Did MJ-12 order the Assassination of JFK?That question is asked in
this article , one of a series by Michael Salla, Ph.D. Salla's thesis is based on the dubious MJ-12 documents. He also features the McCone-Rowley document, first introduced to the world by me, which he refers to as a "declassified CIA document."
There is more evidence to directly implicate Angleton in the Kennedy assassination. Lee Harvey Oswald was among a small group of American citizens to have defected to the Soviet Union in 1959. The CIA established a file on Oswald in 1960, but some authors claim that CIA counterintelligence were monitoring Oswald even earlier, and that Angleton was directly involved through an intermediary. A declassified CIA document later confirmed that Oswald was trained by the CIA in 1957 for Soviet assignments.
TBR News on the McCone-Rowley Document The CIA Comments on the Kennedy Assassination
Here we have two documents that have been around, and studiously ignored by “assassination experts” for years. Some of the critics of anything that might involve the CIA in the murder are obviously paid for their views by the same CIA whereas others are of limited intellect but blessed with loud voices.
TBR News, associated with notorious document hoaxer Gregory Douglas, knows a good fake document when they see one. TBRs Brian Harring follows McCone-Rowley with the following document, allegedly from from the CIA’s Robert T. Crowley to James J. Angleton.
SCROLL DOWN FOR LATEST POSTSMcCone-Rowley Memo
TO: Mr. James J. Rowley
Chief, U.S. Secret Service
FROM: Mr. John McCone
Director, Central Intelligence Agency
Subject: Central Intelligence Report on the assassination of John Kennedy.
In response to the request made by your office on 24 February 1964 re: Lee Oswald's activities and assignments on behalf of this agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, there follows a narrative summary of the internal subversive activities of the Oswald subject.
I recommend that unless the Commission makes a specific request for specific information contained herein, that this information not be volunteered. This agency has reason to assume that some junior Commission staff members may be potential sources of leaks to the news media or to other agencies; due to the highly sensitive nature of the enclosed material, it would certainly be in the national interest to withhold it at this time -- unless there is, of course, a specific request made.
It is my understanding that Mr. Hoover has certain sensitive information within his agency, which has be transferred to his own personal files for safekeeping; he concurs that no material should be voluntarily given to the Commission which might affect the status of field operatives or their safety. He is particularly concerned about the De Bruey memorandum, which Central Intelligence has obtained and which, I understand, you have obtained. It is imperative that this information, at least for the time, remain under wraps.
Oswald subject was trained by this agency, under cover of the Office of Naval Intelligence, for Soviet assignments. During preliminary training, in 1957, subject was active in aerial reconnaissance of mainland China and maintained a security clearance up to the "confidential" level. His military records during this period are open to your agency and I have directed they be forwarded to the Commission.
Subject received additional indoctrination at our own Camp Peary site from September 8 to October 17, 1958, and participated in a few relatively minor assignments until arrangements were made for his entry into the Soviet Union in September 1959. While in the Soviet Union, he was on special assignment in the area of Minsk. It would not be advantageous at this time to divulge the specifics of that assignment; however, if you wish this information, it can be made available for your personal inspection within the confines of our own offices, or I can send it by courier on the condition that it not leave the custody of the courier. I am concerned that if this information were in any way disclosed to the wrong persons, it would lead the media to erroneously claim this agency, and perhaps others, were directly involved in the Dallas action. While the persons involved were in the employ of this agency, as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, it is virtually impossible for this or any agency to maintain full, 24-hours-a-day responsibility over its operatives.
At the time of the Dallas action, the Oswald subject was only seldom in our employ; after the Soviet assignment, we found him to be unreliable and emotionally unstable. He was of little use to us after his marriage and De Bruey, from what I understand, concurred in this. He was provided with a few unimportant infiltration assignments and proved of little or no value. It is possible that Oswald, given his instability, might have been involved in some operation involving Hoffa, as noted in SAIC Bertram's report to your agency dated 1/3/64. Mr. Hoover advises that his agency is trying to determine whether Hoffa might have been involved laterally or vertically with the Dallas assassination I have advised that I would be interested in seeing the results of that investigation.
Mr. Hoover advises that the facts given in SAIC Bertran's [ed. note: "Bertram" in first usage, Bertran" here] 1/3/64 report are basically correct. His agency has advised Deputy Sweatt against any further unauthorized statements to the news media which might adversely affect the investigation. Mr. Hoover advises he has no knowledge of how Deputy Sweatt obtained his information, as there is no record of the agency distributing any such information to Sweatt or any other member of Dallas Sheriff's office. It is regrettable that this information has come to the attention of the news media, but I am sure Mr. Hoover will be able to clarify the situation.
Speculation within this agency -- and this is only speculation at this point -- is that Oswald subject became unstable following surgery April 1, 1961, in the Minsk Hospital. He may have been chemically or electronically "controlled"... a sleeper agent. Subject spent eleven days hospitalized for a "minor ailment" which should have required no more than three days hospitalization at the most. Six days after his release, he met Marina Prusakova. This agency is particularly interested in her intelligence background and I have requested a report on same from our Soviet Embassy contact.
After his return to the U.S., Oswald worked in New Orleans through the Anti-Communist League of the Caribbean and Friends of Democratic Cuba; his case officer was SAIC Guy Bannister from the Chicago F131 office. He was transferred from his assignments there after he was arrested and fined stemming from an incident of his distribution of pamphlets for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. While our files here show no flirther assignments or contact, I am requesting an (xx) check on the subject from our New Orleans and Ft. Worth offices.
Please direct any further communication on this matter to my personal attention so that your requests may be expedited, or feel free to call me anytime. My office is always available to you.
/s/ John McCone
A poster at alt.assassination.jfk (12-12-06) going by the name dfdean1 asked the National Archives about McCone-Rowley and received this response:
We appreciate your interest in the JFK Assassination Records Collection. Your request was forwarded to our office because we have custody of the JFK Assassination Records Collection. We have received several requests for information about the McCone/Rowley Memo in the past.Our staff conducted an extensive search of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection. In addition to searches on the JFK Database, we carried out physical searches of the files. The file series searched included Lee Harvey Oswald's 201 file; the CIA Miscellaneous File; the United States Secret Service's official case file on the assassination; the Russ Holmes Work File; and the Assassination Records Review Board's files related to the CIA. We were unable to locate a copy of, or any reference to, this document in the Collection. If we may be of any further assistance, please feel free to contact our office directly at specialaccess_foia@nara.gov. . Sincerely, Heather MacRae
Archivist
Special Access & FOIA Staff
Researcher Anthony Marsh on McCone-Rowley
posted 12-7-06 at alt.assassination.jfk
When I looked at it I knew instantly that it was a fake. How? It is not written in the proper format using the proper CIA style. One tip off is the marking "CO-2-34,030." That is actually from a Secret Service report. How would I know? Because I had obtained and used on my Web site some of the pages from that SS report, so the notation jumped out as a fabrication. What someone did was take a page from the SS report, maybe even downloaded it from my Web page, removed the original text and wrote their own. Also the wording is not how the CIA would word a document of that type at that time. They would not refer to Hoover by name or agencies by common names. Instead you would see code words like ODACID. You need to look at hundreds of thousands of genuine CIA documents as I have to develop a mental database of what genuine CIA documents look like. I have no doubt that the hoaxer really thought that something like that was said. I don't think the intent was like the other hoaxes to discredit all JFK assassination research. I think someone just assumed that he knew enough to create a realistic fake to incriminate the CIA.
New Book Features McCone-Rowleywww.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/output/2005/09/20/story7560044t0.shtm20 September 2005
A Dundee author’s new book on the assassination of John F Kennedy includes a document which may prove the CIA trained Lee Harvey Oswald.
Pat Kelly believes rogue elements in the CIA and disheartened Cubans were responsible for the killing and believes that at least four marksmen were
involved in the assassination. Mr Kelly said it has taken him many years to complete and the most interesting aspect of the book is the “Second Oswald” theory.
Included in the book is a CIA report obtained by Mr Kelly which, if authentic, proves Lee Harvey Oswald worked for the Office of Naval Intelligence and was trained by the CIA.
The author will be signing copies of his book, “Just a Patsy”, at Ottakar’s in Dundee at 5pm on Wednesday.
He said, “The Kennedy assassination goes right to the heart of the American government, and I believe it is easier to cover it up rather than face the facts and the truth of what really happened on November 22, 1963.
“It has taken many years to write and get to this stage and there’s a lot of information left out, such as whom I believed were the killers and their assistants in the conspiracy.
“I couldn’t publish their names but some were of Cuban extract.
“I believe, like many others, that President Lyndon B Johnson gained the most from the assassination.
“He controlled the investigation into Kennedy’s death. It must be said that some disaffected Cuban mercenaries played a major part in the assassination. Strangely enough, a fingerprint of Johnson’s aide, a man by the name of Mac Wallace, was found on a box on the sixth floor where officially the shots were fired at Kennedy.
“Wallace did not work in the Texas School Book Depository so how did it get there?” Mr Kelly said there have been many books written about the JFK assassination, however, most are very hard to come by in this country.
“My book is probably the most up-to-date that most people in the city will read,” he said. “No JFK researcher would claim their book is better than others — that’s not how the research community works.
“We share information and try to get it into the open to let the public see what really went on and how the US government was part of the JFK cover-up.
“Its over 40 years since the assassination of Kennedy and certain high-ranking officials still want to hide the true facts of what happened from the public.
“However, the public are not fooled by cover-ups and lies and they know that something was amiss in the Kennedy assassination.
“The public want to know the truth and the facts. Hopefully my book goes part of the way.
“I hope it helps to understand how and why the conspirators used Lee Harvey Oswald for their own political gains, and he was as he said, “Just A Patsy,” as the book title suggests.”
Researcher Allen Eaglesham has obtained the book and confirmed that the document described is the McCone-Rowley memo.
John McAdams on McCone-RowleySep 13 2004, 9:11 am
Newsgroups: alt.assassination.jfk
From: john.mcad
...@marquette.edu (John McAdams)
Date: 13 Sep 2004 16:11:21 GMT
Local: Mon, Sep 13 2004 9:11 am
Subject: Re: Intriguing document from Wim Dankbaar
From an e-mail correspondent familiar with documents from the Warren Commission period:
The identifier "CO-2-34,030" appears in this document as if it were the CIA's file and/or document number.
It is not; it is a Secret Service file number. No authentic CIA document would incorporate the recipient's file number in this fashion.
"CO-2-34,030" was used for the entire Secret Service file on the assassination investigation. Each individual report had a distinct "Control Number."
Therefore, there is no reason to connect this document with the one RIF in the NARA database which has "CO-2-34, 030" in the title field. (There are obvious differences, and that 1978 HSCA-related document is about "JFK ASSASSINATION FILE CO-2-34, 030", not a single document.)
This particular letterhead ("UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT Memorandum") was routinely used by for Secret Service submissions to the Warren Commission, and within the Secret Service. It was designed so it could be used by any agency, but I don't recall ever seeing it used by the CIA.
Examples: CE 2966, CE 2668: http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh26/html/WH_Vol26_0... http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh26/html/WH_Vol26_0... Reports from CO-2-34,030 with Secret Service control numbers 466 and 702 (CE 2869): http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh26/html/WH_Vol26_0...
A claim of authenticity for this document is spherically symmetric nonsense - that is, nonsense any way you look at it.
Jim Moore on McCone-RowleyThis is an email from Jim Moore to JFK assassination researcher Peter Whitmey.
From: Jim Moore
Subject: Re: McCone-Rowley memo
Dear Peter:
Thanks for your letter - and for the work you continue to do re: the Kennedy case. Thanks also for your concern about my health. I'm doing fairly well but working in a hi-tech sweat shop just to pay the bills ... and that is rougher on me than anything I've ever seen. I'm getting carpal tunnel syndrome as they keep jacking our quotas up.
Anyway, to clarify, I did not quote the McCone-Rowley memo in Modern People; I quoted an internal CIA report instead. (see "Operation Mind Control by Walter Bowart) I think that is just an honest misunderstanding in the JFK research community. When I sent the memo to Gary Buell, I told him I had grave doubts about the FORM of the information moreso than the content, since I have been able to verify much of the content independently. My doubt centered over the fact that the third page containing the signature was so generic that it could have come from any memo or communication and there was nothing in its content to link it to the first two pages. I had (and have) no knowledge or expertise about the S.S. File # you mention. I wouldn't know an accurate one from a pig turd.
As you may know, it is a common approach in the intelligence community to leak accurate information in a manner in which it can later be discredited to (a) protect exposure of the source or (b) cover someone's ass. The CBS-Dan Rather- GW Bush memos are excellent examples. Even the secretary admitted that yes, she did type very similar memos (apparently containing the same information), but that these specific memos were NOT the ones she typed. Get my drift? They could be retyped (on a different typewriter or on different colored paper, for instance) and one or two typos or obvious red herrings could be included, added or substituted. The controversy then centers on the discrepancies while the CONTENT is ignored.
For example, someone told me there is no independent evidence that Oswald was ever involved in intelligence work. I believe The Rolling Stone many years ago had a major article about Oswald's involvement in the U-2 program at a Japanese US air base (where he was supposedly also used as an LSD guinea pig for mind control purposes). I was first alerted to Oswald's intelligence activities by going through a list of confiscated items found in the Warren Report (this was maybe 30-35 years ago). Certain items such as a Minox(?) subminiature camera - very expensive at the time - raised red flags, as did his knowledge of microdot technology.
Anyway, I did not use the McCone-Rowley memo as a source precisely because I was suspicious of the format of it, not because of the information within it. Also, I never had an actual copy of the internal CIA document Walter Bowart (and many others since) referred to. I was allowed to read it in the presence of the source, make a few notes, then return it to the source, who was present at all times to make sure I did not make nay copies of it. Much of it contained historic references to "behavior modification" programs in general, as well as a number of obscure and uninteresting memos. Maybe a dozen pages of it actually referenced Oswald.
Also, I did not publicize it because I did not want to become a target (in case the information was true), nor did I want to subject myself to the abuse and insults and innuendos that so frequently pop up on Internet debates on the subject.
Larry Hancock on McCone-Rowley (from JFK Murder Solved Forum)
Sep 20 2004, 02:37 PM
Yes, there were people in the Archives the following Monday after this was discussed widely online. The archivists had been previously contacted and were already searching for the document. The net result is that the RIF number thought to be associated with the document in question does not relate to it, it has to do with something totally different. After several weeks of searching there appears to be no such document in the Treasury file series that relates to the internal document number series present on the first page of the memo. Although it is impossible to say that the document is not at NARA or was ever transferred there, we can say that it was not recently located there nor is there anything that verifies that it is there. The initial source seems to have been a mysterious FBI man who gave a paper copy to a JFK conspiracy writer quite a while ago, the contents were described in a tabloid article and also in Dick Russell's first edition of The Man Who Knew Too Much back in the early 90's. At this point it seems unlikely we will ever know the true source and circumstances under which it originated but it is unlikely that it will ever be traced back and verified as an official document in the Treasury Department Headquarters files or a document that can be shown to be in the NARA collection.
First posting: When I posted this on alt.conspiracy.jfk and alt.assassination.jfk I had already been told of this document by Jim Moore but he had not yet provided me with a copy. I thought I might have found independent confirmation of the document but Dick Russell's source turned out to be a tabloid article by Jim Moore.
McCone-Rowley memo
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk
From: garyn2
...@yahoo.com (Gary Buell) Date: 18 Jun 2002 22:26:09 -0700
Local: Tues, Jun 18 2002 10:26 pm
Subject: McCone-Rowley memo
In The Man Who Knew Too Much, p. 675, Dick Russell quotes from a memo from CIA Director McCone to Secret Service Chief Rowley about the possibility of Oswald being a "sleeper agent". Can anyone provide me with a copy of this memo?
My post on JFKLancer Forum
Sat Sep-25-04 11:46 PMby gary buell
Jim Moore has never claimed that the document is genuine. The first I heard of this document was in an email from him September 10, 2001:
"I do (or should) have one document I've never released because I'mstill concerned over its authenticity, but it is a three-page letter in which Helms, I think it is, acknowledges Oswald worked for the CIA and was in Russia for that purpose, not as a defector. It discusses how this information should be withheld from the Warren Commission - what can be said and what should not be said. I don't fully trust it because of the way the letter is constructed, with the signature on the third page in such a way that the first two pages could be fakes while the last page is genuine."
His memory was obviously faulty in thinking it was Helms rather than McCone.As I have said before Moore claims to have received the document from an FBI agent in Tennessee. I must say though that the possibility that Moore is the hoaxer cannot be excluded. He has claimed for years to be the author of the Skeleton Key, although the evidence is fairly conclusive that Stephanie Caruana is. He also claimed possession of a 350 page report on RHIC-EDOM.
Also from Jim Moore from a webpage he was preparing. More can be found at
www.geocities.com/omegareport. Not sure if this page is there in working order:
What is the Oswald-FBI-CIA Connection?
WHO'S WHO IN THE GEMSTONE FILES©2002 by Jim Moore. All rights reserved.
There has long been speculation that Lee Harvey Oswald was associated with the Carlos Marcello crime family in New Orleans, that he was an FBI informant, that he was a CIA operative. Is there any truth to any of this? Any evidence?
Dec. 16, 1963 - Alonzo W. Hudkins, a reporter for the Houston Post, called the Huston Secret Service office and told them he thought Jack Ruby's roommate, George Senator, may have had a connection to Oswald's murder, though he didn't elaborate except to say Ruby had a brother and a nephew who worked for Jimmy Hoffa in Detroit.
Dec. 17, 1963 - Hudkins told the Secret Service he had just returned from a weekend in Dallas, where he had met with Chief Deputy Criminal Division Allen Sweat of the Sheriff's office. Sweatt had told him that Oswald was an FBI informant, paid $200 a month and assigned a code "S172" in connection with the FBI's subversive organizations investigations.Hudkins added that it was odd that attorney Melvin L. Belli, the San Francisco lawyer representing Ruby, was listed on the same letterhead as an attorney Abt, the first lawyer Oswald went to for representation.The revelation apparently sent shock waves through both the Secret Service and the FBI. James J. Rowley, Secret Service Chief, apparently contacted both J. Edgar Hoover and CIA Director John McCone about the information. Hoover issued a flat denial, but if the document shown here is to be believed, McCone contradicted that denial in a roundabout way, and further admitted that Oswald had been working for the CIA.Personally, I have reasons to doubt the authenticity of the form of the following information, even though I have been assured that facts contained therein are correct. For one, the most glaring suspicion is that McCone's signature appears on the third page, with just a very brief paragraph that could have been lifted from any letter on virtually any subject and spliced onto the other two pages. Second, the wide margins used are somewhat odd for standard government communications. Third, the letter is typed on a generic "United States Government Memorandum" without any marks identifying it as of CIA origin, whereas other documents in my possession show the CIA letterhead centered at the top.
Never-Before-Seen Bombshell Document: Is It Real?
Is it a forgery? A hoax? Or was it deliberately done in this manner, as my source informed me, so the CIA could convincingly disavow itself from the document? I simply don't know. I have had this document since the mid-1960s (1967 or 1968) and have never released it until now, because of my inability to confirm its contents or its authenticity. Now, though, other documents have come forth and other researchers have obtained more information through the Freedom of Information Act than I could possibly go over. I leave it up to you, and history, to decide - and perhaps fill in some of the missing gaps.
Joseph Backes on McCone-Rowley From
www.jfklancer.com/forum Sat Sep-18-04
#19036, "Beware of LHO document of unknown origin
Over the weekend of September 11th-12th a document, purportedly from John McCone, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency to James J. Rowley, Chief of the Secret Service giving remarkable information on Lee Harvey Oswald's background was widely circulated. DO NOT ASSUME THIS DOCUMENT IS REAL. It's authenticity is an open question. DO NOT CONTACT ARCHIVES II ASKING FOR IT. THEY ARE OF THE OPINION IT DOES NOT EXIST IN ARCHIVES II. IT MAY BE A HOAX. ...
The LHO document, might be fake, might not be a fake. It's provenance is certainly in question.I got this over that weekend, as a one page scan. Then I got the 3 pager version. I went to Archives II on Monday September 13th and discovered the RIF# given, 121-10002-10136, did not match this document. The RIF# given was most likely associated with this document through a simple search of the JFK database by inputting the number "CO-2-34, 030" seen on page one which will give you 3 hits. You think great! The 3rd one looks like it should match.But, no. It's not.I thought I was given a document with a RIF#. If this was correct I had to see the original in Archives II. The RIF# given did not match the document. That is all I was able to discover. No one should go off and denounce it as fake based solely on that, or being even more lazy cry it's fake based solely on looking at it.BTW, I was the only one inquiring about it on Monday. There were only 3 people looking at JFK records that day. Malcolm Blunt, myself, and Patricia Lambert. I was the only one looking for this particular document that day. The document raises several interesting questions. I want to focus on a question that has nothing to do with the content of the document. What do we as a research community do with documents that are not in the JFK Records Collection at Archives II, that do not have RIF#s? I think we're a bit spoiled by the RIF system. Obviously documents were released to individual members of the public, or the public at large before the JFK Act. Since the JFK Act dealt primarily with documents that were still classified after a certain date, I believe as of a date in Oct. 1992, documents declassified or released prior to that did not go into the JFK Records Collection and therefore did not get RIF#s. Also, there are records at Archives II that are open to the public and accessible to researchers but are not in the database. This is true of many Warren Commission records. So, there are places to look in Archives II that are outside of the online JFK database. There are also JFK records outside the jurisdiction or control of NARA. There are documents released over the years through the work of private researchers, through FOIA, and other means. There are records in private collections in libraries, for example there are records at Texas Christian Univesity (TCU) under the Jim Wright (former congressmen) collection. Also, there are also records at TCU from a guy who was the president of the Chamber of Commerce who presented JFK with a hat and boots at the breakfast in Ft. Worth on the morning of November 22, 1963. There was a man who worked for TIME/LIFE magazine who kept many records that Wallace Millam found at a library, or university in, I think Tennessee. (Sorry I'm doing this from memory, and I do not have total recall.) Now most of these records are available, and one can check that a document is there. All JFK docments regardless of where they came from should have a highly detailed accounting of exactly where they came from and how a researcher or author got them so that source documents can be verified. This is pretty basic stuff. But, unfortunately, it is not well practiced by some members of the research community. Ed Sherry, or Ed Tatro, or their "source," or James Richards, or Dick Russell must come forward with the necessary information as to where this document came from. That would save a lot of time and effort in trying to discover the source. And then we could validate its authenticity. I am not interested in getting any credit for the discovery. I did not discover this. Ed Sherry says he got it from Ed Tatro. Ed Tatro says he got it from "a source" who does not want to be named. (I can come up with one if he doesn't want to use his own.) But, I also had a second source through Larry Hancock, an Australian researcher James Richards who provided the full three pages. But, only Ed Sherry gave me a RIF#. Ed Sherry gave me only one page of the document, and a RIF#. Ed sent a RIF number with a link to the database, as if he was providing a link to the specific RIF. You can't do that. It doesn't work that way. And he also copied the RIF info, well almost. He chopped off the top of it. I think he did a simple search for the number one sees on the doc, C0-2-34. 030. If you put this into the JFK database you get 3 hits. And only one looks like it matches the doc. So, there was a possibility it could be easily found in Archives II. But, nope. So, where to go from here? First off, please stop calling, emailing, or otherwise pestering the Archives II staff for this document. A gentleman was tasked with finding it, Jim Mathis. He spent nearly 3 weeks trying to find it. Unofficially, he told me that officially (yes, I like the contradiction too, but cut him some slack, he doesn't get to make any official policy like that) the position of the Archives II staff is that the document is not in the Archives. This may well be the case. However, it could be there somewhere. There are a lot of places this document could be hiding. Without more information from where it came from it's a near hopeless task of finding it. Without checking anything in the database, or other guide material, but just off the top of my head I can think of several places it could be: 1.) in CIA files, and that breaks down into many categories 2.) Secret Service files, which doesn't breakdown into as many as it should 3.) An employee of the CIA's files 4.) An employee of the SS files 5.) NARA files 6.) Rowley files, or Rowley correspondence files 7.) McCone's files, or correspondence files 8.) HSCA files, which breakdowns into many categories 9.) the staff papers of employee X, of the HSCA Then there's the enormous problem of "interfiling" What is "interfiling"? Well, documents are released and declassified, and just added to boxes, boxes that you might have already copied the entire contents of, or gone through, and now there's new stuff there. And you'll never know. Fun, huh? It's also possible documents are being removed from boxes for various reasons, none of them in my mind legal or appropriate. Keep in mind Bush is reclassifying things, not JFK specifically, but lots of other things open to the public. (See Federation of American Scientists web site
http://www.fas.org/ for details.) Malcolm Blunt has told me documents that were in boxes he previously went through can't be found now.Oh, I nearly forgot, on this 3 page scan, on the last page, there appears to be a ghost image of a separate document that kind of burned through in the photocopying if you look carefully. I did find a document that matches that. This is a SS kind of record keeping document, that material was sent out. I found documents like this for SS correspondence to the HSCA. So, this might give credibility to the doc. It certainly could be part of whatever is stapled to the doc, notice the staples in the upper left on page one. If a fake, it's a nice touch. If this is a fake, it's a pretty darn good one. So, I cannot address whether the document is real or not. I await info from Larry Hancock. Here's Larry's info: "The Endless Document"Well maybe the sourceless document would be more like it although it is beginning to feel endless.. Joe, this is the best that I have been able to piece together so far after an ongoing dialog with Ed Tatro, his source (Bill Cheslock), Bill's source (Bill Miller), Bill's source (James Richards according to Bill but not according to James), Jame's source, the document's original source, Dick Russell's source....ad naseum. I have not had direct dialog with Cheslock or Dick Russell although I have a message into Dick as well as his second edition editor. The earliest original source for the document was "reportedly" an FBI agent in Tennessee who gave a copy to James Moore. This is courtesy of an inquiry by Gary Buell who did talk with Moore e.g. "I obtained a scanned copy of the document from Jim Moore. He says he got it from a Tennessee FBI man and does not vouch for its authenticity..." Moore and his copy of the document were the first apparent source and it was Moore who is cited by Dick Russell, although Dick does state that the document is on record in the National Archives....this may be a mistake and hopefully we will hear from Dick himself on it eventually. When exactly this first appearance occurred is not yet documented but it was certainly prior to 1992 when TMWKTM was published. Apparently, the document has been posted on the internet within the past two years by Gary Buell without much dialogue. Which brings us to September 2004. Ed Tatro received the document from Bill Cheslock, a long time acquaintance, with a request that it be circulated for comment. He was given only one page initially. Ed was given to understand that the document was in the archives. He send the document to Sherry and when we received it there appears a RIF number associated with it. To this point it is unclear exactly when or where that number came from.....certainly the first thing I did was a NARA search to confirm it was real and in the archives, which of course the number is, but not for this document....sigh. Stu Wexler did a variety of more complex searches on various names and the CO document number which validated that at least the document related to the right Agency and that it was consistent with other Treasury Department documents pertaining to the JFK investigation. Given a RIF number and this corroboration it seemed like a serious find even given some issues with the contents. While we were doing that various individuals began nay saying it based on content, form, logic and PhotoShop analysis - representing that it was a clear cut and paste job (which by the way is denied by others; the issue of the Confidential stamp also seems to be cleared up by Moore's comment about putting it on himself?). "By the way, I asked Moore about the Confidential stamp. He says it was not on the original document. He added it, as he said he did to other material in his office at the tabloid, I suppose to say hands-off to his office mates." As to a second source, James Richards states he got the document several years ago from a private source making no claims for it but Jamie's impression given his knowledge of the source was that it may well have been created as Agency disinformation at some point and never actually used for that intended purpose. James claims not to have posted it this last week until their was active discussion about it and also states that his version does not have the yellow highlights. Bill Miller claims he took his three page copy from James posting. I claim simply to be clueless. At this point I have questions in to Cheslock inquiring as to why he has stated to various people that he believed it was a document on file at NARA and on where the RIF number originated. I have similar questions to Dick Russell. I agree with your analysis that the document could very well exist in the records; I also feel that it could either be a) real , b) real with intentional defects to make it deniable and c) a very well prepared disinformation piece with intentional defects which could have been used to divert or obfuscate an earlier investigation. For all I know it could have been based on an actual document destroyed long ago. However based on it's content and on it's CO number, I don't think it's something that could have been done off the cuff without a heck of a lot of background knowledge. -- LarrySo, the bottom line is do not go off and use this document until it’s origin can be established. There are lots of idiots in the research community who will do so anyway. This will only cause needless confusion. Archives II will not look for this document anymore, so don’t ask them to. If by some miracle someone eventually discovers it in Archives II, or elsewhere, then and only then should it be used, and then mainly for further study into it's validity.
