Cont: JFK Conspiracy Theories VIII

[Axxman300]

You know 60 years later I wonder if the negatives have degraded losing clarity during this time.

Hard to say, since nobody has access to them. I assume they're kept in a safe.

The past few years I've been going through old photo albums to scan into the computer, and upload to social media for extended family. I've found that most negatives, if stored with care, tend to weather the passing of time fairly well. 35mm film negatives tend to be hardy.

The question should be: did RFK destroy them?

He removed his brother's brain from the National Archives to reinter it with his body when they moved it to it's final resting place under the eternal flame. RFK and Jackie were upset that photographs were even taken at the autopsy in the first place - something that was not standard in 1963. Dr. Humes was the one who ordered the photographer to be there, not anyone else. He wanted pictures so he could refer back to them when writing up the autopsy report due to the fact that he was under pressure from the Kennedy family (i.e. Jackie) to get the procedure done ASAP so the body could be buried within 3 days, per Catholic tradition.

The photographs in public circulation are mostly low-resolution B&W photos, and almost none of the high resolution color photos have been seen by the public.

 

[LondonJohn]

You can't win with people like that.

Kennedy expanded the CIA well beyond its charter, he designated a permanent special operations unit for both the US Army, and US Navy (Green Berets, SEALs), and waged an all-out covert war on Cuba. That's all historical fact.

He did. But then again he more-or-less hung the CIA out to dry over the Bay of Pigs fiasco - so it's eminently possible that there were people in Langley who bore some level of grudge against him.

All of that is entirely moot though, of course, since it's preposterous on its face that the CIA had any sort of involvement in the Dallas assassination. Everyone now knows exactly how Kennedy got shot, and who did the shooting. And there's not even the merest evidential hint that Oswald was acting on orders from the CIA (or the FBI, or the Mafia, or.......).

 

[Axxman300]

The Bay of Pigs was dumped in JFK's lap, and he had every right to be angry at CIA because they over-sold the operation, and made claims about local support that were never true. This is why RFK was put in charge of Mongoose, and JMWAVE oversight so JFK would have someone he trusted to brief him, and not write blank checks for every black-op that came along (although by 1962 that's what the Kennedy NSC was doing worldwide).

Dulles knew someone had to fall on their sword, and he knew that by taking the fall he would preserve the promising careers of others, and he continued on as a consultant to both CIA, and the Kennedy brothers after his public firing.

The 1960 election was close, had Nixon challenged it would have won, and that narrow left-right split was represented at CIA, and the FBI. But JFK was a man of his times, and a WWII combat veteran. He saw Eisenhower's national defense strategy of nuclear force as the sole deterrent as dangerous (which it was) as it eliminated a lot of options . JFK's answer to Nuclear Response was Flexible Response which was built on an expanded conventional military which would be technically superior to the Soviets and their satellite proxies. He also saw the things that the KGB and MI6 had done during WWII, and in the immediate post-war vacuum, and felt the CIA should get into the game of counter-propaganda, and more exotic black-ops.

Obviously the problem with a large military is that the wrong President might ne inclined to use it to solve, let's say a Domino problem that could be better handled through sanctions and diplomacy.

Anyway, the idea that the CIA killed JFK is laughable for a laundry list of reasons. And the idea that Oswald had a direct operational relationship with the CIA, or KGB is a laugh-riot. I remain open to the possibility that there was some kind of relationship with Cuban operatives, but there are ZERO facts to support this, only a couple of week-long blank-spots in his timeline after returning from Mexico City. None of his known actions suggest he was part of a cell, and he was dumb enough to buy a rifle that used proprietary ammunition instead of common caliber used in 90% of hunting rifles in Texas in 1963.

 

[bknight]

Hard to say, since nobody has access to them. I assume they're kept in a safe.

The past few years I've been going through old photo albums to scan into the computer, and upload to social media for extended family. I've found that most negatives, if stored with care, tend to weather the passing of time fairly well. 35mm film negatives tend to be hardy.

The question should be: did RFK destroy them?

He removed his brother's brain from the National Archives to reinter it with his body when they moved it to it's final resting place under the eternal flame. RFK and Jackie were upset that photographs were even taken at the autopsy in the first place - something that was not standard in 1963. Dr. Humes was the one who ordered the photographer to be there, not anyone else. He wanted pictures so he could refer back to them when writing up the autopsy report due to the fact that he was under pressure from the Kennedy family (i.e. Jackie) to get the procedure done ASAP so the body could be buried within 3 days, per Catholic tradition.

The photographs in public circulation are mostly low-resolution B&W photos, and almost none of the high resolution color photos have been seen by the public.

Never having a 35mm I am at a disadvantage. I guess I was referring to the degradation of movie film in storage.

 

[Axxman300]

Never having a 35mm I am at a disadvantage. I guess I was referring to the degradation of movie film in storage.

They've done preservation work on the original home movie stock over the years. Seems like with every twenty years the footage is re-scanned, and updated with the latest imaging technology.

 

[bknight]

They've done preservation work on the original home movie stock over the years. Seems like with every twenty years the footage is re-scanned, and updated with the latest imaging technology.

Classify me as a dinosaur.

 

[LondonJohn]

The Bay of Pigs was dumped in JFK's lap, and he had every right to be angry at CIA because they over-sold the operation, and made claims about local support that were never true. This is why RFK was put in charge of Mongoose, and JMWAVE oversight so JFK would have someone he trusted to brief him, and not write blank checks for every black-op that came along (although by 1962 that's what the Kennedy NSC was doing worldwide).

Dulles knew someone had to fall on their sword, and he knew that by taking the fall he would preserve the promising careers of others, and he continued on as a consultant to both CIA, and the Kennedy brothers after his public firing.

The 1960 election was close, had Nixon challenged it would have won, and that narrow left-right split was represented at CIA, and the FBI. But JFK was a man of his times, and a WWII combat veteran. He saw Eisenhower's national defense strategy of nuclear force as the sole deterrent as dangerous (which it was) as it eliminated a lot of options . JFK's answer to Nuclear Response was Flexible Response which was built on an expanded conventional military which would be technically superior to the Soviets and their satellite proxies. He also saw the things that the KGB and MI6 had done during WWII, and in the immediate post-war vacuum, and felt the CIA should get into the game of counter-propaganda, and more exotic black-ops.

Obviously the problem with a large military is that the wrong President might ne inclined to use it to solve, let's say a Domino problem that could be better handled through sanctions and diplomacy.

I entirely agree with all of this. The only (narrow) point I was making is that at the very least, it's feasible that there may have been some people over at the CIA in 1963 who had reason to be less than happy with JFK. Plus, as you point out, there's always the overarching political divide - and I'd imagine that quite a few people at CIA were conservative-leaning.

But that's only to say that there wasn't a total love-fest between JFK and CIA. Nor, of course, did there need to be. And nor, of course, does this in itself provide any sort of rational motive for a cabal within CIA to plot and execute the assassination......

Anyway, the idea that the CIA killed JFK is laughable for a laundry list of reasons. And the idea that Oswald had a direct operational relationship with the CIA, or KGB is a laugh-riot. I remain open to the possibility that there was some kind of relationship with Cuban operatives, but there are ZERO facts to support this, only a couple of week-long blank-spots in his timeline after returning from Mexico City. None of his known actions suggest he was part of a cell, and he was dumb enough to buy a rifle that used proprietary ammunition instead of common caliber used in 90% of hunting rifles in Texas in 1963.

Again, I entirely agree (and I hope I made that very clear in my previous post). As you say: not only is there zero credible/reliable evidence that Oswald had operational contact with anyone at CIA (or, for that matter, anyone in the FBI outside his case manager, or anyone in the American Mafia, or anyone connected to USSR intelligence/military).... there's also ample evidence that Oswald acted entirely alone, as a lone nut, with poor planning and sheer luck when it came to the execution and (initially, at least) the getaway.

Incidentally, I've thought in the past about what might have happened had Tippett not spotted and stopped Oswald, and had Oswald made it down onto West Jefferson Boulevard (where he would have been far more difficult to spot, even though squad cars had a rough description of him). A reasonable theory - and one to which I tentatively subscribe - is that Oswald's plan was to take a public bus to Mexico City. If that had happened, would Texas and/or US Border Forces have sealed the border in time? Might Oswald have been able to make it to Mexico City, where - even if he'd been rebuffed again by the Soviet Consulate - he might have been able to blend into the dense urban chaos of that large city? Would the Warren Commission still have been able to conclude that a lone gunman - presumed to be Oswald - had committed the crime (I suspect so)? And how would the collective American psyche have been able to deal with the possibility that JFK's presumed killer had simply disappeared?

 

[LondonJohn]

They've done preservation work on the original home movie stock over the years. Seems like with every twenty years the footage is re-scanned, and updated with the latest imaging technology.

Yes. Re the Zapruder film, I believe that the "mother copy" is a copy that was found in the records of the US Library of Congress (the true original degraded significantly when it was stored at Life Magazine).

And, again IIRC, as of 2021 we have effectively the best digital version of that mother copy that is ever likely to exist. The film stock was digitally imaged through a wet gate (which fills in most of the physical surface damage on the film stock), then it was stabilised frame-by-frame, and colour- and contrast-corrected. Then AI software was used to sharpen the images (though a version preserving the original grainy image is also available). And of course this process has also allowed the side section of the image between the film sprockets to be captured.

And since the scanning resolution used in the latest digitisation is (again, IIRC) something like 5-6 times the native resolution of the 35mm film stock, it will never be possible to obtain a more accurate/faithful digital version than the current one. The only advances will come through improved AI to sharpen things further (the current AI version shows a clear improvement in clarity and resolution versus the original: 313-316, for example, show the head impact, the exit release of blood/bone/tissue, and the reaction of Connally, much more vividly).

 

[Axxman300]

I entirely agree with all of this. The only (narrow) point I was making is that at the very least, it's feasible that there may have been some people over at the CIA in 1963 who had reason to be less than happy with JFK. Plus, as you point out, there's always the overarching political divide - and I'd imagine that quite a few people at CIA were conservative-leaning.

But that's only to say that there wasn't a total love-fest between JFK and CIA. Nor, of course, did there need to be. And nor, of course, does this in itself provide any sort of rational motive for a cabal within CIA to plot and execute the assassination......

There were definitely anti-Kennedy folks at CIA. It's just like any other Government agency in that you have a cross-section of the population working there. And while they can be passionate about their politics, most can focus on their jobs since administrations come and go, but the work is the work.

As for Oswald's possible escape, it would have been very interesting had he made it into Mexico.

I'll have to dig up a file I found at the National Archives website that was as close as anyone has come to a smoking gun. I linked to it in a previous thread. It detailed the movements of a young Cuban man who was Oswald's age, and height, who was a member of the Miami branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. He has become disenchanted with America, and decided to return to Cuba. He was in San Antonio on the day JFK was also in that city, the day before the assassination. There is mention of a photograph of the man, and apparently someone at the FBI thought he was Oswald, which means he resembled him. This man drive into Mexico the day after the assassination in a car the report says was not his, nor was it reported stolen, and drove to Mexico City were he was granted an immediate travel visa back to Cuba, and then was the only passenger on the commercial airliner that flew him home.

The stamps and initials on the document suggest that a lot of people have looked at it over the years.

 

[Allen773]

There were definitely anti-Kennedy folks at CIA. It's just like any other Government agency in that you have a cross-section of the population working there. And while they can be passionate about their politics, most can focus on their jobs since administrations come and go, but the work is the work.

As for Oswald's possible escape, it would have been very interesting had he made it into Mexico.

I'll have to dig up a file I found at the National Archives website that was as close as anyone has come to a smoking gun. I linked to it in a previous thread. It detailed the movements of a young Cuban man who was Oswald's age, and height, who was a member of the Miami branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. He has become disenchanted with America, and decided to return to Cuba. He was in San Antonio on the day JFK was also in that city, the day before the assassination. There is mention of a photograph of the man, and apparently someone at the FBI thought he was Oswald, which means he resembled him. This man drive into Mexico the day after the assassination in a car the report says was not his, nor was it reported stolen, and drove to Mexico City were he was granted an immediate travel visa back to Cuba, and then was the only passenger on the commercial airliner that flew him home.

The stamps and initials on the document suggest that a lot of people have looked at it over the years.

Re: speculation about Oswald’s possible ties to Cuba—I’ve read that in the wake of JFK’s assassination, a lot of powerful people, including LBJ, Bobby Kennedy, leaders at the CIA, the State Department, the Defense Department, were very alarmed at Oswald’s history in terms of his professed belief in Communism, his defection to the Soviet Union, his Russian wife, his admiration of Castro, the murkiness of his visit to Mexico City and his attempts to travel/defect to Cuba, etc.

Basically, the theory goes that, regardless of how shallow Oswald’s understanding of Communism was, or tenuous Oswald’s ties to Cuba, the Soviet Union, or indeed, anyone else were, what was known about Oswald’s views and contacts was enough for the aforementioned members of the US political and foreign policy establishment to worry about any PERCEPTION by the US public that the Soviets and/or Cuba (the “international Communist conspiracy”, as the Birchers would say) were involved in JFK’s assassination. The ultimate fear? Nuclear war. Remember, this was just 13 months after the Cuban Missile Crisis…

Of course, as the declassified JFK assassination documents show, the FBI, CIA et al were in reality aggressively looking for any evidence of a conspiracy, Communist or not. But for several reasons—protecting sources and methods, not wanting to tip off any potential conspirators in the event there WAS a conspiracy, not wanting to alarm the public, and of course, because intelligence and law enforcement agencies keeping their stuff classified and on the down low is the NORM, not inherently any evidence of a “cover-up”—they obviously kept this all quiet for as many decades as they could. At least with the release of most of those documents, we now have a fuller understanding.

 

[Allen773]

More documents have been released:

Washington(CNN) The Biden administration has released a tranche of secret documents that some historians -- and conspiracy theorists -- hope might shed light on the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

https://cnn.com/cnn/2021/12/15/politics/biden-administration-jfk-documents/index.html

 

[Axxman300]

National Archives 2021 Records Release Page:

https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/release2021

 

[Axxman300]

Well, fudge, right off the bat they post the CIA Mexico City station's Oswald time-line, and it's clear they notified Langley in October, 1963 that he had been in contact with both the Soviet and Cuban embassies. This should have been reported immediately to the FBI and Secret Service...but no.

The document:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32106382.pdf

Here's one where the CIA requests "controversial views" of Cuban exiles be removed from the Warren Commission Report because it would be bad publcity:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32277913.pdf

I post this because CTists believe this kind of thing happens in dark corners, but in reality it is always put in print.

I'm just posting these as I read, but holy crap, looks like the bulk of Oswald's Mexico City adventure is here...in some additional detail.

Here is a report of Oswald partying with Mexican Communists, and the transcript of his phone call to the Soviet embassy where Oswald says he partied with the Russian he's talking to:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32108042.pdf

Oh man, the whole CIA station's Oswald Mexico City time-line:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32108146.pdf

This one is the CIA's initial report on Oswald in Mexico, dated 24 November, 1963:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32341711.pdf

I include it because it shows how information evolved in this case.

This is the October 8, 1963 memo about Oswald phoning the Soviet embassy. This report says they had a picture of him...interesting...:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32342832.pdf

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32343844.pdf

This is the CIA memo where they figure out who Oswald is on Octoboer 11, 1963:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32344074.pdf

Again, had this information been forwarded to the FBI and Secret Service, JFK would still be alive.

This will take a while. Lots of HSCA stuff here too.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Well, he would be 104 - given his lifestyle, I think it's unlikely that he would still be alive.

 

[Axxman300]

Well, he would be 104 - given his lifestyle, I think it's unlikely that he would still be alive.

Should have said "Old Age". I was just shocked at the document dump, the Mexico City information is impressive, and raises questions.

The report says he drove from Nuevo Laredo to Mexico City...Oswald didn't own a car. The simple answer is the CIA was wrong, and assumed he drove. The Mexican border crew, as well as their American counterparts would have recorded the make, model, and license plate if he had. So now I have to hope that the CIA explains this discrepancy in later memos (as they do here with the mistaken Oswald-at-the-Soviet-Embassy photo).

The biggest thing, as far as I can tell, is that Oswald was recorded as stating he had attended a party at Kostikov's apartment. I don't think this has been confirmed before. It's always been told that he was invited to "a party" by Silvia Duran, but it was assumed it was her place. Now we have Oswald - calling from Dallas, reminding Kostikov about being at his party.

Considering who Kostikov was, it is not a stretch of reason to understand why this was left out of the Warren Commission...or covered up, as the CTists would say...

 

[abaddon]

Well, he would be 104 - given his lifestyle, I think it's unlikely that he would still be alive.

He also had Addison's so it is unlikely he would reach 104 anyway.

 

[Pacal]

In February 1977 National Lampoon published a mock Inaugural issue celebrating JFK's 1977 Inaugural. In fact the whole issue was mocking the whole JFK cult.

For example it was Jackie who was killed in Dallas in 1963 and by 1977 she had become a veritable saint. The issue insinuates that JFK had arranged to have her offed. And JFK has been President for 16 years and has won another term. The USA is now a Rat Pack dictatorship run by an amoral hedonist from hell.

A nice antidote to the cult of JFK and worshippers in the cult like Oliver Stone.

 

[SteveAitch]

...

A nice antidote to the cult of JFK and worshippers in the cult like Oliver Stone.

Oh dear, does this document release mean mean Olly will make a third film about it?

 

[Axxman300]

This document details the CIA's investigation into an Oswald-Cuba connection:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32357143.pdf

It is long. Looks like they ran down every rumor. Not seeing a cover-up, but the source for many Oswald-Castro CTs is present in this document.

 

[Hans]

Well, fudge, right off the bat they post the CIA Mexico City station's Oswald time-line, and it's clear they notified Langley in October, 1963 that he had been in contact with both the Soviet and Cuban embassies. This should have been reported immediately to the FBI and Secret Service...but no.

The document:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32106382.pdf

Here's one where the CIA requests "controversial views" of Cuban exiles be removed from the Warren Commission Report because it would be bad publcity:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32277913.pdf

I post this because CTists believe this kind of thing happens in dark corners, but in reality it is always put in print.

I'm just posting these as I read, but holy crap, looks like the bulk of Oswald's Mexico City adventure is here...in some additional detail.

Here is a report of Oswald partying with Mexican Communists, and the transcript of his phone call to the Soviet embassy where Oswald says he partied with the Russian he's talking to:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32108042.pdf

Oh man, the whole CIA station's Oswald Mexico City time-line:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32108146.pdf

This one is the CIA's initial report on Oswald in Mexico, dated 24 November, 1963:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32341711.pdf

I include it because it shows how information evolved in this case.

This is the October 8, 1963 memo about Oswald phoning the Soviet embassy. This report says they had a picture of him...interesting...:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32342832.pdf

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32343844.pdf

This is the CIA memo where they figure out who Oswald is on Octoboer 11, 1963:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32344074.pdf

Again, had this information been forwarded to the FBI and Secret Service, JFK would still be alive.

This will take a while. Lots of HSCA stuff here too.

Thanks for putting this up - will take time to read all that - I was always interested in what O was doing in Mexico and his interactions with the S and C embassies