Thursday, July 14, 2022

Robert Morrow (2022) deconstructs Mel Ayton’s 2004 article on “Lee Harvey Oswald’s Motives” and tells you who really murdered JFK: Lyndon Johnson


Robert Morrow (2022) deconstructs Mel Ayton’s 2004 article on “Lee Harvey Oswald’s Motives” and tells you who really murdered JFK: Lyndon Johnson

Mel Ayton in 2004 on “Lee Harvey Oswald’s Motives:”

Web link: https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/23430

After nearly 40 years the question remains: Why? What kind of rage, pain or pathology could have provoked Lee Harvey Oswald to such a dark deed?

[Here is your #1 reason for the JFK assassination: LBJ top aide Horace Busby: Lyndon Johnson was acutely aware by Nov. 4, 1963 that the Kennedys had sent a SWAT team of over **FORTY** national reporters to Texas to utterly destroy him https://robertmorrowpoliticalresearchblog.blogspot.com/2020/07/lyndon-johnson-was-acutely-aware-by-nov.html]

The explanation of Oswald's motive for killing President Kennedy was buried with him.

[JFK’s head kill shot came from the front. Oswald was not on the Grassy Knoll: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi_8rwlXrJI ]

As JFK assassination expert Dr. Martin Kelly has stated, “Oswald’s mental state does not have crisp, sharp-edged concepts, so it is problematic for (anyone) to write a causally structured account easily”. But I believe the mystery about Oswald’s motives can be partly explained by penetrating Oswald's personal life, his ideological beliefs and his increasingly disturbed behaviour in the months leading up to the assassination.

[ 1) Essay on the murderous psychopathy of Lyndon Johnson  http://robertmorrowpoliticalresearchblog.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-murderous-psychopathy-of-lyndon.html

2) The Scary Mental Instabilities of Lyndon Johnson http://robertmorrowpoliticalresearchblog.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-scary-mental-instabilities-of.html] 

Most crime does not happen in a vacuum. They do not happen by mere chance - something causes them.

[The Kennedys were out to utterly destroy Lyndon Johnson in the fall of 1963 and an enraged and terrified Lyndon Johnson knew it. Burkett van Kirk (Senate Rules Committee counsel) and James Wagenvoord (Life Magazine assistant editor) prove the Kennedys were out to destroy LBJ in November of 1963 http://robertmorrowpoliticalresearchblog.blogspot.com/2021/08/senate-counsel-burkett-van-kirk-and.html ]

Sometimes the reasons are social, sometimes psychological, most often both. The real answer as to why President Kennedy was killed centers around how Lee Harvey Oswald grew up as a misfit, having no real control or moral guidance with which to exist in, and poorly equipped to meet, the demands of society.

[Compare the dysfunction of Lee Harvey Oswald to Lyndon Johnson who both Bill Moyers and Richard Goodwin were convinced was mentally ill and who National Security Advisor privately compared to McGeorge Bundy.]

 Answers also lie in the way Oswald embraced a radical ideology in order to compensate for his lack of education and to enhance his self-image.

[ Oswald was a huge fan of FBI informer Herbert Philbrick, who busted up communist rings and Oswald liked JFK and was a huge fan of James Bond and was reading anti-communist material in summer 1963 in New Orleans - https://robertmorrowpoliticalresearchblog.blogspot.com/2021/06/lee-harvey-oswalds-summer-1963-reading.html ]

Oswald's State of Mind

I believe there are telling references which are relevant to an understanding of Oswald's frame of mind in an article published in The American Journal of Psychiatry (July 1960).

[Ever read Power Beyond Reason: The Mental Collapse of Lyndon Johnson by D. Jablow Hershman (2002)? https://www.amazon.com/Power-Beyond-Reason-Collapse-Johnson/dp/1569802432/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3VEGQEPHEYLO&keywords=mental+collapse+of+lyndon+johnson&qid=1657813394&sprefix=mental+collapse+of+lyndon+johnson%2Caps%2C86&sr=8-1 ]

The article was used as a reference point by Truman Capote in his book In Cold Blood as a way of understanding the psychological make-up of the mind of a murderer. Written by Dr. Joseph Satten, in collaboration with three colleagues, Karl Menninger, Irwin Rosen, and Martin Mayman, the article is chilling in it's delineation of a criminally intentioned mind:

[Lyndon Johnson murdered Sam Smithwick in prison in 1962; LBJ murdered Henry Marshall in 1961, LBJ murdered JFK in 1963 and LBJ was behind the USS Liberty murders of June 8, 1967]

The authors had examined four men convicted of seemingly unmotivated murders. All had been found sane. The doctors’ description of how the murderers behaved provides a template for Lee Harvey Oswald’s personality (quotations from Satten, et al. in italics):

The most uniform and perhaps the most significant, historical finding was a long standing, sometimes lifelong, history of erratic control over aggressive impulses....during moments of actual violence, they often felt separated or isolated from themselves, as if they were watching someone else.......”:

[“history of erratic control over aggressive impulses? LBJ once blew up a stray dog with a stick of dynamite in the public square of Johnson City when he was a teenager. 

Teenager Lyndon Johnson: blowing up a stray dog with dynamite for kicks

 Barr McClellan:

           “Even before his teenage years, Johnson caused fatal injuries to an animal when he tortured and killed a mule. Allegedly concerned that the mule was thirsty, he had forced it to drink water and then drove it mercilessly. Not surprisingly, the animal collapsed and died. Johnson looked on with a strange amazement that turned to remorse only after his father had confronted him.

          Later, as a young adult, Johnson committed a series of dangerous pranks, including setting off explosives in the town square. In a destructive spree that centered on blasting dynamite in the town square, Johnson trapped a mongrel dog with the target, again killing a helpless animal.”

 [Barr McClellan, Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ killed JFK, p. 34]

 McClellan footnote on the “LBJ blowing up a dog for kicks” story:

 “12. This second known killing [blowing up a stray dog with dynamite] was related to me by Emmette Redford, a childhood friend of Johnson. Redford had anticipated a good job with Johnson and did not get it. He may have revealed this unthinkable event because of his resentment to what he considered unfair treatment from Johnson.”

[Barr McClellan, Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ killed JFK, p. 345]

Barr McClellan to Robert Morrow on Feb. 24, 2020:

Emmette Redford was a longtime and dear friend of LBJ. Redford was also good friends with Paige Keeton and Redford told Barr McClellan many stories about LBJ. Barr thinks Redford may have been in college with LBJ. Redford was a Professor of Government at the Univ. of Texas.

]

RUTH PAINE, FRIEND OF MARINA OSWALD: “(At the Dallas Jail)… he seemed utterly apart from the situation he was in.” “.....In all these cases, there was evidence of severe emotional deprivation in early life .......”

[ Ruth Paine in Dec. 2019: said she never heard Lee Harvey Oswald say anything negative about JFK

 

Internet Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20191205094120/https://www.hsvvoice.com/news/20191204/ruth-paine-remembers-jfk-assassination

 

https://www.hsvvoice.com/news/20191204/ruth-paine-remembers-jfk-assassination

 

[“Ruth Paine Remembers the JFK Assassination, Jeff Meek, Hot Springs Village Voice, 12-4-2019] ]

 

ROBERT OSWALD : “The idea even crossed (my) mind that (my) mother might want to put (me) and John up for adoption; anything to be rid of the burden.” “.......This deprivation may have involved prolonged or recurrent absence of one or both parents, a chaotic family life in which the parents were unknown, or an outright rejection of the child by one or both parents with the child being raised by others....”

ROBERT OSWALD: “ We learned very early that we were a burden...she wanted to be free of responsibility.” “.....Most typically the men displayed a tendency not to experience anger or rage in association with violent aggressive action. None reported feelings of rage in connection with the murders, nor did they experience anger in any strong or pronounced way, although each of them was capable of enormous and brutal aggression .........”

LEE OSWALD FOLLOWING HIS ATTEMPTED MURDER OF GENERAL WALKER : “Americans are so spoiled...They chased a car. And here I am sitting here.....What fools...”

[Those words are from Marina, in the hands of the U.S. government (meaning the LBJ Administration0 who was forced to tell many lies about Oswald after the JFK assassination. As Marina told Jesse Ventura in 2010, “Would you sacrifice your children for the truth?”

Gen. Edwin Walker contacted the HSCA and told them the bullet in evidence was NOT the one pulled out of his wall

: http://22november1963.org.uk/did-lee-oswald-shoot-general-edwin-walker

The authorities tried to posthumously frame Oswald for the failed shooting of Edwin Walker by planting a bullet into evidence months later.]

DETECTIVE JAMES LEAVELLE: “He (Oswald) was a cool character.”

[Oswald was cool because he knew he had shot no one on 11-22-63 although he was concerned and said “I am just a patsy!”]

ANTI-CASTRO ACTIVIST CARLOS BRINGUIER : “He (Oswald) was really cold-blooded...he was not nervous...”

In 2002, conservative ED BUTLER recalled his on-air debate with Oswald: “He wore a very heavy wool suit in August, a very hot August day in New Orleans. He was parboiling, but he didn't have a bead of sweat on him, and he was very self-contained. I was shocked when I heard he had killed Kennedy. I would not have been shocked if he had tried to kill me. I was concerned about the guy from the minute I met him.” “....Their relationships with others were of a shallow, cold nature, lending a quality of loneliness and isolation to these men ...”

BOYHOOD FRIEND WILLIAM WULF : “We were 16...he seemed to me a boy that was looking for something to belong to. I don't think anybody was looking for him to belong to them.”

"....People were scarcely real to them, in the sense of being warmly or positively...or even angrily...felt about...."

[Teenage Oswald to William Wulff, the head of the New Orleans Astronomy Club: “I like to infiltrate.”

http://www.joanmellen.com/oswald.html

Joan Mellen

QUOTE

Among the most telling details about Oswald emerged in the testimony of William Wulff, who had been head of the Astronomy Club of New Orleans. One day Oswald showed up, wanting to be a member, although it was clear he had no interest in astronomy. Wulff asked him why he wanted to join the Astronomy Club.

“I like to infiltrate,” Oswald the teenager said, even then a person who preferred the company of others to being alone. At the same time, he cultivated invisibility, as if he were transparent. Infiltrating, he could follow the path laid out by that favorite of his fictional characters, FBI informant Herbert Philbrick, hero of “I Led Three Lives.” A caveat: it was Oswald’s brother Robert alone who gave out that Lee watched obsessively “I Led Three Lives,” while, as John Armstrong points in his book, “Harvey & Lee,” Robert is less than credible.

In his book “Lee,” Robert Oswald wrote that when he left home to join the Marines, Lee was still watching the reruns of “I Led Three Lives.” In fact, Robert joined the Marines on July 15, 1952, and the re-runs were not aired until after the series ended, in mid-1956. Oswald may have watched “I Led Three Lives,” but it wasn’t as his brother said. The program was first aired in September 1953.

UNQUOTE

Robert Morrow: I believe there was a radio program of I Led Three Lives that ran before the TV program did.

I Led Three Lives was a radio program before it was a TV program]

OSWALD’S FRIEND MICHAEL PAINE : “People were like cardboard (to Lee)...” “...The three men under sentence of death had shallow emotions regarding their own fate and that of their victims.....”

[FUN FACT: Lee Harvey Oswald considered JFK to be "the best president of his lifetime." Source: Michael Paine: https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/8118362-181/michael-paine-debated-politics-with ]

LEE OSWALD FOLLOWING THE MURDER OF OFFICER TIPPIT : “Poor dumb cop.” “Guilt, depression, and remorse were strikingly absent...”

[The murder of Officer J.D. Tippit was yet another frame up job foisted on Oswald after the JFK assassination. Oswald physically could not have been at the Tippit scene because Tippit’s murder occurred at 1:06 to 1:07 PM and Oswald was outside his boarding house at 1:03PM and that was nine-tenths of a mile away.

Helen Markham left the laundry room at her building at 1:04 p.m. and the FBI determined that it would take 2-3 minutes to walk to Tenth and Patton where she witnessed Officer J.D. Tippit being murdered

QUOTE

          Markham was consistent in the time estimates that she gave. In an interview with the FBI on March 17, 1964 (prior to her Warren Commission testimony), Markham stated that she left the house at 1:00 p.m. and went to the payphone of the laundry place located in her building. She tried to call her daughter, but the line was busy. Markham said that she left the “washateria” at 1:04 p.m., which she noted from the clock on the wall. She then started to walk toward Jefferson Boulevard in order to catch the 1:15 p.m. bus. The FBI walked the distance from Markham’s apartment to the corner of Tenth and Patton Streets. They determined it took two and a half minutes. Note in her Warren Commission testimony, Markham stated that the time she reached Tenth and Patton was not more than 1:06 or 1:07 p.m..

UNQUOTE

[James Kelleher, He Was Expendable, pp. 98-99]

MARINA OSWALD : “Lee had no moral sense at all...only egotism, anger at others on account of his failures.” “...The murderous potential can become activated, especially if some disequilibrium is already present, when the victim-to-be is unconsciously perceived as a key figure in some past traumatic configuration. The behaviour, or even the mere presence of this figure adds a stress to the unstable balance of forces that results in a sudden extreme discharge of violence...”

[Marina Oswald has said over and over and over again both back in 1963-1964 and now that Lee Harvey Oswald was a huge fan of John Kennedy and for decades she has said she believes he is totally innocent of the JFK assassination.]

Lee Oswald learned of a past boyfriend of Marina's - he bore a startling resemblance to JFK. Psychologically, Oswald had always been a loner and an outsider. He had always been attracted to things that would provide enhanced self-esteem, becoming a Marine, learning Russian, defecting to Russia, inventing a fictitious chapter of a radical political organisation.

But it was the attacks on his psyche in childhood - his father dying, his experiencing only sporadic and detached associations with his mother's boyfriends, his relationship with an angry, unstable and domineering mother - that helped turn Lee's psyche in adulthood into an embittered, angry misfit.

[Lyndon Johnson’s father was an abusive alcoholic who used to beat LBJ and tell him that he was a loser who was not suited for college and who would never succeed. Read Robert Caro’s first two books on LBJ to find out how royally this screwed up Lyndon Johnson.

Here is Robert Caro again on LBJ:

"And by 1941, also the major patterns of his entire life are established and clear. In attaining this influence, he has displayed a genius for discerning a path to power, an utter ruthlessness in destroying obstacles in that path, and a seemingly bottomless capacity for deceit, deception and betrayal in moving along it" .... [And that, my friends, is the KIND and GENTLE side of Lyndon Johnson ... yeah LBJ murdered John Kennedy with help from the CIA. – Robert Morrow] That Caro quote is on p. 803, Noel Twyman, Bloody Treason: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy

The Caro quote is originally from Robert Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power, p. xx. ]

 Psychologists believe that a child who lives an isolated life, as Oswald did, and who is brought up by a mother who refused to subordinate herself to her children's welfare, often sees the world as an adversary.

A fatherless upbringing and lack of a meaningful male role-model had a crucial effect on the young Oswald moulding and forming a personality which hid some of his darkest impulses. The young Oswald, whose real father died when he was a baby, had only shallow relationships with his mother's many boyfriends whose personalities were often weaker than the domineering and unstable Marguerite’s. He was unable to connect with a father, to learn his emotionality and the unique way of how to compete and to channel aggression effectively. Oswald was denied a nurturing system which was male-driven, in which discipline, morality teaching and emotional sustenance were provided by males for males.

Without moral grounding and direct parental guidance the child is unable to recognise moral prerequisites for living in an adult world.

[Lack of moral grounding? May we talk about Lyndon Johnson for a little bit? Pathological liar, serial murderer, constantly using the Lord’s name in vain, a man drenched in kickbacks and stealing from the government – a man who would screw his girlfriends under the same roof with Lady Bird Johnson – a man who would often defecate in front of other people and use that as a domination game

Essay on the murderous psychopathy of Lyndon Johnson  http://robertmorrowpoliticalresearchblog.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-murderous-psychopathy-of-lyndon.html]

Without the attention only a mother can give, the child is denied the necessary socialization. The angry and embittered Marguerite Oswald was unable to provide that background. This was recognised by Lee's brother Robert when he said that mother and son’s world view were alike in many ways. They both saw themselves as victims, isolated and surrounded by people and government agencies who failed to understand their special place in the scheme of things. As Norman Mailer wrote, “.......it seems certain at the least that every malformation, or just about, of Lee Harvey Oswald's character had it's roots in her.”

Oswald's Violent Tendencies

Within the literature of the JFK assassination there are telling pieces of evidence which point to Oswald's willingness to commit violent acts to further his own ends.

In the mid-1950's Oswald had spoken about shooting an American President. Palmer McBride testified to the Warren Commission that, in 1956, he befriended Oswald and they often discussed politics. McBride said that one central theme in their discussions was the “exploitation of the working class” and on one occasion, after they began discussing President Eisenhower, Oswald made a statement to the effect that he would like to kill the president because he was exploiting the working class. McBride said that the statement was not made in jest.

There is also clear evidence that Oswald, like O.J. Simpson, had a history of wife battering.

[Oswald may have rarely been domestically violent, but Lyndon Johnson was serially murdering people who were a threat to expose his criminality – Sam Smithwick in 1952 and U.S. Agricultural official Henry Marshall who was investigating LBJ’s ties to Billie Sol Estes. Estes later said that he had given LBJ $10 million in cash kickbacks which is about equal to $90 million in 2022 dollars.]

Oswald's treatment of his wife is documented in the numerous statements made by the Russian emigre community in Dallas and by his wife Marina.

[Have you ever read Robert Caro on the atrocious way Lyndon Johnson treated Lady Bird? A very long and sad story. LBJ even asked Doris Kearns to marry him when she was helping him with his autobiography.]

According to Ruth Paine, Marina was worried about “Lee's mental state". Marina Oswald testified that her husband was given to fits of unreasonable rage.

Domestic violence did not have the high profile in the 1960's as it does today. In the 1995 criminal trial and the 1997 civil trial, evidence of O.J. Simpson's wife-battering was indeed relevant in supporting the prosecution's case for Simpson's guilt. Similarly, Oswald's treatment of his wife is pertinent to an understanding of his propensity for violence. At one stage Oswald tried to strangle his wife. There were incidents when Oswald hit Marina and she ended up with bruises on her body. At one time during the final year of their lives together some members of the emigre community rescued Marina but she returned to her husband after a two week separation.

Mahlon Tobias recalled a time when a neighbour of the Oswalds complained to him about the couple's violent arguments. The neighbour reported, “I think he's really hurt her this time....I think that man over there is going to kill that girl.” Michael Paine was shocked that Lee treated his wife like a vassel and he believed Marina was a person who acted as though she were in “bondage and servitude”.

These kinds of abusive behaviours are all about control of the victim.

[Have you read any about how Lyndon Johnson liked to control and sadistically dominate people? —“I want someone who will kiss my ass in Macy’s window and say it smells like roses” is something LBJ often said. https://alcalde.texasexes.org/2012/02/cruel-to-be-kind-lbj-behind-the-scenes/#comments

Mat Wilson on Lyndon Johnson and his first “Hitlerite” Operation - https://web.archive.org/web/20130326115200/http:/surftofind.com/johnson

"It was my first real big dictat -Hitlerized operation, and I broke their back good. And it stayed broke for a good long time."10 Had a tape recorder not been running to inadvertently record the fact that San Marcos politicking was merely the first of a series of "big dictats", one would be more inclined to underestimate the profound ruthlessness that Johnson and his thirst to exercise power was capable of. But in the light of his propensity to operate on the level of what he called a "big dictat" or a "Hitlerized operation," it is simply ignorant to dispute the horrific, unavoidable consequences of the Johnsonian method of operation. In his own words, Johnson's first "big dictat" was a "pretty vicious operation for a while. They lost everything I could have them lose."11 The recording obviously reflected a rare slip of Johnson's disciplined tongue, but the message is very loud and clear -Johnson's determination to exercise power was so absolutely relentless that he never allowed normal democratic restraints to get in the way of his will. Moreover, the rare, candid portrait of Lyndon Johnson cannot be dismissed as the mere rumblings of jealous or ignorant political rivals because it is his own words which describe his capacity to be ruthless, cruel, dictatorial and brutal. While it is difficult to make sense out of his political career because Johnson always imposed an obsessive degree of secrecy, the nature of the manipulations he engaged were so glaringly bold and obvious that they establish a definite, identifiable pattern, -Johnson always engaged schemes which satisfied his obsessive need to dominate. ]

 A variety of seemingly unconnected events are part of that strategy to maintain that control - methods like telling her who she can be friends with, how much she can spend, what kind of clothes she can wear, belittling her, demeaning her. All of these things accomplish the end objective - control. The ultimate act of control is violence - the classic pattern which reflected Oswald’s behaviour.

Oswald's Personal Motives

Lee Harvey Oswald lived most of his adult life hiding behind a mask of normality. His mask was convincing to many people he came in contact with except those who knew him well. What lay beneath the surface was Oswald's fatally crippled personality. He had a defensive and surly character that no-one could penetrate, not even his wife Marina.

Oswald was a bitter and angry young man. As a youth his mother had little or no control over him and, indeed, conspired with him in his rebellion. He was determined to get what he wanted. Prison files are full of case histories like his. He learned very early in life to hate the world, learned early that he had to sink or swim on his own resources. He also learned that he had to develop his life unsustained by a mother who could never give true maternal warmth.

Lee Oswald's lifelong isolation left him without the resources for the kind of role-modelling and parental guidance most of us take for granted.

[Oswald’s role models were his older brothers Robert and John Pic who were in the military and most especially FBI informer Herbert Philbrick – a man who pretended to be a communist as he broke up communist rings for Hoover’s FBI. This was at the height of the Red Scare and this is who Oswald wanted to be.

A key page from Robert Oswald’s book – https://twitter.com/CONELRAD6401240/status/1259856311585583109/photo/1

QUOTE

          The center of Lee’s fantasy world shifted from radio to television when Mother bought a television set in 1948. When it was new, all of us spent far too much time watching variety shows, dramas and old movies. Lee, particularly, was fascinated. One of his favorite programs was I Led Three Lives, the story of Herbert Philbrick, the FBI informant who posed as a Communist spy. In the early 1950’s, Lee watched that show every week without fail. When I left home to join the Marines, he was still watching the reruns.

UNQUOTE

[Robert Oswald, Lee: Portrait of Lee Harvey Oswald by His Brother, p. 47]

I Led Three Lives starring with Richard Carlson, ran on TV from 1953 to 1956. ]

People who are close to others turn to them in moments of stress and doubt to interpret the meaning of an event or a social interaction. As an adult, Lee Oswald was unable to accomplish this with the only person who was truly close to him - his wife Marina. He was too domineering and insistent she follow his commands. He could not ask her if his thoughts and actions were consistent with the world around him, seeking out meaning, exchanging ideas. To Lee, Marina had to follow and admire.

To those who knew him well Oswald was secretive, aggressive and arrogant - to a degree almost paranoid. His brother Robert said Lee liked to create drama and mystery around himself. As a child Lee became fascinated with television programmes about espionage and subversive activities.

[Lee Harvey Oswald, a ardent teen fan of Herbert Philbrick, wanted to grow up to be a man who broke up communist rings and later he became a big fan of James Bond and read 4 of Ian Fleming’s books in summer, 1963 while in New Orleans.]

Lee Harvey Oswald believed he was an important man and his wife often ridiculed him for this unfounded belief. To a disturbed man like Oswald, his wife's scornful attitude likely acted as a catalyst, fueling Oswald’s anger and resentment. The evening prior to the assassination he tried to make-up to his wife after a series of bitter disagreements about their lives together. She rejected his advances. It must have been a terrible blow to his ego.

Oswald not only saw himself as an unappreciated revolutionary but a person who was superior to his contemporaries.

[ Lyndon Johnson bellowing in Tarzan style "I am the king!" as he favorably compared himself to other world leaders

 

            "Four reporters in the press pool were sharing highballs with President Johnson in his airborne parlor on another occasion when LBJ began ruminating aloud about all the changes that had occurred in world leadership. He was in a buoyant mood, savoring his tremendous election victory over Goldwater in 1964.

          "Looking around the world," Johnson was saying. "Khrushchev's gone. Macmillan's gone. Adenour's gone. Segni's gone. Nehru's gone. Who's left - de Gaulle?"

          There was a sneering tone in Johnson's voice as he uttered the French president's name, Cormier said. Then leaning back in his massive "throne chair," as the crew dubbed it, LBJ thumped his chest in Tarzan fashion and bellowed, "I am the king!"

          As reporters left the plane, Reedy took pains to remind them that they had been the President's social guests and were not there as news gatherers. "Gentlemen," Reedy solemnly intoned, "you did not see the President of the United States tonight.""         

[J.F. terHorst & Col. Ralph Albertazzie, The Flying White House: The Story of Air Force One, p. 215] ]

This is borne out by the many people who crossed Oswald's path, especially in the years after his return from the Soviet Union. Even as a child Oswald expressed fantasies about omnipotence and power to a child psychologist.

[Issues with omnipotence and power and extreme insecurities – you need to read about Lyndon Johnson and also about his mental instabilities: Power Beyond Reason: the Mental Collapse of Lyndon Johnson - https://www.amazon.com/Power-Beyond-Reason-Collapse-Johnson/dp/1569802432/ref=sr_1_1?crid=26WSCWGVI3XXN&keywords=the+mental+collapse+of+lyndon+johnson&qid=1657810532&sprefix=the+mental+collapse+of+lyndon+johnson%2Caps%2C104&sr=8-1 ]

Although psychologists have long believed that low self-esteem causes aggression and other pathologies the concept of unfounded high self-esteem has not really been considered until recent years. Narcissistic people have an inflated view of their own importance and don’t believe they have to play by the same rules as anyone else. It is brought about when children get too little or too much emotional support. As Dr Martin Kelly has pointed out, “(Oswald) was both ignored and doted on by his mother.”

Such a narcissistic person has not had enough praise to give him self-confidence or has had too much so he thinks he is something other than what he really is. This type of person has a narcissistic mode of functioning. All their relationships are tied up with images – Do I live up to the image of myself which I wish to keep up? Or do I need to cheat? Oswald’s inflated self-esteem indicates weak normal ego functioning, a weak state generated in due course by his psychologically impoverished upbringing.

High self-esteem that is unjustified and unstable, as in Oswald's case, has led in many instances to violence. Like Oswald, many narcissists are supersensitive to criticism or slights, because deep down they suspect their feelings of superiority are bogus. Because his grandiosity was challenged ( Marina laughed at his notion that he would eventually become a statesmanlike leader) he reacted violently. Oswald’s inflated self-esteem had a powerful effect on his aggression. When the real world failed to recognise his alleged superior gifts he exploded. “At least his imagination,” Marina said, “his fantasy, which was quite unfounded, as to the fact that he was an outstanding man. (I) always tried to point out to him that he was a man like any others who were around us. But he simply could not understand that....”.

In many ways Oswald’s actions in killing Kennedy was a rebellious act - undoubtedly the result of his feelings toward authority and a society that had relegated him to a menial position in life.

[Why would CIA patsy Oswald kill JFK? He was a huge fan of John Kennedy and there are many sources on that:

Lee Harvey Oswald kept a copy of JFK as “Man of the Year” prominently displayed in his home from June to November, 1962. It was the Jan. 5, 1962 issue of TIME

The TIME magazine cover that Oswald displayed was this one: http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19620105,00.html

Paul Gregory knew Lee and Marina Oswald from June-November, 1962

“Lee Harvey Oswald Was My Friend” by Paul Gregory for NYT, Nov. 7, 2013

QUOTE

The next Tuesday, at around 6 p.m., Marina invited me in for my first lesson. The Oswald living room was extraordinarily bare; there was a shabby sofa and chair and a worn coffee table where a copy of Time magazine featuring John F. Kennedy as its Man of the Year was prominently displayed. (The issue, which would curiously remain in the same place during all my visits, was dated Jan. 5, five months before the Oswalds’ arrival in the U.S.) We sat there uncomfortably for some 20 to 30 minutes until Lee burst in the door, dressed in his customary simple slacks, a plaid shirt with open collar and sleeves rolled up to the elbows, carrying a stack of weighty books from the Fort Worth public library. The conversation segued to the Time cover; Marina ventured that the president appeared to be a nice man and that the first lady, at least from the pictures she had seen, appeared quite glamorous. She also said that she seemed to be a good mother. Lee, in his curt way, agreed.

UNQUOTE

Paul Gregory:

https://www.hoover.org/news/lee-harvey-oswald-documents-donated-hoover-library-and-archives]

His need to protest festered as he strove to gain recognition. So much of what he did was egocentric, ego-satisfying. The political and humanitarian ideals he espoused wasn’t done in order to help others but to draw attention to himself; to satisfy his narcissistic tendencies. Oswald desperately wanted to become famous and successful. His brothers and his wife have testified to the many occasions when they sensed a bitter disappointment in Oswald when he failed to draw attention to himself.

Oswald's Political Motives

Oswald’s upbringing bears directly on his actions as a young man. Poor parenting from a single unstable mother and a fatherless upbringing affected Oswald greatly, warping his sense of right and wrong and creating an individual who was continually frustrated in his relationships with others. In response to these frustrations Oswald transferred his emotional attachments to his inadequate and poorly thought out political philosophy.

[Ever read about Lyndon Johnson’s dad? An abusive alcoholic and financial failure who occasionally beat his son and who was always very negative about his prospects. Read Robert Caro on LBJ. And the way that Lyndon Johnson treated Lady Bird was disgusting in the extreme.]

Oswald turned to radical politics for the purpose of ego- building. According to Dr Martin Kelly, “The political philosophy to which he gravitated became the ongoing material of Oswald’s ego function, serving as a substitute for normal feelings and judgments, and maintained by persistant fantasies.”

Marina believed that learning Russian gave Oswald a reputation for being intelligent, making up for the fact that he had a reading disability which gave him feelings of inadequacy. He got from his politics something he couldn't get from individuals. It shows the poverty of Oswald's emotional relationship with people which is a psychopathic trait.

Oswald's belief in the socialist ideal has been confirmed by numerous sources who knew him. As an 18 year old Oswald espoused his political principles to Palmer McBride and William Wulf Jr. McBride told the FBI, “During the period I knew Oswald he resided with his mother in the Senator Hotel or a rooming house next door...I went with him to his room on one occasion, and he showed me copies of Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto. Oswald stated he had received these books from the public library, and he seemed quite proud to have them.”

[Oswald was proud to have those books because he was learning about communism to copy his hero FBI informer Herbert Philbrick whose life work was pretending to be a communist while he broke up communist rings for Hoover’s FBI at the peak of the Red Scare.]

Aline Mosby, a reporter, interviewed Oswald in Moscow after his defection and this interview gives a clue to the way Oswald acted out his political dramas. Oswald told her he became interested in communist ideology when “an old lady handed me a pamphlet about saving the Rosenburgs...”.

[Oswald knew all about the Rosenbergs who had given the USA’s atomic secrets to the Russians and he was utterly appalled and wanted to stop that shit from ever happening again.]

The pamphlet led Oswald to change the direction of his life for it was from this period he became enamoured with left-wing politics. The memory of the Rosenburg case, I believe, lasted until his incarceration in the Dallas police jail. Oswald had made repeated requests the weekend of the assassination for John Abt to defend him. Abt was a left-wing New York lawyer who had defended communists and a newspaper story about Abt had appeared on the same page as the President's visit to Dallas. In attempting to contact Abt Oswald was revealing something about himself - he was already preparing for his appearance on the political stage, emulating the Rosenburgs by becoming a cause celebre.

Oswald had a desperate desire to act in a political way to further the cause of his commitment to communism and to the Cuban Revolution and in so doing elevate himself as an important revolutionary. He needed a cause to belong to; to inflate his self-image and sustain it. Oswald said that nothing kept him in the United States and he would lose nothing by returning to the Soviet Union. His real destination, of course, was Cuba. Cuba was a country which embodied the political principles to which he had been committed since he was an adolescent.

To Oswald Cuba was the last gambit - his last chance to fulfill his political fantasies. As Marina testified to the Warren Commission, "I only know that his basic desire was to get to Cuba by any means and all the rest of it was window dressing for that purpose." He hatched a plan to hi-jack a plane to Cuba and wanted Marina to help. When she refused he abandoned his plans.

[ Marina Oswald to Jesse Ventura in 2010:

“Would you sacrifice your children for the truth?” – Marina Oswald to Jesse Ventura in 2010 on his TV show about conspiracy theories

(Marina had made a lot of statements incriminating her deceased husband in 1963-64. The Warren Commission had use her as its star witness in the posthumous frame up of patsy Oswald in 1964. Marina at the time was age 22, with a toddler and a baby, no money, did not speak English, was surrounded by US intelligence, had her phone illegally wiretapped in Feb. 1964, feared being deported back to Russia or even possibly being indicted as a accomplice in the murder of President John Kennedy.”

Marina Oswald in an April, 1996 letter to John Tunheim, Chairman of the JFK Assassination Records Review Board

 

“At the time of the assassination of this great president whom I loved, I was misled by the “evidence” presented to me by government authorities and I assisted in the conviction of Lee Harvey Oswald as the assassin. From the new information now available, I am now convinced that he was an FBI informant and believe that he did not kill President Kennedy.”    

 

[Pamela Ray, To Kill a Country, p. 45] ]

 

Marina has testified to Oswald’s view of Castro as a hero and said Lee had wanted to call their second child Fidel if it had been a boy. Michael Paine told BBC Timewatch researchers that Lee, “…wanted to be an active guerrilla in the effort to bring about the new world order.” Nelson Delgado, Oswald’s friend in the Marine Corps said that Oswald’s hero was William Morgan, a former sergeant in the U.S. Army who became a major in Castro’s army.

[Speaking of Nelson Delgado – he said that Oswald was an awful shooter in the Marines. Online article by Michael Griffith: https://michaelgriffith1.tripod.com/poor.htm

Nelson Delgado, Sherman Cooley, and James R. Persons served with Oswald in the Marines and saw him shoot. Here is some of what they had to say about his marksmanship ability:

* Nelson Delgado

Before the Warren Commission:

Q. Did you fire with Oswald?

DELGADO. Right; I was in the same line. By that I mean we were on line together, the same time, but not firing at the same position, but at the same time, and I remember seeing his [shooting]. It was a pretty big joke, because he got a lot of "Maggie's drawers," you know, a lot of misses, but he didn't give a darn.

Q. Missed the target completely?

DELGADO. He just qualified, that's it. He wasn't as enthusiastic as the rest of us. We all loved--liked, you know going to the range. (8 H 235)

In a filmed interview with attorney Mark Lane:

LANE. Sergeant, prior to your Warren Commission testimony, were you interviewed by agents of the FBI?

DELGADO. Yes, they came to my home in south Jersey to interview me. The first two visits, they came just to get my story--what I knew about Oswald, how close we were, and things like that. After that, the questions were tending [to try] to break my story down. . . .

LANE. When did you first meet Oswald?

DELGADO. Just prior to the Christmas of 1958, Lee Oswald reported into our unit. Oswald and I got along really good together. We were, like I say, working in the same job, involving aircraft and radar. We controlled them from the ground, and ran intercepts. We were about forty enlisted men who participated in this job.

All of us knew Lee, and he knew all of us. We got along fine. We had discussions, and, uh [stops].

LANE. Was Oswald interested in guns?

DELGADO. They [the Warren Commission] say he was a gun enthusiast, but I recall many instances where we stood inspections, and he was constantly being gigged for having a dirty weapon and for taking improper care of his weapon. He was always reminded when he had to clean the weapon. He never took it upon himself to do so.

LANE. Do you have personal knowledge of Oswald's ability with a rifle?

DELGADO. At the range he couldn't prove by me that he was a good shot.

As any person who has ever served in the armed forces could tell you, there's a part in the qualification that calls for rapid firing. This is done with ten shots, eight in the clip and two that you load by hand. They give you forty-five seconds to fire these ten rounds. Well, when you fire these, then you stand you stand away from your firing position, till everyone has finished firing. Then the targets are brought down and scored. The targets are run back up, and there are disks for the number that you have hit--fives, fours, threes, or misses.

Well, in Oswald's particular case, it was quite funny to look at, because he would get a couple of disks. Maybe out of a possible ten he'll get two or three Maggie's drawers. Now, these [the Maggie's drawers] are a red flag that's on a long pole, and this is running from left to right on the target itself. And, you don't see this on a firing line too often--not a Marine firing line. You can't help but noticing when you're seeing disks, round cylinder things, coming up and down, and farther on down the line you see a flag waving [i.e., a Maggie's drawer]. Well, that was gonna catch your eye anyway. And we thought it was funny that Oswald was getting these Maggie's drawers so rapidly, one after the other. And this is why I can't think that he could be a good shot, because a good shot doesn't pull this. He'll pull a three, but he won't pull a Maggie's drawer-- that's a complete miss.

LANE. How did the FBI react to your statement that Oswald was a poor shot?

DELGADO. They tried to disprove it. They did not like the idea when I came up with the statement that Oswald, as far as I knew, was a very poor shot.

LANE. Do you feel that the agents of the FBI actually tried to get you to change your statement that Oswald was a poor shot.

DELGADO. Yes, sir, I definitely do. (From the 1966 documentary RUSH TO JUDGMENT, produced by Mark Lane and Emile de Antonio)

 In August 1959 Morgan received considerable press coverage when he lured some anti-Castro rebels into a trap by pretending to be a counter-revolutionary. This may explain Oswald’s counter-revolutionary activities in New Orleans when he visited anti-Castroite Carlos Bringuier. Oswald wanted to emulate Morgan.

An incident from Oswald's time in the Marine Corps testifies to Oswald's revolutionary fanaticism. Fellow Marine, Kerry Thornley, testified to the Warren Commission about an incident, “which grew out of a combination of Oswald's known Marxist sympathies and George Orwell's book 1984”. After Thornley finished reading the book they took part in a parade. As Oswald and Thornley were waiting for the parade to begin they talked briefly about Orwell’s book even though Oswald “seemed to be lost in his own thoughts.” Oswald remarked on the stupidity of the parade and on how angry it made him, to which Thornley replied, “Well, come the revolution you will change all that.” Thornley said, “At which time he looked at me like a betrayed Caesar and screamed, screamed definitely, 'Not you, too, Thornley.' And I remember his voice cracked as he said this. He was definitely disturbed at what I had said and I didn't really think I had said that much....I never said anything to him again and he never said anything to me again.”

Oswald's political ideals remained with him up to the moment of his death and there is convincing evidence to support this. It was inevitable that someone as politically motivated as Oswald would eventually reveal his political self that tragic weekend. A man like Oswald needed a stage to show the world he was a true revolutionary. But he did not do this by confessing. Instead he showed his commitment to his ideals by a clenched fist salute, a symbol of left-wing radicalism, as he was paraded around the Dallas police station. There are at least two published photos of Oswald giving this gesture. The most famous photograph showing Oswald’s clenched-fist salute was first identified by Jean Davison in her excellent book about Oswald’s motives, Oswald's Game (1983). The photo was taken by an AP photographer.

[While Oswald was showing his handcuffs to reporters he was also swearing that he did not kill anyone and that he was “just a patsy” and that he wanted a lawyer – which he was never given while in Dallas Police custody.]

The second photo has been overlooked by most researchers and appeared in the UPI/American Heritage book Four Days (1964). The caption for the UPI photo reads, “...Oswald shakes his fist at reporters inside police headquarters...”, an unlikely description of Oswald's actions. Most JFK conspiracy advocates have assumed that Oswald was merely showing the photographers his manacled hands. But there is a definite clenched-fist salute portrayed on both occasions. He repeated this gesture as he lay dying in the ambulance. According to Dallas policeman Billy Combest, he made a “definite clenched fist”. Some conspiracists have dismissed this vital piece of evidence claiming that a clenched-fist salute did not come into vogue until the late 1960’s. However, communists and left-wing militant groups have used the salute since the 1930’s - in the political elections in Germany in 1930 and in Spain during that period.

Oswald was influenced in his beliefs and his desire to act them out by a number of politically motivated people and political literature during the last year of his life.

The periodicals that Oswald subscribed to may have influenced his actions. As the Warren Report pointed out, “The October 7th., 1963, issue of the Militant reported Castro as saying Cuba could not accept a situation where at the same time the United States was trying to ease world tensions it also was increasing its efforts to tighten the noose around Cuba.”

[If you think Fidel Castro was concerned about JFK in the fall of 1963, then you ought to get a load of Lyndon Johnson: LBJ top aide Horace Busby: Lyndon Johnson was acutely aware by Nov. 4, 1963 that the Kennedys had sent a SWAT team of over **FORTY** national reporters to Texas to utterly destroy him https://robertmorrowpoliticalresearchblog.blogspot.com/2020/07/lyndon-johnson-was-acutely-aware-by-nov.html ]

Castro’s opposition to President Kennedy’s attempt to deal with Cuba was also reported in the October 1, 1963, issue of the Worker, to which Oswald also subscribed. Oswald spoke to Michael Paine about the left-wing paper saying, “You could tell what they wanted you to do ..... by reading between the lines, reading the thing and doing a little reading between the lines.”

[ Speaking of Michael Paine - FUN FACT: Lee Harvey Oswald considered JFK to be "the best president of his lifetime." Source: Michael Paine: https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/8118362-181/michael-paine-debated-politics-with  ]

In the month before the assassination Oswald may have entered into his revolutionary fantasies whilst watching television. A Secret Service interview with Marina was first recognised by Jean Davison as a telling indication of Oswald's state of mind. Marina told agents that on Friday, October 18th. Oswald had watched two movies on television and he had been “greatly excited”. The first movie was Suddenly, in which Frank Sinatra played an ex-soldier who planned to shoot an American president. Sinatra’s character was to shoot the president with a high-powered rifle from the window of a house overlooking a railway station. The second movie, We Were Strangers, was based on the overthrow of Cuba’s Machado regime in 1933.John Garfield had played an American who had gone to Cuba to help a group of rebels assassinate the Cuba leader. Oswald’s reactions to these movies made a strong impression on his wife, according to the Secret Service report.

[David Lifton interviewed Lee Harvey Oswald’s childhood friend who told him the Oswald’s favorite movie star was John Wayne and his favorite movie was the Sands of Iwo Jima so there is no way in hell Oswald was a communist. John Wayne was hard right wing both on and off the movie screen. Oswald was also a big fan of James Bond:

Lyndon Johnson, JFK and completely innocent CIA patsy Lee Harvey Oswald were all huge fans of John Wayne! John Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald were huge fans of James Bond!

 

David Lifton told me (Robert Morrow) in 2018 that he had on videotape a childhood friend of Lee Harvey Oswald who says that Oswald’s favorite movie actor was John Wayne and his favorite movie was the Sands of Iwo Jima.

https://www.businessinsider.com/presidents-favorite-movies-2016-8#lyndon-b-johnson-himself-and-the-searchers-5

QUOTE

John F. Kennedy: John Wayne and James Bond

JFK is famously associated with Marilyn Monroe, but when it comes to actually watching movies, he preferred John Wayne and Randolph Scott, among others. Some of his favorite movies were "The Longest Day," "Roman Holiday," "Spartacus," "Bad Day at Black Rock," and "Iwo Jima."

JFK also had a huge passion for Bond. While he was suffering from back problems in 1955, he was given a copy of “Casino Royale,” Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel. While in office, he had a private screening of "Dr. No" and in a documentary called “Everything or Nothing,” JFK is quoted saying, "I wish I had had James Bond on my staff."

Source: JFK Library and Museum and Yahoo

 UNQUOTE

 

QUOTE

Lyndon B. Johnson: Himself (and "The Searchers")

LBJ wasn’t an avid movie fan. Oddly, the only film he seemed to watch — and watch a lot — was a 10-minute short made about him (narrated by Gregory Peck) to introduce him to the country after JFK’s assassination.

However, Entertainment Weekly also cites that LBJ enjoyed "The Searchers."

 Source: The White House Museum

UNQUOTE

The 1956 movie The Searchers was a blockbuster Western movie starring John Wayne. LBJ loved it.:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Searchers

The 1949 movie Sands of Iwo Jima was a popular John Wayne movie about the Marines in World War II.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sands_of_Iwo_Jima

John Wayne was not exactly a fan of communism!

John Wayne: Communist Obsession | Emanuel Levy

QUOTE

World War II created a strange situation because the Soviet Union became, for the first time, a political ally of the United States. As a result, many Americans supported its policies and were openly pro-Soviet.  This relationship did not last long, however, and as soon as the War was over, the situation changed dramatically. Wayne said he became politically conscious at the end of WWII, when he became conscious of Communist infiltrations into the film industry.

Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals

In 1944, Wayne joined a group of actors, writers, and directors as a founding member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (MPA).  The group was established with the explicit goal of fighting the leftist movement in the movie colony. Among its founders were: Jim McGuiness, MGM’s production head (the organization started at an informal meeting in his house), Roy Brewer, the theatrical union leader, directors Leo McCarey and Sam Wood, and actors Clark Gable, Robert Taylor, Ward Bond, and Adolphe Menjou, and screenwriters Borden Chase and Morrie Riskind.

MPA’s first president was director Sam Wood, who was followed by Clark Gable and Robert Taylor. Wayne became president in 1949, serving three terms, until 1952, during the heyday of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s reign and the hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAAC).  Some claim that Wayne was forced to join the MPA to please his more conservative friends.

Studio executives warned Wayne that his affiliation would ruin his career. “You’re becoming a controversial figure,” they reportedly said, “It will kill you at the box office. You will hit the skids.” Ironically, a year after being elected as president of MPA, Wayne became the top box office attraction in America. Wayne said that those who warned him, “must have meant it would ruin me with the Moscow fan clubs,” because “when I became president of the Alliance, I was 32nd on the box office polls, but last year I’d skidded up near the top.” Wayne remained at the top in 1950 and 1952, and in 1953 he slipped to third place on the popularity polls.

UNQUOTE ]

Given Oswald’s orientation to violence as evidenced by his willingness to take right-wing activist General Walker’s life in April 1963, his treatment of his wife and his belief in revolutionary violence, the movies are vital to an understanding of Oswald’s frame of mind. As the movie plots suggested, Oswald could see a way in which he could strike out against a government he detested and support a government he admired.

[Oswald never shot at Gen. Edwin Walker. Lyndon Johnson treated Lady Bird like mud beneath his big Texas boots. Oswald’s hero was FBI informer Herbert Philbrick. Oswald treated children nicely and love to play with them according to Pat Hall and Buell Wesley Frazier. Oswald was a big of John Wayne and JFK in addition to Herbert Philbrick.

Gen. Edwin Walker contacted the HSCA and told them that the bullet in evidence was NOT the bullet that was shot at him. A bullet had been planted to frame Oswald

http://22november1963.org.uk/did-lee-oswald-shoot-general-edwin-walker ]

It is also feasible that Oswald may have had direct knowledge about CIA plots to assassinate Castro.

[Lyndon Johnson had direct knowledge about the Kennedys plans to utterly destroy him in the fall of 1963. LBJ aides Horace Busby and George Reedy are on the record about that:

1)    George Reedy (1982): Lyndon Johnson was OBSESSED with the idea that RFK was out to destroy him w/ Bobby Baker scandal in fall 1963 http://robertmorrowpoliticalresearchblog.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-scary-mental-instabilities-of.html

2)   LBJ top aide Horace Busby: Lyndon Johnson was acutely aware by Nov. 4, 1963 that the Kennedys had sent a SWAT team of over **FORTY** national reporters to Texas to utterly destroy him https://robertmorrowpoliticalresearchblog.blogspot.com/2020/07/lyndon-johnson-was-acutely-aware-by-nov.html

 

On September 9th. 1963 the New Orleans Times Picayune published a story about Castro's warning that assassination plots against Cuban leaders would be met with retaliation.

[You should see what the newspapers and magazines in October, 1963 was saying about LBJ’s right hand man Bobby Baker and what they were going to say about LBJ very soon:

LIFE Magazine, being fed damaging info by RFK, was on the verge of running a story on 11/29/63 that would have annihilated Lyndon Johnson’s political career once and for all

Source: James Wagenvoord who in 1963 was the 27 year old assistant to LIFE Magazine’e managing editor; this issue would have been dated 12/6/63 and mailed out 11/29 and 11/30/63 (Friday/Saturday mailing)

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=14966&st=0  

James Wagenvoord to John Simkin (in November, 2009):

“I've been reading through you web site and believe that I can add one of the final jigsaw puzzle pieces that affect the timing of JFK's Dallas trip and the nervousness of LBJ during the weeks preceding the killing. At the time I was the 27 year old Editorial business manager and assistant to Life Magazines Executive Editor. Beginning in later summer 1963 the magazine, based upon information fed from Bobby Kennedy and the Justice Department, had been developing a major newsbreak piece concerning Johnson and Bobby Baker. On publication Johnson would have been finished and off the '64 ticket (reason the material was fed to us) and would probably have been facing prison time. At the time LIFE magazine was arguably the most important general news source in the US. The top management of Time Inc. was closely allied with the USA's various intelligence agencies and we were used after by the Kennedy Justice Department as a conduit to the public. Life's coverage of the Hoffa prosecution, and involvement in paying off Justice Department Memphis witnesses was a case in point.

The LBJ/Baker piece was in the final editing stages and was scheduled to break in the issue of the magazine due out the week of November 24 (the magazine would have made it to the newsstands on Nov.26th or 27th). It had been prepared in relative secrecy by a small special editorial team. On Kennedy's death research files and all numbered copies of the nearly print-ready draft were gathered up by my boss (he had been the top editor on the team) and shredded. The issue that was to expose LBJ instead featured the Zapruder film. Based upon our success in syndicating the Zapruder film I became Chief of Time/LIFE editorial services and remained in that job until 1968.”

Biography of James Wagenvoord: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKwagenvoord.htm

LIFE Magazine was within days of breaking a major story on Lyndon Johnson that would have been extremely politically damaging to him. By 11/22/63, the political career of Lyndon Johnson was hanging by a thin, thin thread and Robert Kennedy, having told the Washington press corps that it was open season on Johnson, was about to cut it with scissors:

In 1963 Johnson got drawn into political scandals involving Fred Korth, Billie Sol Estes and Bobby Baker. According to James Wagenvoord, the editorial business manager and assistant to Life Magazines Executive Editor, the magazine was working on an article that would have revealed Johnson's corrupt activities. "Beginning in later summer 1963 the magazine, based upon information fed from Bobby Kennedy and the Justice Department, had been developing a major newsbreak piece concerning Johnson and Bobby Baker. On publication Johnson would have been finished and off the 1964 ticket (reason the material was fed to us) and would probably have been facing prison time. At the time LIFE magazine was arguably the most important general news source in the US. The top management of Time Inc. was closely allied with the USA's various intelligence agencies and we were used after by the Kennedy Justice Department as a conduit to the public."

The fact that it was Robert Kennedy who was giving this information to Life Magazine suggests that John F. Kennedy intended to drop Johnson as his vice-president. This is supported by Evelyn Lincoln, Kennedy's secretary. In her book, Kennedy and Johnson (1968) she claimed that in November, 1963, Kennedy decided that because of the emerging Bobby Baker scandal he was going to drop Johnson as his running mate in the 1964 election. Kennedy told Lincoln that he was going to replace Johnson with Terry Sanford.

Don B. Reynolds appeared before a secret session of the Senate Rules Committee on 22nd November, 1963. Reynolds told B. Everett Jordan and his committee that Johnson had demanded that he provided kickbacks in return for him agreeing to a life insurance policy arranged by him in 1957. This included a $585 Magnavox stereo. Reynolds also had to pay for $1,200 worth of advertising on KTBC, Johnson's television station in Austin. Reynolds had paperwork for this transaction including a delivery note that indicated the stereo had been sent to the home of Johnson. Reynolds also told of seeing a suitcase full of money which Baker described as a "$100,000 payoff to Johnson for his role in securing the Fort Worth TFX contract".

1) Please carefully read what Harry Truman said in WashPost 12/22/63. Truman wrote and Op-Ed in the Washington Post saying "Limit CIA role to Intelligence" just one month to the day after the JFK assassination. I think it is clear from this column that he thinks the CIA may very well have had something to with the JFK assassination. 

2) Please note: Harry Truman's column on the CIA was REMOVED FROM THE AFTERNOON EDITION of the Washington Post that day. Do you think it was because Truman hit some nerves ... and told too much of the truth? I do.  - Robert Morrow   512-306-1510

 Newsweek’s Ben Bradlee, a close friend of JFK: Newsweek on 11-22-63 had already physically printed an article on the Bobby Baker scandal and its connections to LBJ:

QUOTE

Ben Bradlee was in the lobby of the National Press Building when he heard the news that John F. Kennedy had been shot. He returned to his office in Newsweek: "Colleagues were crowded around the ticker, dazed, watching the deadly bursts of unbelievable, wrenching news, worsening every few seconds... And then, so suddenly, he was dead. Life changed, forever, in the middle of a nice day, at the end of a good week, in a wonderful year of what looked like an extraordinary decade of promise. It would take months before we would begin to understand how, but the inevitability of wrenching change was plain as tears."

Kennedy had died on a Friday. Bradlee claims that the journal's main article about the Bobby Baker scandal and its links with Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson had already been printed: "Fridays are the beginning of the end of a week in the life of a news magazine. The covers have long since been printed, waiting for the rest of the book. All the features - the back of the book-have been edited and typeset. The leads of the news sections are being written, edited, rewritten, and rewritten again. The printed cover of the impending scandal involving Bobby Baker, LBJ's protégé, was scrapped. The entire magazine went out the window and we began all over again."

QUOTE

http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKbradleeB.htm  

Burkett van Kirk confirms that Robert Kennedy was feeding damaging information on Lyndon Johnson's corruption to the Senate Rules Committee in fall, 1963, in attempt to destroy LBJ. The Kennedys were working with the Republicans on the Senate Rules Committee to take down LBJ because LBJ was too close to the Democrats.

SEYMOUR HERSH:

QUOTE

            In a series of interviews for this book, Burkett Van Kirk, who was chief counsel in 1963 for the Republican minority on the Rules Committee, told me of his personal knowledge of Bobby Kennedy's direct intervention. "Bobby was feeding information to 'whispering Willie'" - the nickname for Senator John Williams. "They" - the Kennedy brothers, Van Kirk said - "were dumping Johnson.." Williams, as he did earlier with Donald Reynolds's information about Lyndon Johnson, relayed the Kennedy materials to the senior Republican on the Rules Committe, Carl Curtis. The attorney general thus was secretly dealing with Williams, and Williams was dealing secretly with Curtis and Van Kirk. The scheming was necessary, Van Kirk told me, because he and his fellow Republicans understood that a full-fledged investigation into Bobby Baker could lead to the vice president. They also understood, he said, that the chances of getting such an investigation where slim at best. The Democrats had an overwhelming advantage in the Senate - sixty-seven to thirty-three - and in every committee. The three Republicans on the ten member Rules Committee, Van Kirk said, had little power. "We never won one vote to even call a witness," he told me. The investigation into Bobby Baker and Lyndon Johnson would have to be done in a traditional manner - by newspaper leak.

            Van Kirk, who was named after his grandfather Senator E. J. Burkett of Nebraska, said that Bobby Kennedy eventually designated a Justice Department lawyer that fall to serve as an intermediary to the minority staff; he began supplying the Republicans with documents about Johnson and his financial dealings. The lawyer, Van Kirk told me, "used to come up to the Senate and hang around me like a dark cloud. It took him about a week or ten days to, one, find out what I didn't know, and two, give it to me." Some of the Kennedy-supplied documents were kept in Williams's office safe, Van Kirk said, and never shown to him. There was no doubt of Bobby Kennedy's purpose in dealing with the Republicans, Van Kirk said: "To get rid of Johnson. To dump him. I am as sure of that the sun comes up in the east."

UNQUOTE

[Seymour Hersh, "The Dark Side of Camelot," pp. 406-407] ] 

 It is possible that Oswald’s revolutionary heroic actions in killing Kennedy were a response to these plots against Castro. Although the American people as a whole did not learn of CIA plots to murder Castro until the 1970's it would have been easy for newspaper readers in New Orleans to read between the lines because it was common knowledge that anti-Castro exiles were engaged in efforts to topple the Castro regime.

Oswald’s first reply to a police officer when he was arrested inside the Texas Theatre was, “I haven't anything to be ashamed of.” He did not say, “I didn't shoot anyone”. He was likely giving himself time to think of an answer to the inevitable questions he would be asked when interrogated. His answer, “I haven't anything to be ashamed of ” is a natural response for a true believer in revolutionary action. He may have committed murder – but within the fantasies of his own mind Oswald’s crime was an act of war which put him outside the norms of lawful behaviour and moral culpability.

In his revolutionary state of mind, Oswald needed only a catalyst to spur him on. And it came in the form of an aristocratic member of the Dallas emigre community, George de Mohrenschildt. DeMohrenschildt had an important influence on Oswald in the year before the assassination. He befriended the Oswalds and the older man became Lee's mentor. Unlike the other members of the Russian community De Mohrenschildt had a soft spot for Oswald and sympathised with his left-wing views. In reality, DeMohrenschildt thought Oswald was a pathetic individual who pretentiously believed himself to be an intellectual and a revolutionary.

[DeMohrenschildt and his wife both thought that Lee Harvey Oswald was innocent and a patsy for the JFK assassination. DeMohrenschildt also tried to have a personal meeting with Vice President Lyndon Johnson in April, 1963! And DeMohrenschildt approached Oswald at the behest of Dallas CIA chief J. Walton Moore:

It is possible that De Mohrenschildt's statements had influenced Oswald in his decision to assassinate Walker. Oswald’s mentor referred to General Walker as the “Hitler of tomorrow” and Oswald, according to Marina, often repeated unoriginal things which she believed may have come from DeMohrenschildt. One of Oswald’s oft-repeated sayings was that if Hitler had been assassinated it would have benefitted the world. It is therefore possible that the anti-fascist DeMohrenschildt unintentionally provoked Oswald to kill General Walker. Oswald may have wanted to impress his surrogate father.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/operation-dragon

 JIM DIEUGENIO:

QUOTE

What about their other chief suspect? As DeMohrenschildt told Edward Epstein, he did not approach Oswald and his wife Marina at the behest of the KGB. He did so at the request of J. Walton Moore of the Dallas CIA office. In fact, Moore had to push George into doing this and Moore did so on three separate occasions. As DeMohrenschildt stated to Edward Epstein, “I would never have contacted Oswald in a million years if Moore had not sanctioned it.” (The Assassination Chronicles, by Edward Epstein, pp. 558–59) I don’t see how one can make it more clear than that. And since Epstein’s work is used profusely in Operation Dragon, it’s hard to buy that Woolsey and Pacepa did not know this.

UNQUOTE

[“Operation Dragon,” Jim DiEugenio, Kennedys and King, 9-8-2021]

A dozen pages of CIA James Walton Moore’s CIA file remained redacted in their entirety in 2021. Moore was chief of the Dallas domestic contacts division

https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article256018857.html

“CIA continues to conceal JFK assassination files. But here’s what we do know,” Jefferson Morley, Miami Herald Op-Ed, November 22, 2021.”

According to Samuel Ballen who was De Mohrenschildt's close friend, “(In De Mohrenschildt's conversations with Lee) his unconventional, shocking, humourous and irreverant ideas would have been coming out of George all the time.” Ballen stated that he thought De Mohrenschildt could have influenced Oswald to kill General Walker.

[Sam Ballen – JFK researcher Bruce Adamson has some information on him –

Did Sam Ballen take Oswald to CIA Office Building in Dallas for a Job Interview?

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/sam-ballen-als-took-oswald-cia-1927042023

You are bidding on a letter from Samuel Ballen to Bruce Adamson dated March 29, 1993 to Seller. Ballen took Lee Harvey Oswald for a job interview at the CIA's Republic National Bank Building. Adamson interviewed Sam Ballen at the La Fonda Hotel in Sante Fe, New Mexico. Ballen purchased Adamson a marguerita after he had been stranded out in the desert in 15 degree weather. 
You are welcome to print out the cover and news article on your own. 
Ballen was sure de Mohrenschildt had nothing to do with Oswald, yet Ballen did not know Adamson found documents in which Ballen was taking Oswald to a job interview at the CIA's Dallas Republic National Bank Building. Was it to see a "Mr. Hunt," who Oswald wrote to? Adamson believes it was Mr. Hunt the lawyer not E. Howard Hunt, nor H. L. Hunt. Mr. Hunt the lawyer had worked for CIA also. 

The contempt Lee Harvey Oswald showed for authority and to those who disagreed with his vision of the world, the simple ideological answers he embraced in the face of complex issues he spoke of, generally are expressions of self-aggrandisement and a narcissistic tendency. When he began to see himself as "the commander", the learned revolutionary who was given only menial jobs, the gifted politician who headed an imaginary chapter of the Fair Play For Cuba Committee, the “the hunter of the right wing fascists” - the grandiose side was revealing itself. If Lee Oswald had not assassinated President Kennedy he would inevitably have committed a different kind of violent political act.

Oswald’s struggle was to get what he wanted - to be recognised as an important political figure. He achieved a modicum of recognition when he appeared on television and radio in New Orleans in the summer of 1963, when his Fair Play for Cuba activities were noticed. However, his esteem was damaged when television presenter Bill Stuckey ambushed Oswald with statements about his defection to Russia which took away Oswald's status as an objective spokesman for Castro's communist regime.

Oswald hated the American way of life. Years earlier he had come to detest his beloved Russia. And now his entry to his brave new world, Cuba, was barred. Failure seemed to follow him everywhere. He had nowhere to turn except inwards to his embittered and disillusioned self.

Now and then, in the final year of his life, Oswald would show his normal side, seeking work and interacting with others. But he knew he would always return to his life of despair, psychological isolation and unfulfilled political fantasies.

Lee Harvey Oswald’s failure as a man, a husband, a worker, a Marine and a son, began shortly after his birth. And Oswald's embrace of communism, his strong belief in Castro and the Cuban revolution and a desire to be recognised as an important person provoked him to kill President Kennedy.

 

[Oswald was a fake pro-Castro Marxist. He loved his wife Marina and wanted to reconcile with her. Oswald, unlike JFK, was a big fan of John Kennedy. Yes, of course, Oswald want to be someone of importance, but he never shot anyone in his entire life, except himself in the Marines and that was by mistake. Lyndon Johnson, however, hated the Kennedys and knew they were out to utterly destroy him in the fall of 1963. Lyndon Johnson was well known to be a pathological liar, his mental instabilities, epic corruption, constant taking of the Lord’s name in vain are well documented. LBJ as treated a dominated Lady Bird like garbage and he even had two secretaries pregnant at the same time in summer, 1963.]

 

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