"We've Learned a Great Deal"

by John Kelin

Since the passage of the JFK Records Collection Act and the formation of the Assassination Records Review Board, there has been a wealth of new information on the JFK case, in both documents and research. In his presentation at the JFK Lancer conference, researcher Martin Shackelford said he's attempted to assemble some of this new information --- just a fraction of what's been released, he explained --- which he wanted to share. The information he presented was fascinating, and seems to confirm many long-held suspicions.

"We've learned a great deal about Lee Harvey Oswald," Shackelford began. He read off a list:

The Marine Corps knew in advance he was going to the Soviet Union. He said someone had spent two years preparing him for the journey.
In his Moscow hotel, the KBG monitored him with an infra-red camera.
He showed up at the US Embassy in white dress gloves. Were they part of his Marine dress uniform? If so, Shackelford wondered, did he get them in Moscow, or bring them with him? Did he bring the full uniform, or just the gloves?
Oswald was monitored by the CIA's Office of Security. The information they gleaned was not initially shared with the Soviet Russian division.
A former CIA employee recently alleged that Howard Osborne, of the Office of Security, directed the Kennedy assassination coverup.
The CIA received information on Oswald from an apparently as-yet unidentified source within Russia.
While in the USSR, Oswald recieved packages from an unknown source.
Back in New Orleans, a "husky laborer type" ordered Oswald's anti-Castro leaflets. These leaflets were picked up by Kerry Thornley, Oswald's Marine buddy.
The "Crime Against Cuba" pamphlets came from CIA stocks.
Gerry Patrick Hemming identified Guy Banister as the man who, in September of 1962, offered him a contract to assassinate JFK.
Carlos Bringuier, members of Truth and Consequences (the organization which helped fund the Garrison investigation), friends of Clay Shaw --- all were members of INCA, the Information Council of the Americas, which circulated film and audiotapes of Lee Oswald on radio and TV "before JFK's body reached Washington," Shackelford said.
In Mexico City, Oswald was photographed entering and exiting both the Cuban and Soviet embassies, according to CIA station chief Win Scott.
The woman Oswald met at the Cuban embassy, Sylvia Duran, was formerly the mistress of a Cuban ambassador --- "So she wasn't just a clerk."
Oswald took two suitcases to Mexico City but returned with only one. This is similar to his actions when he came back from the Soviet Union, and flew from New York to Atlanta to Fort Worth. He arrived in Texas without as many pieces of luggage as he started with.
The CIA lied to its own Mexico City station concerning knowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald, and sent false information to the FBI, State Department and the Navy.
Robert Kennedy had so many questions about the Mexico City episode, he went there to investigate things for himself in October of 1964.
Oswald's fingerprints, found on the Mannlicher-Carcano discovered in the TSBD, were "at least two weeks, if not months, old, by November 22," according to Lieutenant J.C. Day, chief of the Dallas Police crime lab.
Postal investigation records relating to mail ordering of the alleged assassination weapon remain classified.
The CIA, Army, and Navy intelligence each created special Oswald files for the Warren Commission, selecting documents from multiple Oswald files. The Army version excluded all records classified as Secret or Top Secret. "In other words," Shackelford said, "the Warren Commission saw no Army records that were classified."

Shackelford also presented information on George DeMohrenschildt. "His brother Dmitri once worked for TIME-LIFE, and then published The Russian Review, a journal subsidized by the CIA. From 1958 to 1963 DeMohrenschildt was employed by Lyndon Johnson's chief financial backer, George Brown of Brown and Root." He had previously worked for another LBJ backer, Martin said.

"Dallas CIA man J. Walton Moore first mentioned Oswald to DeMohrenschildt in 1961, while Oswald was still in Russia. An associate of Moore gave DeMohrenschildt Oswald's address in 1962, and suggested DeMohrenschildt contact Oswald. The original story was that George Bouhe introduced DeMohrenschildt to Oswald. This could still be true if Bouhe was a CIA colleague of J. Walton Moore."

DeMohrenschildt encouraged Lee Oswald to write a detailed memoir of his time in Russia, which did did in October of 1962. DeMohrenschildt subsequently gave it to Moore to copy. Reports based on other information provided by Oswald were sent to the CIA's Soviet Russia Division at Langley. In April of 1963 the CIA requested an "expedite check" on DeMohrenschildt, Shackelford reported. The very next month, DeMohrenschildt met with Vice President Lyndon Johnson and branch chief of the Soviet Russia Division. In late 1963, after the assassination, "an unexplained $200,000 was deposited from a Bahamian bank into DeMohrenschildt's bank account in Haiti," Martin said. "It was later paid out to an undisclosed party."

In late 1969, DeMohrenschildt told a family friend that billionaire oilman H.L. Hunt was behind the Kennedy assassination. Hunt supported LBJ in 1960.

Shackelford said that a few more things have been learned about CIA propaganda expert David Atlee Phillips, who met with Oswald in Dallas and whose operators attempted to blame Cuba for the assassiantion.

In 1960 Phillips was part of a CIA counterintelligence operation against the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and was involved in one of the first assassination plots against Castro with the Mob.
He was in charge of anti-Castro operations at the time of Oswald's visit to Mexico City. According to E. Howard Hunt, Phillips ran DRE, the Revolutionary Student Directorate, an exile group invovled with Carlos Bringuier, Silvia Odio's Sister, and distribution of the Oswald tapes immediately after the assassination.
He was named by LBJ to Madeline Brown as responsible for the assassiantion.

And there is new information on the medical evidence. The Kennedy family never owned a set of autopsy photos, although they did have a set. "The government handed the photos to the family in 1965," Mr. Shackelford explained later. "They couldn't legally do this, as the photos were public property, not to mention evidence in a crime." In any case, a November 1966 agreement simply allowed the government to recover the photographs without suing the family.

The Kennedys never had the only set. Seven sets were made in November of 1963. "The recovery of the Kennedy family set may have meant that all seven sets were again in government hands," Shackelford told researchers at the conference.

As noted, Shackelford said his survey of new information covers only a fraction of the data that's been released in recent years. New documents become available every month, he said. To keep up with it all, he recommended reading the various print journals devoted to the case, as well as electronic publications such as the one you are reading now.

Mr. Shackelford concluded on a positive note, telling the assembled researchers, "We can solve this case."

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