49 Comments
Jul 3, 2022Liked by Andrew Van Wagner

26) What do you think about the documentary The Assassination & Mrs. Paine?

I actually met Ruth Paine in Dallas—she’s a very, very nice woman and the things that conspiracy theorists have said about her are scandalous and libelous and ridiculous.

The people behind this documentary should be ashamed of themselves.

----

Did you yourself watch this documentary? It deserves a response more substantive than "this is ridiculous." Some followup questions are warranted, for example:

How does one dismiss the fact that Ruth Paine was introduced to the Oswalds through George De Morenshildt, a far right oil man with a CIA background who became Oswalds best friend. Theres also the fact that the Paines were linked to Allen Dulles via his mistress. Then of course, there was the fact that Paine was the source of so much evidence that implicated Oswald.

Expand full comment
author
Jul 3, 2022·edited Jul 5, 2022Author

How would you respond to these points?

--why does it matter that the Paines were linked to Allen Dulles via his mistress? isn't this a situation where you can connect people if you look for connections; what is the evidence that this connection is out of the ordinary or mathematically improbable or mathematically unusual? maybe it's indeed a genuinely unusual or improbable or suspicious connection, but that has to actually be demonstrated, since there's the whole "six degrees of separation" concept

--see here a response to the documentary about Paine: http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/?m=1

--Paine wasn't the "source" of much of the evidence against Oswald; Oswald was the "source" and Oswald left a lot of evidence

Expand full comment
Jul 3, 2022Liked by Andrew Van Wagner

The connection to Dulles is yet another addition to the lengthy list of connections between Oswald and the CIA. Inherently suspicious.

We also have Ruth's sister, Baron De Morenshildt, the RCC, Oswald's time in Japan, the anti castro groups and more.

All of these could be written off a random chance, but do you believe it? It is clearly suspicious given Dulles' own activities to Nov 22 and the rest of the CIA as a whole.

-- Paine was the one who found the evidence against Oswald, some of it found after thorough searches from police and FBI. That is what is meant by "source".

Expand full comment
author

Thanks! How would you respond to these points:

--there is no CIA connection to Ruth Paine's sister

--even if Ruth Paine's sister was in fact a translator for some organization that did work for the CIA, why should anyone care and why is this important?

--what exactly was suspicious about Dulles on the 22nd? can you explain what people should be suspicious about regarding Dulles on the 22nd?

--the CIA did not fabricate any evidence.; what exact evidence did they ever fabricate?

--Jack Ruby was not a gunrunner; he brought four pistols to one of his friends

--the big question is: Why not tie all of your suspicions into a coherent narrative so that people can take a look at the narrative that you support?

Expand full comment
Jul 3, 2022·edited Jul 3, 2022Liked by Andrew Van Wagner

The CIA connection via Paine's sister, and through Dulles, and especially through George De Morenshcildt, bolsters the case that Oswald was being shepherded and guided by individuals close to and trusted by the CIA into his position to serve as the fall guy for assassination.

Remember it was Ruth Paine who got Oswald his job at the TSBD weeks before the assassination.

In the wake of the assassination, various Cuban exile organizations under the control of the CIA immediately began putting out information about Oswald painting him as a rabid communist and cuban sympathizer.

The CIA produced a false story about Oswald in Mexico City that was created weeks before (discussed elsewhere)

Jack Ruby, an alleged gunrunner (see link i included earlier for allegation) connected closely to the mafia and the Dallas PD, was also seen numerous places connected to the assassination on November 22, including at Parkland hospital.

He Killed Oswald with the (deliberately negligent) assistance of the DPD, then gave the transparently nonsense excuse of caring about Jackie Kennedy.

Ruby, after being visited by a famous CIA doctor, doctor Jolly west, subsequently lost his mind, incapacitating him.

Given the confluence of events, and given that this is how the CIA and clandestine services operate - though networks of assets, information operations and "plausible deniability" - it is reasonable to speculate that CIA played an operational role in the assassination of JFK and the subsequent framing of Oswald as a lone communist assassin.

Now a note for the author: You have been provided with conflicting claims form myself and your expert. How are you evaluating this line of discussion? Sources are readily available.

Expand full comment
author

How would you respond to the below points?

--you put forward that Jack Ruby "gave the transparently nonsense excuse of caring about Jackie Kennedy"; this is true, but what about the simple idea that Ruby killed Oswald impulsively and then sought an explanation after the fact when in fact there was no good explanation?

--incidentally, didn't Ruby also come up with other dubious explanations? this isn't necessarily relevant; just mentioning this

--see here on Ruby: https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/jfk-destiny-betrayed-misleads-on-jack-ruby

--what are you asserting here ("Ruby, after being visited by a famous CIA doctor, doctor Jolly west, subsequently lost his mind, incapacitating him.") and what's your evidence for what you're asserting?

--regarding Ruby's mental status, what do you make of the psychiatric reports about Ruby?

--regarding Ruby's mental status, what do you make of Ruby's testimony to the Warren Commission?

Expand full comment
author

Let me clarify something; why did they want Oswald dead?

I'm asking because my piece above says the following:

https://join.substack.com/p/are-conspiracy-theories-dangerous

Oswald had two days to tell his story—he had lots of time to say anything that he wanted and there were several hours of interrogation during which he could’ve said anything that he wanted.

Anybody who was truly worried about Oswald saying something would’ve had him killed before he was taken into custody.

Expand full comment
Jul 3, 2022Liked by Andrew Van Wagner

Oswald said "I'm just a patsy"

It is also possible that in the assassination scenario, Oswald was supposed to be killed in the Texas theatre.

But in any case, the death of Oswald precluded a legal trial, where a legal inquiry into the murder would cause all sorts of facts to come out.

For something approaching a theory, watch the movie JFK from Oliver Stone. Much in that movie is inaccurate but a good deal is. Worth watching for anyone unfamiliar with the case

Expand full comment
Jul 3, 2022Liked by Andrew Van Wagner

13) To what extent was the CIA monitoring Oswald?

The CIA had a file on him—he was a person of extreme interest.

The CIA was—after he defected—monitoring his mail and intercepting his mail.

The CIA monitoring of Oswald is one of the more important parts of the case and its surprising that Litwin glossed over it. In the months before the Assassasination, there are several things that raise concern.

The CIA Fabricated Evidence of Oswald in Mexico City to show a Soviet/Communist connection

- The WC alleged Oswald went to the Cuban and Soviet Embassies in Mexico City on September 27 and 28. During that time, Oswald made a big fuss, brandishing his Communist bonafides and yelling at Embassy staff.

- The CIA at the time had extensively bugged and photographed all of the entrances and exits to the cuban embassy, yet were never able to provide any images of Oswald to the Warren Commission.

- The CIA did send a photo and recording to the FBI, though both were clearly not Oswald. When the were caled out on this, they claimed they had destroyed all the evidence (though this wasn’t true)

- FBI Director Hoover called LBJ a few days after the assassination to tell him that in fact, the FBI concluded that the person on the tape was not Oswald.

“We have up here the tape and the photograph of the man who was at the Soviet embassy, using Oswald's name. That picture and the tape do not correspond to this man's voice, nor to his appearance. In other words, it appears that there is a second person who was at the Soviet embassy down there.”

- Hoover later wrote a memo where he complained about the CIA’s “double dealing” citing the “false story re Oswald in Mexico” further indicating that he knew of the CIA’s role in fabricating evidence.

Based on this, it is likely that the CIA fabricated evidence of OSwald’s communist connections in order to create “Phase 1” stories that framed Oswald as communist associated with Cuba and/or the soviet Union. These were used to get Earl Warren on board with the Warren Commission. LBJ’s taped conversation with Richard Russel is instructive:

“He came down here and told me no-twice. And I just pulled out what Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico City and 1 said, ‘Now 1 don't want Mr. Khrushchev to be told tomorrow-and be testifying before a camera that he killed this fellow and that Castro killed him and all I want you to do is look at the facts and bring in any other facts you want in here and determine who killed the President…. And we've got to take this out of the arena where they're testifying that Khrushchev and Castro did this and did that and kicking us into a war that can kill forty million Americans in an hour”

Expand full comment
author

Thanks for commenting! What do you make of the below points?

--what is the point of noting that the CIA was monitoring Oswald's mail after he defected? how would you respond to a "So what?" regarding this factual observation?

--what exactly is suspicious about the Mexico City thing? no evidence was faked to show that he went to Mexico City, the Soviet KGB men who met with Oswald wrote a book about Oswald's visit, and it makes sense that the camera wasn't working when he visited because it was 1963 and not 2022

--didn't Hoover often make mistakes in his memos?

--wasn't Oswald a Communist from age 15 and didn't Oswald have a whole life history of being a Communist?

Expand full comment
Jul 3, 2022Liked by Andrew Van Wagner

And the cameras weren't just "broken" on one occasion. Oswald allegedly made 5 trips to both the embassies, both of which were under heavy surveillance with multiple cameras. It is highly unlikely that all of the cameras would have been broken so that they had no actual evidence of Oswald at the embassies.

Its wild that the CIA would have missed 10 opportunities to photograph Oswald.

Combine this with the fact that the CIA DID send a picture of a man who is not oswald to the FBI as evidence that Oswald had been there.

Expand full comment
author
Jul 3, 2022·edited Jul 4, 2022Author

How would you respond to the below points?

--why didn't the CIA (with all of its abilities and resources and power) just fake one picture of Oswald at the embassies? surely they could've done that and nobody would've known, right?

--regarding the camera being broken, Oswald wasn't there five times in six months but was instead there five times within a few days

--see here: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=800#relPageId=255

--the HSCA concluded:

"The overwhelming weight of the evidence indicated to the committee that the initial conclusion of Agency employees that the individual in the photograph was Oswald was the result of a careless mistake. It was not, the committee believed, because the individual was posing as Oswald. In fact, the committee established that the photograph was not even obtained at a time when Oswald was reported to have visited the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City."

Expand full comment
Jul 3, 2022Liked by Andrew Van Wagner

It is possible that things could have happened differently. Impossible to speculate on why things happened.

-- No one said Oswald was there over 6 months. Not sure of the relevance.

-- It is possible that this was a simple error, but that is belied by the fact that even a caller who was not our Oswald made an incriminating call while identifying himself as "Lee Oswald"

And there is reason to take the conclusions of the HSCA with a grain of salt given that so many participants felt that it was something of a whitewash due in no part to the CIA. Chief Council Blakey even expressed his anger when he learned that the CIA's liason to the HSCA had an operational role close to the events of 63 - (Joanides worked with Cuban exiles). Investigators Dan Hardawa and Gaeton Fonzi have written books about the HSCA that demonstrate that it was not as thorough an investigation as thought. See especially (Fonzi, Gaeton. The Last Investigation)

Expand full comment
author
Jul 3, 2022·edited Jul 3, 2022Author

Regarding the "over 6 months" thing that you mention, the relevance is that the camera may indeed have simply been broken during the short duration that would include all of the times Oswald was there; there's nothing fishy because it's not like the visits were spread out in time and the camera failed to work during visits that were spaced out in time.

Expand full comment
Jul 3, 2022Liked by Andrew Van Wagner

I was quoting your interview. But it is relevant inso far as there was an intense operational interest in Oswald, and this was hidden in the Warren Commission. You never actually responded to the facts.

I told you what was suspicious about Mexico city.. see above comment. Hoover admitted that someone claiming to be Oswald - but was not oswald - was photographed and taped outside of the embassy. Why would someone be using Oswalds name falsely before the assassination in a scenario that would be highly indicative of communist contact?

Expand full comment
author

How would you respond to the two points below?

--they did not have an operational interest in Oswald

--the person who was photographed did not claim to be Oswald

Expand full comment
Jul 3, 2022Liked by Andrew Van Wagner

He was a person of extreme interest.

And the CIA claimed that the person was Oswald.

Expand full comment
author

Apparently these things are both accurate; what point(s) are you trying to draw from these facts?

Expand full comment

See above comments.

Why was the CIA fabricating evidence of Oswald doing activities that implicate him as potentially in close contact with communists right before the assassination?

Expand full comment
Jul 1, 2022·edited Jul 1, 2022Liked by Andrew Van Wagner

I saw this on r/conspiracy but could not comment because it got taken down. A lot of the claims Fred Litwin makes have been debunked by other researchers. Here’s a 25 page report that contradicts a lot of what Litwin says:

https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/Unspeakable/COPA2009.html#s2f

For example, your author claims JFK had great relations with Dulles. That is false. From the article:

He fired CIA Director Allen Dulles, Deputy Director Richard Bissell, Jr., and Deputy Director General Charles Cabell. That was a huge decision firing the top of the CIA’s hierarchy, including the legendary leader who had come to personify the agency, Allen Dulles.

The president then took steps “to cut the CIA budget in 1962 and again in 1963, aiming at a 20 per cent reduction by 1966.”[22] John Kennedy was cutting back the CIA’s power in very concrete ways, step by step.[23]

Expand full comment
author

Thanks for commenting! Is there a particular claim that you want to highlight that's particularly strong in your assessment?

Expand full comment
Jul 1, 2022·edited Jul 1, 2022Liked by Andrew Van Wagner

The quote I sent above is a great place to start. Also Litwin and Chomsky’s views on the CIA are naïve. Chomsky should know better since he’s usually extremely good at calling out US atrocities and CIA malfeasances. If you click on the link, you can see several pieces of evidence that Presidents had become increasingly worried of the CIA’s rogue nature. Harry Truman who founded the CIA was most concerned.

I love conspiracies and am doubtful that LHO acted alone.

Expand full comment
author

Thanks! I'll look into this! But to be clear, lots of people hated JFK for lots of reasons; Litwin says in my interview above that being angry at someone doesn't mean that you're necessarily likely to kill them...there are multiple reasons why you might not resort to assassination.

Expand full comment
Jul 1, 2022·edited Jul 1, 2022

I understand. The article lays out a ton of evidence though as to how much JFK was doing to undermine the CIA and the military industrial complex. Some of which is answered in this article, some not. The general consensus is that he was a warmonger at first but had a change of heart so they needed to stop him.

I have no idea what actually happened. I am just skeptical.

Expand full comment
author

I'll let you know what I find; to reiterate, though, a particular interest group hating JFK doesn't serve to establish that Oswald didn't act alone.

Expand full comment
Jul 3, 2022Liked by Andrew Van Wagner

It establishes that a group of people who have a history of engaging in murderous activities had beef with JFK.

This is significant in understanding the case.

Expand full comment
Jun 30, 2022Liked by Andrew Van Wagner

Did he mention what happened in the Jack Ruby trial? Might have missed it. https://crimereads.com/kennedy-assassination-theories-jack-ruby/

Expand full comment
author

Thanks for commenting! No; we didn't discuss that. Did you find anything about the trial particularly interesting?

Expand full comment
Jun 30, 2022·edited Jun 30, 2022Liked by Andrew Van Wagner

You covered most of the bases so hats off for the due diligence there. I did find this excerpt from the book on his trial to be interesting:

Hoover mentioned a specific threat to Oswald’s life: “Last night we received a call in our Dallas office from a man talking in a calm voice and saying he was a member of a committee organized to kill Oswald,” Hoover wrote. “We at once notified the chief of police and he assured us Oswald would be given sufficient protection. This morning we called the chief of police again warning of the possibility of some effort against Oswald and again he assured us adequate protection would be given. However, this was not done… Oswald having been killed today after our warnings to the Dallas Police Department was inexcusable.”

Expand full comment
author

A couple assertions were brought to my attention and I'm just making a fresh comment here in order to organize these assertions.

First, pages 71 to 84 in this book (https://b-ok.cc/book/905584/986f6b) are supposed to contain important evidence about "Oswald's framing by the CIA".

Second, the 11th chapter in this book (https://b-ok.cc/book/11833424/593453) is supposed to contain important evidence about "Oswald's connections to De Morenschildt and Ruth Paine".

I'll respond to these assertions later on.

Expand full comment
author
Jul 5, 2022·edited Jul 5, 2022Author

Just replying to these assertions.

There's an assertion that a "October 9 cable" provides evidence that the person who "made the October 1 phone call was an imposter" because the person on that phone call spoke broken Russian whereas Oswald spoke fluent Russian.

The response to this would be as follows:

--how could the CIA be so inept that they decided to impersonate Oswald and yet they couldn't find a Russian speaker?

--isn't linguist fluency on a scale, so that Oswald even at his best in the USSR probably would've had some difficulty with local idioms and so on? remember: Russian wasn't his first language

--wouldn't Oswald's Russian skills have started to lapse after Oswald returned to the US just like happens whenever anybody stops speaking a language?

--it's true that Oswald spoke Russian with Marina, but that wasn't business or official Russian, was it?

--would it be normal and expected for him to lose some of his proficiency regarding business or official Russian?

Then there's this part: "What one is confronted with in the October 9 cable is an apparently damning connection between Oswald and a KGB assassination expert, but a connection made by a man impersonating Oswald. It is the beginning of a two-tracks Mexico City story. On one track is the CIA's attempt to document Oswald's complicity with the Soviet Union and Cuba in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. On the other track is the recurring evidence within the same documents of a fraudulent Oswald at work."

The responses would be:

--how would the CIA be so inept that nobody bought Oswald's complicity with the USSR or Cuba?

--isn't it true that NSA traffic showed no evidence of a conspiracy involving the USSR or Cuba?

--regarding a "fraudulent" Oswald, is this the Oswald who was a Communist at 15 and had Communist views all his life?

Then there's the following: "Thus, in the CIA's interpretation of events, documented by fraudulent phone calls, the Cuban authorities and Soviet assassin Kostikov were working together in their control of Oswald's address and movements, two months before Kennedy's assassination. As researcher John Newman said in a presentation on these documents, 'It looks like the Cubans and the Russians are working in tandem. It looks like [Oswald] is going to meet with Kostikov at a place designated by the Cubans...Oswald expected to be at some location fixed by the Cuban Embassy and wanted the Russians to be able to reach him there.'" And the following: "In addition, Oswald (or an impostor) was applying for Cuban and Soviet visas, which could be used as evidence of his attempting to gain asylum in Communist countries. The Mexico City scenario had laid the foundation for blaming the president's upcoming murder on Cuba and the U.S.S.R., thereby providing the rationale in its aftermath for an invasion of Cuba and a possible nuclear attack on Russia."

The responses would be:

--Kostikov also had to do regular consular duty at the embassy; he wasn't meeting Oswald in his capacity as an assassination expert and you have to understand that KGB "diplomats" also had embassy work

--it's not clear what the allegation is; what is the allegation?

--the CIA plan to blame the assassination on Cuba and the USSR failed horribly; it didn't work at all and didn't come close at all and nobody was fooled and nobody blamed the USSR or Cuba

Expand full comment
author

One person was curious about Jack Ruby's purported mob ties and I found this about this topic: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=800#relPageId=179&search=Ruby.

Expand full comment
Jul 3, 2022Liked by Andrew Van Wagner

How does one maintain that Ruby had no mob ties, but this document clearly says Ruby "had a significant number of associations and direct and indirect contacts with underworld figures."

It is pretty incoherent to say that "Jack Ruby had no mob ties" but "Ruby new people in the mob"

Expand full comment
author
Jul 3, 2022·edited Jul 3, 2022Author

I got this comment from someone on this point:

--when they were growing up their best friend (who lived next door) had an uncle who was pretty high up in the Mafia

--they knew him quite well

--so they knew someone who was pretty high up in the Mafia, but that doesn't mean that they had "mob ties" and the police wouldn't consider them to have been part of the mob or to have had "mob connections"

Expand full comment

Read again: Ruby "had a significant number of associations and direct and indirect contacts with underworld figures."

Another way to say this is that he had ties to the mob.

Expand full comment
author
Jul 3, 2022·edited Jul 3, 2022Author

What's the evidence that Ruby actually had any mob business with any of these members of the mob who Ruby knew?

The semantical issue is whether having direct contact with mob members constitutes having "mob ties".

Expand full comment
Jul 3, 2022Liked by Andrew Van Wagner

There is good reason to suspect that Ruby was a gun runner to Cuba, and theres a historically close link between the CIA and the mob.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/gunrunner-ruby-and-the-cia

Its fair to say mob ties if someone is close with a bunch of people with the mob. It would be astounding if his work as a nightclub owner had nothing to do with his ties to the mob and his gunrunning activities.

Expand full comment

6) Is it suspicious that Howard Brennan was somehow able to identify Oswald from so far away?

Brennan had exceptional eyesight.

I have several friends who sat where Brennan was sitting and had no problem picking out people who were in the window who then exited the building.

------------

This is quite mad if you have read anything about Brennan.

- Brennan says that the person he saw was wearing "light color clothes". (All witnesses describing a shooter described light clothes)

- Oswald was wearing a "burgundy plaid" shirt upon his arrest.

Plus

It is impossible to pick someones height when they are only seen from the waist up, 6 stories up. Yet people accept this is what Brennan did.

Plus

Brennan gave his description to Forres Sorrels, who arrived a the scene at 1pm but the police broadcast that implicated Oswald was given at 12:44pm. Brennan's description could not have implicated Oswald.

Expand full comment

"Are Conspiracy Theories Dangerous?" : Yes, dangerous to the undemocratic USA's Deep State.

Expand full comment

"Are Conspiracy Theories Dangerous?". So yes!

Yes they are ; to the Deep undemocratic State .

Expand full comment
Aug 24, 2022·edited Aug 24, 2022

I never cared much about this event until this interview. It intrigued me, so I decided to research it more and go down this rabbit hole. I came across this documentary that lays out what happened to JFK in extreme detail. You can take it or leave it. Watching the whole thing is necessary to understand the situation. It is not something to gloss over. It really opened my eyes. https://youtu.be/4oVpt_I9iQQ

Expand full comment