JMWAVE - A 2013 Perspective

This forum has attracted some really important people over the last few months.  At this moment in time there is not a single posting member who does not want to pursue the truth concerning the events of 11/22/63 and we have an environment here that allows us to continue this objective in peace.

I would like to extend a warm welcome to two researchers who I have the utmost respect for.  Their work has always challenged me to continue digging and it has never failed to interest me.  They are, without doubt, two of the most knowledgeable people who understand so much about hundreds of different characters connected to Dallas, New Orleans, Miami and the Cuban Exile groups.

James Richards and Zach Robertson.  Welcome.

Therefore I would like to start a new thread.  Over the last few years many researchers have waited with bated breath while Jefferson Morley endeavoured to get the CIA to green light the release of documents pertaining to former chief of the Psychological Warfare department of the Miami JMWAVE station and everyone's favourite HSCA liason from the CIA, George Joannides.  Those same researchers remain disappointed as the documents remain classified.

My question is this; given that it is 2013, and given that we now understand a great deal about the details of how Lee Oswald was set-up to take the fall for two crimes that he did not commit, where does the story of JMWAVE currently sit?

What is the current critical narrative concerning the involvement of JMWAVE in setting Oswald up and what do we currently believe might exist in those Joannides files that the CIA have taken great pains to keep hold of?  Are they a Red herring or do they contain explosive information?

Hi Lee,

Thank you for the very kind words, they are greatly appreciated. Zach is a wonderful researcher and has this ability to find some of the most obscure information. He and I, plus a few others have been working of late to dig into what we believe to be the heart of the Dallas operation.

Regarding JM/WAVE, I think a perspective is needed as to what it actually was and did. It grew out of the Richmond Naval Air Station and contained the Marine Corps Reserve Training Centre, The US Army Readiness Group Patrick which was located in the south west section. There was a staff training facility and the US Army Reserve at the west end. The Naval Base was located in the south east corner.

I also submit, and this may be met with a series of groans, that the CIA component at this facility officially did not have anything to do with what happened in Dallas, although several of their personnel did. I also submit that the assassination itself and the cover-up were two different things, the original plan of a Communist backed conspiracy being ditched at the last minute in favour of a sloppy put together lone nut scenario.

Regarding what the agency have in their files regarding Dallas, I don't think there is anything. This would have all been in soft files and then destroyed. I think the official documents are being withheld more for what they knew about Oswald and who he was associating with.

Thank you very much for the warm welcome, Lee.  It is most appreciated; I am very happy to be here.  James, thank you for the kind words as well; it seems like yesterday I first emailed you out of the blue.  I never imagined the journey we would take since then.

Lee, I am in agreement with James here.  The CIA did not murder the Kennedys.  In my opinion, it is much more complex than that.  To borrow a line from one of my favorite films, "There is a bureaucratic tendency to cover up mistakes, but I have no reason to think any governmental agency was in on it.  Or if they were, that they knew it.  You don't have to infiltrate the whole agency."

Regarding the documents, I'd love to see them, sure.  But like James said, there is likely nothing there.  Studying that stuff ad nauseam is pointless for the most part and just re-hashing the cover-up.  And as James said, that is a whole separate operation.  I prefer to research things that are still breathing.

Regarding the documents, I'd love to see them, sure.  But like James said, there is likely nothing there.  


Wasn't the CIA working with the Mafia on Cuba? There seems to be a split between CTers between "the CIA did it" and "the Mafia did it". However I think its like the Cubans say, one hand washes the other and both wash the face.

I wonder if what the CIA is hiding are JMWAVE documents that explicitly show Mafia ties.

Coming at the problem from the other direction, as Lamar Waldron has noted, the FBI still hasn't released the wiretap recordings it made of Carlos Marcello in the 1980s. While in federal prison, Marcello admitted killing Kennedy to an FBI informant. The FBI bugged the prison and reportedly holds 160 hours of Marcello recordings that haven't yet been released (maybe the Bureau's waiting to tie it to the release of the movie Leonardo DiCaprio is making of Waldron's book). Granted, it could just be 160 hours of Marcello snoring but it could be 159.75 hours of snoring and 15 minutes of Marcello discussing his ties to the CIA and the plot to kill Kennedy. There's no telling.
http://www.mmdnewswire.com/jfk-assassination-6330.html

I think it is well established that the agency had mafia ties, Robert Maheu, John Roselli, Santo Trafficante, David Morales, John Martino, Richard Bissell and around the mulberry bush we go.

I just can't see the mafia having a hands on involvement, they wouldn't be needed. I can see them putting money into it under the guise of anti-Castro operations and I do think Trafficante did just that.

There is Marcello's connection to David Ferrie who in turn has associations in the world of Intel and soldiers of fortune so the waters are very muddy there. Ferrie may have heard something, or played a peripheral role and maybe he reported such to Marcello.

Bottom line is that I submit the assassination conspiracy was a small one run by motivated handlers with a personal objective utilising well trained and battle proven assets. The cover-up is something else again. FWIW.

James Richards wrote:I also submit, and this may be met with a series of groans, that the CIA component at this facility officially did not have anything to do with what happened in Dallas, although several of their personnel did. I also submit that the assassination itself and the cover-up were two different things, the original plan of a Communist backed conspiracy being ditched at the last minute in favour of a sloppy put together lone nut scenario.

Hello James.

You could probably refine it even more by looking at the cover-up as separate to the frame-up.

The cover-up revolved around avoiding conspiracy and anything that might actually point to the real culprits

The frame-up revolved around pinning it all on Oswald. That part of it was exceptionally sloppy. 

I like the idea of this thread. We all know about JMWave. But when it comes down to it, most don't have much in the way of detail; the favourite hiding place of all manner of demons..

Structure, organization, mission statements, personnel, targets, budgets.... there is much that could be gleaned from such information.

Good to have you and Zach here.

Welcome James and Zach.

I also join in welcoming Mr Richards and Mr Robertson to the forum.

Lee Farley wrote:

Therefore I would like to start a new thread.  Over the last few years many researchers have waited with bated breath while Jefferson Morley endeavoured to get the CIA to green light the release of documents pertaining to former chief of the Psychological Warfare department of the Miami JMWAVE station and everyone's favourite HSCA liason from the CIA, George Joannides.  Those same researchers remain disappointed as the documents remain classified.

I have been doing some research into Angela Clemente's work. For those who are not familiar with her she has been investigating FBI mob informants for Congress for about 10 years. She has mentioned links to the JFK assassination and has gotten the gov't through FOIA requests to have to release 50,000 pages of documents though the documents have yet to be released. I will try to put together a comprehensive summary of her work as soon as I can get to it. 

Does anyone here know anything about her?

First, I wish to echo the words of welcome others have extended to both James Richards and Zach Robertson.  This forum moves from strength to strength with such members. 

A few observations:

Regarding what might still be contained in old CIA files, I cannot rule out the occasional memo that contains something of interest.  To posit otherwise is to claim that some central censor within the Agency was and is so conversant with absolutely every detail of the assassination that they could spot anything incriminating and scuttle the memo. 

We have seen, from the assassination onward, that the Agency could not account for a variety of things demonstrated in the memoranda of the day.  No Oswald photos or tapes from Mexico City, for example, when the documentary record demonstrates that the tapes did exist after 11/22/63.  CIA’s own internal records disclose no reason why Oswald’s photo wasn’t taken during the purported repeat visits to Cuban and Soviet consular buildings. 

Nor is there an innocent purpose served by the selective disclosure of true and falsified  information about the Mexico City trip to other agencies.  Had the Secret Service known of Oswald's alleged dealings with Comrade Kostikov, and that Soviet's role within KGB (only disclosed by CIA on 11/22/63, funnily enough), there can be little doubt Lee Harvey Oswald would have topped the SS protective security list in Dallas.  This reputed oversight cannot be rationalized as unintentional or an innocent omission.  The same CIA officer(s) generated two mutually exclusive sets of data about Oswald in Mexico, which is supremely incriminating in light of subsequent events. 

It’s only one of dozens such examples, just to illustrate the point.  There may be something within the documentary trail that appears innocuous to CIA, but would be interpreted differently by those who know precisely what is meant by the seemingly innocuous language.  If such papers are still tightly held by a small coterie who have access to them, it’s possible even the Agency doesn’t recognize discrepancies or false notes contained therein.

I suspect all parties here think there can be no reasonable rationale for the Agency still refusing to release the documents pertinent to George Joannides and the DRE.  Clearly, the Agency disagrees, and for it to have fought so long and hard in court - unsuccessfully - only to refuse to obey the court’s orders, can only suggest there is something there that must remain hidden from public view.  That CIA press-ganged Joannides out of retirement to act as liaison with the HSCA 35-ish years ago likewise suggests the importance placed upon keeping something a secret.  Why, if there is nothing suspicious or incriminating, go to these lengths? 

As for the Agency’s institutional complicity, I would quibble somewhat with opinions already expressed.  We may never be able to demonstrate that “the CIA killed Kennedy” to a legal certainty.  The onus is heavy and the bar is set high.  And it may not be the case, technically.

However, if even “rogue” personnel supplied human, monetary or other resources, it could be said that without the clandestine resources at CIA’s disposal, the hit may never have happened or never happened successfully.  If Agency personnel supplied false identification, untraceable sums of money, CIA-trained functionaries - even if, or particularly if they were kept “off the books” - there can be no doubt a role was played by CIA staff that otherwise would have been impossible.  If the only role played by anyone within CIA was manipulating Oswald into his role as “patsy,” it is virtually unthinkable this could be done without anyone within CIA being witting to what end this was done.

Any covert US governmental agency is well practiced at the art of deception, not just to avoid discovery by enemy counterparts, but to avoid disclosing what it wishes kept secret from the various governmental oversight committees empowered to keep watchful eyes over clandestine deeds.  Selective briefing was and likely remains standard practice, to ensure that the upper levels of CIA didn’t know facts that could inadvertently be disclosed to House or Senate inquisitors.  If upper echelon personnel were kept in the dark about purportedly “legitimate” operations, to what lengths would underlings go to ensure that illegitimate activities were likewise kept sub rosa?  

The public face of this came with Angleton’s famously cryptic quote: “A mansion has many rooms.  I’m not privy to who struck John.”  Since he was singularly placed to have access to all the keys of all the rooms in the mansion, it was a highly unsubtle deflection attempt.

I could add a dozen more grafs about Oswald’s possible CIA role in Atsugi and the Queen Bee, the learning of Russian, the defection, the attempts to infiltrate both the FPCC and the DRE simultaneously, the visits to enemy consular installations in Mexico City, et al.  Some or all of these incidents may have been Oswald’s exploitation by the Agency in legitimate operations, but the fact remains that the Agency cannot possibly feign ignorance of the man or anything he did after age 18, no matter how much it has blustered on the topic for a half century.

Hear, hear, Robert Charles. As I could not even approximate that level of eloquence, knowledge and insight, all I can do is quote from another writer I admire in support of what you say.
 
The nature of the diabolical beast that was (is?) the CIA is eloquently described and placed in historical context in the following passage from James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, Why He Died and Why It Matters. (pp.32-33):
 
To match the efficiency of a totalitarian enemy, U.S. military leaders urged legislation that would mobilize the nation to a state of constant readiness for war. Thus the National Security Act of 1947 laid the foundations of a national security state: the National Security Council (NSC), the National Security Resources Board (NSRB), the Munitions Board, the Research and Development Board, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).¹" Before the act was passed, Secretary of State George Marshall warned President Truman that it granted the new intelligence agency in particular powers that were "almost unlimited,"¹³² a criticism of the CIA that Truman would echo much too late—soon after the assassination of John Kennedy.

On June 18, 1948, Truman's National Security Council took a further step into a CIA quicksand and approved top-secret directive NSC 10/2, which sanctioned U.S. intelligence to carry out a broad range of covert oper­ations: "propaganda, economic warfare, preventive direct action including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states including assistance to underground resistance move­ments, guerrillas, and refugee liberation groups."¹³³ The CIA was now empowered to be a paramilitary organization. George Kennan, who spon­sored NSC 10/2, said later in the light of history that it was "the greatest mistake I ever made."¹³⁴

Since NSC 10/2 authorized violations of international law, it also estab­lished official lying as their indispensable cover. All such activities had to be “so planned and executed that any US government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons, and that if uncovered the US govern­ment can plausibly deny any responsibility for them."¹³' The national secu­rity doctrine of "plausible deniability" combined lying with hypocrisy. It marked the creation of a Frankenstein monster.

Plausible deniability encouraged the autonomy of the CIA and other covert-action ("intelligence") agencies from the government that created them. In order to protect the visible authorities of the government from protest and censure, the CIA was authorized not only to violate international law but to do so with as little consultation as possible. CIA autonomy went hand in glove with plausible deniability. The less explicit an order from the president, the better it was for "plausible deniability." And the less consul­tation there was, the more creative CIA authorities could become in inter­preting the mind of the president, especially the mind of a president so uncooperative that he wanted to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.

Thanks to everyone for such a warm welcome.  It is really nice to be a part of the group.

I'd like to qualify and expand a little on my earlier statement that "the CIA did not kill the Kennedys."

I really do not see how any of the chiefs - McCone, etc - could be cut in on any planning or foreknowledge of a plot against JFK.  Helms wasn't even cut in on the Bay of Pigs planning, let alone something like this.  

The CIA as an organization was not behind the plot but can be viewed as responsible for it, as certain intelligence officers from their ranks carried out the operation.

Is it possible to know who knew or didn't know what in the Wilderness of Mirrors that was (is?) the CIA?

There's an interesting 6 page document at Mary Ferrell's site titled, "1963-1964 Miami Station Action To Aid USG Investigation Of The Murder Of JFK."

So if rogue CIA agents plotted to kill Kennedy does that mean "the CIA killed Kennedy". That depends on if Dallas was a frolic or a detour, doesn't it?

OK OK, I'll unpack that w/ the help of wikipedia

Respondeat superior (Latin: "let the master answer"; plural: respondeant superiores) is a legal doctrine which states that, in many circumstances, an employer is responsible for the actions of employees performed within the course of their employment This rule is also called the "Master-Servant Rule", recognized in both common law and civil law jurisdictions. In a broader scope, respondeat superior is based upon the concept of vicarious liability.

Frolic and detour in the law of torts occur when an employee (or agent) makes a physical departure from the service of his employer (or principal). A detour occurs when an employee or agent makes a minor departure from his employer’s charge, whereas a frolic constitutes a major departure wherein the employee is acting on his own and for his own benefit, rather than a minor sidetrack in the course of obeying an order from the employer. The employer will be relieved of vicarious liability, which is usually assessed through the doctrine of respondeat superior for torts committed by the employee, only if the employee has deemed to engaged in a frolic.
-----
I say detour. Since the rogue CIA agents in JMWAVE were tasked with murder (the Law of War give military personnel who kill "combatant's immunity", alas the CIA is not a military service) its simply a detour that they killed Kennedy in Dallas instead of Castro in  Havana

Zach, James and other members,

What do you believe are the main connections between the assassination of Trujillo and the assassination of JFK?

Lee

Lee,

Ever read the Andrew St. George article on Trujillo?  It is a good one.

JR: I also submit that the assassination itself and the cover-up were two different things, the original plan of a Communist backed conspiracy being ditched at the last minute in favour of a sloppy put together lone nut scenario.


Couldn't disagree with this more.


I believe the conspiracy and the cover up were planned simultaneously i.e. Ruth Paine and Mexico City.


Second,I for one am getting a bit tired of the whole  Peter Dale Scott with orchestra wand: One, anda Two stuff.


Wouldn't the threat of nuclear war lead people not involved in the conspiracy to apply the brakes very hard?  And is it not so that we have this in writing from Hoover, namely that he was snowed under by the CIA charade with a non existent Oswald in Mexico City?  And was it not this dispute that began the falling out between CIA and FBI, and it was exasperated by the  Nosenko dispute?  Which I also think was part of the cover up.


As per Morley, I really don't know what he is up to with this.  If the DRE was spying on Oswald for Johannides, and if this was part of the set up, the idea that these files would have been kept after all these years is hard to buy.


What this does I think is show that the ARRB did not live up to its press clippings.  THat even though they had four years, there were some severe shortcomings e.g. the AIr Force One tape.

Lee Farley wrote:Zach, James and other members,

What do you believe are the main connections between the assassination of Trujillo and the assassination of JFK?

Lee

Hi Lee,

It's all speculation of course but possibly money sourced from Ramfis Trujillo and Johnnie Abbes Garcia, and a shady Canadian connection involving Trujillo's ex intelligence analyst, Robert Emmett Johnson.

Like I said, pure speculation.

Zach Robertson wrote:Lee,

Ever read the Andrew St. George article on Trujillo?  It is a good one.

Is that the "How the CIA Blewaway Trujillo" article, Zach?  If so, I've never read it and don't seem to be able to get a copy of the Internet.

Do you have a copy?

Hi Lee,

Yes that is it.  It is a classic. 

I can't post the link here for whatever reason, but you can find it in the Hood Collection using "Andrew St George" and "Trujillo" in google.

Zach,

new members can't post links for a week to discourage spammers.