Oswald as CIA Agent
JFK Assassination researchers have long speculated on Oswald' having been a potential CIA asset, either an informer or an agent. There is reason to believe that he might, in fact, actually have been an agent, albeit a low-level one, and that his defection to Russia was only a cover for an intelligence-gathering mission.
JFK Assassination researchers have long speculated on Oswald' having been a potential CIA asset, either an informer or an agent. There is reason to believe that he might, in fact, actually have been an agent, albeit a low-level one, and that his defection to Russia was only a cover for an intelligence-gathering mission.
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The CIA Mindset
Formed from the remnants of the disbanded OSS or Office of Strategic Services (due to the end of WWII, the loss of its primary supporter Franklin D. Roosevelt, and bureaucratic infighting 'driven by rival agencies like the FBI who feared the creation of a permanent, peacetime 'American Gestapo'), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was formed from the national Security Act of 1947, the CIA's original mission was to provide a centralized coordination of intelligence collecting, analyzing, and dissemination of foreign intelligence. The Agency has loosely interpreted that mission and spied on individuals and organizations involved in activities that the higher-ups in the Agency deemed "subversive"--including peaceful anti-war activists, Civil Rights activists, journalists, and others. The Agency has also engaged in targeted political assassinations (or in the case of Fidel Castro, attempted assassinations), LSD mind-control experiments on unsuspecting U.S. citizens (MK Ultra),
Some of the Agency's unethical activities began to come to light in a December, 1974 New York Times report by Seymour Hersh, which exposed the Agency's "Family Jewels," which was a massive domestic operation targeting anti-war activists and journalists. This reporting led to the formation of the Rockefeller Commission (led by Gerald Ford's Vice President Nelson Rockefeller). The Rockefeller Commission's job was to investigate the allegations that the CIA engaged in illegal domestic spying and other abuses against American citizens (per Google search on "Rockefeller Commission," citing the Ford Presidential Museum). The commission found that the Agency maintained files on thousands of American citizens and dissident groups, illegally opened almost 215,000 pieces of first-class mail, wiretapped journalists, and conducted unauthorized (illegal) break-ins. The commission purposefully ignored or suppressed details concerning CIA plots to assassinate foreign leaders (e.g., Fidel Castro) , and the White House (via Ford's Deputy Assistant Dick Cheney) 'edited parts of the report to strip it of its independent character (per Google search of "Rockefeller Commission." sourcing National Security Archive).
The Rockefeller Commission was criticized as an effort to limit political fallout, and public sentiment led to the realization that stricter oversight of the CIA was needed. This led to the formation of the 'more expansive" Church and Pike Committees.
The Church Committee, whose formal name was "the United States Senate Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities" and chaired by Idaho senator Frank Church (D), investigated abuses by the CIA, the NSA (National Security Agency), the FBI, and the IRS. Its House counterpart was the Pike Committee. The Church Committee reveled the existence of the CIA's Operation MKULTRA, which involved the drugging of unsuspecting U.S. citizens, especially with LSD, as part of mind-control experiments. It also unveiled COINTELPRO, which involved the surveillance and infiltration of American political and civil rights organizations, unveiled more of the Family Jewels activities involving illegal and inappropriate CIA activities, and brought to light Project SHAMROCK (a program in which the major telecommunications companies shared their traffic with the NSA and confirming the existence of this signals intelligence agency to the public) and Operation Mockingbird, which was intended to manipulate news media by recruiting journalists as assets in a propaganda campaign (not to be confused with Operation Mongoose, which was the Agency's clumsy attempts to kill Fidel Castro). (See wikipedia entry on "Church Committee.") Leonard Bernstein's exposé "CIA and the Media" reveals some of the extent to which Operation Mockingbird was successful.
The Agency has always been very tight-mouthed and secretive about its activities. Following a botched recovery mission of a Soviet sub via a Howard Hughes contracted ship, the Hughes Glomar Explorer, and obsessed with controlling information about its activities, the Agency adopted the "Glomar Response" to any inquiries regarding its activities--to "neither confirm nor deny" whether any documents existed concerning the Glomar Explorer activities. That refusal to confirm or deny any allegation has become the CIA's standard operating procedure. It avoids responsibility. In fact, it was the response used to claim that they could not say whether the government used drones to carry out lethal strikes overseas, for example.
This "neither confirm not deny" response has spread to other agencies and has been used, for example, to circumvent local public records requests, such as a New York Civil Liberties Union filed request seeking documents regarding the NYPD's monitoring of protestors' social media activity and cell phones. The NYPD's response was that revelation of the existence of such records would harm "national security." This secrecy extends to the CIA's torturing program, in which the CIA abducted hundreds of Muslim men and boys, held them incommunicado, brutally tortured them, and denied them due process (see ACLU website.)
The CIA has a history of using disinformation (fake news) and psychological warfare (PSYOP) techniques to manipulate public perception and foreign policy outcomes. Per a Google search of "CIA Dissemination Techniques," one technique used has been "Black" Propaganda, or disseminating information that is falsely attributed to an adversary or a source other than the true creator, which is. designed to sow confusion and distrust (Google search of "CIA disinformation techniques," sourced as CSIS Center for Strategic and International Studies) The Agency also uses Conditioning (seeding accurate, factual content through fake or compromised outlets to build credibility, while keeping the true source hidden--sourced as Taylor and Francis Online) and Forgeries and Fronts (using proprietary organizations, subsidized media entities, and counterfeit documents to legitimize specific narratives in foreign countries--sourced as Taylor & Francis Online). The Agency uses psychological and Emotional Targeting, and has apparently found it more effective to target the personalities of opposing leaders or groups via caricature and hyperbole rather than debating complex political issues (sourced as The Hill). They manipulate targets using four core motivators: reward (money, praise0, ideology (religion, nationalism), coercion (guilt, blackmail), and ego.
The CIA also routinely uses non-disclosure agreements (NDA's) with nearly all its employees as a means to maintain secrecy about its activities, whether ethical or not.
And one of the most effective techniques in the CiA's toolbox is the extent to which it uses "Plausible Deniability." By masking origins of information and controlling the outlet, the agency can plausibly deny its role in domestic or foreign activities.
Formed from the remnants of the disbanded OSS or Office of Strategic Services (due to the end of WWII, the loss of its primary supporter Franklin D. Roosevelt, and bureaucratic infighting 'driven by rival agencies like the FBI who feared the creation of a permanent, peacetime 'American Gestapo'), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was formed from the national Security Act of 1947, the CIA's original mission was to provide a centralized coordination of intelligence collecting, analyzing, and dissemination of foreign intelligence. The Agency has loosely interpreted that mission and spied on individuals and organizations involved in activities that the higher-ups in the Agency deemed "subversive"--including peaceful anti-war activists, Civil Rights activists, journalists, and others. The Agency has also engaged in targeted political assassinations (or in the case of Fidel Castro, attempted assassinations), LSD mind-control experiments on unsuspecting U.S. citizens (MK Ultra),
Some of the Agency's unethical activities began to come to light in a December, 1974 New York Times report by Seymour Hersh, which exposed the Agency's "Family Jewels," which was a massive domestic operation targeting anti-war activists and journalists. This reporting led to the formation of the Rockefeller Commission (led by Gerald Ford's Vice President Nelson Rockefeller). The Rockefeller Commission's job was to investigate the allegations that the CIA engaged in illegal domestic spying and other abuses against American citizens (per Google search on "Rockefeller Commission," citing the Ford Presidential Museum). The commission found that the Agency maintained files on thousands of American citizens and dissident groups, illegally opened almost 215,000 pieces of first-class mail, wiretapped journalists, and conducted unauthorized (illegal) break-ins. The commission purposefully ignored or suppressed details concerning CIA plots to assassinate foreign leaders (e.g., Fidel Castro) , and the White House (via Ford's Deputy Assistant Dick Cheney) 'edited parts of the report to strip it of its independent character (per Google search of "Rockefeller Commission." sourcing National Security Archive).
The Rockefeller Commission was criticized as an effort to limit political fallout, and public sentiment led to the realization that stricter oversight of the CIA was needed. This led to the formation of the 'more expansive" Church and Pike Committees.
The Church Committee, whose formal name was "the United States Senate Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities" and chaired by Idaho senator Frank Church (D), investigated abuses by the CIA, the NSA (National Security Agency), the FBI, and the IRS. Its House counterpart was the Pike Committee. The Church Committee reveled the existence of the CIA's Operation MKULTRA, which involved the drugging of unsuspecting U.S. citizens, especially with LSD, as part of mind-control experiments. It also unveiled COINTELPRO, which involved the surveillance and infiltration of American political and civil rights organizations, unveiled more of the Family Jewels activities involving illegal and inappropriate CIA activities, and brought to light Project SHAMROCK (a program in which the major telecommunications companies shared their traffic with the NSA and confirming the existence of this signals intelligence agency to the public) and Operation Mockingbird, which was intended to manipulate news media by recruiting journalists as assets in a propaganda campaign (not to be confused with Operation Mongoose, which was the Agency's clumsy attempts to kill Fidel Castro). (See wikipedia entry on "Church Committee.") Leonard Bernstein's exposé "CIA and the Media" reveals some of the extent to which Operation Mockingbird was successful.
The Agency has always been very tight-mouthed and secretive about its activities. Following a botched recovery mission of a Soviet sub via a Howard Hughes contracted ship, the Hughes Glomar Explorer, and obsessed with controlling information about its activities, the Agency adopted the "Glomar Response" to any inquiries regarding its activities--to "neither confirm nor deny" whether any documents existed concerning the Glomar Explorer activities. That refusal to confirm or deny any allegation has become the CIA's standard operating procedure. It avoids responsibility. In fact, it was the response used to claim that they could not say whether the government used drones to carry out lethal strikes overseas, for example.
This "neither confirm not deny" response has spread to other agencies and has been used, for example, to circumvent local public records requests, such as a New York Civil Liberties Union filed request seeking documents regarding the NYPD's monitoring of protestors' social media activity and cell phones. The NYPD's response was that revelation of the existence of such records would harm "national security." This secrecy extends to the CIA's torturing program, in which the CIA abducted hundreds of Muslim men and boys, held them incommunicado, brutally tortured them, and denied them due process (see ACLU website.)
The CIA has a history of using disinformation (fake news) and psychological warfare (PSYOP) techniques to manipulate public perception and foreign policy outcomes. Per a Google search of "CIA Dissemination Techniques," one technique used has been "Black" Propaganda, or disseminating information that is falsely attributed to an adversary or a source other than the true creator, which is. designed to sow confusion and distrust (Google search of "CIA disinformation techniques," sourced as CSIS Center for Strategic and International Studies) The Agency also uses Conditioning (seeding accurate, factual content through fake or compromised outlets to build credibility, while keeping the true source hidden--sourced as Taylor and Francis Online) and Forgeries and Fronts (using proprietary organizations, subsidized media entities, and counterfeit documents to legitimize specific narratives in foreign countries--sourced as Taylor & Francis Online). The Agency uses psychological and Emotional Targeting, and has apparently found it more effective to target the personalities of opposing leaders or groups via caricature and hyperbole rather than debating complex political issues (sourced as The Hill). They manipulate targets using four core motivators: reward (money, praise0, ideology (religion, nationalism), coercion (guilt, blackmail), and ego.
The CIA also routinely uses non-disclosure agreements (NDA's) with nearly all its employees as a means to maintain secrecy about its activities, whether ethical or not.
And one of the most effective techniques in the CiA's toolbox is the extent to which it uses "Plausible Deniability." By masking origins of information and controlling the outlet, the agency can plausibly deny its role in domestic or foreign activities.
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Plausible Deniability
Another tactic that has been used by the CIA to evade responsibility is "plausible deniability."
Another tactic that has been used by the CIA to evade responsibility is "plausible deniability."
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John McCone to James Rowley Memorandum
I recently found (thanks to David Reid on the Facebook JFK Assassination Discussion Group) the video of Robert Gordon on YouTube "JFK: Absolute Proof: The Killing of a President--Robert Groden'" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEWLrJjr270) I don't agree with all of Groden's conclusions (many of which are based on the Zapruder film, whose authenticity he never seems to question), but one thing of particular interest was his showing of a memo from CIA director John McCone to Secret Service Director James Rowley, showing that Oswald was, indeed, a CIA asset, and that he did not actually defect to the Soviet Union.
I recently found (thanks to David Reid on the Facebook JFK Assassination Discussion Group) the video of Robert Gordon on YouTube "JFK: Absolute Proof: The Killing of a President--Robert Groden'" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEWLrJjr270) I don't agree with all of Groden's conclusions (many of which are based on the Zapruder film, whose authenticity he never seems to question), but one thing of particular interest was his showing of a memo from CIA director John McCone to Secret Service Director James Rowley, showing that Oswald was, indeed, a CIA asset, and that he did not actually defect to the Soviet Union.
While extremely interesting, this does not prove that Oswald shot Kennedy on the CIA's behalf. It does, however, add to Oswald's motivation for wanting to shoot Governor Connally. With Oswald having "defected" to the Soviet Union at the CIA's behest, he would have been understandably angry at Connally for the "Dishonorable Discharge" that Connally (as then Secretary of the Navy) was responsible for.
Hoo boy.
Hoo boy.
McCone Memorandum as a Forgery?
There is the contention that the McCone memorandum above is a forgery. Let's examine that claim.
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So on its face, it does indeed appear to be a forgery.
There is the contention that the McCone memorandum above is a forgery. Let's examine that claim.
...
So on its face, it does indeed appear to be a forgery.
Not a Forgery?
However, if it is a forgery, it is a damn good one. And there are reasons to suspect that it might not be a forgery after all--or rather, that it might be a copy of an actual memorandum disguised as a forgery.
Huh?
It is/was apparently a common practice in the CIA ("intelligence community") to "leak accurate information in a manner in which it can later be discredited to (a) protect the exposure of the source or (b) cover someone's ass."
However, if it is a forgery, it is a damn good one. And there are reasons to suspect that it might not be a forgery after all--or rather, that it might be a copy of an actual memorandum disguised as a forgery.
Huh?
It is/was apparently a common practice in the CIA ("intelligence community") to "leak accurate information in a manner in which it can later be discredited to (a) protect the exposure of the source or (b) cover someone's ass."
...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.
--in email from Jim Moore (apparent author of "A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone Files" and founder of the libertarian organization Phoenix Foundation, which in part inspired the MacGyver TV series, and whose history of ) to JFK assassination researcher Peter Whitmey and published on https://mccone-rowley.blogspot.com/2005/09/?m=1 (accessed 06/26/2026) There is a fascinating autobiography of Moore farther down in the web page.
--in email from Jim Moore (apparent author of "A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone Files" and founder of the libertarian organization Phoenix Foundation, which in part inspired the MacGyver TV series, and whose history of ) to JFK assassination researcher Peter Whitmey and published on https://mccone-rowley.blogspot.com/2005/09/?m=1 (accessed 06/26/2026) There is a fascinating autobiography of Moore farther down in the web page.
James Wilcott HSCA Testimony
The claims in the McCone memorandum are actually corroborated by the testimony of a former CIA agent whose job brought him in contact with a fellow CIA employee who claimed to have been Oswald's case manager.
The claims in the McCone memorandum are actually corroborated by the testimony of a former CIA agent whose job brought him in contact with a fellow CIA employee who claimed to have been Oswald's case manager.
So not only do we have the McCone memorandum to Secret Service Chief Rowley, we also have sworn testimony from a former CIA employee who had heard from his fellows that Oswald was a CIA agent. I think the odds are pretty good that he was.