Oral History: CIA Contractor Reveals Role in JFK Assassination

Inside the JFK Assassination

Secret History Productions (2003)

Film Review

This fascinating documentary is the oral history of Chauncy Holt, one of the infamous three tramps arrested in Dealey Plaza plaza following the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Although it was recorded in 1997, it would be six years before Holt’s interview was released. He died eight days after its filming. Assassination researcher Jim Fetzer has uncovered evidence that Holt, while hospitalized, was deliberately overdosed on Coumadin by someone posing as a doctor.

The first hour of the video focuses on Holt’s early life as a bootlegger and petty criminal in Kentucky. He was a mathematical genius and firearms expert, with a pilot’s license and expertise in oil painting and forgery. It was his math skills that brought him to the attention of Florida mobster Meyer Lansky. After a brief spell as Lansky’s accountant, the latter referred him to the CIA’s Clandestine Operations Division. Holt’s primary function was to oversee the Los Angeles  Stamp and Stationary Company, a CIA front that produced fake IDs and reconditioned firearms for Operation Mongoose, the CIA/Mob operation formed to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro. His immediate CIA supervisor was William King Harvey.

In April 1963, he was ordered to produce fake IDs for Lee Harvey Oswald under various aliases and deliver them to Guy Bannister, who Holt identifies as Oswald’s New Orleans control.

On November 22, 1963, Holt was ordered to deliver forged Secret Service IDs and lapel pins and refurbished rifles and ammunition to Dealey Plaza. He was also ordered to deliver fake Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco (ATF) IDs and handguns to CIA operatives Charles Harrelson (father of actor Willy Harrelson) and Richard Montoya.

Holt identifies Harrelson and Rogers as the two other tramps. The FBI ordered them released as they were carrying forged ATF IDs.

Holt claims he had no foreknowledge of the assassination prior to arriving in Dealey Plaza. His CIA handlers told him that Operation Mongoose had organized a violent pro-Castro protest to drum up popular support for a US invasion of Cuba.

The Elite Cabal Behind the JFK Assassination

JFK to 911: Everything is a Rich Man’s Trick

Francis Richard Connolly (2014)

Film Review

This lengthy documentary explores how a handful of super rich American, British and Dutch fascists used their consolidated wealth and power to secretly manipulate the course of modern history. Connolly presents a coherent, well-documented examination of the American robber baron families who financed the rise of Nazi Germany and secretly plotted and financed the JFK assassination. His reconstruction of November 1963 Dealey Plaza events is based on the collected work of reputable assassination researchers, which he lists in the credits.

Introducing the Robber Barons

The film begins with the rise of key monopoly capitalists in the early 20th century: E H Harriman, who borrowed money from the Rothschild banks to create his railroad monopoly; John Rockefeller, who Harriman assisted in creating an oil monopoly; and J P Morgan who borrowed from the Rothschilds to create a banking monopoly. After World War I, these elite families would be joined by the Colgate family, the Birdseye family, the Dupont family and members of the British and Dutch royal families to create a fascist government in Germany as a bulwark against Soviet Bolshevism. Connolly carefully traces how these elite families, using Allen and John Foster Dulles and George Herbert Walker and Prescott Bush as their political henchman, assisted Germany in paying their war reparations and acquiring a dazzling arsenal of tanks, bombers and advanced weapons that would eventually be used against American GIs.

Immediately following World War II, the same families used CIA Director Allen Dulles and Congressman Richard Nixon to enable Nazi spies and scientists they had brought to power to secretly emigrate to the US to join the CIA and the US aerospace program.

Fifteen years later, these families, along with key Dallas oilmen and defense contractors and Mafia bosses the FBI and CIA enlisted during World War II, conspired to assassinate President John F Kennedy. Among the politicians who assisted them were Richard Nixon, George Herbert Walker Bush, J Edgar Hoover and Lyndon Johnson.

Follow the Money

In describing the motivation behind the JFK assassination, Connally begins with the gathering of high level co-conspirators at the home of Dallas oil mogul Clint Murchison on November 21, 1963 (the night before the assassination). We know who attended thanks to LBJ’s former mistress Madeline Duncan Brown. The corporate bigwigs were there because Kennedy threatened the fascist CIA-Wall Street empire they had built and because they stood to incur major financial losses from two Kennedy policy directives: to withdraw US military advisors from Vietnam and to end the oil depletion allowance.

The politicians were there because of historic ties with the fascist CIA-Wall Street nexus and because two risked losing their careers if Kennedy remained in office. LBJ was on the verge of going to prison for aiding and abetting the criminal activities of Billie Sol Estes.* Former FBI Director Hoover was on the verge of being forced out because the Kennedys had photos of him engaged in homosexual activities with his lover Clyde Tolson.

Mafia boss Carlos Marcello was there because he felt Kennedy had betrayed a promise his father Joe Kennedy had made to protect the Mob.

The Ambush in Dealey Plaza

Connolly’s dramatic reenactment of the ambush in Dealey Plaza (starts at 1:38) is the most exciting section of the film. Based on eye witness testimony, he identifies each of eight snipers by name and US intelligence role. Altogether sixteen shots were fired in four stages.

He also offers the first plausible explanation I’ve seen for the assassination of Dallas police officer J D Tippett, a well-known JFK look-alike. Connolly also identifies the CIA mortician who did post-mortem surgery on Tippett to make his wounds consistent with the official version of the assassination, the two coffins that flew to Washington DC on Air Force Two and the switch that occurred at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

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*Billie Sol Estes was an American financier best known for his friendship with Senator (and future president) Lyndon Johnson and the business scandal that sent him to jail for fraud multiple times

Lee Harvey Oswald: Career CIA Operative

 

JFK: The Second Plot

Matthew Smith (1992)

Book Review

Lee Harvey Oswald worked for the CIA (and FBI and Army and most likely Naval Intelligence) from the late fifties when the CIA recruited him from the Marine Corps until his murder on November 24, 1963 by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby. A clear appreciation of Lee Harvey Oswald’s role as an intelligence operative is key to understanding the JFK assassination conspiracy and cover-up. Although more than 20 years old, in my opinion Matthew Smith’s JFK: The Second Plot offers the most comprehensive account of Oswald’s CIA career. The first account of Lee Harvey Oswald’s CIA connections appeared in a 1968 book originally published by French intelligence entitled Farewell America. French president Charles DeGaulle had a keen interest in identifying the conspirators behind Kennedy’s assassination, as the same group had also made three assassination attempts against DeGaulle. Farewell America reveals how the CIA recruited Oswald when he was stationed at Atsugi Marine Air Base in Japan and sent him to the Soviet Union. These historical details were corroborated by testimony a former CIA officer provided the House Committee on Assassinations in 1978.

The Soviets, recognizing Oswald as a likely double agent, never fully trusted him, and in 1961 the CIA returned him to the US. According to government archives, his handlers went on to give him assignments intended to create a kooky leftist alter ego, which would later be used to frame him for Kennedy’s murder. Given that Oswald had foreknowledge of Kennedy’s assassination, the obvious question is why he allowed himself to be set up. The answer Smith offers seems totally plausible: Oswald believed the CIA was returning him to the Soviet Union (via Cuba) to become a double agent. His handlers, in turn, intended to use his flight to Cuba to blame the President’s assassination on Fidel Castro.

Oswald’s Visit to Red Bird Airport

Smith first got the idea for his book after obtaining FBI documents under the Freedom of Information Act revealing that Oswald, together with two other federal agents, paid a visit to the American Aviation Company (AAC) at Red Bird Airport trying to charter an aircraft for November 22, 1963. Smith subsequently interviewed Wayne January, the AAC employee they dealt with, and discovered the FBI had falsified the date. The FBI gives the date of their encounter as July, 1963, while it was actually November 20, only two days before the assassination.

Smith also answers puzzling questions about Officer J.D. Tippitt’s role in the assassination conspiracy. Smith believes that an ex-CIA friend named Roscoe White asked Tippitt to transport Oswald to the Red Bird Airport to catch a charter flight to Cuba. When they rendezvoused, Tippitt became suspicious after hearing Oswald’s description broadcast over the police radio. When he got out to question him, a man matching White’s description rushed out of the bushes and shot Tippitt. Following Tippitt’s murder, the plan to spirit Oswald off to Cuba had to be abandoned.

The Main-Tier Plot

Smith organizes his book into two halves. Book One is called “The Main-Tier Plot,” involving the assemblage of a group of snipers to ambush President Kennedy as his motorcade traveled through Dallas. Book Two is devoted to “The Second Plot,” a scheme to enable the true shooters and co-conspirators to escape prosecution by shifting the blame to a kooky leftist Castro-sympathizer.

Smith’s expose of the main-tier plot begins with official Warren Commission (WC) version of the assassination. He devotes an chapter to irregularities in gathering and recording WC testimony that would never be allowed in a court of law. Many of the witnesses reported seeing more than one gunmen and complained bitterly about their evidence being omitted or misreported. Smith is particularly critical of the WC for failing to investigate Officer Tippit’s background or obtain ballistic evidence linking Oswald’s handgun to his murder.

Smith also summarizes the detailed physical evidence pointing to the presence of three or four shooters in Dealey Plaza. He goes on to discuss the intelligence connections of a handful of suspects arrested in the Dal Tex building and elsewhere in Dealey Plaza. All were released after President Lyndon Johnson ordered the Dallas police to discontinue their investigation. Smith devotes an entire chapter to the photographic evidence, including the amateur film made by businessman Abraham Zapruder, which was altered to make the fatal shot appear to come came from the Book Depository behind the motorcade. Finally he discusses the acoustic recordings which led the House Assassinations Committee to make the determination that more than one shooter was involved in Kennedy’s murder.

The Second Plot

The second half of the book offers an in-depth portrait of Oswald’s early history and personality. It details his posting to the Atsugi Marine Air Base in Japan, where he held a “secret” level security clearance, and assisted in monitoring overflights of the Top Secret U2 Spy plane. Smith goes on to describe Oswald’s activities in the Soviet Union in exhaustive detail, as well as the assignments he was given on his return to the US. In one of his first jobs, he processed photos of a Soviet military facility, which again required a security clearance. Other assignments involved infiltrating leftist and pro-Castro groups as an informant. The fabrication of Oswald’s unstable loner persona was facilitated by an Oswald double, a second agent who created major public disturbances while posing as Oswald.

Smith believes that at the time of his arrest, Oswald had been given a new assignment – to attempt to return to the Soviet Union via Cuba. Strong evidence suggests there were plans to airlift him to Cuba the afternoon of November 22, 1963. The plans were suddenly disrupted when Officer J.D. Tippitt was shot and killed. Tippitt’s murder forced the plan to spirit Oswald away to Cuba to be abandoned. His subsequent arrest necessitated his murder by Jack Ruby, another minor co-conspirator. Allowing Oswald’s intelligence connections to come out at trial would have seriously endangered high level officials in the Kennedy administration who participated in the conspiracy.

The Conspirators Had Names

The book’s final chapter “The Conspirators Had Names” is disappointing because it offers no firm conclusions about the real culprits in the JFK assassination. Although Smith refers to New Orleans District Attorney’s Jim Garrison’s unsuccessful prosecution of one of the co-conspirators, he makes no mention whatsoever of the Swiss corporation Pemindex that financed the assassination. It was Clay Shaw’s membership in Permindex that formed the basis of Garrison’s case against him. Nor does it mention the shadowy Defense Industrial Security Command and the 50 or so intelligence and defense contractors with clearly established links to both the DISC and the assassination. The evidence linking Permindex and DISC to the JFK assassination is outlined most clearly in a 1970 book by William Torbitt called Nomenclature of an Assassination Cabal or Torbitt Document

Posted in honor of the 50^th anniversary of the assassination of John F Kennedy.

photo credit: Lone Primate via photopin cc

Originally published in Veterans Today