John Newman, an Army intelligence analyst turned historian, was the first to parse the new records in his 1995 book Oswald and the CIA. "What we've learned since Stone's movie is that the CIA's interest in Oswald was a lot deeper than they have ever acknowledged," Newman wrote. "As Oswald made his way toward Dallas, the reporting about him was channeled into a file controlled by an office in the counterintelligence staff called the Special Investigations Group."
The SIG, as it was known, was the operational office of James Angleton, the first chief of counterintelligence for the CIA, a legendary controversial figure whose exploits inspired the movie The Good Shepherd. Some thought him a charming and brilliant theorist; others thought him a bully and a paranoid menace. "When Oswald shows up in Mexico City," Newman explains, "his file goes over to the Western Hemisphere division which reviews it and sends out a cable to the State Department and other agencies that is -- how can I put it? -- very selective."
https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKkaramessines.htm
As John Newman, the author of Oswald and the CIA (2008) has pointed out: "the significance of the Kalaris memo is that it disclosed the existence of pre assassination knowledge of Oswald's activities in the Cuban Consulate, and that this had been put into cables in October 1963." (126)
John Newman, the author of Oswald and the CIA (2008), has argued: "In my view, whoever Oswald's direct handler or handlers were, we must now seriously consider the possibility that Angleton was probably their general manager. No one else in the Agency had the access, the authority, and the diabolically ingenious mind to manage this sophisticated plot. No one else had the means necessary to plant the WWIII virus in Oswald's files and keep it dormant for six weeks until the president's assassination. Whoever those who were ultimately responsible for the decision to kill Kennedy were, their reach extended into the national intelligence apparatus to such a degree that they could call upon a person who knew its inner secrets and workings so well that he could design a failsafe mechanism into the fabric of the plot. The only person who could ensure that a national security cover-up of an apparent counterintelligence nightmare was the head of counterintelligence." (148)
Angleton, not very good, believing everything Philby said - John Newman
(13) John Newman, Oswald and the CIA (2008)
It is now apparent that the World War III pretext for a national security cover-up was built into the fabric of the plot to assassinate President Kennedy. The plot required that Oswald be maneuvered into place in Mexico City and his activities there carefully monitored, controlled, and, if necessary, embellished and choreographed. the plot required that, prior to 22 November, Oswald's profile at CIA HQS and the Mexico station be lowered; his 201 file had to be manipulated and restricted from incoming traffic on his Cuban activities. The plot required that, when the story from Mexico City arrived at HQS, its significance would not be understood by those responsible for reacting to it. Finally, the plot required that, on 22 November, Oswald's CIA files would establish his connection to Castro and the Kremlin.
The person who designed this plot had to have access to all of the information on Oswald at CIA HQS. The person who designed this plot had to have the authority to alter how information on Oswald was kept at CIA HQS. The person who designed this plot had the authority to alter how information on Oswald was kept at CIA HQS. The person who designed this plot had to have access to project TUMBLEWEED, the sensitive joint agency operation against the KGB assassin, Valery Kosikov. The person who designed this plot had the authority to instigate a counterintelligence operation in the Cuban affairs staff (SAS) at CIA HQS. In my view, there is only one person whose hands fit into these gloves: James Jesus Angleton, Chief of CIA's Counterintelligence Staff.
Angleton and his molehunters had always held Oswald's files very close to the vest - from the time of the young Marine's defection in October 1959 and his offer to provide classified radar information to the Soviets. That offer had lit up the counterintelligence circuits in Washington, D.C. like a Christmas tree. Angleton was the only person who knew - except for perhaps one of his direct subordinates - both the Cuban and Soviet parts of Oswald's story. He was the only one in the Counterintelligence Staff with enough authority to instigate a counterintelligence operation in the SAS against the FPCC.
In my view, whoever Oswald's direct handler or handlers were, we must now seriously consider the possibility that Angleton was probably their general manager. No one else in the Agency had the access, the authority, and the diabolically ingenious mind to manage this sophisticated plot. No one else had the means necessary to plant the WWIII virus in Oswald's files and keep it dormant for six weeks until the president's assassination. Whoever those who were ultimately responsible for the decision to kill Kennedy were, their reach extended into the national intelligence apparatus to such a degree that they could call upon a person who knew its inner secrets and workings so well that he could design a failsafe mechanism into the fabric of the plot. The only person who could ensure that a national security cover-up of an apparent counterintelligence nightmare was the head of counterintelligence.
About John Newman's then important new work on JFK's intent to withdraw from Vietnam and Stone's use of it, Talbot quotes Summers thusly: "There is as much evidence that JFK was shot because of his Vietnam policy as that he was done in by a jealous mistress with a bow and arrow."(p. 24) Blakey further contravenes Stone by saying that both the CIA and FBI "loved Jack Kennedy" since many were Irish Catholics.
(2) John Newman, Oswald and the CIA (1995)
On December 11, 1963, John Scelso (John M. Whitten), chief of Western Hemisphere Branch 3, wrote an alarming memo to Richard Helms, deputy director of Plans. In bold handwriting at the top of the memo are the words "not sent." Below this is written "Questions put orally to Mr. Helms. 11 Nov. 63." In smaller handwriting under this are the words "Dec. presumably," reflecting the obvious fact that the Helms oral briefing was December 11, not November 11. Scelso wasted no time in throwing this stone into the pond: " It looks like the FBI report may even be released to the public. This would compromise our [13 spaces redacted] operations in Mexico, because the Soviets would see that the FBI had advance information on the reason for Oswald's visit to the Soviet Embassy."
How could the FBI have known Oswald's reason in advance? Next to this piece of text was a handwritten clue: "Mr. Helms phoned Mr. Angleton this warning." Perhaps "this morning" was meant, but in either case this may mean that CIA counterintelligence operations were involved.
It is intriguing that anyone in U.S. intelligence would have had advance notice of Oswald's visit to the Soviet Embassy. Evidently the FBI report that was mentioned was worded so that its readers might conclude that the FBI had been the source of information, but from Scelso's report, it is not hard to guess that it was the CIA's operations in Mexico that had yielded "advance information on the reason for Oswald's visit to the Soviet Embassy." But just what exactly does this phrase mean?
Oswald had told the Soviet Consulate in Mexico City that he corresponded with the Soviet Embassy in Washington about returning to the U.S.S.R. As previously discussed, the FBI would have learned of the contents of this correspondence. But this would not have compromised CIA operations in Mexico City. The CIA station monthly operational report for October 1963 did mention Oswald's visit to the Soviet Consulate, and did so under the subtitle "Exploitation of [7 letters redacted] Information." The same seven-letter cryptonym is redacted in the line beneath this subtitle, but the last letter is partially visible, enough to see that it is the letter Y In another CIA document from the Mexico City station the cryptonym LIENVOY has been left in the clear, and it was apparently used for the photo surveillance operation against the Soviet Embassy and Consulate." If this is true, the point of the Scelso memo above might have been this: Publication of the October 9-10 cables would show the telephone intercept had been linked to the photo surveillance, and that since the phone call came first, the cable showed the Agency had advance knowledge of the reason for Oswald's (the impostor) visit to the Soviet Consulate.
It appears that the CIA had advance knowledge about more than Oswald's October 1 visit to the Soviet Embassy. There is circumstantial evidence that the CIA Mexico City station might have been watching Oswald since his arrival on September 27. This evidence, according to the Lopez Report, was the Agency's decision to investigate the transcripts back to September 27, before they had learned of that date through post-assassination investigation:" This Committee has not been able to determine how the CIA Headquarters knew, on 23 November 1963, that a review of the [redacted] material should begin with the production from 27 September, the day Oswald first appeared at the Soviet and Cuban Embassies".
This was an incisive point. So was the direction in which the Lopez Report then headed: what headquarters knew about Oswald's visits to the Cuban Consulate.
ohn Newman, an Army intelligence analyst turned historian, was the first to parse the new records in his 1995 book Oswald and the CIA. "What we've learned since Stone's movie is that the CIA's interest in Oswald was a lot deeper than they have ever acknowledged," Newman wrote. "As Oswald made his way toward Dallas, the reporting about him was channeled into a file controlled by an office in the counterintelligence staff called the Special Investigations Group."
The SIG, as it was known, was the operational office of James Angleton, the first chief of counterintelligence for the CIA, a legendary controversial figure whose exploits inspired the movie The Good Shepherd. Some thought him a charming and brilliant theorist; others thought him a bully and a paranoid menace. "When Oswald shows up in Mexico City," Newman explains, "his file goes over to the Western Hemisphere division which reviews it and sends out a cable to the State Department and other agencies that is -- how can I put it? -- very selective."
This cable, dated October 10, 1963, is no smoking gun. But is one of the key new documents in the JFK paper trail whose significance is not appreciated by the mainstream media or the furious partisans of the JFK chat groups. The cable, not fully declassified until 2002, was sent after a CIA surveillance microphone picked up Oswald's name during his conversations with the Cubans and Russians in Mexico City. "Who was Oswald?" station chief Scott asked headquarters. "We don't know," replied Langley in the cable. The "latest HDQS info," dated May 1962, was that Oswald was returning from the Soviet Union and had matured politically. In fact, that was not the CIA's latest information, as one of Angleton's aides admitted to the Washington Post in 1995. Acknowledging that she helped draft this cable, this aide said in a tape-recorded interview: "I'm signing off on something I know isn't true." What the cable's authors deliberately omitted, among other things, was mention of a September 1963 FBI report on Oswald's encounters with the DRE in New Orleans.
The most senior official to sign off on the inaccurate cable was Tom Karamessines, trusted assistant to CIA Deputy Director Helms. If Helms was a master spy, the man who kept the secrets, Karamessines was the dependable sidekick who helped him do it. Karamessines was also the patron of his fellow Greek American, Miami field man George Joannides.
The interest of these senior officials does not necessarily imply anything more sinister than a bureaucracy's natural tendency to cover its ass. The CIA had ample reason to be monitoring Oswald in late 1963. He publicly supported the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a pro-Castro group, formally classified as a "subversive" organization by U.S. national security agencies. He attempted to travel to Cuba via Mexico, a signal of intent to violate U.S. law. Naturally, the Agency was paying attention. But for all this interest, no one thought to discuss Oswald with the Secret Service or the Dallas police. Little wonder that when the name of the suspect in the assassination was first heard at CIA headquarters in Langley, "the effect was electric," as one agency official put it, employing a phrase that was censored from public view for more than three decades.
What is clear is that Oswald was the person in whom the agency had taken considerable interest -- and whose interest it took considerable pains to cover up.
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