Mowatt-Larssen Interview

 

     Here is the CC transcript of the recent Mowatt-Larssen interview, unedited and without the addition of the speakers’ identification:

     [Embedded video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gc3eLlA6_E  (15:55, with CC and capturable CC transcript, 27 Oct 22)]

Former Moscow Station CIA Chief: Why I Believe Rogue CIA Agents Killed Kennedy | Breaking Points

Krystal and Saagar interview former CIA Agent Rolf Mowatt-Larssen about why he believes a few rogue agents plotted with Oswald to kill John F. Kennedy

 

……by an Administration being sued because

of their refusal to release in a timely

fashion records records related to the

assassination of JFK let's go ahead and

put this up on the screen This from NBC

News the headline is what are they

hiding group sues Biden and National

Archives over JFK assassination records

as a reminder the JFK records act which

was signed into law by Bill Clinton

required the document to be made

available by October of 2017. President

Trump sort of kicked the ball down the

road to Biden Biden has continued to

push forward the date when those records

will be released raising a lot of

questions about what it is that they are

so worried about revealing join us now

we have a guest who's actually quoted in

that article who caught my attention

he's the former CIA agent and actually

former Moscow station Chief Ralph Moet

Larson he's also senior fellow at the

Belfor Center at the Harvard Kennedy

School great to have you sir welcome

good to see you sir it's good to be here

thank you so you had a quote in that

article and you lay down you know based

on your long history and experience with

the agency what you think is the most

plausible explanation of who was behind

the plot to kill Kenny I'll read the

your quote here and then you can sort of

elaborate you say what I think happened

in a nutshell is that Oswald was

recruited into a rogue CIA plot this

group of three four or five Rogues

decided their motive was to get rid of

Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs Cuban

Missile Crisis because they thought it

was their patriotic Duty given the

threat the country was under at the time

and their views which would be more

Hardline or more radically

anti-communist and very extreme

politically so

um is that some of what you think might

be revealed in this document uh this

document release if they ever ultimately

come out what do you think could be in

those documents that would be

interesting to the public

yeah I think it's pretty clear that

after 60 years the documents should be

released with the exception of a few

things that might just frankly

compromise something that the people in

the U.S government should keep secrets

so it's not an unconditional release

everything position I have it's after 60

years the truth belongs to the American

people the American people should know

the full truth I think it's worth

pointing out before I offer any comment

on my own theories is that our own

government in 1979 put out a report from

the house assassination committee

hearings that had crucial findings that

started with the idea that there

probably was an assassination uh a

conspiracy to to assassinate John F

Kennedy which means it's not really a

pure conspiracy theory it's something

our own government believes that same

report included the findings that the

U.S government in all probability was

not involved whether that would be CIA

the president FBI or any other arm of

the U.S government and I think it after

60 years if the U.S government itself

was involved in the assassination of

Kennedy we would all know about it uh

because we couldn't keep that secret for

for 60 years if it was a government plot

at the same time the findings included

the uh the Judgment that it wasn't the

Russians the Soviets or the Cubans or

organized crime that set out to kill the

president so that leaves the theory that

if there was any sort of conspiracy uh

it includedly Harvey Oswald but also

probably a small number less than a

handful of people from the government

who had the motivation

the means and the opportunity to

potentially kill the president so that's

what I think the the documents will will

help shed light on for the serious

researchers and historians who still

want to know the full truth to look at

those that that those documents to see

whether we can still piece together uh

the information that would end the

mystery of who really killed JFK right

and what leads you though to that

conclusion and and why do you have

confidence that it would even be in the

documents I mean my understanding of the

revelations of MK Ultra cointelpro the

only reason we even know about it is

because documents were basically stolen

by a bunch of activists which allowed

foia people to know exactly what to foia

otherwise it was such a tightly

controlled program the documents

themselves would have been effectively

lost to history into the church

committee so why should we expect that

60 odd years later that a similar kind

of cover-up hasn't happened in that way

well I don't think there will be

documents where once the documents are

released we're going to collectively say

oh wow that's what happened I think

again it's going to provide the basis to

to continue research to finally I'm not

in the school of uh believers who think

that this mystery will never be solved

because it's been so long I think we

have to keep at it and the reason we

have to keep at it is the truth is more

important than anything else what we do

know is even before the Kennedy

assassination uh there were things that

CIA uh itself

failed to disclose that covered up in

fact it was a very fascinating uh

studies of intelligence article in 2013

that essentially said John McCone who

was the director of CIA after

um Helms have been fired by Kennedy

after the Bay of Pigs

deliberately

withheld information and deceived the

committee in the Warren Commission when

they asked him to testify so what that

proves is regardless of the reason and I

don't think it was to cover up any sort

of knowledge of the Kennedy

assassination the agency was worried at

the time about lots of things that could

have had tangential connections to the

Kennedy assassination I would call that

the covert action culture of the time

the assassination of the attempts to

kill Castro the dealings with organized

crime to do that overthrow governments

in Latin America there were a number of

activities the CIA was was conducting at

the time that that the CIA was clearly

trying to cover up and not disclose in

the aftermath of the president's

assassination so I think the reason

probably unfortunately this would be a

very bad reason of my judgment to

withhold documents that the agency or

the US government are embarrassed about

what the disclosures of these documents

might reveal about other things that

would to me be an unacceptable reason to

keep this secret we should know at this

point more more about those activities I

might point out that at the time Kennedy

was killed the CIA wasn't even under any

form of effective Congressional

oversight that didn't happen until 1979

with the church commission hearing so

again it's it's it's the idea of

disclosure and transparency is a duty

and if there's a a strong extenuating

reason why these documents should not be

revealed I think it would be wise forget

about the legality and the law it would

be wise for the U.S president to

indicate exactly what that would mean

that would that be that would cause him

to decide not to release these documents

that that belong to the American people

frankly not to the CIA well and the

current stance has hardly been

convincing to the American public a

majority of whom still believe that

there is more to the story than the

official government narrative here and

part of what makes you so interesting is

that you have so many years of

experience with the agency could you

speak to how what you learned about how

the agency operates how that informs

your theory of what you think the most

plausible scenario is here

yeah that's the question that got me

interested in this I I like so many

Americans uh I'm very interested in what

really happened I think it's a piece of

our history we need to know I didn't

become even uh suspicious that there

might be a a explanation where three to

five people might have conspired to work

with Oswald to kill Kennedy until I

examine that as a possibility and I

realized wait a minute if if there was a

small conspiracy of a very few number of

people who could keep the secret for 60

years and take the secret to their grave

be it fully witting collaborators with

Oswald in the plot

um then I I thought the most likely

explanation would be some CIA officers

at the time this is very this really

pains me to even suggest this and I'm

not saying I can I certainly can't prove

it I think it's something that needs to

be fully explored is the idea that it

looks kind of like a CIA operation in

terms of the motive that would be the

president uh betrayed for example uh the

all the people the CIA worked with at

the time to overthrow Castro at the Bay

of Pigs when he called out to Bay of

Pigs uh people would say well that's no

motive to kill the president but it

might you have to add to that perhaps

some of these maybe same people who

thought again a very few small number of

people who thought that the uh you the

president gotten over his head with with

uh the Russians in the in the Cuban

Missile Crisis and and there were civil

rights problems at the time and the

country was highly polarized I know now

we're living in a time when the

country's almost as polarized as it was

in the 1960s but it was a time AI when

there were extreme views on all sides

about the politics about what was

happening in the country and it's not

unimaginable

that a very small number of people

thought they were being Patriots if they

were to do something this monstrous

again this is not something I accuse the

agency of or think the agency had any

direct knowledge of but I when you look

at the key officials then and afterwards

even presidents later like Richard Nixon

and Lyndon Johnson and others they all

suspected there was a conspiracy I think

the most disappointing thing to me as an

American

because I serve the people first and

then I think of myself as a CIA offer

I'm a Citizen First the most

disappointing thing about this is our

leaders we couldn't trust our leaders to

tell us the full truth we couldn't trust

our leaders to ensure that we knew the

full truth they wanted to spare us from

the truth and I have never in my

lifetime been comfortable with the idea

that our leaders should know something

that in some way at some point the

American people also don't know yeah

what impact do you think that has had on

um the public because even if like

regardless of what really happened you

have a majority of Americans who think

the government is lying to them I mean

what do you think this is the result

from that

I'm so happy you asked me that question

and we didn't do any sort of rehearsal

on all this so I was wondering where you

were going to come at it from and this

to me is one of the crucial questions

and the reason I agreed to do the

interview

um I'm not here to prove I think there's

a conspiracy of CI officers did that is

my fear that is my concern and that like

other conspiracies of that kind small

group of people work together on to kill

the president is is we should still

examine thoroughly but the reason why we

should release the documents is that

we're at historic levels of mistrust of

our government in general

usually because the government withhelds

things from us

that we have a right to know that we

need to sanction and it hasn't just been

in the 60s and 70s things like if you

remember Watergate it took the deputy

director of the FBI Mark felt

to be as we now know deep throat

Woodward and uh key source for Watergate

to topple Nixon in other words an acting

serving deputy director of the FBI was a

pivotal source of the truth so that we

could take down a corrupt president who

had broke broken the law and and in this

case with historic levels of mistrust in

the government I why add to that why not

explain if you're going to withhold

information after 60 years when a law

has been passed to release it

at least explain

justify why you would continue to take

that position instead of just release

the information I would accept that if

someone got up and said there's some

very specific things a few documents

we're not going to release but here's

all the rest of it that would be a much

more understandable position because if

the government is at a position in a

historic period where I think the US

government writ large but particularly

the National Security part of the

government defense department CIA FBI

Etc and the White House need to re you

know reinstill faith

with the American people that we're

being transparent and we don't use

secrecy to hide the truth yeah that's

really well said small step in that in

that direction

um well thank you so much for taking

some time with us we're really grateful

great to speak with you sir we should

have you back on soon appreciate it

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