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1985: The House Select Committee (2)
Chapter 17
THE FINAL COVER UP: How The CIA Controlled
The House Select Committee On Assassinations
Introduction
The final report of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA),
issued in 1979, concluded that a conspiracy existed in the assassination
of President Kennedy. This news should have delighted hundreds of
researchers who had disagreed with the no-conspiracy finding of the
Warren Commission. The fact that it did not, is due to the HSCA
conspiracy being a simple one, with Lee Harvey Oswald still firing all
but one of the shots from the sixth floor window of the Texas School
Book Depository Building. The existence of another shooter and another
shot, from the grassy knoll, was "proved" by the HSCA, based primarily
on acoustical evidence presented in the very last month of their public
hearings. Dr. Robert Blakey and Richard Billings, chief counsel and
report editor for the HSCA, co-authored, in 1981, a book, "The Plot to
Kill the President," following the publication of the HSCA's final
report. The book claimed that the other shooter and Oswald were part of
a Mafia plot to kill JFK.
To over simplify the current (1985) situation, most JFK researchers feel
that the American public had been deceived once again. The HSCA
reaffirmed all but one of the Warren Commission's findings, including
even the famed single bullet theory. The simplified conspiracy finding
is now subject to review by the Justice Department and the FBI because
it is based on very questionable acoustical evidence. Justice
commissioned the so-called Ramsey Panel[1] to review this evidence, in
1981, under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences. It found
no evidence from the acoustics that a grassy knoll shot was fired. So,
we are back to no-conspiracy and Oswald being the lone assassin. And
even if there was a conspiracy, Blakey claims it involved the Mafia and
not the CIA. The HSCA report and all of its volumes of evidence
omitting any reference to CIA involvement, concluded that the CIA was
not involved, and did not reveal any evidence that the HSCA staff had
collected showing that CIA people murdered JFK, and that the CIA has
been covering up that fact ever since.
Any followers of CIA activities connected with the JFK assassination,
since 1963, must ask the question, how did they do it? How did the CIA
turn things completely around from the 1976 days when Henry Gonzalez,
Thomas Downing, Richard A. Sprague, Robert Tanenbaum, Cliff Fenton and
others were pursuing the truth about the assassination, to essentially
the same status as when the Warren Commission finished its work? How
did they produce the final cover-up? The answer is that the CIA
controlled the HSCA and its investigation and findings from the early
part of 1977, forward. The methods they used were as clever and devious
as any they had used previously to control the Warren Commission, the
Rockefeller Commission, the Garrison Investigation, the Schweiker/Hart
Committee[2] and the efforts of independent researchers.
The Situation in 1976
In 1976, Henry Gonzalez, member of the House from Texas, and Thomas
Downing from Virginia, were both convinced there was a massive
conspiracy in the JFK assassination. They introduced a joint bill in
the House which resulted in the formation of the HSCA and an
investigation of the JFK and King assassinations. Gonzalez believed
there were at least four conspiracies in the assassinations of JFK, MLK,
Robert Kennedy and in the attempted assassination of George Wallace. He
introduced an original bill to have the House investigate all four and
the cover-ups and links among them. Downing was primarily interested in
the JFK case and his original bill dealt only with that conspiracy.
Mark Lane and his committee members and supporters around the country
joined forces with Coretta King and the Black Caucus in the House to
pressure Congressmen and Tip O'Neill to investigate the King and John
Kennedy assassinations. The net result was a merging of the Gonzalez
and Downing bills into a Final HSCA bill dealing with only two of the
cases.
In the fall of 1976, with Downing as chairman, the HSCA selected Richard
A. Sprague, from the Philadelphia District Attorney's office, to be
chief counsel. Sprague hired four professional investigators and
criminal lawyers from New York City. They were very good and completely
independent of the CIA and FBI, having been trained by one of the best
professionals in the business, D.A. Frank Hogan of New York.
Sprague and his JFK team, headed by Bob Tanenbaum, attorney, and Cliff
Fenton, chief detective, were going after the real assassins and their
bosses, whether this led them to the CIA or FBI or anywhere else.
Sprague had already made it clear to the HSCA that he would investigate
CIA involvement, and subpoena CIA people, documents and other
information, whether classified or not. He had also had meetings with
several researchers, including the author, and made it known privately
that he was going to use the talent and knowledge of every reliable
researcher on a consulting basis. He had contacted Jim Garrison in New
Orleans and informed him he would be following up on all of his
information and leads. He had initiated an investigation of the CIA
activities in Mexico City connected with the JFK assassination,
including information supplied to Sprague by the author.[3]
R.A. Sprague and Tanenbaum were aware of the CIA connections of the
individuals involved in the JFK assassination in Dealey Plaza, in Mexico
City, in New Orleans and in the Florida Keys. They had, in November
1976, exposed the entire HSCA staff to all of the photographic evidence
showing these people in Dealey Plaza and elsewhere. They were aware of
the assassination planning meetings held by CIA people in Mexico City
and knew who the higher level conspirators were. They had initiated
searches for the real assassins; Frenchy, William Seymour, Emilio
Santana, Jack Lawrence, Fred Lee Crisman, Jim Braden, Jim Hicks, et al.
They were planning to interview CIA contract agents, Richard Case
Nagell, Harry Dean, Gordon Novel, Ronald Augustinovich, Mary Hope and
Guy Gabaldin. Cliff Fenton had been appointed head of a team of
investigators to follow up on the New Orleans part of the conspiracy
which had included CIA agents and people; Clay Shaw, David Ferrie, Guy
Banister, Manuel Garcia Gonzalez, Sergio Arcacha Smith, Gordon Novel and
others. They were going to contact people who had attended
assassination planning meetings in New Orleans.
From the photographic evidence surrounding the sixth floor window, as
well as the grassy knoll, Sprague, Tanenbaum and most of the staff knew
Oswald had not fired any shots, knew no shots came from the sixth floor
window, and knew there had been shots from the Dal Tex Building and the
knoll. They knew the single bullet theory was not true, and knew there
had been a well-planned crossfire in Dealey Plaza. They were not
planning to waste a lot of time reviewing and rehashing the Dealey Plaza
evidence, except as it might lead to the real assassins.
They had set up an investigation in Florida and the Keys, of the
evidence and leads developed in 1967 by Garrison. Gaeton Fonzi was in
charge of that part of Sprague's team. They were going to check out the
people in the CIA that had been running and funding the No Name Key
group and other Anti-Castro groups. Seymour, Santana, Manuel Garcia
Gonzalez, Jerry Patrick Hemming, Loran Hall, Lawrence Howard, Frenchy
and Cubans Rolando Masferrer and Carlos Prio Socarras were to be found
and interrogated.
Tanenbaum and his research team had seen the photo collection of Dick
Billings from "Life Magazine" which was, by 1976, deposited in the
Georgetown University Library's JFK assassination collection. The No
Name Key people and others showing up in Garrison's investigation
appeared in these photos with high level CIA agents.
In 1977, Henry Gonzalez, who was far more supportive of a CIA conspiracy
idea than Tom Downing, was to become chairman of the HSCA. Downing did
not run for re-election in 1976 and was retiring. At that point,
December 1976, Gonzalez and Sprague were of the same mind and getting
along fine. Researchers were very pleased with the way things were
going and believed Sprague would expose the CIA's involvement in the JFK
cover up.
The CIA's problem
Given this background of the HSCA status in late 1976, it can easily be
seen that the CIA was up against much more serious opposition than it
ever had been before in the JFK murder and cover-up. They had ruined
Jim Garrison's reputation and curtailed his investigation by various
dirty trick means. They had been in solid control of the Warren
Commission by the simple expedient of having four of the Commissioners
belonging to them; Dulles, Ford, McCloy and Russell. They were also
able to kill enough people who knew the truth, to slow down any truth-
seeking that might have taken place. They also hid documents, destroyed
and altered evidence, lied about other evidence, and bald facedly
(Dulles) admitted that they wouldn't tell the President or the
Commission if Lee Harvey Oswald had been a CIA agent (which he had
been). In the Rockefeller Commission situation they were in complete
control of that attempt to reinforce the Warren Commission's findings.
And in the Church Committee investigation, the Schweiker/Hart
subcommittee on the JFK case was very limited and controlled in what
they could do.
But in the new situation, in Richard A. Sprague and his professionals
with so much knowledge of the CIA's role in the murder and the cover-up,
they faced a crisis. They knew they had to do several things to turn it
around and to continue to keep the American public from realizing what
was happening. Here is what they had to do:
1. Get rid of Richard A. Sprague.
2. Get rid of Henry Gonzalez.
3. Get rid of Sprague's key men or keep them away from CIA evidence or
keep them quiet.
4. Install their own chief counsel to control the investigation.
5. Elect a new HSCA chairman who would go along, or who could be
fooled.
6. Cut off all Sprague's investigations of CIA people. Make sure none
of the people were found or bury any testimony that had already been
found, or murder CIA people who might talk.
7. Keep the committee members from knowing what was happening and
segregate the investigation from them.
8. Create a new investigative environment whose purpose would be to
confirm all of the findings of the Warren Commission and divert
attention away from the who-did-it-and-why approach.
9. Control the committee staff in such a way as to keep any of them
from revealing what they already knew about CIA involvement.
10. Control committee consultants in the same way, and staff members who
might leave or who might be fired.
11. Continue to control the media in such a way as to reinforce all of
the above.
12. Continue to murder witnesses or assassins in emergency situations if
necessary.
The CIA successfully did all twelve of these things. The techniques
they used were much more subtle and devious than those they had used
before, although they did continue with murders of potential HSCA
witnesses and with media control.
How The CIA Did It
The first step taken by the CIA was to use the media they control, along
with some members of Congress they control, and two planted agents on
the staff of and consulting for, Henry Gonzalez, to get rid of both
Henry and Richard A. Sprague. In taking this step, they used the old
Roman approach of divide and conquer. They made Gonzalez and his
closest staff assistant, Gail Beagle, believe that Sprague was a CIA
agent and that Gonzalez must get rid of him. They also made Gonzalez
believe that some of his other associates, both in the HSCA and outside,
were CIA agents. At the same time, they used the media to attack
Sprague mercilessly. The key people in doing this attack on Sprague
were three CIA reporters, George Lardner of the "Washington Post," Mr.
Burnham of "The New York Times," and Jeremiah O'Leary of the "Washington
Star." In all HSCA committee meetings and in Rules Committee and
Finance Committee meetings, these three reporters sat next to each
other, passed notes back and forth, and wrote articles continually
attacking and undermining both Sprague and Gonzalez, as well as the
entire committee. The CIA had the support of top management in all
three news organizations in doing this.
Gonzalez eventually tried to fire Sprague, was over-ruled by the
committee, and then resigned from the committee. Sprague eventually
resigned, because it became obvious that the CIA controlled members of
the Finance and Rules Committees and other CIA allies in the House, were
going to kill the committee unless he resigned. There are many more
details to this story, which requires a book to describe. Suffice it to
say, the CIA accomplished their first two goals by March 1977. The next
steps were to install a CIA-controlled chief counsel and to get a
chairman elected who could be fooled or coerced into appointing such a
counsel. Lewis Stokes was a perfect choice for chairman. He was, and
probably still is, a good and honest man. But he was completely
bamboozled by what the CIA did and is still doing. The selection and
implementation of a CIA man as chief counsel had to be done in an
extremely subtle manner. It could not be obvious to anyone that he was
a CIA man. Stokes and the other committee members had to be fooled into
believing *they* had made the choice, and had picked a good man.
Professor Robert Blakey, an apparently scientifically oriented, academic
person, with a history of work against organized crime, was the perfect
CIA choice. Once Dr. Blakey took over as chief counsel, he accomplished
goals numbered 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 very nicely. The fourth and fifth
goals having been achieved, Blakey set about the other parts of his
assignment very rapidly after he arrived. For Goal 3, he fired Bob
Tanenbaum, Bob Lehner, and Donovan Gay, three loyal Sprague supporters,
quickly.
The Nondisclosure Agreement
The most important weapon used by the CIA and Blakey to pursue goals 9
and 10 was instituted within one week after Blakely arrived. It is by
far the most subtle and far reaching technique used by the CIA to date.
It is called the "Nondisclosure Agreement" and it was signed by all
members of the committee, all staff members including Blakey, all
consultants to the committee, and several independent researchers who
met with Blakey in 1977. Signing the agreement was a condition for
continued employment on the committee staff or for continuing consulting
on a contract basis. The choice was, sign or get out. The author
signed the agreement in July 1977, without realizing its implications at
the time, in order to continue as a consultant. The agreement is
reproduced in full in the Appendix and is labelled "Exhibit A." The
author's consulting help was never sought after that and the obvious
objective was to silence a consultant and not use his services.
This CIA weapon has several parts. First, it binds the signer, if a
consultant, to never reveal that he is working for the committee (see
paragraph 13). Second, it prevents the signer from ever revealing to
anyone in perpetuity, any information he has learned about the
committee's work as a result of working for the committee (see
paragraphs 2 and 12). Third, it gives the committee and the House,
after the committee terminates, the power to take legal action against
the signer, *in a court named by the committee* or the House, in case
the committee believes the signer has violated the agreement. Fourth,
the signer agrees to pay the court costs for such a suit in the event he
loses the suit (see paragraphs 14 and 15).
These four parts are enough to scare most researchers or staff members
who signed it into silence forever about what they learned. The
agreement is insidious in that the signer is, in effect, giving away his
constitutional rights. Some lawyers who have seen the agreement,
including Richard A. Sprague, have expressed the opinion it is an
illegal agreement in violation of the Constitution and several
Constitutional amendments. Whether it is illegal or not, most staff
members and all consultants who signed it *have* remained silent, even
after three and a half years beyond the life of the committee. There
are only two exceptions, the author and Gaeton Fonzi, who published a
lengthy article about the HSCA cover-up in the "Washingtonian" magazine
in 1981.
The most insidious parts of the agreement, however, are paragraphs 2, 3
and 7, which give the CIA very effective control over what the committee
could and could not do with so-called "classified" information. The
director of the CIA is given authority to determine, in effect, what
information shall remain classified and therefore unavailable to nearly
everyone. The signer of the agreement, and remember, this includes all
of the Congressman and women who were members of the committee, agrees
not to reveal or discuss any information that the CIA decides he should
not. The chairman of the committee supposedly has the final say on what
information is included, but in practice, even an intelligent and gutsy
chairman would not be likely to override the CIA. Lewis Stokes did not
attempt any final decisions. In fact, the CIA did not have to do very
much under these clauses. The fact that Blakey was their man and kept
nearly all of the CIA sensitive information, evidence, and witnesses
away from the committee members was all that was necessary. Stokes
never knew what he should have argued about with the CIA director. It
is this document which proves beyond doubt that the CIA controlled the
HSCA.
The author attempted to point out to Stokes in a letter dated February
10, 1978, "Exhibit B," the type of control the agreement gives the CIA
over the HSCA. Stokes replied in a March 16, 1978 letter, "Exhibit C,"
that he retained ultimate authority and was not bound by the opinion of
the Central Intelligence Director. He also claimed that paragraphs 12
and 14, on extending the agreement in perpetuity and giving the
government the right to file a civil suit in which the signer will pay
all costs, were legal. He said in the letter that the purpose of the
agreement was to give the HSCA control over the conduct of the
investigation including *control over the ultimate disclosure of
information to the American public*. That is a key admission about what
has actually happened. The only question is, who is controlling the
information in the heads of the staff investigators who discovered CIA
involvement? Was Louis Stokes working for the public or for the CIA?
Examples of CIA-Control
Some specific examples will serve to illustrate how well the CIA
techniques have worked and are still working.
Garrison Evidence and Witnesses Example
As mentioned earlier, when Blakey arrived, an investigating team headed
by Cliff Fenton, reporting to Bob Tanenbaum, had already been hard at
work tracking down leads to the CIA conspirators generated by Jim
Garrison's investigation in New Orleans. This team eventually had four
investigators, all professionals, and their work led them to believe
that the CIA people in New Orleans had been involved in a large
conspiracy to assassinate JFK. As Garrison told Ted Gandolfo, a New
York City researcher, the Fenton team went much further than Garrison,
in locating witnesses and other evidence of assassination planning
meetings held in New Orleans, Mexico City and Dallas. In fact, they
found a CIA man who attended those meetings, and who was willing to
testify before the committee. The evidence was far more convincing than
the testimony presented at the trial of Clay Shaw. In the Shaw Trial,
CIA people were involved in meetings in addition to the one brought out
in the trial. Clay Shaw, David Ferrie, William Seymour and others were
involved. Fenton's team discovered a lot of other facts about how the
CIA people planned and carried out the assassination. Their report
about the conspiracy was solid and convincing and they were convinced.
The CIA, through Robert Blakey, buried the Fenton report. Committee
members were not told about the team's findings. The evidence was not
included in the HSCA report, nor was it even referred to in the volumes.
The witnesses in New Orleans were never called to testify. That
included the CIA man at the meetings. Fenton and the other three
members of his team, having signed the nondisclosure agreement, were
legally sworn to secrecy, or at least they thought so. To this day they
refuse to discuss anything with anybody.
There may also have been threats of physical violence against them.
There is no way to determine this. However, Fenton and the others are
well aware of the witnesses that the CIA murdered just before they were
about to testify before the HSCA. These included: William Sullivan, the
FBI deputy under J. Edgar Hoover, who headed Division V, the domestic
intelligence division; George de Mohrenschildt, Oswald's CIA contact in
Dallas; John Roselli, the Mafia man involved in the CIA plots to
assassinate Castro; Regis Kennedy, the FBI agent who knew a lot about
Clay Shaw, alias Clay Bertrand, in New Orleans and who was one of Lee
Harvey Oswald's FBI contacts; Rolando Masferrer, an anti-Castro Cuban
murdered in Miami; and Carlos Prio Socarras, former Cuban premier,
killed in his garage in Miami.
With the knowledge of these murders, Fenton and his team would not have
required any more than a gentle hint, to keep quiet.
Frenchy Example
The "tramp," Frenchy, who appears in seven photos taken in Dealey Plaza,
is one of the most important CIA individuals in the JFK assassination.
Researcher Bill Turner discovered that Frenchy had been in the Florida
Keys working with CIA sponsored anti-Castro groups. Richard A. Sprague
and Bob Tanenbaum knew about his role, and intended to go after him when
the HSCA restored its subpoena power and obtained enough money. They
were aware of the evidence that Frenchy fired the fatal shot from the
grassy knoll. They had assigned a team of investigators to follow a
lead to Frenchy provided by the author in the early part of 1977.
Unfortunately, the CIA managed to keep both the subpoena power and the
funds away from the committee until after they had forced the
resignations of Gonzalez, Sprague and Tanenbaum. The power and funds
were restored after Stokes was elected and after they installed their
own man, Blakey. The investigative team remained, however, and they did
search for and find Frenchy. But Blakey and the CIA suppressed that
fact, and suppressed anything they may have learned from Frenchy. He is
not mentioned in the report and was not called as a witness. The author
dares not reveal the source of the above information because of the
danger to staff people from the nondisclosure agreement.
Nagell, Dean, Novel, and Augustinovich
The Garrison investigation and a subsequent series of investigations by
the author and other members of the Committee to Investigate
Assassinations in 1967 to 1973, turned up several witnesses who were
willing to talk privately about the CIA assassination team that murdered
JFK. Harry Dean and Richard Case Nagell had been Lee Harvey Oswald's
CIA contacts while he was in Mexico City and knew about assassination
planning meetings held in Guy Gabaldin's apartment. Dean knew about
William Seymour, CIA contract agent, attending those meetings and how
Seymour had been pretending to be Oswald on many occasions. Gordon
Novel knew how the CIA had covered up the truth about the assassination
and how they went to extreme lengths to ruin Jim Garrison and his
investigation. Novel had been employed by the CIA in this effort.
Ronald Augustinovich and his friend, Mary Hope, had attended some of the
Mexico City meetings.
Richard Russell and the author tracked down all four of these witnesses
prior to the arrival of Robert Blakey at the HSCA. Russell interviewed
them and knew they would be willing to talk, given protection and some
form of immunity. The author presented their names and their
involvement to Richard A. Sprague, Henry Gonzalez, Lewis Stokes and
Robert Tanenbaum in the fall of 1976. This was done as part of the
author's consulting assignment for the HSCA. The names were in a
memorandum to Sprague, which outlined the overall JFK conspiracy and the
CIA's role, along with a recommendation of the sequence in which
witnesses should be called. The idea was to base each witness
interrogation on what had been established from interviewing prior
witnesses, working slowly from cooperative witnesses, to non-cooperative
witnesses, to actual assassins, to higher level CIA people.[4] The
highest level people, E. Howard Hunt and Richard Helms, would be faced
with accusers.
As indicated earlier, Sprague and Tanenbaum could do nothing and did
nothing up to the day they left. By early 1978 it became obvious that
Blakey had done nothing about calling these CIA witnesses. The author
initiated a series of letter exchanges with Blakey and Stokes, reminding
them of these witnesses, and the possibility that their lives could be
in danger prior to their being interviewed by HSCA. Dick Russell had
obtained an agreement from Nagell to meet with the committee, but no
contact had been made up to April 5, 1978, the date of the author's
first letter to Stokes on this subject, "Exhibit D." Nagell was hiding
in fear of his children's lives, not so much his own life. He was a
real CIA agent and knew how they operated. Russell was the only person
who knew where Nagell was. In the April 5th letter, a recommendation
was given to Stokes that the committee contact Nagell through Russell,
and contact the other witnesses on the original list. Stokes wrote on
May 15, 1978, "Exhibit E," that the Nagell matter had been referred to
Blakey for follow-up. Blakey never mentioned it by telephone or by
letter.
By September 1978, when the public hearings had begun, there was no
indication that Blakey was going to call the CIA witnesses. Nagell was
standing by but had not been contacted. The published, intended witness
list did not contain any of these CIA names. The author wrote to Stokes
and Representative Yvonne Burke on September 22 and 23, 1978, "Exhibits
F," expressing dissatisfaction with the committee's failure to call the
CIA witnesses, and suggesting that if they did not not, history would
eventually catch up with them. The names were repeated in the letter to
Burke, and specific mention made that the committee had never contacted
Richard Case Nagell. Louis Stokes sent back a letter dated October 10,
1978, "Exhibit G." It is what one might call a non-answer, stating
"that the committee will make every effort to tell the whole story to
the American people." Seven years later (1985) it can be said that the
committee did not make an effort to call the most important witnesses
and therefore did not tell the whole story. Nor did their report even
mention these witnesses or any of the evidence exposed earlier by the
CTIA or Jim Garrison. Louis Stokes was either totally fooled or he is
part of the CIA's cover-up.
The author responded to Stokes' non-answer letter of October 10th with
two more letters, dated October 30, 1978 and November 24, 1978,
"Exhibits H & I." Stokes finally answered them on December 4, 1978 with
another non-answer letter, "Exhibit J." He says the committee cannot
reveal the procedure of the investigation or the names of those persons
who will be called to testify before the committee. This implies they
were planning to call more witnesses in December 1978. The committee's
life ended on January 1, 1979. The CIA witnesses were never called nor
ever mentioned right up to the very end and the report was silent about
them.
The Umbrella Man
One last example illustrates the way the CIA and Blakey worked together
to cancel-out any evidence linking the CIA people and/or techniques used
in the JFK assassination. For may years, various researchers, including
Josiah Thompson[5] and the author, had speculated about the role of a
man appearing in the photographs in Dealey Plaza with an open umbrella.
He became known as "The Umbrella Man," or TUM for short. Thompson
speculated that TUM had been giving the various shooters in Dealey Plaza
visual signals with the umbrella, and the author agreed this could have
been true.
In *1976*, the Church committee took the public testimony of Charles
Senseney, a CIA contract weapons employee at the Army Chemical Center in
Ft. Detrick, MD. Senseney described a system used by the CIA in Vietnam
and elsewhere, for killing or paralyzing people with poisons carried in
self-propelled Flechette darts. The darts were self-propelled like
solid fuel rockets and launched silently and unobtrusively from a number
of devices, including an umbrella. A CIA catalog of available secret
weapons shows a photograph of the umbrella launching device and photos
of the Flechettes which were self-propelled from one of the hollow
spokes of the umbrella. They could even be launched through soda
straws.
Researcher Robert Cutler, former Air Force Liason officer, L. Fletcher
Prouty, and the author did some additional research on the photographic
evidence and the weapon system, especially research on the movements of
JFK in the Zapruder film and various photos of TUM and a friend he had
with him in Dealey Plaza. The friend had a two-way radio device. As a
result of this research, an article was published in "Gallery" magazine
in June, 1978. The article presented the hypothesis that TUM launched,
from his umbrella, a poison Flechette at JFK, which struck him in the
throat at Zapruder frame 189, causing complete paralysis of his upper
body, hands, arms, shoulders and head, in less than two seconds. The
photos show this paralysis and the timing matches the testimony given by
Senseney about how fast the CIA poison works and what its paralyzing
effects look like.
Whether one agrees with this hypothesis or not is incidental to what
Blakey and the HSCA did in reaction to it. Until the summer of 1977,
official investigators for the HSCA, or any of its predecessors, had
shown no more than passing curious interest in TUM. They just paid no
attention and did not take the researcher's ideas seriously. On August
8, 1977, the author informed Robert Blakey, in a letter of that date,
about the TUM hypothesis. The letter concerned a discussion the author
and Blakey had on July 21, 1977, two days after the nondisclosure
agreement had been signed. Blakey had said that if there was a
conspiracy it would not have involved a very large number of people. He
was probably already laying the foundation for a small, Mafia type,
conspiracy involving Oswald and a Mafia friend, backed by a few Mafia
Dons.
The August 8th letter maintained that the CIA had been involved and that
it had been a massive intelligence operation, rather than a conspiracy
in the sense Blakey was using the term. The CIA Flechette, umbrella
launching weapons system, if indeed it had been used by TUM, the letter
pointed out, would be solid proof of high level CIA involvement, since
that system would not have been available to lower level agents or
contract people.
Blakey did not respond right away to this letter and the author decided
to make the TUM hypothesis public by publishing it with Cutler as co-
author, in the spring of 1978, in "Gallery" magazine. Contact was also
made with Senator Richard Schweiker who had been the member of the
Church Committee responsible for interrogating Charles Senseney.
Schweiker agreed to try and find out from Senseney what had happened to
the umbrella launchers he had constructed for the CIA; that is, who in
the CIA had had access to a launcher.
The information to be published in "Gallery" had been generated by Bob
Cutler and the author independently of any information obtained from the
HSCA, but the safest approach seemed to be an application to them for
permission to print the article under the terms of the nondisclosure
agreement. So, on January 9, 1978, the author submitted a draft of the
"Gallery" article to Blakey and, on January 16, 1978, he wrote back
stating that publishing the article would not violate the terms of the
nondisclosure agreement, "Exhibit K." The article was published in the
June 1978 issue of "Gallery" which actually appeared in May 1978.
Blakey knew in advance when it would appear.
On August 3, 1978, the author wrote to Blakey stating that photographic
evidence showed a high probability that TUM was actually Gordon Novel,
the CIA contract agent from New Orleans, who had been hired to ruin the
Garrison investigation, "Exhibit L." The reason that some new photo
evidence was just then coming to light was that the committee had
discovered a never-before seen film of TUM and had released a frame from
this film to the press in July 1978. Shortly after the TUM photo was
released by the HSCA, with an appeal to him to come forward, an unknown
caller contacted Penn Jones in Texas to tell him he knew who TUM was.
Penn visited Louis Witt, having been given his address, and upon seeing
him, jumped to the conclusion that he *was* TUM. This led to Mr. Witt
appearing before the committee in their televised hearings and making
the claim he was TUM. He showed the umbrella on TV that he claimed he
used.
It was immediately obvious to Bob Cutler and the author that Witt was
not TUM. He displayed the umbrella he said he had used in Dealey Plaza
and *it contained the wrong number of spokes*. His height, weight and
facial appearance did not match TUM's, and his description of his
actions did not match at all the actions TUM took, as shown in the
photos. On November 24, 1978, the author wrote to Stokes telling him he
had been fooled by a CIA plant, or by his own staff, planting Mr. Witt,
and that he should call Gordon Novel as a witness because it was likely
that Novel was TUM. HSCA never did call Novel as a witness. Novel had
visited the HSCA during the days Richard A. Sprague was still there, but
he had not mentioned being in Dealey Plaza or that the CIA had hired him
to ruin Garrison. Blakey and Stokes avoided contacting Novel.
Now, the important thing to focus on, in this example, is the sequence
of events. The HSCA had done nothing about TUM until they were faced
with the possibility of a public article linking TUM to the CIA through
a CIA weapons system and through Gordon Novel. They also found out that
Senator Schweiker was looking into the CIA end of it. At about the time
the "Gallery" article was being widely read, the HSCA suddenly released
to the press a photo of TUM and asked that people identify him or that
he come forward. The photo did not show his umbrella or where he was
sitting in Dealey Plaza, nor did the release mention the umbrella or the
theories about it. Just his photo. An earlier photo used by Cutler and
the author to identify Novel as TUM was not released.
In a surprisingly short time after the photo appeared, an unknown person
calls a well-known researcher and leads him to Louis Witt. Witt in turn
lies about who he was and where he was, by claiming to be TUM. Blakey
and the committee put Witt on center stage as though it was a play, and
eliminate the TUM problem by pulling off a charade. The fine hand of
the CIA can be seen in this whole series of linked events. Blakey had
to have known what was going on, and he knows today that Witt was not
TUM and the high probability that TUM was Gordon Novel, CIA agent.
The extreme lengths that the CIA and Blakey went to in this charade,
made one believe that the umbrella probably *was* the Charles Senseney
weapon. Otherwise, why bother with TUM?
Goal Number Eight
What has been presented so far in this article represents direct actions
by the CIA to cover-up CIA involvement. Blakey played another important
role and that was to achieve the eighth goal on the list, namely to
change the public impression of HSCA's main effort. Researchers who
concentrated on attacking the Warren Commission's Dealey Plaza or Tippit
shooting findings had created a big problem. If Oswald had fired no
shots, then he must have been framed. If Oswald was framed, the
evidence against him was planted, and multiple gunmen were involved.
All of this line of reasoning would point to a very well-organized and
very well-planned conspiracy, which would in turn point to an
intelligence style involvement.
So, Blakey set out from the beginning to create an investigative
environment and image that appeared to be based on a *highly scientific,
objective study of the Dealey Plaza evidence*. The overall objective of
this approach was to prove "scientifically" that the Warren Commission
was right, and that Lee Harvey Oswald fired all the shots that had
struck John Kennedy, Governor Connally and policeman Tippit. That
required scientific proof of the single bullet theory, among other
things. Blakey did just that. Right up to the moment when the
acoustical evidence on the Dallas police tape reared its ugly head, only
one month from the end of the life of the committee, Blakey managed to
control and manipulate the Dealey Plaza evidence to back up the Warren
Commission completely. The author described how Blakey did this in
chapter 16. One of his "magical" methods was to split up the scientific
work into subcommittees or panels of advisors, and various staff groups,
and keep them all from communicating with each other. *Thus, even
though the medical panel gave testimony showing an upward trajectory of
the single bullet (399) shot*, the trajectory panel turned it into a
downward trajectory. The photographic panel was so isolated they never
did see the most important evidence of the sixth floor window, inside
and outside.
The photo panel had a number of government and military people on it, as
did all of the other panels. Thus it was not surprising that they
testified that the fake photos of Oswald holding a rifle were not fakes.
Blakey rode roughshod over the evidence that these photos were fakes,
presenting only one witness, Jack White, to show why they were fakes,
and giving him a very rough time. Other researchers, like Fred Newcomb
and the author, who had done a lot of work on the fake photos, were not
called and not consulted by the photo panel or Blakey and his staff.
There are many more examples of how Blakey managed this magic show on
public TV, too numerous to describe here.
One important result of this drastic change of investigative environment
compared to that existing under Richard A. Sprague, was to draw the
attention of the public during the hearings away from the evidence and
the witnesses pointing to the real assassins, and to the fact that
Oswald was framed and did not fire any shots. It thus provided an
additional shield for the CIA and in effect, completed the cover-up.
Summary
Now, in the spring of 1985, the CIA appears to have under control the
final cover-up engineered by Robert Blakey with the support of a few
murders of key witnesses and the existence of the insidious, illegal,
nondisclosure agreement silencing the HSCA staff, committee members, and
consultants. The situation for the American public appears to be
hopeless. The CIA effectively controlled all three branches of
government when the chips were down, and have had no problems
controlling the fourth estate, the media, or the independent
researchers. By what means could the American public combat this
awesome power? It is hard to see that there is any means available.
And we have now reached and passed 1984. Would an election of Edward
Kennedy to the presidency in 1988 change anything? If he lived through
a presidency following an election campaign, it probably would. Most
Americans react to that by saying, "he would be assassinated." Somehow
they have received the messages about what has gone wrong with the
United States.
____________________
[1] Chaired by Prof. Norman Ramsey of M.I.T.
[2] Senators Richard Schweiker of Penn. and Gary Hart of Colo. formed a
sub-committee of the Church Committee.
[3] The author became an advisor to Richard A. Sprague as soon as he was
appointed counsel to the HSCA.
[4] The names of the witnesses in the memo were: Cooperative
Witnesses: Louis Ivon (Jim Garrison's chief investigator), Richard
Case Nagell, Harry Dean, James Hosty, Carver Gaten, Warren du Bruys,
Regis Kennedy, Victor Marchetti, Gordon Novel, Manuel Garcia
Gonzalez, Harry Williams, Jim Garrison, George de Mohrenschildt,
Charles Senseney, Mary Hope and Jim Hicks.
Non-Cooperative Witnesses or Assassins or Planners: Ronald
Augustinovich, Guy Gabaldin, Frenchy, William Seymour, Emilio
Santana, Jack Lawrence, Jim Braden, Sergio Arcacha Smith, Fred Lee
Crisman, William Sullivan, Carlos Prio Socarras, Rolando Masferrer,
Major L.M. Bloomfield, E. Howard Hunt, and Richard Helms.
[5] In his book, "Six Seconds in Dallas," Thompson showed photos of TUM.
* * * * * * *
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and
causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . Corporations
have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow,
and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by
working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated
in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
--- Abraham Lincoln (quoted in Jack London's "The Iron Heel").