JFK Assassination Conspiracy:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAkennedyJ.htm

http://www.jfkresearch.com

The Majority of research material presented on this page was garnered from two of the best books one can read on the Kennedy Assassination conspiracy "Crossfire" by Jim Marrs and "Family of Secrets" by Russ Baker. I highly recommend reading these books in addition to the material presented on this page.

The first half of this page is devoted to answering the more important question of who wanted Kennedy killed and who would have the resources to keep such an act secret and covered-up for over 40 years. It also touches upon some of the primary motives for the players involved such as the Oil Depletion Allowance, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the CIA. The second half of the page will attempt to answer the less important, though undoubtedly more popular, question of how the actual assassination was carried out.

The Whole Bay of Pigs Thing:

Nixon once said of WaterGate that it could uncover "the whole Bay of Pigs things". By this discrete and hidden statement we now know that he was revealing inside knowledge of deeper ties between the WaterGate burglers (E. Howard Hunt, and Frank Sturgis) and their ties to previous covert operations. Although these men have careers going back to before the Bay of Pigs invasion. There are deeper hidden ties between these individuals and events that will be revealed in the course of this page.

Nixon was in Dallas to give a morning address to a soda bottler's convention and left the city at 9:05 a.m., about three hours before the assassination, Baker writes. He was back in New York City when the news of the assassination shocked the nation. Nixon also called a press conference...on Nov. 21...criticizing Kennedy's policies on civil rights and foreign relations but also urging Texans to show courtesy to the president during his visit."

Nixon also told the reporters on Nov. 21 -- the day before the assassination -- press conference that Kennedy was going to replace Lyndon Johnson with a new running mate in 1964. Baker says "This was a particularly incendiary thing to say, since the whole reason for Kennedy's visit was to cement his links to Texas Democrats, help bridge a gap between the populist and conservative wings of the state party, and highlight his partnership with Johnson." Nixon's comment gained a place in the early edition of the Dallas Morning News on Nov. 23, under the headline: "Nixon Predicts JFK May Drop Johnson."

Sources: Russ Baker "Family of Secrets", and "Crossfire" by Jim Marrs

Operation 40:

Frank Sturgis has claimed: "this assassination group (Operation 40) would upon orders, naturally, assassinate either members of the military or the political parties of the foreign country that you were going to infiltrate, and if necessary some of your own members who were suspected of being foreign agents."

Operation Mongoose:

Political background

On March 17, 1960, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved a document prepared by the 5412 Committee (also known as the 'Special Group'), at a meeting of the US National Security Council (NSC). The stated first objective of the plan began as follows:^[5]

A PROGRAM OF COVERT ACTION AGAINST THE CASTRO REGIME
1. Objective: The purpose of the program outlined herein is to bring about the replacement of the Castro regime with one more devoted to the true interests of the Cuban people and more acceptable to the U.S. in such a manner to avoid any appearance of U.S. intervention.

The outline plan (code-named Operation Pluto) was organized by CIA Deputy Director for Plans Richard Mervin Bissell, Jr., under CIA Director Allen Dulles. Having experience in actions such as the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état, Dulles was confident that the CIA was capable of overthrowing the Cuban government as led by prime minister Fidel Castro since February 1959. The first detailed CIA plan proposed a ship-borne invasion at the old colonial city of Trinidad, Cuba, about 270 km (170 mi) south-east of Havana, at the foothills of the Escambray Mountains in Sancti Spiritus province. Trinidad had good port facilities, it was closer to many existing counter-revolutionary activities, it had an easily defensible beachhead, and it offered an escape route into the Escambray Mountains. When that plan was rejected by the State Department, the CIA went on to propose an alternative plan. On April 4, 1961, President Kennedy then approved the Bay of Pigs plan (also known as Operation Zapata), because it had an airfield that would not need to be extended to handle bomber operations, it was further away from large groups of civilians than the Trinidad plan, and it was less militarily 'noisy,' that would make any future denial of direct US involvement more plausible. The invasion landing area was changed to beaches bordering the Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) in Las Villas Province, 150 km south-east of Havana, and east of the Zapata peninsula. The landings were to take place at Playa Girón (code-named Blue Beach), Playa Larga (code-named Red Beach), and Caleta Buena Inlet (code-named Green Beach).^[6][7][8][9]

JM Wave

JMWAVE or JM/WAVE or JM WAVE was the codename for a major, secret United States covert operations and intelligence gathering station operated by the CIA from 1961 until 1968. It was headquartered in Building 25 25°37'13?N 80°23'56?W? / ?25.6202°N 80.3990°W? / 25.6202; -80.3990 on the South Campus (formerly the site of Richmond Naval Air Station, an airship base about 12 miles south of the main campus) of the University of Miami in Miami, Florida. It was also referred to as the CIA's "Miami Station" or "Wave Station".^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

JMWAVE underwent its first major development when it was established as the operations center for Task Force W, the CIA's unit dedicated to "Operation Mongoose"^[2][6][7] - a US effort to overthrow President Fidel Castro's Communist government in Cuba. JMWAVE was also active in some form during the failed US-sponsored "Bay of Pigs" invasion of Cuba in April 1961.^[8] The JMWAVE operation grew out of an earlier fledgling CIA office in Coral Gables.^[1]

The station's activities reached their peak in late 1962 and early 1963 - the period of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Under Ted Shackley's leadership from 1962 to 1965, JMWAVE grew to be the largest CIA station in the world outside of the organization's headquarters in Langley, Virginia, with 300 to 400 professional operatives (possibly including about 100 based in Cuba) as well as an estimated 15,000 anti-Castro Cuban exiles on its payroll. The CIA was one of Miami's largest employers during this period. Exiles were trained in commando tactics, espionage and seamanship and the station supported numerous exile raids on Cuba.^[1][2][9]

The main front company for JMWAVE was "Zenith Technical Enterprises, Inc." In addition, about 300 to 400 other front companies were created throughout South Florida with a large range of "safe houses", cover businesses and other properties. With an annual budget of approx. US$50 million (in 1960s dollars; US$50 million in 1962 dollars are worth US$333 million in 2006 dollars (PPP)^[10]), the station had a major impact on the economy of South Florida, creating a local economic boom - particularly in the real estate, banking and certain manufacturing sectors. It also operated a fleet of aircraft and boats - this has been described as the third largest navy in the Caribbean at the time after the main US and Cuban navies. JMWAVE's activities were so widespread that they became an open secret amongst local Florida government and law enforcement agencies.^[1][2]

On June 26, 1964, Look magazine published an exposé by David Wise and Thomas B. Ross which revealed that Zenith was a CIA front. The University of Miami authorities denied knowledge of the CIA operation (though Shackley would claim privately that University President Henry King Stanford was fully aware) and JMWAVE changed its main front company name from Zenith to "Melmar Corporation".^[1]

By 1968, JMWAVE was increasingly regarded as obsolete. There was also concern that the station would become a public embarrassment to the University of Miami. Consequently, it was deactivated and replaced with a substantially smaller station at Miami Beach.^[1]

As of 2004, the facilities on the Richmond Naval Air Station site were still used by several US government agencies, including the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service, the United States Air Force and the United States Army. Several original JMWAVE buildings were still standing. As of 2007, Building 25 has been the subject of a local government effort to convert it into a military museum and memorial.^[2][11][12]

See also

• Alleged role of former senior JMWAVE officers in the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy

Operation Zapata

Although he denies it, there is a growing body of evidence that George Bush was working for the CIA as early as 1961. Many feel he was actually recruited during his college days (which is when he joined the Skull and Bones Society). Bush claims to have been working for his own oil company during the early 1960's. It would make for a convenient front since he claims to have been off- shore on drilling rigs for weeks at a time. The rigs were located all over the world. Was he really on the rigs or was he running around on CIA business? The various biographies of Bush are all sketchy on this phase of his life.

During this time, Bush had moved to HOUSTON, Texas. His wife was, of course, BARBARA. His oil company was ZAPATA Off Shore Co. (which he named after a communist Mexican revolutionary who would invade towns and murder every man, woman and child. Bush also named an earlier oil company after Zapata, a questionable choice for a hero). The code name for the Bay of Pigs invasion was Operation ZAPATA! A former high-ranking Pentagon official, Col. Fletcher Prouty, was the man who secured two Navy ships for the operation. He has told of seeing the two ships repainted to non-Navy colors for the invasion. The ships were given the new names HOUSTON and BARBARA!

Of course, maybe the names were just coincidences, but Bush was living in Houston with Barbara and running Zapata in 1961 during the planning of the invasion. The name "Operation Zapata" was top secret and known only to a very few.

In 1977 and 1978, the government released nearly 100,000 pages of documents on the Kennedy assassination. One which slipped out by mistake was from the FBI to the State Department written a few days after the assassination. The State Department was worried that anti- Castro groups in Miami might stage another invasion of Cuba in the aftermath of the JFK murder. The FBI informed them that they had questioned both pro-Castro and anti-Castro groups and could find no information about such plans. The memo went on to state that the information was passed along to "George Bush of the Central Intelli- gence Agency" the day after the assassination.

Why was the information passed along to the CIA? Probably because of their previous invasion attempt and other planned attacks. Why George Bush? Probably because he was involved in previous invasion plans!

When the document first surfaced no one paid much attention to it. When the presidential campaigns began for the 1980 election then the name George Bush caught researchers' eyes. When asked about the memo, Bush denied working for the CIA at the time. As evidence built that it was indeed him, the CIA claimed it was a different George Bush although their policy had always been to neither confirm nor deny a person's employment. The other George Bush was tracked down by reporters and said that although he did work for the CIA at the time, he was never involved in that sort of work. The interesting point is that the CIA did not bother to contact the other George Bush and inform him that reporters might soon be calling. Other evidence surfaced that showed the George Bush mentioned in the document was actually George H. W. Bush and had the same address as the famous George Bush.

Another Bush connection involved George de Mohrenschildt, a rich Russian oil man who lived in Texas when Lee Harvey Oswald settled there after his trip to the Soviet Union. De Mohrenschildt was a long-time CIA agent and quite possibly served as a CIA control officer for Oswald. The Warren Commission described him and his wife as being the two people friendliest to Oswald at the time of the assassination. De Mohrenschildt's son-in-law told the Warren Commission that if any- one had helped with the assassination it was most likely de Mohren- schildt. De Mohrenschildt was also the man who moved Oswald to Dallas.

Shortly before the House Select Committee on Assassinations started meeting in the late 1970's a new doctor appeared in de Mohrenschildt's town. De Mohrenschildt started seeing him and quickly became mentally unstable. His wife convinced him to stop seeing the doctor. The doctor then moved away and left a false forwarding address. The very day the Committee tried to contact de Mohrenschildt about testifying, he was found dead of a gun shot wound. His personal address book was found and it contained the entry "Bush, George H. W. (Poppy) 1412 W. Ohio also Zapata Petroleum Midland." Bush's full name is George Herbert Walker Bush which matches the initials given and his earlier oil company was named Zapata Petroleum Corp. Why was his name in de Mohrenschildt's book? Is "Poppy" his CIA code name?

It is known that in the early 1960's de Mohrenschildt made frequent trips to Houston, which was the location of Bush's home. He told friends he was visiting the Brown brothers, who were close friends and financial supporters of Lyndon Johnson. CIA documents reveal that during the planning phase of Operation Zapata, de Mohrenschildt made frequent trips to Mexico and Panama and gave reports to the CIA. His son-in-law told the Warren Commission that he believed de Mohren- schildt was spying for the planned Cuban invasion.

A QUESTION OF CHARACTER

When Bush was picked to be director of the CIA in 1976, he testified to Congress that he had never worked for the CIA before. Of course, it did not make much sense to appoint a director who had no such back- ground but Congress approved him anyway. Now it would seem that Bush committed perjury in his congressional testimony.

George Bush was apparently high enough in the CIA to help plan the Bay of Pigs invasion. It would probably be safe to assume that he even named the operation and its two ships. Considering the hatred that the CIA felt toward Kennedy over their failed mission and Bush's involvement in that same mission, it would be quite interesting to know what Bush's feelings toward John F. Kennedy really were and what his full role in the assassination investigation was.

Oswald's CIA Handlers

David Atlee Phillips (October 31, 1922 ? July 7, 1988) was a Central Intelligence Agency officer for 25 years, one of a handful of people to receive the Career Intelligence Medal. He rose to become the CIA's chief of all operations in the Western hemisphere. In 1975 he founded the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO), an alumni association comprising intelligence officers from all services.

Phillips used the alias "Maurice Bishop" (not to be confused with the former prime minister of Grenada, Maurice Bishop). He used the pseudonym whilst working with Alpha 66, an organization of anti-Castro Cubans. Alpha 66's founder, Antonio Veciana, claimed that during one of his meetings with "Bishop", Lee Harvey Oswald was also in attendance. Some observers falsely note that Phillips was the officer in charge of the CIA's Mexico City station when Oswald visited the city in the fall of 1963. The Chief of Station in Mexico City was Winston Scott. Scott asked Phillips to take the number three position, "a job Howard Hunt had held in the early fifties and in which Hunt had handled, among others, an American contract agent named William F. Buckley." In a deathbed statement released in 2007, Watergate figure and CIA officer Howard Hunt named Phillips as one of the participants in the JFK assassination.

United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) investigator Gaeton Fonzi believed Phillips was Bishop. In the HSCA's 1979 report, it stated:

"The committee suspected that Veciana was lying when he denied that the retired CIA officer was Bishop. The committee recognized that Veciana had an interest in renewing his anti-Castro operations that might have led him to protect the officer from exposure as Bishop so they could work together again. For his part, the retired officer aroused the committee's suspicion when he told the committee he did not recognize Veciana as the founder of Alpha 66, especially since the officer had once been deeply involved in Agency anti-Castro operations. Further, a former CIA case officer who was assigned from September 1960 to November 1962 to the JM/WAVE station in Miami told the committee that the retired officer had in fact used the alias, Maurice Bishop. The committee also interviewed a former assistant of the retired officer but he could not recall his former superior ever having used the name or having been referred to as Bishop."

The report went on to dismiss Veciana's testimony about the meeting:

"In the absence of corroboration or independent substantiation, the committee could not, therefore, credit Veciana's story of having met with Lee Harvey Oswald." (page 137)

George de Mohrenschildt (April 17, 1911 ? March 29, 1977) was a petroleum geologist and Professor who befriended Lee Harvey Oswald in the summer of 1962 and maintained that friendship until Oswald's death two days after the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. He had personal acquaintance with the Bouvier family, including Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, the president's wife, when she was still a child. His testimony before the Warren Commission investigating the assassination was one of the longest of any witness.

According to Gregory Burnham George de Mohrenschildt was an "active member of 2 CIA Proprietary Organizations: The Dallas Council On World Affairs and The Crusade For A Free Europe." Other members included Abraham Zapruder, Clint Murchison, David Byrd, George H. W. Bush, Neil Mallon and Haroldson L. Hunt.

In 1961 George de Mohrenschildt was invited to lunch by J. Walton Moore. According to Edward Jay Epstein, during the meeting Moore told de Mohrenschildt about Lee Harvey Oswald living in Minsk. However, in his book on the case, I'm a Patsy (1977), he gives a different version of events: "Early in the summer of 1962 the rumors spread out among the Russian-speaking people of Dallas and Fort Worth of an unusual couple-the Oswalds. He was supposedly an ex-marine, an unfriendly and eccentric character, who had gone to Russia and brought back with him a Russian wife. He had lived in Minsk where I had spent my early childhood. And so I was curious to meet the couple and to find out what had happened to Minsk. Someone gave me Lee's address and one afternoon a friend of mine, Colonel Lawrence Orloff and I drove to Fort Worth, about 30 miles from Dallas."

Over the next few months George de Mohrenschildt took Oswald to anti-Castro meetings in Dallas. De Mohrenschildt later told Edward Jay Epstein that he was asked by J. Walton Moore to find out about Oswald's time in the Soviet Union. In return he was given help with an oil deal he was negotiating with Papa Doc Duvalier, the Haitian dictator. In March 1963, De Mohrenschildt got the contract from the Haitian government. He had assumed that this was because of the help he had given to the CIA.

In February, 1963 George de Mohrenschildt introduced Marina Oswald and Lee Harvey Oswald to Ruth Paine. On 24th April, 1963, Marina and her daughter went to live with Paine. Oswald rented a room in Dallas but stored some of his possessions in Ruth Paine?s garage. Ruth also helped Oswald to get a job at the Texas School Book Depository.

On 5th September 1976 De Mohrenschildt sent a message to George H. W. Bush, who was at that time director of the CIA: "Maybe you will be able to bring a solution to the hopeless situation I find myself in. My wife and I find ourselves surrounded by some vigilantes; our phone bugged; and we are being followed everywhere. Either FBI is involved in this or they do not want to accept my complaints. We are driven to insanity by the situation. I have been behaving like a damn fool ever since my daughter Nadya died from (cystic fibrosis) over three years ago. I tried to write, stupidly and unsuccessfully, about Lee H Oswald and must have angered a lot of people I do not know. But to punish an elderly man like myself and my highly nervous and sick wife is really too much. Could you do something to remove the net around us? This will be my last request for help and I will not annoy you any more."

Two months later George de Mohrenschildt was committed to a mental institution. According to his wife, Jeanne de Mohrenschildt, he was suffering from depression. He was taken to Parkland Hospital and underwent electroshock therapy.

In February 1977, Willem Oltmans, met George de Mohrenschildt at the library of Bishop College in Dallas, where he taught French. Oltmans later told the House Select Committee on Assassinations: "I couldn't believe my eyes. The man had changed drastically... he was nervous, trembling. It was a scared, a very, very scared person I saw. I was absolutely shocked, because I knew de Mohrenschildt as a man who wins tennis matches, who is always suntanned, who jogs every morning, who is as healthy as a bull."

According to Willem Oltmans, he confessed to being involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. "I am responsible. I feel responsible for the behaviour of Lee Harvey Oswald... because I guided him. I instructed him to set it up." Oltmans claimed that de Mohrenschildt had admitted serving as a middleman between Lee Harvey Oswald and H. L. Hunt in an assassination plot involving other Texas oilmen, anti-Castro Cubans, and elements of the FBI and CIA.

Oltmans told the HSCA: "He begged me to take him out of the country because they are after me." On 13th February 1977, Oltmans took de Mohrenschildt to his home in Amsterdam where they worked on his memoirs. Over the next few weeks de Mohrenschildt claimed he knew Jack Ruby and argued that Texas oilmen joined with intelligence operatives to arrange the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Willem Oltmans arranged for George de Mohrenschildt to meet a Dutch publisher and the head of Dutch national television. The two men then travelled to Brussels. When they arrived, Oltmans mentioned that an old friend of his, a Soviet diplomat, would be joining them a bit later for lunch. De Mohrenschildt said he wanted to take a short walk before lunch. Instead, he fled to a friend's house and after a few days he flew back to the United States. He later accused Oltmans of betraying him. Russ Baker suggests in his book Family of Secrets: "Perhaps, and this would be strictly conjecture, de Mohrenschildt saw what it meant that he, like Oswald, was being placed in the company of Soviets. He was being made out to be a Soviet agent himself. And once that happened, his ultimate fate was clear."

The House Select Committee on Assassinations were informed of George de Mohrenschildt's return to the United States and sent its investigator, Gaeton Fonzi, to find him. Fonzi discovered he was living with his daughter in Palm Beach. However, Fonzi was not the only person looking for de Mohrenschildt. On 15th March 1977 he had a meeting with Edward Jay Epstein that had been arranged by the Reader's Digest magazine. Epstein offered him $4,000 for a four-day interview.

On 27th March, 1977, George de Mohrenschildt arrived at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach and spent the day being interviewed by Epstein. According to Epstein, they spent the day talking about his life and career up until the late 1950s.

Two days later Edward Jay Epstein asked him about Lee Harvey Oswald. As he wrote in his diary: "Then, this morning, I asked him about why he, a socialite in Dallas, sought out Oswald, a defector. His explanation, if believed, put the assassination in a new and unnerving context. He said that although he had never been a paid employee of the CIA, he had "on occasion done favors" for CIA connected officials. In turn, they had helped in his business contacts overseas. By way of example, he pointed to the contract for a survey of the Yugoslavian coast awarded to him in 1957. He assumed his "CIA connections" had arranged it for him and he provided them with reports on the Yugoslav officials in whom they had expressed interest."

Epstein and de Mohrenschildt, broke for lunch and decided to meet again at 3 p.m. George De Mohrenschildt returned to his room where he found a card from Gaeton Fonzi, an investigator working for the House Select Committee on Assassinations. George De Mohrenschildt's body was found later that day. He had apparently committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth.

On 11th May, 1978, Jeanne de Mohrenschildt gave an interview to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where she said that she did not accept that her husband had committed suicide. She also said that she believed Lee Harvey Oswald was an agent of the United States, possibly of the CIA, and that she was convinced he did not kill John F. Kennedy. She then went onto say: "They may get me too, but I'm not afraid... It's about time somebody looked into this thing."

It is interesting whose name appeared in DeMohrenschildt's address book, provided to House investigators after his "suicide:

CIA Project WUBRINY/LPDICTUM

An internal CIA memo dated November 29, 1975 reported that:

Two agency reports from April 1963 link De Mohrenschildt and Thomas Devine (Bush's business partner and former CIA agent) together. The reports say De Mohrenschildt was going from Dallas to Haiti to secure some mineral concessions (sisal, product used to make rope). The report doesn't mention De Mohrenschildt's extensive links to intelligence, oil, etc. Haiti was the perfect cover: De Mohrenschildt had previous ties to the island because he went there in the 50s on behalf of some big oil companies.

The second report mentions De Mohrenschildt's arrival to New York the next day. He arrived at the investment banking firm of Train Cabot (CIA code name SALINE). The chief agent for SALINE was Thomas Devine.

Now that there was a benign link between De Mohrenschildt and Devine, George H W Bush could shrug off questions about his associations with Lee Harvey Oswald's best friend.

After the meeting in New York, De Mohrenschildt went to DC. The meeting was allegedly about how to topple Duvalier, the dictator of Haiti. In audience to this meeting was LBJ's military advisor Howard Burris. Now there was a benign link between De Mohrenschildt and Army Intelligence, one that was free from De Mohrenschildt's friendship of Oswald.

There are several layers of cover here for De Mohrenschildt, each plausible and each takes would-be investigators further from the truth.

Prepping a patsy

When De Mohrenschildt left for Haiti in May 1963, Oswald was a man with multiple personas, all of them capable of killing JFK.

Just six weeks before JFK was shot, Oswald landed a job at the Texas School Book Depository. Lone nut theorists state Oswald could not have known at the time he landed this job what JFK's parade route would be. However, there are only two possible routes through downtown Dallas that lead from the airport to the Trade Mart; and the Texas School Book Depository is on one of them.

The owner of the Texas School Book Depository was D Harold Byrd, friend of Clint Murchison and De Mohrenschildt. Byrd's name does not appear in the vast majority of books on the assassination. Indeed, Byrd had employed De Mohrenschildt in the 1950's at Byrd's Three States Oil and Gas Co. Just weeks before he befriended Oswald, De Mohrenschildt started a foundation for cystic fibrosis and put Byrd's wife on the board. The author speculates these connections would give Byrd and De Mohrenschildt cover if anyone found out about other links between De Mohrenschildt and Byrd.

Byrd was good friends with Air Force General Charles Cabell (whom Kennedy had fired over the Bay of Pigs). Byrd and the Cabells (both Charles and his brother Earle who was mayor of Dallas) were good friends.

According to the official documents, Oswald got the job at the Texas School Book Depository through Ruth Paine. Paine's friend Linnie Mae Randle had a brother who worked there. But Randle's brother had only started at the depository a little while before Lee. The author speculates that De Mohrenschildt may have been influential in both Randle's brother getting hired and Oswald getting hired.

About the time De Mohrenschildt broke off ties with Oswald and went to Haiti, Byrd left for Africa, thus giving himself an alibi.

The Bush Connection:

In 1934 Major General Smedley Butler was involved in a controversy known as the Business Plot when he told a congressional committee that a group of wealthy industrialists had approached him to lead a military coup to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt. The individuals that were involved denied the existence of a plot, and the media ridiculed the allegations. The final report of the committee claimed that there was evidence that such a plot existed, but no charges were ever filed. The opinion of most historians is that while planning for a coup was not very advanced, wild schemes were discussed. Afterward, in 1935, Bulter wrote the book "War is a Racket", detailing the workings of the military-industrial complex.

One of the people identified as a participant in the 1934 plot to overthrow the US Government was none other than Prescott Bush who was also tied to Union Banking Corporation whose assets were seized by the United States government during World War II under the Trading with the Enemy Act and Executive Order No. 9095.

Where was Poppy?

George H. W. (Poppy) Bush may be one of the few people of his generation who cannot recall exactly where he was when John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
At times he has said that he was "somewhere in Texas." Bush was indeed "somewhere" in Texas. And he had every reason to remember. At the time, Bush was the 39-year-old chairman of the Harris County (Houston) Republican Party and an outspoken critic of the President.

In the art of propaganda, and in the daily business of public relations, a cardinal rule is that if a problem emerges, it must be managed immediately. The trick is to quickly acknowledge and gain control of thenew material, mitigating the damage by redirecting it in a beneficial way. This is known in tradecraft as "block and bridge." Thus it was that the first and only Bush family acknowledgment of where Poppy Bush was on that red-letter day [JFK's assassination on Nov. 22, 1963] came in classic form--from the wife, in the most innocuous swathing. The venue was her 1994 book, Barbara Bush: A Memoir, which was published ten months after the document's declassification. Deep in that book, mostly a compendium of narrow-gauge, self-serving recollections, there it was: not just a recollection of the assassination, but the reproduction of an actual letter written by Barbara on the very day, at the very moment, that Kennedy was shot. The letter has plenty of details, but it omits one important personal item from that day: Poppy's call to the FBI; perhaps Poppy did not mention it to her?

Barbara begins to describe that fateful day on page 59 of her memoirs:

The following is exactly how the excerpt appears in the book, ellipses and all:

Russ Baker spent considerable paragraphs in his book musing on who the Ulmers were and what connection they may have had to the Bushes and to the recipients of Barbara's letter written on that fateful day. He finally concludes as follows:

Although there were numerous Doris Ulmers in the United States at the time, only one matches the description of an old friend who had helped Poppy when Poppy visited Greece, and who was in 1963 a resident of London: Mrs. Alfred C. Ulmer, Jr.

Al Ulmer is sometimes described as having filled the positions of "attaché" and "first secretary" at the US embassy in Athens from the late 40s through the mid-fifties. Yet a memorial tribute to him in the alumni publication of his alma mater, Princeton, scores higher on the candor meter, describing his life in the wartime OSS and the CIA. Ulmer was a good friend and confidant of CIA director Allen Dulles. He embodied the attitude that nobody could tell the CIA what to do -- nobody: "We went all over the world and we did what we wanted," Ulmer later recalled. "God, we had fun." He also managed coups.

        So what was Poppy doing meeting with a coup expert just prior to the JFK Assassination?

Besides Doris Ulmer, the other person Barbara mentioned in her letter is "Mr. Zeppo"-the man who had lent them his plane on Nov. 22. As with so many other clues in documents concerning Poppy Bush, this one appears a dead end, until one realizes that the name has been slightly mis-spelled. There was in fact no Mr. Zeppo, but there was a man, since deceased, by the name of Zeppa. Joe Jeppa founded the Tyler-based Delta Drilling Company, which became one of the world's largest contract oil drillers, with operations around the globe.

Guiseppe (Joe) Zeppa emigrated from northern Italy at the age of twelve, came to New York, where his older brother, Carlo (Charlie), was living and working as a waiter. Charlie's wife worked as the personal maid to a wealthy lady, Mrs. George H. Church. Mr. Church worked for the Wall Street law firm of Sherman & Sterling as head of its trust department, which handled, among other clients, the estate of William G. Rockefeller (John D. Rockefeller's nephew, a major investor in the railroad that employed Samuel Bush, and a director of the Harriman's Union Pacific Railroad) and Standard Oil magnate Henry H. Rogers. The Churches had no children and eagerly embraced young Joe Zeppa. They got him a job as a stockboy at Sherman & Sterling, and he quickly moved up in the firm, eventually becoming an accountant.

With this kind of support network, Zeppa had a personal history that was less rags to riches than something akin to Poppy Bush's experience of the world and how it works.

Joe Zeppa also owned and lived in the Blackstone Hotel, the site of Bush's Kiwanis speech the day of the Assassination.

Barbara, in her letter, notes the use of Zeppa's plane to leave Tyler early in the afternoon on November 22. What she does not mention is that, in all probability, they also arrived on Zeppa's Plane. The very fact that Zeppa lent his plane to Poppy is surprising, according to his son, Keating Zeppa, this was out of character for his father. The plane bypassed Dallas' downtown Love Field, dropped Zeppa off at Fort Worth's municipal airport, and then backtracked to Dallas.

Though the movements of Zeppa's plane on the afternoon of November 22, 1963 once it left Tyler are intriguing, much more important is where it came from on the morning of November 22: Dallas.

This brings us to the vexing question of Poppy's motive in calling the FBI at 1:45 P.M. on November 22, to identify James Parrot as a possibly suspect in the president's murder, and to mention that he, George H. W. Bush, happened to be in Tyler, Texas. He told the FBI that he expected to spend the night of November 22 at the Sheraton Hotel in Dallas-but instead, after flying to Dallas on Zeppa's plane, he left again almost immediately on a commercial flight to Houston. Why state that he expected to spend the night at the Dallas Sheraton if he was not planning to stay? Perhaps this was to create a little confusion, to blur the fact that he had already stayed at the hotel-the night before. Anyone inquiring would learn that Bush was in Tyler at the time of the assassination and planned to stay in Dallas afterward, but canceled his plan following JFK's death.

Bush Creates an Alibi for himself:

During the period Bush ran the Harris Country Replublican organization, it had no more than a handful of employees. Among those were the two women he mentioned to the FBI as potential sources on Parrott's alleged threat ("Mrs. Fawler" and "Arline Smith"), and a sole male-by the name of Kerney Reynolds. Though Bush made no mention of Reynolds, he was in fact the one who was most closely connected to Parrott.

Shortly after receiving Bush's call, the FBI dispatched agents to the Parrott house. At the time, Parrott was away, but according to his mother in an FBI report: She advised [James Parrott] had been home all day helping her care for her son Gary Wayne Parrott whom they brought home from the hospital yesterday.

She also mented another person who could provide an alibi.

The following day agents interviewed Kerney Reynolds.

What is so remarkable about all this is that at the precise moment when Poppy was calling the FBI with his "tip" about a possible suspect about whome he could offer few details, Poppy's own assistant was at the suspect's home, transacting business with him on behalf of Poppy. Clearly Parrott was far better known to Poppy than he let on. Why was Reynolds supposed to go to Parrott's house at this time? The net effect was that Reynolds bailed Parrott out, by providing him with an alibi. Thus Parrott became Poppy' s alibi, and Poppy's assistant became Parrott's. Everyone was taken care of. While the point was to generate two separate alibis, drawing attention to their interconnectedness was problematic. Because when the full picture emerges, the entire affair appears as a ruse to create a paper trail clearing Poppy, should that become necessary. Parrott was merely a distraction and a minor casualty, albeit a person who ought not face lasting consequence or attract undue attention.

Another curiosity: either the FBI agent who took Bush's call, or Bush himself, misspelled the surnames of the two supposed witnesses whom Bush said would know more about Parrott. To be sure, if the phone numbers provided for them in the memo were correct, the FBI would be able to find them. But years later, researchers who tried had difficulty figuring out who those people were -or how to track them down. In fact, only extensive cross-referencing reveals that "Mrs. Fawley" is actually Mrs. Thawley. And "Arline Smith" turns out to be Arleene Smith.

These were either mistakes or deliberate errors; in any case, it is reminiscent of the way Barbara Bush mingled their friend Mr. Zeppa's name in her letter. George Bush knew both of these women well. Nancy Brelsford Thawley was vice chair of the Harris Country Republican Party, and Arleene Smith was a well-known Texas Republican activist who worked for Bush for many years thereafter, accompanying him to Washington. Bush should have at least known how to spell their names.

The background of the FBI agent who took the memo is also of note. Graham Kitchel was unusually close to J. Edgar Hoover, and his record is full not only of commendations from the head of the vast organization but also of personal notes, including a get-well card in 1963 from Hoover after Kitchel underwent surgery. In addition, in a 1990s interview, Kitchel's brother George, an offshore oil engineer, explained that he, George Kitchell, was an old friend of George H. W. Bush.

Bush Identified as CIA agent in FBI Hoover Memo:

Previously disclosed FBI files include a memo from bureau director J. Edgar Hoover, noting that his organization had given a briefing to two men in the intelligence community on November 23, 1963, the day after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The memo refers to one as "Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency" and the other as "Captain William Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency."

Must have been the Other George Bush

When this document was first uncovered in 1988, George Herbert Walker Bush, then vice president and seeking the presidency, insisted through a spokesman that he was not the man mentioned in the memo: "I was in Houston, Texas, at the time and involved in the independent oil drilling business. And I was running for the Senate in late '63. I don't have any idea of what he's talking about." The spokesman added, "Must be another George Bush."

When Nation magazine contributor Joseph McBride approached the CIA in 1988, it initially invoked a policy of neither confirming nor denying anyone's involvement with the agency. But it soon took the unusual step of asserting that the correct individual was a George William Bush, a one-time Virginia staffer whom the agency claimed it could no longer locate. But that George Bush, discovered in his office in the Social Security Administration by McBride, noted that he was a low-ranked coast and landing-beach analyst and that he most certainly never received such an FBI briefing.

Indeed George William Bush was so low-level that he was not even allowed to talk on the telephone or perform any substantive activities. He referred to his role as that of a "gofer." After his short probationary period, George William Bush left the agency, raising the question of whether his hiring could have been designed to provide the other George Bush with cover during a particulary sensitive period. Though that scenario appears far-fetched on first blush, such techniques are a standard part of spy tradecraft. And they can be quite successful: years later, when questions arose about the famous George Bush, there was this other nonentity, providing crucial, if flimsy, cover.

Jack Crichton - Know Your Enemy

Crichton served in the CIA's predecessor, the OSS. He then went to work for Everette DeGolyer. Two of Crichton's company directors were Clint Murchison and D Harold Byrd. In 1952, Crichton was part of a syndicate that included Murchison and DeGolyer to secure mining rights in fascist Spain. The drilling operation was handled by Delta Drilling owned by Joe Zeppa of Tyler, Texas. Zeppa was the man who flew Bush to Dallas on 21 November 1963.

Crichton was a key member in the Civil Defense of Dallas. This was a program designed to assuage people's fears of nuclear attack. On 1 April 1962, the Dallas Civil Defense opened an underground compound under the Dallas Health and Science Museum. This headquarters was intended for continuity of government in the advent of nuclear war. This meant the compound and tremendous reach into the police and emergency services of Dallas. There is no evidence the Warren Commission ever investigated this compound.

In November 1963, Crichton and George H W Bush were both running for office: governor and senator respectively. Both used the same lawyer, Pat Holloway. Holloway worked out of the Republic National Bank Building. Both Bush and Crichton were recruited by Peter O'Donnell. Thus, Bush and Crichton were working in tandem.

In Crichton's oral history, he only mentions that Bush is an acquaintance

Summary

• Poppy Bush had ties to key members of the intelligence community deposed by Kennedy as well as Texas Oilmen and other oligarchs who hated Kennedy's politics especially his intent to repeal the Oil Depletion Allowance. This network was part of the military/intelligence elite with a history of using assassination as an instrument of policy.
• Bush was in Dallas on 21 November 1963 and possibly the next morning. He hid that fact, he lied about knowing where he was, then he created an alibi based on a lead he knew was false. And he never acknowledged the closeness of his relationship with Oswald's handler George de Mohrenschildt.
• Bush's business partner Thomas Devine met with De Mohrenschildt during that period on behalf of the CIA.
• Bush's GOP running mate in 1964, Jack Crichton, was connected to military intelligence figures who led the motorcade and to Deputy Police Cheif George Lumpkin who led Kennedy's motorcade. He and George Lumpkin found a Russian interpreter for the Dallas Police Department when they interviewed Marina Oswald skewing here testimony to fit the lone nut theory. Despite this, the Warren Commission never interviewed Crichton.
• Crichton and D. Harold Byrd were connected to De Mohrenschildt and to each other through oil dealings. Oswald was hired at the Texas School Book Depository through friends (Ruth and Michael Paine) who had family ties to Dulles (Michael's mother was Dulles' mistress).

The Crossfire:

This section deals with the less important question of how the assassination was conducted and who may have carried it out

Zapruder Film:

The Umbrellaman:

Right as the presidential motorcade approached Dealey Plaza, a man opened his umbrella and pumped it in the air above his head. Clearly he was attempting to send a signal to someone. Various theories have spawned from this strange action which took place just moments before gunshots rang out on that clear Texas day. Obviously with the sunny clear skies, there was no need for an umbrella that day.

Some believe that the Umbrella was a signal to the gunmen on the Knoll that their target was approaching, but in the real scope of things I doubt that the CIA trained Operation 40 Mobile Assassination Team would have needed such a blatant signal to signal them to make their move. For this and reasons of discreet operation, I do not believe that The "Umbrella Man" was part of the Surveillance Team, or any kind of spotter in Dealey Plaza that day, although there is still some small possibility.

Louie Steven Witt came forward in 1978 and claimed to be the Umbrella Man. He claimed he still had that umbrella and did not know he had been the subject of controversy. He said that he brought the umbrella to simply heckle Kennedy. John Kennedy's father had been a supporter of the Nazi-appeasing British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. By waving a black umbrella, Chamberlain's trademark fashion accessory, Witt claims he was protesting the Kennedy family appeasing Adolf Hitler before World War II. An umbrella had been used in cartoons in the 1930s to symbolize such appeasement, and Chamberlain often carried an umbrella. Kennedy, who wrote a thesis on appeasement while at Harvard, Why England Slept, might have recognized the symbolism of the umbrella.

Spotters:

In typical Assassination anatomy you have a surveillance team, which is separate from but covers for the actual hit team. Most snipers usually work with a spotter, since it's so useful to have another set of eyes which isn't looking through the narrow scope of a gun sight. The spotters may work directly alongside the shooter, or they may also work from a separate location and convey commands to the sniper via a communication link such as a radio.

The Tramps:

When the Dallas Police began searching the train yards behind the Grassy Knoll for the gunmen witnesses had seen and heard in that area, they found 3 men hiding in a train car that was just about to depart the area and head east out of Texas. The Three men were arrested and marched with Police Escort through Dealey Plaza to the Police Station. News reporters took these photographs of the men as they were paraded through the plaza.

It has long been speculated that these men were somehow involved in the assassination. Their true identities may never be known, but many are satisfied with the explanation given by facial expert Lois Gibson that these men are Chauncey Holt (old frowning tramp), Charles Harrelson (Tall Blond Tramp), and Charles Frederick Rogers. A link to a video of her analysis can be found Here.

Chauncey Holt was a contract officer for the CIA who had ties to the mob through Meyer Lansky and Peter Licavoli, he also admitted to being the tramp in the picture and being present for the assassination.

Charles Harrelson was a convicted mob hit man who killed Federal Judge John H. Wood Jr. He is the father of actor Woody Harrelson, and admitted to being in Dealey Plaza during the assassination. He has also denied these claims on different occasions.

Charles Frederick Rogers served with the Organization of Naval Intelligence during his military service in WW2. After the war he worked as a seismologist with Shell Oil. While a member of the Civil Air Patrol he became a close friend of David Ferrie. In 1956 Rogers joined the Central Intelligence Agency.

Others allegations for the identities of the 3 Tramps suggest that E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis were among them. E. Howard Hunt made a death-bed confession of his involvement as a bench warmer in the JFK Assassination, although Hunt did not make any statements related to the identity of the frowning tramp confirming or denying that it was him or not.

In 1992 the Dallas Police Department revealed that the three tramps were Gus Abrams, John F. Gedney and Harold Doyle. Ray and Mary LaFontaine carried out their own research into this claim. They traced Doyle and Gedley who confirmed they were two of the tramps in the photograph. Gus Abrams was dead but his sister identified him as the third tramp in the photograph.

The Gunman on the Grassy Knoll:

Witnesses:

In the book "Crossfire" by Jim Mars there is an excellent list of JFK assassination witnesses who all died in strange and mysterious ways. I highly suggest this book for anyone interested in this area of research.

The Badgeman Theory:

It would be the most diabolically clever assassination plot that anyone could dream of. Have the gunman dressed as a Dallas police officer and surrounded by men with Secret Service credentials. Have him hand the rifle to another man dressed as a railroad worker, who then disassembles the gun and places it inside a tool box and walks calmly off the scene. All the witnesses who heard shots from that area and ran to the back of the knoll would see only police men and railroad workers and think nothing suspicious of it. Anyone prior to the assassination would see a police officer with a gun and assume he was part of Kennedy's Secret Service detail dispatched to protect the President.

Lucian Sarti

CIA Case Officer E. Howard Hunt fingered Lucian Sarti as the "French Gunman" on the Grassy Knoll in his deathbed confession.

David Ferry:

David William Ferry is probably one of the most interesting people tied to the JFK assassination. He was a CIA pilot who knew Oswald from his days in the Civil Air Patrol in New Orleans, before Oswald joined the military and began creating a pro-communist cover for himself all under Ferry's advice. Ferry told Oswald that he would be more likely to be inducted into intelligence operations if he could create a pro-communist cover for himself. Ferry had ties to the CIA, Anti-Castro Cubans and Carlos Marcello's New Orleans Mafia making him a very interesting inside character in this whole case.

Books: