VALKYRIE
AND PATHFINDER AT DEALEY PLAZA
As published in garrison magazine (Vol. 3, Nov. 2019)
Please order and subscribe to garrison: The Journal of History and Deep Politics.
By
William E. Kelly, Jr.
(609-346-0229
"We now know to a fairly good degree of
certainty what happened at Dealey Plaza. The motives were piling up - the Bay
of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, the back channel to Cuba,…to the point
they had to assassinate him. I think…with the compilation of the information we
have today, that the mechanism of the crime came out of the allegiance between
the CIA and the Mafia. They already had an assassination apparatus set up for
killing Castro and they just switched targets and killed Kennedy instead."
1) - Former FBI Agent Bill Turner
After
over a half-century of investigating the assassination of President Kennedy I
still don’t know who killed JFK, but I am figuring out the M.O. – the Modus
Operandi – how it was done, and it’s pretty obvious that it was a Covert
Intelligence Operation and the key words to deciphering the details are
VALKYRIE and PATHFINDER.
VALKYRIE
was the code name for the German military plot that failed to kill Hitler on
July 20, 1944, that the CIA said it “studied in detail” for a strategy to use
against Fidel Castro. 2)
PATHFINDER
was the CIA code name for a detailed tactical plan to kill Castro with a high
powered rifle as he rode by in an open jeep. 3)
It
appears that these were the specific plans – not plots – detailed contingency plans
that were designed to kill Castro but redirected to President Kennedy in
Dallas. And if they weren’t such detailed plans, we never would have figured it
out.
INTRO –
A Basic Research Primer
Before
getting into the details of how this was done, I’d like to describe some of the
research techniques that were and are being used to take this work further.
A NOTE
ON RESEARCH TECHNIQUES
The Archivist of the United States David Ferriero is a blogger - and wrote
about the remarkable discovery of thousands of previously unknown letters
written by Walt Whitman when he was a federal secretary in the Justice
Department during the Civil War. The uncovering of these records was
accomplished by a lone professor who was familiar with Whitman's unique
signature and went looking through the federal files where Whitman’s official
correspondence would likely to be located. And he found some, thousands of
them, so many it will take decades for Whitman scholars to properly review
them. 4)
But the
AOTUS – David Ferriero, who promotes himself as a champion of open government
and records, wrote a recommendation to the President shortly before President
Trump reneged on his promise to release all of the remaining JFK assassination
records in full by 2017, as the JFK Act of 1992 law required. That letter of recommendation
itself is still withheld in full from the public. 5)
But
calling attention to how the Whitman letters were discovered in the
government’s attic where they were all a long, just goes to show that new
research techniques can be employed with success, as it is being done in many
places on many levels.
HYPOTHESIS
Just as
scientists break down complicated problems into smaller parts in order to
understand it – we too must take such an approach – and develop some basic
hypothesis, as John Newman has done in the course of his work, including – “The
plot was designed to make it APPEAR that the Kennedy brothers’ plan to
overthrow Castro had been successfully turned around by Fidel, resulting in the
assassination.” Other hypothesis grow from this. 6)
ASSUMPTIONS
For
starters we have to make some basic assumptions that are necessary to procede
using logic and reason as our guides.
The
first basic assumption is that the assassination of President Kennedy at Dealey
Plaza, whatever you believe occurred there, and regardless of the role of the
accused assassin and self-proclaimed Patsy Lee Harvey Oswald, the event was a
covert intelligence operation and must be studied as such in order to
understand it. As California attorney Bill Simpich, author of State Secret, has said, you must view the
assassination as an operation in order to proceed. 7)
Another
basic assumption, as the Microsoft analysis of the most recently released
assassination records at the National Archives (NARA) concluded, the
assassination had something to do with Cuba, as President Kennedy, his accused
assassin and the killer of the accused all had ties to Cuba in common, and a
large selection of official records on the assassination relate to Cuba. 8)
RESEARCH TECHNIQUES
In the
course of my half-century study of the assassination, Professor Peter Dale
Scott has been a guiding light, and I utilize three of his basic research techniques
and have developed some of my own.
Peter
Dale Scott’s “Negative Template” thesis, Phase One and Phase Two Cover-Stories
and recognizing the Psych War – Black Prop Operation to blame the conspiracy on
Castro Cuban Communists are key elements in focusing on what’s important and
narrowing the suspects.
The
“Negative Template” thesis is the idea that the records that are referenced and
referred to elsewhere, but are missing, are the most significant records – as
this report on the CIA’s “detailed study” of the Valkyrie plot and the missing
Pathfinder records confirms that thesis. 9)
Scott,
like Newman, also calls attention to the facts that indicate a very detailed
psychological warfare – black propaganda campaign was part of the plan to kill
the President, a false attempt to blame the conspiracy to kill JFK on Cuban
Castro Communists, which formed the basis of what Scott calls the “Phase One”
cover story that was officially and popularly rejected. Yet it continues today
as an “active measure” with former CIA agents Brian Latell and Bob Baer – along
with their media assets Gus Russo and Phil Shenon – actively promoting this
failed thesis that Castro was behind the Dealey Plaza operation. Because this
aspect of the plan failed, like all failed covert intelligence operations, it
gives us an insight into those responsible. 10)
John
Newman also recognized this – and wrote about it, as I have done. Newman
wrote that “The plot to assassinate President Kennedy was designed to deceive
both people in the government and the public at large. A convincing trail of
evidence was established to make it appear that the Kennedy brothers’ plan to
overthrow Castro had been turned around against them by Fidel himself,
resulting in the assassination of President Kennedy.” 11)
Most
successful covert intelligence operations never make the news, only those that
fail, like the Bay of Pigs and Watergate, get public exposure, and the part of
the plot to kill JFK that failed was the psych war aspect to blame Fidel Castro
for the conspiracy, which therefore gives us some clear insight in to those
responsible for the plan. (See: The Part of the Plot that Failed. 12)
MO –MODUS
OPERANDI
British
Major General Llewellyn W. Atcheriey developed the Modus Operandi – MO system
of classification of criminals by their common traits – which leads us to the
MO of what happened at Dealey Plaza. The assassination must be recognized as a Covert
Intelligence Operation. (See - Modus Operandi 13)
Three Time - 3X
HITS
In the
course of my research, while reading the House Select Committee on
Assassination (HSCA) reports, I came up with my own research technique I call
Three Time Hits.
Besides
the standard research technique utilized by all journalists and investigators
covering complicated stories in starting a name and subject file and
chronology, I began to start files on certain subjects when they came up in
three separate areas – which first led me to focus on Collins Radio, then the
Pan Am Bank of Miami, and more recently Looking Glass and Silver Dollar. 14)
COP
PROFILE
Covert
Operational Personality Profile (COP)
When the
Secret Service commissioned the Exceptional Case study of those individuals who
have assassinated presidents or attacked them, they came up with psychological
profiles – but neglected to include one significant category – the covert
intelligence operator.
Being
from New Jersey, where such criminal profiling originated, I defined the Covert
Operational Personality Profile (COP) that more clearly fits known or alleged
political assassins. 15)
PART 1 –
THE CIA/MAFIA PLOTS TO KILL CASTRO
As Bill
Turner said decades ago, we knew then that the mechanism of death was already
established and in place to kill Castro – and was redirected to JFK at Dealey
Plaza, and we find a number of investigators and suspects who call attention to
the significance of the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro and their association
with the murder of the President.
SAM
STERN
Warren Commission attorney Samuel Stern (who is
still alive and practicing in Washington D.C.), told the HSCA that if they had
known about the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro they would have looked into that
area thoroughly. Stern stated that had the Commission learned of the CIA-Mafia
conspiracies to assassinate Fidel Castro, “we would have gone much more into
Cuba, the CIA, and the Mafia. We would have had a whole host of new avenues
calling for investigation. And we would have obviously had to develop some new
sources of information – other than the agency.” 16)
Well just because they didn’t know about it and didn’t
look into it, that doesn’t mean we can’t.
DAVID
ATLEE PHILLIPS – Oswald used the same plan they had devised to kill Castro.
Over
drinks in Washington, Phillips told the veteran Congressional investigator
Kevin Walsh that, “My private opinion is that JFK was done in by a conspiracy,
likely including American intelligence officers.”
When he
died on 7th July, 1988, Phillips left behind an unpublished manuscript. The
novel is about a CIA officer who lived in Mexico City. In the novel the
character states: "I was one of those officers who handled Lee Harvey
Oswald... We gave him the mission of killing Fidel Castro in Cuba... I don't
know why he killed Kennedy. But I do know he used precisely the plan we had
devised against Castro. Thus the CIA did not anticipate the president's
assassination, but it was responsible for it. I share that guilt." 17)
JOHN ROSELLI and JACK ANDERSON
Mafia
syndicate mobster John Roselli told Washington columnist Jack Anderson that he
was recruited by the CIA to kill Fidel Castro during the Eisenhower
administration, and after a number of attempts to poison Castro failed, Roselli
assisted a team of anti-Castro Cuban commandos run out of the CIA’s JMWAVE
station in Miami assigned to infiltrate Cuba and kill Castro.
While
both William Pawley and Clare Booth Luce also supported some of the JMWAVE
maritime commandos – Roselli’s team was the one trained by U.S. Army Ranger
Captain Edward Roderick at a sniper’s training base in a remote area called
Point Mary, off Key Largo, Florida.
After
James O’Connell, Roselli’s CIA case officer was William Harvey, head of Task
Force W., that set the policies for the covert missions run out of the JMWAVE
station. At Roselli’s request, Harvey and JMWAVE chief of station Ted Shackley
oversaw the delivery of a U-Haul trailer full of CIA supplied arms, ammunition
and explosives to Roselli’s team.
Roselli
said that the last mission his team conducted was in March, 1963, the results
of which were unknown to him, but he never saw them again. After Harvey was
fired by RFK as head of Task Force W. and appointed CIA chief of station in
Rome, he returned to meet with Roselli for one last time in June, 1963. They
met in Florida, had dinner at a swanky restaurant and stayed at a first class
hotel, the bill paid by Harvey with funds dedicated to the HT/RIFLE Castro
assassination account.
As
Anderson reported, “There were four more assassination attempts, the plotters
were smuggled into Cuba with high-powered rifles. The last assassination squad,
Roselli heard, made it to a Havana rooftop before they were caught….This was
around March 1, 1963. Then the project was abandoned. Roselli saw (his CIA case
officer William) Harvey for the last time in June, 1963. Five months later, Lee
Harvey Oswald gunned down President Kennedy in Dallas. Oswald had been active
in the pro-Castro movement. Shortly before that dreadful day in Dallas, Oswald
had made a mysterious trip to Mexico where he visited the Cuban embassy. The
Warren Commission found no evidence, however, that Oswald was in the hire of
Havana…..Roselli made no apology for his CIA role. U.S. authorities call him a
mobster. He regards himself as a patriot.” 18)
So in
retrospect, we can say with some authority that the CIA-Mafia plots to kill
Castro were intimately entwined with the assassination of President Kennedy –
as former FBI agent Bill Turner, former Warren Commission attorney Sam Stern,
former CIA officer David Atlee Phillips and mobster John Roselli all attest.
They are not silly conspiracy theorists, but serious investigators and a number
of key players involved in the operations.
JMWAVE
Former
CIA officer Rolf Mowatt-Larrsen - once the CIA chief of station in Moscow concluded
that if the CIA was involved in the assassination of Presdient Kennedy, that
involvement probably stemmed from the JMWAVE station, and he names Jacob
Easterline as a CIA officer capable of being the mastermind of the plot.
Easterline was one of the top planners of the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion
of Cuba, and was later assigned to disolve the JMWAVE station after the
assassination. 19)
General
Brute Krulak assigned U.S. Army Ranger Captain Bradley Ayers to train
anti-Castro Cubans at JMWAVE, along with another Ranger, Captain Edward Roderick.
While Ayers trained the Cubans in small boat maneuvering and infiltration and
exfiltration techniques at a remote base in the Everglades called Pirates Lair,
Roderick worked with a sniper team at Point Mary, off Key Largo, that was
affiliated with Colonel “Rawlins” – John Roselli – the Pathfinders.
After
leaving the Army, because he didn’t officially work for the CIA and didn’t sign
a secrecy agreement, Ayers wrote a book that wasn’t pre-approved by the CIA – “The War that Never Was,” which was
published in Indiana by Bobs-Merrell, a school book firm that reportedly had an
office in the Dallas Texas School Book Depository. The attorney for Boobs-Merrell,
who edited Ayers’ manuscript, was William Harvey, the former CIA officer who
ran Task Force W and was fired by Robert Kennedy for sending the Pathfinders
into Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. Harvey edited out
the names of a number of JMWAVE officials mentioned by Ayers, including Gordon
Campbell, the director of the Maritime operations. 20)
Years
later Ayers wrote another book, “The
Zenith Secret,” that does mention Gordon Campbell, as well as Roderick and
Roselli, and takes its name from the Zenith Technological Services – the cover
companay for JMWAVE at the University of Miami, South Campus. 21)
THE
TRAINERS
Taking a
cue from Ayers, I thought it wise to take a closer look at the CIA trainers –
and have identified a number of them who come into play.
At the
top of the list is Paul Linebarger, who Joseph Smith, in his book “Portrain of a Cold Warrior,” describes
as the primary CIA educator in covert intelligence operations. The former Army
officer who wrote the official text book on propaganda and psychological
warfare, Linebarger was a college professor who gave private classes in covert
intelligence procedures and techniques at his Washington D.C. home. Among his students Linebarger was
especially proud of E. Howard Hunt and Edwin Lansdale, who he said “had black
minds.” 22)
As Smith
explains, Linebarger divided propaganda into different categories, with black
propaganda being a very specific intelligence operation, one that perports to
originate from the enemy – and is known as Black Propaganda. Besides his own
book “Propaganda” – Linebarger used David
Maurer’s “The Big Con,” as an example
of good covert intelligence operations. Maurer, a Kentucky professor of
linguistics, wrote about his unique study of the lingo and slang of confidence
men, con artists and swindlers, and was the basis for the movie “The Sting.”
At a
retirement party for CIA officer Haveland Smith, journalists Thomas Powers (“Intelligence Wars”) met General Odom,
the former head of the National Security Agencey (NSA) and U.S. Army Assistant
Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ACSI), whose officers are all over Dealey
Plaza. When Powers asked Odom, what makes a good case officer? Odom replied –
“the movie ‘The Sting’,” clearly
indicating he had taken Linebarger’s course that included “The Big Con” as part of its curriculum. 23)
Linebarger
worked closely with General Edwin Lansdale in the Phillipines, where he
recruited Napoleon Valeriano, who was trained in the covert black arts by
Linebarger.
According
to the official CIA History of the Bay of Pigs, Lansdale brought Napoleon
Valeriano to Guatemala to train the anti-Castro Cuban commando crusaders in
guerilla warfare. But rather late in the game, Lansdale and Valeriano were
removed from the program, and the plan changed from the infiltration of small
teams on the east coast of Cuba near the mountains where they would conduct a
guerilla war against Castro, and instead went with a full fledged amphibious landing, at the Bay of Pigs. Those two changes in plans doomed the invasion
before it could even land and the original planner – Jacob Esterline and the
U.S. Marine officer responsible, tried to resign, but were persuaded to stay by
Richard Bissell. 24)
Lansdale
then became head of the Kennedy administration’s covert Cuban action program
called Mongoose, while William Harvey was brought in to run the Cuban Task
Force W out of the basement of the new CIA headquarters in Langley and took
over the case officer responsibilities for John Roselli. 25)
Charles
Ford was Princeton student from Atlantic City, N.J. when he joined the Army at
the start of World War II and was assigned to the Office of Strategic Services.
The OSS, under Gen. William Donovan, were originally trained by the British MI6
– with James Jesus Angleton being personally coached in the covert arts by
British-Soviet double agent Kim Philby. 26)
Donovan
adpoted the British model of training and issued training manuals to all OSS
officers, and the same training manuals were adapted by the CIA for the
training of the Cubans. 27)
After intense
OSS training Charles Ford was sent on a special mission to China with another
OSS officer – J. Walton Moore, who should become the head of the Dallas CIA
Domestic Contacts Division office for many years, while Ford was assigned to
the CIA office of training, where he rose up the ranks over the years. Ford’s
career remained in the Training Division except for one year when he was
assigned to the Operations branch Cuban desk – Task Force W and JMWAVE. There
he assumed a false Italian identity and was tasked with assisting Attorney
General Robert F. Kennedy, doing whatever he requested. 28)
In the
course of his research for his series of books on the assassination, John
Newman discovered that one of the two transcripts of HSCA interviews with Ford
is missing, and that what was frequently said of Ford wasn’t true – he did not
represent RFK in secret meetings with the Mafia to discuss the assassination of Castro. But he did meet with dissident Cubans on RFK’s behalf. 29)
As an
Army intelligence officer Newman worked closely with General Odom at NSA, and
has unmasked the CIA training officer described by Antonio Veciana as the man
who took his CIA security oath and trained him in “psychological warfare,”
Linebarger’s specialty. Veciana said that some of this training took place in
an office in the Pan Am Bank building in Miami, Florida, which was one of the
places that is mentioned more than three times in divergent areas of the JFK
assassination story. 30)
After
the assassination Charles Ford went back to the CIA’s Training Division, and
was given custody of the CIA’s copy of the Zapruder Filim – that the Secret
Service notes was to be used “for training purposes.”
NARROWING
THE PLOTS TO KILL CASTRO
Cuban
intelligence officer Fabian Escalante, who knew a lot about these matters,
wrote a book that detailed over 600 attempts to kill Castro, but he didn’t
include the ones that matter – the ones connected to the assassination of
President Kennedy.
For
starters there’s the plot to kill Castro that involved Antonio Veciana, that
forced him to flee Cuba and led to the arrest of Sylvia Odio’s parents, who
were in Cuban jails before the assassination when Sylvia wrote to her father on
the Isle of Pines to tell him about the visit she received from Oswald and two
Cubans. In jail Mr. Odio met John Martino, who visited Dallas to promote his
book, “I Was Castro’s Prisoner,” and met Syliva and her sister and Father
Walter McChann, the Catholic priest patron of the Dallas Cuban community. 31)
Besides
the attempt to kill Castro that involved both Antonio Veciana and Sylvia Odio’s
parents, there’s the matter of Dr. Rolando Cubella (AMLASH), who was one of the
founders of the DRE and one of the Cuban military officers the CIA was trying
to get to kill Castro and take over the government in a coup. 32)
THE CIA’S “DETAILED STUDY” OF VALKYRIE - Targeting disgruntled military officers
to stage a coup.
As part
of this project, we learn from the September 25, 1963 briefing of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, by the CIA’s Desmond FitzGerald that the CIA was “studying in
detail” the failed July 20, 1944 German military officer’s plot to kill Castro
that was to be adapted for use against Castro. This is all detailed in the memo
prepared by Col. Walter Higgins, the adjunct to Gen. Brute Krulak – who was
responsible for U.S. military support of CIA covert operations against Cuba. 33)
When
Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC) director Jim Lesar recognized
the significance of this memo, they cited it in an FOIA request for the CIA’s
“detailed study” of the July 20th Valkyrie plot, but the CIA
couldn’t find it or any CIA records at all. The CIA then belatedly claimed to
have discovered just one document with a reference to it from 1954, blaming the
failure of the plot on Communists. 34)
While
the judge discounted the significance of these records and their connection to
the CIA assassination plots to kill Castro and association with the
assassination of President Kennedy, the AARC was granted an appeal of one aspect
of the FOIA request for the records of the CIA’s search for the Valkyrie
documents.
Oral arguments on this case were presented in Washington D.C. court with the AARC
being represented by attorney Dan Alcorn. The three judges can take weeks or
even months to come up with a decision. 35)
VALKYRIE
at Dealey Plaza
Even
without the CIA’s records that they have apparently lost or destroyed, we can
study the July 20, 1944 Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler and see how it was to be
adapted for use against Castro and possibly was redirected to JFK at Dealey
Plaza.
For
starters, the CIA could have asked three key players in the Valkyrie drama who
they were already working closely with – former CIA director Allen Dulles, his
OSS assistant Mary Bancroft and a key player in the plot – Gestapo officer Hans
Bernd Gisivious, one of the few of the primary participants to survive.
Gisivious survived with the assistance of Dulles and Bancroft Bancroft went on
to translate Gisivious’ history of the Third Reich. A newspaper reported that
Dulles and Gisivious met for an anniversary dinner in Washington D.C. on July
20, 1954, the tenth anniversary of the failed plot to kill Hitler. 36)
As we
review the story of the failed July 20, 1944 Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler, we
can see how the CIA would attempt to use the same strategy against Castro, and it
appears it was use against JFK at Dealey Plaza.
There
are five basic aspects of the Valkyrie plot that fall into place in Dallas
beginning with the use of standard covert intelligence operational techniques –
i.e. - nothing is written down so there are no written records, etc., and the
operation is given a code name that only direct participants know – Valkyire. 37)
Valkyrie
are legendary Norse fairies that float above a battlefield and chose who will
live and die, and is the operational code name for what became the July 20,
1944 coup attempt and failed assassination of Hitler. The plan was devised by
high level German military officers who recognized that Germany would be
totally destroyed if they didn’t kill Hitler, take over the government and
surrender to the Western Allies.
A second
part of the Valkyrie plan that was adapted for use against Castro and
redirected to JFK at Dealey Plaza was the encouragement of disgruntled high
level military officers to commit to the plan and exercise a coup to take over
the government.
At his
September 25, 1963 briefing of the Joint Chiefs of Staff the CIA’s Desmond
Fitzgerald said this was part of the “psychological” operations, and that while
they had identified some disgruntled Cuban military officers they were not
confident enough to communicate with each other. While that may have been the
case among the Cuban military officers, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff were
united in their dissatisfaction with President Kennedy. 38)
A third
key aspect of the Valkyrie plan was to get the approval of the victim, and Col.
Von Staufenberg drew up the Valkyrie plan in such a way that it did get the
approval and signature of Hitler. As it was explained to Hitler, the Valkyrie
plan was a “continuity of government” plan that would only be put into action
in the case of an emergency – the example given was that of a slave labor
revolt that required the securing of key government buildings and media
outlets. Not mentioned to Hitler that his own death would also kick in the
operation. 39)
The
forth aspect of the Valkyrie plan that was adapted to the assassination of
President Kennedy was the use of the “Home Guard” to carry out the “boots on
the ground” tasks that had to be accomplished. In the United States what they
called the “Home Guard” in Germany is the state National Guard or Army
Reserves. 40)
Many of
the Dallas Police officers and most of the Dallas Police Special Services
intelligence unit were also members of the National Guard, including Capt.
George Lumpkin, driver of the Pilot car that proceeded a mile ahead of the
motorcade looking for possible trouble, and in the back seat included Col.
Whitmeyer, head of all of the U.S. Army Reserve units in North Texas.
When
they got to Dealey Plaza Lumpkin pulled off to the sidewalk at Houston and Main
to tell the traffic patrolman there that the motorcade was only a mile and a
few minutes behind, also telling the Sixth Floor sniper sixty feet above them.
After
going to Parkland Hosptial, Lumpkin returned to Dealey Plaza where he met TSBD
superintendent Roy Truly. Even though Truly had seen Oswald in the second floor
lunchroom with DPD motorcycle officer Marion Campbell within two minutes of the
last shot, and knew he wasn’t the shooter, Truly falsely told Lumpkin that
Oswald was the only missing employee – and gave Lumpkin a piece of paper with
Oswald’s name and Mrs. Paine’s Irving address. Lumpkin and Truly then went to
the sixth floor where Homicide Captain Will Fritz was inspecting the recently
discovered rifle. Lumpkin gave Fritz Oswald’s name and address. Fritz then went
across the street where he met privately with Sheriff Bill Decker, a meeting
of which there is no record as to what they discussed. Back at his office Fritz
ordered some of his men to go out to Irving and get Osawld – but they said
“There he sits” – having just been arrested at the Texas Theater.
In the
hours after the assassination the U.S. Army Reserve officers serving with the
Dallas Police made major moves –especially Capt. Gannaway and Jack Revell of
the Special Services unit and Col. Jack Crichton, head of the 488th
Army Reserves Intelligence unit that oversaw the Dallas Emergency
Communications bunker below the Science Museum at the Texas Fairgrounds, where
the DPD Special Services Unit also had their headquarters. Because the DPS SSU
ran undercover informants, they maintained their office outside City Hall so
the informants wouldn’t be recognized.
So just
as the German Home Guard were to carry out the Valkyrie plan, the US Army
Reserve officers in Texas played major roles in the assassination story as it
unfolded.
Then
another key aspect of the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler, that was to be adapted
by the CIA for use against Castro – but redirected to JFK at Dallas, was to
blame the assassination and conspiracy on communists – Castro Cuban Communists
– that they did through Oswald. 41)
As Sen.
Richard Schweiker (R. Pa.) of the Church Committee said, “there are the
fingerprints of intelligence” all over the assassination of President Kennedy
and it’s cover-up, and these five “fingerprints of intelligence” clearly place
the Valkyrie plot in Dealey Plaza as the strategic backbone of the operation. 42)
While
Valkyrie may have been the basic strategy that was adopted and adapted –
Pathfinder was the much more specific tactical plan to kill Fidel Castro that
was redirected to JFK at Dealey Plaza.
And
because the CIA can no longer find any records of their “detailed study” of the
Valkyrie plot to be used against Castro, it fits Peter Dale Scott’s “Negative
Template” thesis that there are no longer any official records of the most
significant events.
PATHFINDER
Englishman Malcolm Blunt, who has spent more time
roaming the JFK Records Collection at the National Archives than anyone I know,
first provided me with the Pathfinder documents he uncovered. 43)
The “Pathfinder” operation would have gone the way
of Jimmy Hoffa, as all documentary records of it disappeared within the purged
CIA files, if it wasn’t for three – not one, or two, but three (actually eight)
NPIC technicians who blew the whistle when they learned that Congress was
interested in the CIA plots to kill Castro and came forward with their
information.
According to the CIA no one there today heard of an
operation called “Pathfinder,” and they have no records of anything called
“Pathfinder,” except for one reference in a file devoted to Watergate burglar
Frank Sturgis, who was heavily involved in Cuban activities, but wasn’t an
agent or operative of the CIA, but rather US Air Force Intelligence. 44)
Though its significance was not recognized at the
time, we first learned about the Pathfinder files from the Congressional
records released under the JFK Act of 1992, when it was recorded on the
official record that in 1975 Dino Brugioni of the NPIC informed the CIA top
brass that three NPIC technicians who were assigned to the Miami, anti-Castro
Cuban JMWAVE station recalled working on the PATHFINDER program that was an
assassination plan to kill Castro.
When the Congressional Church Committee was
investigating the CIA-Mafia plot to kill Castro, these NPIC technicians,
assigned to the JMWAVE station, came forward to make their superiors aware of
two CIA contingency plans to kill Castro and one to kill his brother Raoul.
We first learned about Pathfinder from our old
friend at NPIC - Dino Brugioni, who we know from his books on Photo Fakery and
the Cuban Missile Crisis, and his work on the Zapruder film at NPIC, on the
weekend of the assassination, making the first set of briefing board.
In this MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD, dated 21 March
1975,
It is noted that:
1) On 19 March,
Dino A. Brugioni, Chief, Western Geographic Division (NPIC), informed me (CIA
Operational Division Chief) that three personnel assigned to his division had
told him that while serving at JMWAVE, Miami, Florida or in the Imagery
Analysis Service in Washington during the 1960’s, they had heard references to
assassination plans on Fidel Castro.
2) On 20 March, I
met with the following NPIC personnel who had either served in the Imagery
Analysis Service or at JMWAVE on Cuban related problems: Gordon Duvall, Earl
Shoemaker, Tom Helmke, Bruce Barrett, Reyes Ponce, George Arthur, Eugene Lydon,
and William Hanlon. The purpose of this meeting was to ascertain whether their
participation was related to case officer generated materials or bona fide
operations. 45)
[Note: that's eight witnesses, not three].
3) There appeared
to be two plans involving Fidel Castro and an incident that may have been
related to Raul Castro…….
4) The incident
involving Raul Castro was not a formalized plan. It consisted of a paramilitary
raid on Santiago de Cuba harbor. There was a rumor at JMWAVE that, while
exiting the harbor, Raul Castro’s home had been fired upon by a paramilitary
case officer named “Rip” Robertson. 46)
5) To the best of
my knowledge these facts represent the totality of any participation by our
personnel in these matters. We have no further knowledge that the Fidel Castro
operation ever advanced beyond the planning stage.
SIGNED
Edward S. Cates, Chief, Imagery Exploitation Group, NPIC
While it may not have officially “advanced
beyond the planning stage” and was not implemented against the original target
- Fidel Castro, Pathfinder was an off-the-shelf tactical plan that could have,
and I believe was redirected to JFK at Dealey Plaza, and further analysis can
prove me right or wrong,
It appears that “Rip” Robertson’s ride-by shoot up of Raul Castro’s home had
already taken place, and the two Fidel Castro operations were formalized into
distinct plans that, according to the Imagery Exploitation Group at NPIC,
didn’t advance beyond the planning stage.
And there were plans to kill Castro known to the
NPIC techs – two of them specifically.
According to this NPIC chief the plans involving
Fidel, to the knowledge of our people were:
(a) A folder stored in the
Photo interpretation area at JMWAVE contained materials relating to a plan to
assassinate Castro in the Bay of Pigs resort area where he maintained a yacht
and was known to vacation. The plan, possibly with the code
word PATHFINDER, apparently had been disapproved and was not under
active consideration at the time. Our people did not participate actively in
the plan in any regard. 47)
(b) While assigned to the Imagery
Analysis Service, a number of our photo interpreters supported Carl
Jenkins of the DD/P concerning a plan to assassinate Castro at the DuPont
Varadero Beach Estate, east of Havana. Castro was known to frequent the estate
and the plan was to use a high powered rifle in the attempt. The photo
interpretation support was restricted to providing annotated photographs and
line drawings of the estate. To our knowledge, this plan also was never
implemented. 48)
In a follow up report from Joseph Seltzer at the CIA
dated 8 May 1975, in response to the NPIC inquiries regarding Carl Jenkins and
PATHFINDER, Seltzer wrote: 49)
SUBJECT: Assassination Plans Against Castro
REFERENCE: Memorandum for the Record dated 21 March 1975 from Mr. Cates,
NPIC
1. On receipt of
reference memorandum, we reviewed the official folder on Mr. Carl Jenkins, a
retired Agency employee, and asked the Directorate of Operations for any
available information on PATHFINDER. Both efforts were fruitless – no one in
the Directorate of Operations recognized the cryptonom PATHFINDER.
2. In our search
of other files in connection with other staff activities, we came, just by
chance, a reference to Pathfinder in an FBI memorandum dated 20 January 1961
concerning Frank Anthony Sturgis. We are unable to offer any speculation, reasonable
or otherwise, on its significance in this memorandum or in the NPIC memorandum.
Because these were "in house" agency
communications between one division of the CIA and another, and was not shared
with the Church Intelligence Committee, the "official folder on Mr. Carl
Jenkins" that was reviewed was not subject to the JFK Act and is not in
the JFK Collection at the National Archives and available to the public. And
because Jenkins is still alive, it is not subject to the Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA). But because Jenkins is still alive, we can and will try to
interview him. 50)
Three years later, on June 20, 1978, the second chief counsel to the House
Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) G. Robert Blakey, wrote to Mr. Scott
Brekenridge, Principal coordinator between the HSCA and the Office of
Legislative Counsel, Central Intelligence Agency, asking a series of requests
for documentary records. 51)
“In connection with its investigation into the
circumstances surrounding the death of President Kennedy, the House Select
Committee on Assassinations requests access to the following information:…..6. Any
and all documents concerning or referring to OPERATION PATHFINDER,
including all indices…..”
Signed: Sincerely, G. Robert Blakey, Chief Counsel
and Director HSCA
On 14 July, 1978, Marvin L. Smith, Chief, Operations
Group, responded to the HSCA Requests of 20 June 1978. 53)
“A. (S) An intensive search
of the files and indices of this Directorate revealed the following information
on the individuals and organizations listed in the referenced request, which,
unless otherwise indicated, is being forwarded to your Office. Since birthdates
were not provided on the individuals, some of the information may not pertain
to them…..
6. Operation
Pathfinder – No information
C. (U) It has been
determined that none of the individuals listed in the referenced request has
been the subject of an FOIA or PA request.”
SIGNED Marvin L. Smith
To dispense with the Raoul plot first, it was,
according to the NPIC technicians, a “drive by” maritime speed boat attack on a
Cuban North Shore estate where Fidel Castro’s brother Raoul ostensibly lived,
hoping he was in residence, and that mission may have even taken place. The
NPIC JMWAVE techs said that “Rip Robertson,” one of only two American to go
ashore at the Bay of Pigs, was connected to this operation. 53)
The other two contingency plans are much more
relevant to the assassination of President Kennedy, and according to the JMWAVE
NIPIC techs, was given the code name PATHFINDER.
The NPIC technicians said that they not only
assisted in the contingency plan for “PATHFINDER,” supplying photos and maps of
the target areas, but the PATHINDER files were kept in the NPIC section of the
JMWAVE station, rather than in the station’s Operational Files, where they
would normally be kept. (See: 48)
According to the NPIC technicians stationed at
JMWAVE, PATHFINDER was a contingency plan to kill Castro with high powered
rifles when he drove by in an open jeep near the Bay of Pigs, which apparently
became somewhat of a tourist attraction and resort area after the failed
invasion in April 1961. It was reported that Castro kept a boat docked
there.
While the PATHFINDER plan was, according to the NPIC
techs, “disapproved by higher authority” (aka JFK and RFK), another, similar
plan was devised to kill Castro in a sniper attack when he drove by in an open
jeep to Xandau, the former North Shore Dupont estate, once owned by the
Delaware Dupont family, but frequented by Castro near Varadero on the north
Shore. 54)
“I was given a weapon… a beautiful German
bolt-action rifle with a powerful telescopic sight, all neatly packed in a
custom-made padded carrying case… a box of ammo, twenty rounds. I was told
that I wouldn't have to sight the rifle, as it had already been zeroed in.
Apparently the resistance had obtained a building facing a location that Castro
frequented at the time....We were supposed to debark onto a Cuban boat
near Varadero Beach, an area I knew from my childhood. From there we
would be taken to rendezvous with members of the anti-Castro resistance…..We
would be provided a safe house, then move to the room where we'd be able to
shoot Fidel….”
- Bay of Pigs Pathfinder Felix Rodriguez 55)
GENE WHEATON
Then along came Gene Wheaton, a former policeman,
Marine, Air Force and Army investigator who received a presidential citation
for his security work in the Middle East.
When the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB)
was established Wheaton contacted the chairman Judge John Tunheim and said he
might have some information that could lead the Review Board to relevant JFK
assassination records. He was contacted by a ARRB attorney and met with her in
Washington, D.C., gave them dozens of documents and explained to them how he
came to know deep background on the assassination from Carl Jenkins, his
partner in a national cargo airlines that was owned by the CIA. 56)
Although Weaton didn’t know that the NPIC employees
had already dropped a dime on Jenkins, Wheaton explained that he learned
details of the assassination from Jenkins and the Cubans he trained at JMWAVE
over the course of their association over years, as he lived at Jenkins house
when he worked in Washington D.C.
Although the ARRB did not follow up on the leads
Wheaton provided, he did talk on camera to two documentary film makers, the
first one from Minnesota who was more interested in Wheaton’s knowledge of
the Iran-Contra deal sell military missiles to Iran to free American hostages
and financially support CIA covert intelligence operations that Congress
refused to approve. 57)
The second filmed interview with Wheaton done in
2005 by William Matson Law deals with his knowledge of the assassination of JFK
and was shown at the JFK Lancer conference in Dallas that year, but few took
serious notice until after Wheaton died, and excerpts were more recently posted
on the internet. 58)
In that second interview Wheaton is quoted as
saying: “The straight story is that there was a CIA fronted program to assassinate
Castro and Carl (Jenkins) was in charge of training the Cubans in Miami to
assassinate Castro and it was paid for by the CIA. They would go from Texas
down to Mexico and take some convertibles and things into the hills and rocky
areas and set watermelons up in the back seat and they had what they called a
triangulation shooting team. And they were according to THEM, THEY were the
ones that diverted the Castro funds and training for their own agenda to snuff
Kennedy. It was a paid element and they were CIA people. They were training to
assassinate Castro, but if you are trained to assassinate one person, you can
use that training to assassinate anybody with that same training. That’s what
they were using – the paid training program to get Castro. The Cubans, because
of the imprisonment of those guys and JFK backing off at the last moment in
support of the Bay of Pigs invasion, they were still angry, still are to this
day. There was another clique above them that was worried about Kennedy not
increasing the program for escalating the hostilities in Vietnam, Laos and
Cambodia. So at an extremely high level, I’m talking about the political elite
level, the shakers and movers of the country – the top guys in the Pentagon and
White House, did not want Kennedy to shut down that war because they were just
getting it warmed up and wanted to escalate.”
Wheaton: “Chi Chi (Quintero) was a shooter, he was
trained by I.F. Harper…Jenkins was from Louisiana and was the CIA’s liaison
with Carlos Marcello, the mafia boss connected in with Sam Giancana and
John Roselli who are on the public record as being part of that crowd – the
Mafia guys they say were connected to the Kennedy assassination. …I had been
working with Sen. (Hugh) Scott (Rep. Pa.) to see if we could get the record set
straight on the Kennedy assassination – get total immunity for those involved.
I talked to Senator Scott about it and I told them if you guys just tell the
whole straight story you can get immunity.”
“Chi Chi and Carl Jenkins were in charge of the main
team. Carl Jenkins was training Chi Chi (Quintero) and several other
shooters, about five of them – and I.F. Harper helped train these guys to
assassinate Castro. According to THEM, they just went off and decided to get
their revenge on Kennedy for his failure to support the invasion of Cuba.”
“Lee Harvey Oswald was just a stooge that Carl and
his friends…... Carl you see, back in the early 1950s, when he came back from
Korea, he formed the first US Marine Corps Reserve unit in New Orleans. Carl
was a Captain in the Marine Corps, and a CIA officer. He formed the first US
Marine Corps reserve unit in New Orleans, La., and he was the CIA liaison
between CIA Headquarters and Carlos Marcello, the organized crime boss there.”
“Lee Harvey Oswald was a young guy, and because of
Carl’s connection with the US Marine Corps reserve, and his involvement in the
CIA, helped recruit Lee Harvey Oswald while he was a Marines. Keep in mind this
is not somebody sitting down and telling me this, this is over months and years
of talking with them and them talking to each other in my presence. It was
obvious Lee was a stooge that they set up. You always have what they call an
'Operational Security Plan' for deniability, - something that they put in the
plan when they put the covert operation in place.”
Wheaton also gave a number of relevant documents to
the Minnesota film maker, who posted them on line – including a copy of Carl
Jenkins’ passport and a vita – resume that Jenkins himself had written that
itimizes his role in the CIA assassination plots to kill Castro. 60)
In the early 1960s Jenkins notes that he was “Chief
of Base for Cuban project, first in Florida, then in Guatemala; responsible for
selection and training of cadre, assignment of officers for invasion brigade,
maritime infiltration and operational management of small teams and individual
agents.” In the mid-1960s Jenkins wrote that he was a “Senior Operations
Adviser for a still-sensitive Cuban project” with a handwritten notation on the
side that reads: “Castro assassination program.”
In the 1980s Soldier
of Fortune Magazine wrote an article about the CIA trainers involved with
the Contras in Nicaragua, among them the “legendary” CIA trainer John “I.F.”
Harper, who was training the Contras to fight the Sandinistas just as he had
trained the anti-Castro Cubans in the 1960s. 60)
Just as the there are no records today of the CIA’s
“detailed study” of the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler, to be used against
Castro, the Pathfinder Files have also fallen into Peter Dale Scott’s “Negative
Template,” but at least we know what was in it as we have the NPIC employees
descriptions of it. We also know that the Pathfinder file was delibaratly kept
in the NPIC section of the JMWAVE station instead of the Operational Files,
where it belonged. Then we learn that the 1975 NPIC memo was burried in Frank
Sturgis’ CIA Security File, where it was inadvertatedly discovered.
Then when the Assassinations Records Review Board
(ARRB) went looking for these records in the early 1990s, a former NPIC
secretary told them that sometime in 1964, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy
ordered the NPIC records on the assassination to be boxed and sent to the
Smithsonian Institute, rather than the National Archives, where they belong. 61)
So we have three distinct instances where the
Pathfinder files were deliberately misfiled – and we are still trying to locate
them.
CONCLUSION
As this is still a work in progress, there is no
definitive conclusion, other than the leads presented are panning out, both in
records at the National Archives and with interviews with the known participants.
One of the Pathfinders trained by Ayers, Roderick,
Jenkins and Harper – Chi Chi Quintero, before he died, was asked about
Wheaton’s allegations, and said he was only saying what he knew, and “If I were
ever granted immunity, and compelled to testify about past actions, about
Dallas and the Bay of Pigs, it would be the biggest scandal ever to rock the
United States.” 62)
Both Carl Jenkins and John Harper are still alive,
and have been located and attempts are being made to get them to tell what they
know about these affairs.
In an email, Harper said Wheaton “was a two faced
son of a bitch,” but he didn’t say he was lying. 63)
So as we proceed to research both the Valkyrie plan
to kill Hitler that was being adapted by the CIA for use against Castro, and
the Pathfinder plan to kill Castro with a high powered rifle as he rode in an
open jeep, that I believe was redirected to JFK at Dealey Plaza, we can be confident that
the assassination of the President will not forever remain a mystery, as we can
and are figuring it out. 64)
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