassination of President Kennedy. DefCon 3 is an extremely elevated formal defense posture; it is “the equivalent of loading and locking your weapon, and then placing your finger on the trigger. The power cells within Washington were in a panic.”
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War planes were “sent screaming towards Cuba” from the U.S. Strike Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. They were then suddenly called back at the last moment before breaching Cuban air space—”the Air Force and CIA sent a ‘Flash’ worldwide alert” for U.S. flights to immediately “return to their bases lest the Soviet Union be provoked.”
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USSTRICOM (United States Strike Command) apparently launched the Cuba-bound aircraft after it received an extraordinary cable on November 22, 1963:

“The cable, from the Fourth Army Command in Texas to the U.S. Strike Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, linked Oswald to Cuba via Cuba’s alleged Communist ‘propaganda vehicle,’ the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. It also transmitted two statements about Oswald, both false, which had come via army Intelligence from the Dallas police.”

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“Assistant Chief Don Stringfellow, Intelligence Section, Dallas Police Department, notified 112
^th
Intelligence Group, this Head-quarters, that information obtained from Oswald revealed he had defected to Cuba in 1959 and is a card-carrying member of the Communist Party.”
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Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed. For obvious reasons, the event has never been publicized. As Professor Peter Dale Scott observes,

Therefore, “ . one can see the abundance of reasons behind the consensus, apparently generated by Hoover, for establishing that Oswald was just a nut who acted alone.”
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Luckily, the recall code was issued before that strike was initiated and— there you have it, folks—a full-scale national security cover-up, resulting in
The War That Never Was.
And if that scenario is correct, then:

It was not the assassination of the 35th President of the United States that the government cover-up subverted; what the cover-up precluded was the military confrontation that was intended as a result of the assassination—hence the term, “national security” cover-up, which was even acknowledged by Robert F. Kennedy.

Rogue elements of the CIA, however, most probably were actively involved in the JFK assassination; and that actually
is
where the evidence truly leads.

Elements of Mafia, US. Intelligence in the anti-Castro effort & Texas Millionaires

In a brief but astute article entitled
Toward a JFK Assassination Theory,
longtime JFK researcher Martin Shackelford makes a very coherent case for the melding of various factions whose “blended” interests are all present in the events of November 22, 1963:

1. CIA agents

2. Anti-Castro Cubans

3. Mafia figures

4. Lyndon Baines Johnson

5. “Texas Oil”
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Shackelford’s right. All those factions appear to have played a role in the assassination. All of the above seem to contain elements of truth. Therefore, what clearly appears to be the most likely actual scenario, and what many researchers have come to believe, is that a “mix” of these various elements was responsible for the assassination: Mobsters like Charles Nicoletti and Johnny Roselli with strong links to Military Intelligence (from the crime families of Sam Giancana, Carlos Marcello, and Santos Trafficante), working in concert with several “renegade” U.S. Intelligence agents, and financed by the same group of Texas millionaires who had the very corrupt Texas politician Lyndon Johnson “in their pockets” and wouldn’t at all mind seeing him become the next president who oversaw a Cold War, hijack a plan from within the anti- Castro operations.

“the assassination was probably the work of a conspiracy involv-ing elements of the CIA, Mafia and anti-Kennedy Cuban exiles—a cabal that was working to terminate Castro’s reign (by any means necessary) and turned its guns instead against Kennedy. This is precisely what Robert Kennedy himself immediately suspected on the afternoon of Nov. 22, 1963 ... “
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To CIA veteran John Stockwell, it all seemed obvious:

“A team of CIA, Cuban exile, and Mafia-related renegades organized a simple military ambush in Dallas and successfully gunned him down. The ambush and its coverup were brazen and astonish-ingly open. In fact several plots, in Chicago, Miami, and Houston, to kill Kennedy had misfired or been thwarted.” “I personally believe, from my knowledge of the CIA that elements of the CIA’s ZR/RIFLE program (an assassination group that was a component of OPERATION MONGOOSE) were probably involved in the conspiracy, along with Cuban exiles, and Sam Giancana, John Roselli, and Charles Nicoletti of organized crime. ZRRIFLE was exposed by the Senate Church Committee. The CIA’s Chief of Operations, Richard Bissell, admitted to its existence as did its founder, a rough impetuous man named William Harvey, who boasted of his criminal connections.”
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OPERATION MONGOOSE was the conglomeration of CIA, military, and Mafia resources that were directed at Cuba’s leader Fidel Castro. Based in south Florida, it was this program that included many of the “renegades” suspected of turning their sights against President Kennedy.

Other evidentiary indications are that, much like a Shakespearean drama, Lyndon Johnson, the 36th President of the United States, was directly involved in the “removal” of the 35th President. Johnson had a long and sordid political career that was littered with murdered adversaries and corruption involving mobsters. And once you’re President of the United States States, you’re very well- positioned to control a cover-up.

“Robert Kennedy ‘regarded the Warren Commission as a public relations exercise to reassure the public.’ According to a variety of reports, Kennedy suspected a plot as soon as he heard his brother had been shot in Dallas. And as he made calls and inquiries in the hours and days after the assassination, he came to an ominous conclusion: JFK was the victim of a domestic political conspiracy.”
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In fact, Robert Kennedy sent a special envoy to the Soviet Union shortly after the assassination with a message that read, in part:

“We know that it was a domestic high level political conspiracy ... “
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Veteran CIA officer E. Howard Hunt testified in a deathbed statement that President Lyndon Johnson coordinated the assassination operation- codenamed “The Big Event”- through CIA agents Cord Meyer (JFK was having a serious affair with Cord Meyer’s wife), David Morales and William Harvey, who also contracted a French assassin who fired from a location ahead of the limousine. Hunt even diagrammed the “Chain of Command” in his own handwriting (the bottom entry reads “French Gunman Grassy Knoll”)
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:

Courtesy of Saint John Hunt,
www.SaintJohnHunt.com

Johnson’s deep resentment of President Kennedy is well-documented. Sometimes a picture really
is
worth a thousand words—check out the two which follow:

Employing French mafia for the assassination would be consistent with the documentation from Bill Harvey, leader of the U.S. assassinations unit and a man who, for obvious reasons in that profession, left very little in writing. But the following notation from Harvey did survive:

“William Harvey’s notes recommend using Corsicans, since ‘Sicilians could lead to the Mafia’’
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Michel Mertz, a ruthless professional assassin for the Corsican Mafia who often used the alias of his arch-enemy and former freedom-fighter Jean Souetre, is often mentioned as the Corsican assassin that “Wild Bill” Harvey hired.

“Mertz was part of the French Corsican Mafia, though not Corsican himself (the same way the Jewish Jack Ruby worked for the Mafia).”
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There is evidence that Mertz was in Dallas on November 22, 1963, again using Souetre as his alias.
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“Twenty-four parallels (lettered A-X) between the CIA’s acknowledged European assassin recruiter (1960 to 1964) code-named QJWIN and Michel Victor Mertz, whom a CIA memo said was deported from Dallas shortly after JFK’s murder. Michel Mertz was an experienced assassin and a kingpin for the French Connection heroin network that involved both Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante.”
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This mix of professional assassins and renegade Intelligence agents from the anti-Castro project in Florida appears to be responsible for the ambush in Dealey Plaza that was orchestrated with military precision. It should be noted that the U.S. Military Intelligence team that attempted to stop the assassination was looking for exactly that: A military-style ambush with 3 shooter teams in triangulated fire from the north knoll, south knoll, and the area of the Dal- Tex Building. They arrived too late and had bad communication between team members that day—and we know what happened then.
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