I'm pretty sure the memos were written on a 1958-vintage typewriter.
Posted on 04/27/2005 10:24:04 PM PDT by churchillbuff
Did Oswald train at Camp Peary?
By Paul Aron The Virginia Gazette
A purported CIA memo circulating on the Internet says flatly that Lee Harvey Oswald was trained at Camp Peary in 1958, five years before he assassinated President Kennedy. The document is probably fake.
“This is one of those cases where if it seems too good to be true, it probably is,” said assassination expert Jim Marrs in an e-mail to the Gazette. Marrs is the author of the 1990 book, “Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy.”
The document, dated March 3, 1964, purports to be written by CIA director John McCone to Secret Service Chief James Rowley.
“I have no way at this point in time of determining if this document is authentic or not,” Marrs said. “As always, there is considerable controversy even among the experts.”
He added, “The significance of this document, if proven authentic, cannot be underestimated. The implication, namely that Lee Harvey Oswald was being used operationally by the CIA prior to the assassination of President Kennedy, is staggering. This means the assassination was not only a conspiracy, but a coup d'etat in this nation in 1963.”
According to the document, “Oswald subject was trained by this agency, under cover of the Office of Naval Intelligence, for Soviet assignments.” In 1957, Oswald allegedly was “active in aerial reconnaissance of mainland China and maintained a security clearance up to the ‘confidential' level.”
The document goes on to say: “Subject received additional indoctrination at our own Camp Peary site from September 8 to October 17, 1958.”
The mention of Camp Peary prompted a reader to e-mail a copy of the document to the Gazette. While it looks official and has the keystrokes of a 1960s-era typewriter, the image is impossible to authenticate without the original.
Most historians have placed Oswald en route to Taiwan with his Marine unit in September 1958, in which case he couldn't have been here then.
A CIA spokesman at Langley headquarters outside Washington would not comment on the document, other than to suggest a reporter “steer away from it.”
The CIA has always maintained it had no relationship with Oswald. Testifying before the Warren Commission in 1964, McCone stated, “Oswald was not an agent, employee or informant of the Central Intelligence Agency. The agency never contacted him, interviewed him, talked with him, or solicited any reports or information from him, or communicated with him indirectly or in any other manner.”
The Warren Commission's report, released 10 months after Kennedy's death, offered a clear and simple answer to the question of who killed the president: Oswald did it, alone.
Though the document is probably a fake, a number of researchers have previously suggested links between Oswald and the CIA.
Among the early critics of the Warren Report was Jim Garrison, the New Orleans district attorney. He undertook his own investigation in 1966. Garrison was convinced that Oswald was connected with two New Orleans figures, David Ferrie and Clay Shaw. According to Garrison, all three worked for the CIA, which was behind the plot to kill Kennedy.
Garrison's theory proved unfounded, despite generating new attention in Oliver Stone's 1991 movie, “JFK.”
John Newman's 1995 book, “Oswald and the CIA,” concluded he was not an agent, but that the “agency appears to have had a serious operational interest in Oswald and there probably was a relationship, though not that of an ‘agent' or ‘informant.'”
Newman argued that, “while Oswald wasn't James Bond, it is increasingly apparent that the agency's operational interest may have led to his use or manipulation.”
One claim that Oswald was indeed an agent came from James Wilcott, a CIA finance officer. In 1978, Wilcott told the House Select Committee on Assassinations that “Oswald was a CIA agent who had received financial disbursements under an assigned cryptonym.”
Wilcott cited informal conversations with co-workers. The House Committee concluded that his “allegation was not worthy of belief.”
Marrs' e-mail cites numerous ties between the CIA and Oswald. “Even if the document proves unauthentic,” Marrs wrote, “it is nevertheless true.”
Many historians have embraced Gerald Posner's 1993 book, “Case Closed.” Posner refuted much of the evidence conspiracy theorists had gathered over the previous 30 years.
More than any technical evidence, what has undermined many conspiracy theories are flaws in the logic.
The case against the CIA has generally been that the agency had proven itself willing to assassinate, having tried to kill Castro during the early 1960s. The motive for killing Kennedy might have been a fear that the president, embarrassed by the CIA's bungling of the invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, might try to interfere with the other CIA operations and curtail the agency's independence.
Oswald was in a position to act as a spy, since he spent two years in Russia, after having been twice court-martialed by the Marines. A number of historians have proposed he may have been recruited by the CIA while he was a Marine stationed in Japan.
One problem with the theory that the CIA killed Kennedy is that Oswald appeared to be a committed Marxist. Another has to do with the agency's motive.
It was Kennedy who approved the CIA's plan to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. He also brought the world to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis, and it was he who escalated U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
So, JFK was hardly a president likely to close down the Cold War or the CIA.
Even if the CIA didn't conspire with Oswald, there remains the possibility of a conspiracy between Oswald and unknown disaffected amateurs, some of whom may have had connections with the CIA, anti-Castro Cubans, or the mafia.
Against the illogic of most conspiracy theories is the logic, albeit twisted, of Oswald's own mind. Norman Mailer's 1995 book, “Oswald's Tale,” portrayed a man clearly capable of shooting the president by himself.
Well ain't this special.....
I'm pretty sure the memos were written on a 1958-vintage typewriter.
Holy Grassy Knoll Batman!
L
"Grassy Knoll Alert"!!!!
I've walked that place, grassy knoll and all....tried to think of all the possibilities. What if's etc etc......dunno. Never heard the farm story though....this is different......:o)
Did the document come from a Kinko's in Abilene, Texas?
I love the logic of "even if it's fake, it must be true". Where have we heard that one recently?
I contend there were two conspiracies - one to kill JFK which was most likely a mob hit, culminated by Ruby's sllencing of the most important witness at point blank range, and the other by the government after the fact to push it all on Oswald as a Castro/Soviet sympathising "lone nut" because they knew the public wouldn't accept the truth that the CIA enlisted the mob to kill Castro and that Oswald had ties before the assassination with known intelligence informants and operatives.
The government stonewalled the truth because it allowed them to claim they "got their man" without others prying into the larger intelligence quagmire but I don't think the government actually planned and executed the assassination because they wouldn't have let anyone as unstable as Oswald get near Dealey Plaza if they had.
"According to the document, “Oswald subject was trained by this agency, under cover of the Office of Naval Intelligence, for Soviet assignments.” In 1957, Oswald allegedly was “active in aerial reconnaissance of mainland China and maintained a security clearance up to the ‘confidential' level.”
That set my bogosometer to jangling.
It's inconceivable that the CIA or the ONI would train anybody for operational work without at least a Top Secret clearance, just for openers.
And...maybe my memory is faulty, but wasn't that "United States Government" on the letterhead centered on genuine stationery?
Mary Mapes will be glad to hear this.
I know I'll piss off a lot of conspiracy folks, but I think that Oswald acted alone. After all, he was trained as a marksman by the USMC and there is such a thing as the 'lucky shot'.
Couple that with the fact that high velocity projectiles do some pretty strange things once they strike something, especially something as complex as a human body and a vintage 1960 car seat.
Is it possible that Oswald was part of a larger plot? Yea, maybe. But I must apply Occams Razor to this problem and that tells me that Oswald was a lone nutbag who was in the right place at the right time.
Just my opinion, your mileage may vary...
Take care my friend.
L
At least this article does its readers a favor further down (I know, I didn't take my own advice) by mentioning Gerald Posner's "Case Closed". I would strongly urge anyone who still believes in the conspiracy bullcrap to do themselves a favor, and put a dent in Jim Marrs' livelihood, by reading that book.
-Dan
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem........
Stay safe !!
Who's Norman Mailer?
I don't know about all that with the memo and what not. The one thing that's been a question in my mind since the Nov election was something I heard on the radio.
I can't remember which station I was listening to but they had an ex FBI agent talking about john kerry. And the one thing that stuck in my mind about what he said was that Oswald had stayed at kerry's cousins house for, I can't remember, maybe a week or two just before oswald went out to Dallas and killed President Kennedy. But anyway he said that john kerry had been going over to his cousins and hanging out while oswald was there.
Anyway, that all seemed strange to me.
You're a heartless SOB....(It's one of the things I like about you BTW.)
Good Night my friend.
L
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