CIA Associations with the JFK Assassination

 CIA Associations with the JFK Assassination 

- Valkyrie - the September 25, 1963 minutes of the meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, taken by Gen.V. Krulak's adjunct Colonel Higgins, quotes CIA officer Desmond FitzGerald informing them that the CIA was undertaking a detailed study of the German military July 20, 1944 assassination and coup attempt against Hitler, code named Valkyrie, that was to be adapted for use against Castro. When Jim Lesar filed a FOIA request for that detailed study, the CIA responded that it had no information on it, and the only mention of the July 20 1944 attack is in a 1950s propaganda sheet that attempts to blame the failure of the attack on Communists. 

- Pathfinder - During the Church Committee inquiry, eight technicians of the CIA's National Photo Interpretation Center (NPIC) reported to their boss Dino Brugioni, that they were aware of a CIA plan to kill Castro called Pathfinder, that was to insert commandos with high powered rifles and shoot him as he rode in an open jeep on his way to the Dupont estate in Varadero. The eight NPIC employees said they did basic background work, compiling aerial U2 photos of the area, blueprints, maps etc., and they were surprised that the Pathfinder plan folder was kept in their section of the JMWAVE station rather than in the Operational File where it should have been kept. The CIA responded to a FOIA request for the Pathfinder plan folder by saying they had no knowledge of any plan called Pathfinder. When interviewed by the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), an NIPIC secretary said that Robert F. Kennedy, - then attorney general, personally ordered here to box the NPIC assassination records and have them delivered to the Smithsonian Institute. When asked if she meant NARA, she said no, Smithsonian. When the NARA was asked if the ARRB followed up on this and requested records from the Smithsonian, they said no, there was no follow up. 

- On November 1, 1963, the New York Times reported in a front page story that the CIA raider ship The Rex, docked at Palm Beach, Fla. near President Kennedy's estate, had deposited in Cuba a team of commando sniper-assassins with high powered rifles, who were captured and confessed they were trained by the CIA and their mission was to assassinate Cuban leaders. 

- When George deMohrenschildt left for Haiti, he stopped in New York City where he met with CIA officials at the offices of John Train, who was responsible for CIA companies based in NYC. Did he tell them the single most important pieces of intelligence he had - that Oswald had a rifle and was believed to have taken a shot at General Walker? After leaving New York deMornschildt went to Washington D.C. where he met with Col. Kail and Dorithie Matlock, officers of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) - a military intelligence agency run out of the Pentagon. 

- When George deMohrenschildt returned from oil assignments abroad, he reported to his good friend J. Walton Moore, of the CIA's Domestic Contact Service in Dallas. Moore had previously served in the OSS during WWII and OSS records reflect the fact that he was sent on a mission to China with another OSS officer - Charles Ford, who later served as head of the CIA's Training Division, except for one year when he was cross posted to the Operational Division and sent to JMWAVE to serve as RFK's contact there. Ford was also given responsibility for the CIA's copy of the Zapruder film. J. W. Moore also played handball on a routine basis with White Russian refugee Col. Lawrence Orlov, who accompanied deMornschildt when he visited the Oswalds for the first time. 

- The CIA office of Security ran the early plots to kill Fidel Castro that included the Mafia, specifically Sam Giancana, Santo Traficante and John Rosselli. President Kennedy met Judith Cambpell (Exner) through Frank Sinatra, and had an affair with her while she was also seeing Sam Giancana. She claimed she passed documents between the men. When the FBI had a stakeout of her Vegas apartment in 1962, they noticed the apartment was broken into by two young men - the Hale brothers,  twin sons of a high level FBI agent I.F. Hale who left the FBI to become head of security for General Dynamics. The Hale twins went to Arlington Heights High School in Fort Worth, also attended by Lee Harvey Oswald. When Oswald tried to join the football team, the Hale twins reportedly laughed at him, and shortly after his 17th birthday, Oswald left school to join the USMC. 

MORE TO COME 

Plan Centaur and Antonio Veciana

 HSCA Volume X (p. 40)…Gaeton Fonzi wrote:

….(134) From August 1968 until June 1972, Veciana worked in La Paz, Bolivia, as a banking advisor to Bolivia’s Central Bank.  (49) His contracts were financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development, (50) and his office was located in the passport division of the American Embassy. (51)

Veciana believed that Bishop was instrumental in his getting the AIR job because he himself was surprised that the Agency would hire a known “terrorist” and anti-Castro activist. (52) The records indicate that Veciana was hired by the Agency even though his application form was never signed. (53)

(135) While suposidely employed as a banking advisor in Bolivia, Veciana actually did very little such work, but instead was engaged mostly in an anti-Castro and anti-Communist activities with Bishop. (54) Among the operations instigated by Bishop at the time was an attempt to assassinate Castro in 1971. (55)

(136) According to Veciana, that aborted assassination attempt eventually led to the dissolution of his relationship with Bishop. (56) Although Bishop directed the operation and provided Veciana with intelligence information, (57) Vecuana himself recruited anti-Castro Cuban associates in Caracas to take part in the attempt. (58) Without his knowledge, Veciana and these associates introduced a new element into the plan, a scheme to blame the assassination on certain Russian agents in Caracas. (59) The associates even produced phony documents and photographs.  (60) When Bishop later found out about this unauthorized part of the scheme, he was extremely upset and accused Veciana of being part of it. (61) Although Veciana told Bishop he had no knowledge of it, Bishop apparently did not believe him and eventually suggested that their relationship be terminated. (62).

(137) On July 26, 1973 Bishop arranged for Veciana to meet him in a parking lot…..At that time Bishop gave Veciana a suitcase…..with $253,000 in cash.

IN HIS BOOK THE NIGHTWATCH – 25 YEARS OF PECULIAR SERVICE (pp. 240-241) David Atlee Phillips wrote:

On a weekend in late July an unnerving cable arrived from Mexico City. A source had reported that a man presented himself to the Chilean embassy – walked in Mexico City. He told a Chilean envoy that he had just defected from the CIA because the agency had been persecuting his family. As bona fides he offered Allende’s ambassador “Plan Centaur,” which he described as CIA’s program to overthrow the Chilean government. He had a number of documents and microfilm in code which, he said, only he could decipher. He offered these secrets in return for safe haven in Santiago.

I went into the office on Sunday morning to read the cable. I was not concerned about the validity of Plan Centaur because I knew it did not exist; I was worried that a disaffected staff officer from my Division was using his general knowledge of our operations to enhance a fabrication. The unidentified walk-in, according to the Mexico City information, was an American black, about thirty-five and slim, who claimed to be an expert in codes and ciphers….But I had an uneasy feeling that I hadn’t heard the last of Plan Centaur.

On Monday morning Abe chastised me gently. Abe, who always describe himself as “a lover not a fighter,” told me I must learn that I was now a manager, not an operator. An officer from our Mexico section should have spent Sunday on duty in the office on the Plan Centaur case. The Division Chief had to delegate even the most intriguing cases and allow others to enjoy the excitement of running operations.

Abe was right. I soon found that 95 percent of my time must be devoted to mundane management matters and only a precious few moments to the more interesting development and direction of operations…..