Malcolm Muggeridge on historians and records

“Malcolm Muggeridge, himself a wartime SIS officer, warned in his autobiography: ‘Diplomats and Intelligence, in my experience, are even bigger liars than journalists, and the historians who try to reconstruct the past out of their records are, for the most part, dealing with fantasy’.”

Nigel West – “MI5 – British Security Service Operations 1909-1945 - “The True Story of the Most Secret Counterespionage Organization in the World”   (Stein and Day, NY 1981, p. 13) 

Jack Anderson on Jim Garrison

Tolson – DeLoach Memo of 4/4/67

SUBJECT: ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY

“Jack Anderson came to see me at 11:55 a.m. today. He has just returned from New Orleans where, at the invitation of District Attorney Jim Garrison, he interviewed Garrison for approximately six hours at his home. Anderson and Garrison later had dinner at the Latin Quarter restaurant in New Orleans.

Anderson stated that he went to New Orleans fully prepared to present a hostile viewpoint to Garrison. After listening to Garrison for approximately 90 minutes, he began to believe Garrison’s story. Anderson described Garrison as a very convincing talker who has considerable facts at his disposal. Anderson now believes there is some authenticity to Garrison’s claims and future plans. Garrison told Anderson that he will undoubtedly hold a full-scale trial within six months…..

….Shaw at this point already had been approved by the CIA, through an appropriate cut-out, to enginner a plot that would result in the assassination of Fidel Castro.

…..I also told Anderson that, while we of course would accept any information that was voluntarily given to us, we at the same time would not take over Garrison’s ‘dirty laundry.’

Anderson told me that if the Bureau had any change of policy in the above regard he would appreciate knowing about it. I told him we would keep his offer in mind;  however there would be no change of policy.

Anderson told me that he had discussed this entire matter with George Christian, the President’s Press Secretary, at the White House. He stated that Christian was also convinced that there must be some truth to Garrison’s allegations. Christian told Anderson to get in touch with the FBI. Anderson stated that he had already been planning to do this, but that he now especially wanted to advise us of the full facts because of Christian’s request.

CAPA - Citizens Against Political Assassination Formed

Citizens Against Political Assassinations

CAPA - Washington, DC

For Release March, 2016 Media Contact:

www.capa-hq.org Andrew Kreig

Washington, DC 202.638.0070

 andrew.kreig@gmail.com

New Group Advocates Disclosure On Political Assassinations

Initial Focus: JFK, MLK, RFK Questions, Their Current Importance

Washington, DC:  Americans deserve prompt and thorough disclosure of the facts surrounding

the nation’s major assassinations, according to a new research group on the occasion of the

annual “Sunshine Week,” celebrated by open government advocates beginning March 13.

As an initial goal, Citizens Against Political Assassinations (CAPA), a non-partisan umbrella

group, seeks withheld records pertaining to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy in

1963 and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. 

“CAPA seeks release of the remaining JFK records with a minimum of redactions, which can

obscure vital information,” said CAPA Chairman Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D., a prominent expert

in forensic pathology for five decades. “We shall also file Freedom of Information Act requests

and similar legal actions to enforce the law and undertake public education efforts to show

the importance of disclosure to new generations.” Wecht is a consultant, medical school

professor, author, and former county coroner for two decades in Pennsylvania.

The JFK Act of 1992 exemplifies one major CAPA initiative especially congruent with the goals

of Sunshine Week and other open government initiatives this spring fostered by the

newspaper, broadcast and library leaders along with concerned citizens. The JFK Act requires

federal release of records on the assassination of President Kennedy by October 2017. The

president of the United States at that time will be responsible for enforcement.

“Especially in the midst of the 2016 presidential election cycle,” Dr. Wecht said, ”Sunshine week is a key time to foster public confidence in government by building public support for document  release and other ‘sunshine’ goals. Time is running out to do something about the horrific JFK crime and cover-up. There is power in numbers. We hope you will join us in this worthy endeavor to bring truth to the American people.”

To join CAPA, visit http://capa-hq.com/membership.

Andrew Kreig on CAPA - Open Government and Sunshine Week

CAPA - New Group Advocates Disclosure On Political Assassinations

Andrew Kreig, March 13, 2016

Americans deserve thorough disclosure of the nation’s major assassinations says a new research group at the start of the annual “Sunshine Week” in March 2016.

As an initial goal, Citizens Against Political Assassinations (CAPA), a non-partisan umbrella group, seeks withheld records pertaining to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. 

Details: http://ow.ly/ZpIZ2

Americans deserve thorough disclosure of the nation’s major assassinations says a new research group during the annual “Sunshine Week” in March.

 “CAPA seeks release of the remaining JFK records with a minimum of redactions, which can obscure vital information,” said CAPA Chairman Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D., a prominent expert in forensic pathology for five decades.

“We shall also file Freedom of Information Act requests and similar legal actions to enforce the law and undertake public education efforts to show the importance of disclosure to new generations.” Wecht is a world-renowned consultant, medical school professor, author, and former county coroner for two decades in Pennsylvania.

This editor is one of nine CAPA directors along with Wecht, and is also the media liaison for the CAPA announcement, which is timed to coincide with the annual Sunshine Week launched by Florida journalists and then nationally in 2005 by the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) with funding from the Knight Foundation. The purpose is to advocate for open government and warn against the dangers of excessive secrecy.

In Washington, DC, the National Press Club and Newseum are among the organizations sponsoring events during the week seeking more transparency by government. There are many challenges for the media and the public in obtaining from government information once regarded as routine. For example, the Washington Post reported in its Sunday, March 13 print edition, The federal government no longer cares about disclosing public information.

This editor shares those goals as an active member of more than a half dozen journalism and legal bodies, including the National Press Club's Press Freedom Committee and several other of the largest and oldest journalism bodies, such as SPJ, ASJA, and the Overseas Press Club. But an urgent need exists also for more for targeted advocacy efforts on the topic of assassinations, especially since the major media have proven extremely reluctant to use their influence to report sensitive aspects of major assassinations -- much less lobby for additional disclosures.

MANY ASSASSINATION SECRETS STAY BURIED

Part of this reluctance is doubtless the pressure of deadlines and, often, the implied need for scientific and legal expertise to overcome obstacles.

Yet review of the records indicates that other factors doubtless include the establishment media's role in maintaining public confidence in government institutions and their own brand names as purveyors of truth even though such declassified records as those about Operation Mockingbird show that during the 1950s and 1960s the nation's top newspaper, broadcast, wire services and magazines worked closely at the ownership to thwart reporting on sensitive intelligence topics, including the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy and the Warren Commission investigation of it.

Importantly, such efforts as Operation Mockingbird were cooperative ventures between media owners and such agencies as the CIA, the evidence indicates, and not the agencies in effect mandating that the media do anything.

Thus, Operation Mockingbird's co-leaders are now known to have been Washington Post Publisher Philip Graham and the CIA's Frank Wisner, Sr., who dined together weekly with their wives, as Graham's widow Katharine Graham noted (albeit in passing) in her memoir Personal History.

Somewhat similarly, Time-Life Publisher Charles "CD" Jackson led the magazines' coverage of the 1963 assassination and their exclusive acquisition of such vital evidence as the video of the killing by Abraham Zapruder. Jackson, publisher of the nation's two most important magazines in terms of influence, was regarded also as the nation's leading expert on psychological warfare because of his successes during World War II in the CIA's forerunner, the Office of Strategic Services, and his work as a national security advisor to President Eisenhower.

Similar efforts placed CIA and other intelligence operatives in other businesses, government offices (including the White House and Pentagon), academia, unions, religious organizations, and political groups of the mainstream, left and right, researchers now know from many documents, witness accounts and books.

The late Air Force Col. Fletcher Prouty described the process in his courageous 1973 insider's account The Secret Team, for example. In it, Prouty described how he helped arranged such confidential placements when he worked at the Pentagon during the 1950s and early 1960s at the liaison between the Joint Chies of Staff and the CIA's leaders for covert operations in such specialties as assassinations, revolutions and propaganda.

Among more recent books on the topic are last year's Workshops of Empire by Eric Bennett and John Countney Murray, Time/Life and the American Proposition: How the CIA's Doctrinal Warfare Program Changed the Catholic Church by David Wemhoff and, more generally, The Devil's Chessboard by David Talbot, subtitled Allen Dulles, the CIA and the Rise of America's Secret Government. Proponents of such program justified them, to the extent they ever had to do so, for anti-communist and patriotic reasons, as evidenced by many other books too numerous to mention here.

For such reasons, the JFK Act of 1992 exemplifies one major CAPA initiative that is especially congruent with the goals of Sunshine Week and other open government initiatives this spring fostered by the newspaper, broadcast and library leaders along with concerned citizens.

The JFK Act requires federal release of records on the assassination of President Kennedy by October 2017. The president of the United States at that time will be responsible for enforcement. Millions of pages have been declassified regarding Kennedy's assassination and the Warren Commission investigation, (but so many remain classified that they can’t tell us how many).

The CIA has long objected to release of others, as reported by such researchers as Russ Baker's investigative team at WhoWhatWhy and by former Washington Post Reporter Jefferson Morley, who curates the website JFKFacts.org. Their columns are Exclusive: List of Withheld JFK Assassination Documents and Denied: the JFK records the government doesn’t want you to see, respectively.

“Especially in the midst of the 2016 presidential election cycle,” said CAPA's leader Dr. Wecht, ”Sunshine week is a key time to foster public confidence in government by building public support for document release and other ‘sunshine’ goals. Time is running out to do something about the horrific JFK crime and cover-up. There is power in numbers. We hope you will join us in this worthy endeavor to bring truth to the American people.”

JOIN CAPA, HELP REVEAL EVIDENCE

Excerpted below are samples of news reports and analysis by the Justice Integrity Project about these topics, as well as by other writers and groups. The appendix includes links to a so-far 30-part "Readers Guide" to the JFK Assassination providing, among other things, a catalog of the most important several hundred books on the topic out of the more than 2,500 total estimated.

Even though a great deal of progress has been made in solving key components of the JFK assassination and several others important documents are still being withheld. That creates terrible precedents also for important political murders and attempts reaching current times in the United States and globally.

Therefore, leading scientists, lawyers, journalists and other researchers -- most with decades of experience and current participation in other groups -- have convened to create a new organization in CAPA to dispel remaining secrets, working in a complementary fashion with other entities, including other researchers and authorities.

But the scope of work is large and priorities will be determined by those who participate effectively. Please consider joining the effort this week and participating on a committee suited to your interests and talents. To join CAPA, visit its website.

For any questions, you are involved to contact this editor.  

Andrew Kreig

Justice Integrity Project Editor (www.justice-integrity.org)

Washington, DC 20004

(202) 638-0070; (202) 787-8335 (c)

Twitter: AndrewKreig

RSS Feed for Updates: http://feeds.feedburner.com/JusticeIntegrityProject

Daily Mail UK News Article - Withheld docs give a glimpse

Daily Mail UK News Article

List of withheld documents gives a glimpse of exactly what the public STILL doesn’t know about JFK’s assassination

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3435430/List-withheld-documents-gives-glimpse-public-doesn-t-know-JFK-s-assassination.html

-         -  The National Achives released a list of 3,03 docments about the case

-         -  It includes Lee Harvey Oswald’s personality assessments by the CIA

-        -   Jackie Kennedy, President Lyndon B. Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover are also mentioned

-         -  Papers could be published in October 2017 due to 1992 JFK Records Act

By Clemence McHallon for Dailymail.com

Published 6 February 2016 Updated 7 February 2016

A list of 3,063 withheld documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has given a glimpse of what the public still doesn’t know about the case.

The list, released by the National Archives and obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Politico and others such as FOIA specialist Michael Ravntzky, can be read on line at WhoWhatWhy. [ BREAKING NEWS: List of Withheld JFK Assassination Documents - WhoWhatWhy    ]

It gives an account of what information the government still hasn’t released about the November 22, 1963 assassination in Dallas.

The documents listed are due to be released by October 2017, as per the 1992 JFK Records Act.

They could shed light on the investigation that followed Kennedy’s death, Politicio reported, and reveal more about US intelligence operations during the Cold War, which were kept secret at the time.

“I’ll be honest. I am hesitant to say you’re not going to find out anything about the assassination,” Martha Murphy, head of the Archives’ Special Access Branch, told Politico last year.

Lee Harvey Oswald’s personality assessment conducted by the CIA are part of the 146-page list. They are included in his CIA 201 File according to Who What Why.

Also included is a telegram about Oswald sent by the US Embassy in Mexico City to the state Department just a week after Kennedy’s death.

A declassified CIA memo previously showed that Oswald visited Cuba and Soviet embassies in September 1963 to obtain visas to travel to the Soviet Union via Cuba after assassinating the President.

The list also includes hundreds of pages worth of classified information regarding Oswald, a former Marine who defected to the Soviet Union in 1959.

There are at least five communications between former first lady Jackie Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson, which happened in the days after the shooting.

Former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover is also featured in the documents, in a series of communications he sent to high-ranking officials such as Johnson’s chief of staff after the assassination of the President.

One of these communications is titled Reaction of Soviet and Communist Party officials to JFK assassination.

Also listed are classified testimonies in front of the Church Committee, formed by the Senate to investigate abused (sic)s by the CIA, including those of former chief of the CIA’s counterintelligence branch James Jesus Angleton and former military officer, undercover operative and Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis.

The documents were collected by the Assassination Records Review Board, an independent agency created by the JFK Records Act, which has previously released thousands of documents about Kennedy’s assassination.

They should be released by October 2017 as per the JFK Records Act unless the next President decides they should remain classified.

 JFKfactsRuss Baker Archives - JFKfacts

Bryan Bender - POLITICO - What the Government is still hiding about the JFK Assassination

What the government is still hiding about the JFK assassination

The National Archives, for the first time ever, released a list of documents related to the assassination that are still shielded from public view.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/kennedy-assassination-jfk-national-archives-documents-218775

By BRYAN BENDER

02/04/16 08:07 PM EST / Updated 02/04/16 08:14 PM EST

More than five decades after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, thousands of government files detailing the activities and testimony of shadowy spies, long-deceased witnesses and others with possible knowledge of the events remain shielded from public view.

The government gave a first-ever peek at what's still out there Thursday, as the National Archives released a list of the 3,063 documents that have been "fully withheld" since JFK's murder in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

The documents listed — released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from POLITICO, other news organizations and researchers — were collected by the Assassination Records Review Board, an independent panel created by the 1992 JFK Records Act.

That same act requires that all the documents on the list be released by October 2017 unless the next president decides to keep them classified.

Based on what has been revealed previously, many of the files are expected to have no direct bearing on Kennedy's death in Dealey Plaza but could reveal intelligence operations involving Cuba, secret relationships between U.S. spy agencies and unsavory characters during the height of the Cold War, as well as other secrets the U.S. government might have resisted disclosing publicly as part of a full and open investigation at the time.

Cold War scholars have long suspected that many of the still-withheld files will not necessarily shed new light on whether Oswald acted alone. They could, however, help explain why some top officials at the time might have sought to prevent a thorough investigation, out of concern it would require airing the dirty laundry of covert activities.

Yet asked whether there might be any significant revelations about Kennedy's unsolved murder, Martha Murphy, head of the Archives' Special Access Branch, told POLITICO last year, “I’ll be honest. I am hesitant to say you’re not going to find out anything about the assassination.”

The Archives says that "certain information has been removed" from the list, including titles and other identifying information, to protect national security, personal privacy and tax information.

Here is a snapshot of what is still being hidden from the public about key figures, probes and other events that the Archives has deemed relevant to the JFK investigation.

Lee Harvey Oswald

Secret CIA "personality" studies of the reported lone assassin fingered by the Warren Commission produced immediately after the assassination have yet to be released, along with a telegram about him from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City to the State Department a week after the assassination. Oswald, a former Marine who had temporarily defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, is suspected of having visited Mexico City in the weeks before the assassination, reportedly to obtain a visa to travel to Cuba.

There also are hundreds of other pages of undated CIA files that contain classified information on Oswald, including a handwritten note from Yuri Nosenko, a KGB officer who defected from the Soviet Union and also is the subject of numerous other secret transcripts and tapes contained in the withheld records, as well as another document on Oswald's "contacts with Cuban and Soviet embassies." The trove also includes a pair of 1959 telegrams — one from the State Department to Moscow and the other from Moscow to Secretary of State Christian Herter — regarding Oswald's brother Robert.

J. Edgar Hoover

There are a series of communications from the longest-serving and highly secretive FBI director, including one titled "Reaction of Soviet and Communist Party officials to JFK assassination" that he sent to President Lyndon B. Johnson's chief of staff, Marvin Watson, a week after the assassination; another a few weeks later to the deputy secretary of state for security relating to Oswald; and a series of 1964 memos sent to J. Lee Rankin, the general counsel of the Warren Commission, about Jack Ruby, the Dallas night club owner with mafia ties who killed Oswald two days after the assassination in the basement of the Dallas police station, preventing a trial.

Jacqueline Kennedy

At least five communications are contained in the files from the former first lady to President Lyndon B. Johnson in the days immediately following the assassination.

James Jesus Angleton

Still classified is the top-secret testimony from the chief of the CIA's counterintelligence branch from 1954 to 1975 before the so-called Church Committee, convened by the U.S. Senate in 1975 to investigate abuses by the spy agency. It was the Church Committee that revealed for the first time that the CIA had hired figures in organized crime with deep ties to Havana to help overthrow the communist government of Fidel Castro, including through assassination attempts.

Frank Sturgis

Also contained in the remaining JFK files is the former military officer and undercover operative's 1975 testimony before the Church Committee. Sturgis was also one of the five Watergate burglars whose break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters in 1972 led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

David Atlee Phillips

The trove includes the secret testimony before the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978 from the longtime CIA officer who was involved in covert U.S. plans to assassinate Castro and also was a person of interest in the JFK case for scholars and researchers.

Regis Kennedy

Kennedy (no relation to the president) is among several witnesses connected to the events in Dallas in 1963 who died before they could be fully questioned. Kennedy reportedly suffered a heart attack the day before he was scheduled to testify before a grand jury on confiscated home movies of the assassination. The unreleased files contain an untitled communication from Justice Department files from Regis Kennedy to the special agent in charge of the FBI's New Orleans field office on May 18, 1967.

Protected sources

Several unidentified CIA documents, according to the newly released inventory of withheld JFK records, have been kept from the public to protect an intelligence source that is still living.

Illegible material

Sure to fuel conspiracy theories, a sizable portion of CIA documents related to the JFK case is deemed “illegible.” The documents include one from the general counsel of the Warren Commission to the CIA's Richard Helms. Helms, who later became director, managed the agency's cooperation with the independent panel that was set up by President Johnson and concluded that Oswald was the lone assassin.

Another set of documents the agency shared with the Warren Commission deemed unreadable: several communications from the agency's station in Mexico City before and after the assassination, including a cable to "Director Info Havana" on Nov. 11, 1959.

Also deemed unreadable is a secret communication from the CIA to the Office of Naval Intelligence before the assassination — in October 1963 — about Oswald.

Not believed relevant

Some of the withheld documents were designated in the 1990s by the Assassination Records Review Board as "not believed relevant" to the assassination but are nevertheless of keen historical interest. 

They include the CIA "operational" files of E. Howard Hunt, another of the Watergate burglars and a career spy. Also withheld is a CIA file on Jack Wasserman, a lawyer for New Orleans mafia boss Carlos Marcello and a longtime suspect in the assassination who was also involved in CIA plots to overthrow Castro in Cuba.