My only post on the JFK assassination

[scheming daemons]

Let's posit that Oswald acted alone. That he fired three shots and those three shots account for all the wounds in Kennedy and Connolly.

Let's also posit that Jack Ruby acted alone. That nobody was behind his actions but himself.

Both points conceded for the sake of my post.


What possible "National Security" reason could there possibly be that would restrict the release of thousands of documents to the public?

Since both men acted alone, without the support or involvement of any foreign or domestic governmental agency ... then there is no logical explanation for keeping documents secret 50 years after the fact.

What National Security information could possibly be at stake here? Both men acted ALONE we are told. They weren't in league with anyone. So who or what is being protected with the secrecy?


You want he CTs to stop? Release all documents to the public with no redaction.

The USSR doesn't exist anymore. Castro is a senile old man. None of the Kennedy brothers are alive anymore. LBJ isn't alive anymore. None of the Mafia chieftains of the day are alive any more. Dulles and Hoover are dead too.

And even if any of them were alive, it would not matter since Oswald and Ruby acted alone we are told.


I am a firm believer in Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation is usually the right one.

The simplest explanation for a government locking away files under the guise of "national security" is that there is something in the files that .... wait for it... threatens national security.

Two men acting alone, with no outside agency involved, 50 years ago, doesn't threaten national security in any way.

Release the files. That either shuts up the CTers or validates them.

No excuse not to.

[morningfog]

1. There is probably so much more in those files than who killed JFK.

It is plausible that the secrets would cause damage to our function of government if revealed, at any point. The things that were kept secret could still be going on and those who would release the docs, still need them sealed.

I really don't have a theory, opinion or position on assassination. But, I can think of reasons why the docs are sealed that could be consistent with Oswald acting alone.

[scheming daemons]

3. if you can think of reasons, present a plausible one

I cant come up with one.

Not 50 years after the fact.

[GoneFishin]

8. Yeah, damage like learning that our own government killed our president. n/t

[Logical]

35. LOL, like the government did 911?

[GoneFishin]

60. Different topic. Nice bait attempt though. n/t

[indepat]

61. That TPTB will not let the public know how 9-11 really played out speaks volumes imo

[Zen Democrat]

11. Are those reasons consistent with keeping Oswald's tax returns secret?

Among so many other things.

But then why was the "note" that could have most incriminated Oswald burned in the offices of the Dallas FBI and then flushed down the toilet? Agent Hosty himself reported this. Why would you do this to the note that reportedly was Oswald threatening the FBI. This is just one of the thousands of questions about the assassination that have no rational answer, and should.

I'm reasonably sure that everything that could have been done WAS done to streamline the cut and dried lone nut case closed matter because apparently the CIA was telling everybody that this was a case of Castro and Khruschev killing Kennedy for which the knee-jerk response at the time would have been nuclear war. Everyone went wild to cover up everything to prevent nuclear annihilism, which included sacrificing the sheep-dipped patsy who had been supremely set up and looked guilty for all the world.

"The Devil's greatest trick was to convince the world that he didn't exist," said Kaiser Soze. I think the assassination plotters' greatest trick was to convince people in authority that "Communists" did it, because "a" fake-Communist did it. Don't accept the falsities of this case that were disproven decades ago. It's extremely doubtful that Oswald was ever in Mexico City. Certainly no proof. The reports he was there were from the CIA station and they tracked a man named Oswald who's pictures didn't match LHO, nor did his voice on the recordings from the Cuban and Soviet embassies. And at the same time he was supposed to be in Mexico City, Oswald was seen at Sylvia Odio's house in Dallas with two Cuban associates.

J Edgar Hoover wrote memos about Oswald as early as 1960 and '61 regarding his suspicions that someone was using Oswald's identity in New Orleans at the same time he was a defector in the Soviet Union.

Tonight I'm rememberine 50 years ago tonight when I was a kid sitting in my living room in Houston watching live coverage of President Kennedy, Jackie, LBJ and Lady Bird at a testimonial dinner downtown for Congressman Albert Thomas. (Albert Thomas is the man winking at LBJ after he was sworn in on Air Force One the next afternoon.) It was a great night and I was so proud to have the President and First Lady in Texas. I remember the feel of the weather that afternoon as I had arrived home from school. My mother was reading the afternoon Chronicle and remarking that she thought it was disrespectful for the headline to refer to the President as "JFK." It was the dividing line of history in my life when he was killed the next day while I ate lunch at school. The Horror.

[KittyWampus]

12. Well how about sharing a reason? You say you think of some.

[stopbush]

18. Agreed. There are probably CIA & FBI operational secrets in those files

that would reveal methods and probably even people involved in those methods. There's also mundane stuff in there like tax returns.

Why does everyone keep harping about "sealed for 50 years?" I thought everything was to be released in 2017, a whole 4 years from now.

[Th1onein]

21. Here's the answer to your question:

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2012/06/jfk_assassination_docs_wont_be.php

"Salon reported yesterday that the National Archives is refusing to release 1,171 classified CIA documents related to the assassination in time for the anniversary as it had promised."

[stopbush]

26. Thanks for the link. But why be so selective in your quoting?

I found this explanation from the link you provided to be totally understandable:

In 2010, deputy archivist Michael Kurtz announced that the secret records would be declassified by November 22, 2013. But the National Archives has since walked back that promise in a letter to Jim Lesar of the Assassination Archives and Research Center, who requested the release.

"We recognize that, in a 2010 public forum. Dr. Kurtz stated that the postponed JFK assassination records would be included as part of the (National Declassification Center) project. However, as we have tried to explain before, Dr. Kurtz misspoke. Rather, because the postponed JFK assassination records have already been subject to a full and complete government-wide declassification review, they are not part of the 400 million page backlog of records that have yet to receive a final review."

Which unsurprisingly frustrates Lesar, whose nonprofit is devoted to collecting and disseminating information about political assassinations.

"In 1992, Congress unanimously passed legislation that was designed to get all of the JFK assassination-related records released," he said. "There was supposed to be only a very few records whose release could be postponed for periods of time including up until the year 2017, but basically everything was supposed to be released well before then."

[Th1onein]

27. I'm not being selective. And your quotes, including the bolded one, just proved my point.

[stopbush]

29. The point is that everything is scheduled to be released in 2017, as the article points out.

One guy erroneously told these people that some of the stuff would get released in 2013. The archives say he misspoke, which people do all the time.

I see nothing nefarious in this.

[Th1onein]

30. You believe everything that comes from "authority," don't you?

Glad you feel so comfy with the PTB. The rest of us? Mmmmm.....not so much.

[JDPriestly]

40. Why has it taken over 50 years for the National Archives and the government to prepare these

documents for release?

Pretty inefficient if you want to ask me.

[HubertHeaver]

43. Dick Cheney can de-classify current stuff

with a wave of his hand.

They merely have he wrong man working on it.

[Old and In the Way]

38. What reasons?

I can't think of any.

[Major Hogwash]

2. There are too many unanswered questions.

And 50 years is too long to wait for those answers.
When my dad found out that most of the testimony and evidence used to make the Warren Commission report would not be made public for 75 years, he was convinced that the assassination of the President was not just the result of 1 man acting alone.
He told me that I would not live long enough to ever learn the truth, nor my children, maybe not even my grandchildren.

75 years.

For what?

[GoneFishin]

4. BAM! Slam Dunk!

I really prefer, if possible, not to engage on the fine points any longer because there is enough disinformation to confuse anyone who has not been following this since the beginning. But they can't escape this big picture problem. Although I am sure they'll just plug their ears and go "NAH, NAH, NAH, NAH", or something that addresses the problem equally logically.

You summed it up perfectly. Thanks.

[solarhydrocan]

5. k/r excellent post. Release the files NOW

Operation 40 was a Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored undercover operation in the early 1960s, which was active in the United States and the Caribbean (including Cuba), Central America, and Mexico.

It was approved by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in March 1960, after the January 1959 Cuban Revolution, and was presided over by Vice-president Richard Nixon.

The group included Frank Sturgis (who would later become one of the Watergate burglars); Felix Rodriguez (a CIA officer who later was involved in the capture and summary execution of Che Guevara); Luis Posada Carriles (held in the US in 2010 on charges of illegal immigration, he is demanded by Venezuela for his key role in the execution of the 1976 Cubana Flight 455 bombing); Orlando Bosch (founder of the counterrevolutionary Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations, that organized the 1976 murder of Chilean former minister Orlando Letelier); Rafael 'Chi Chi' Quintero; Virgilio Paz Romero; Pedro Luis Diaz Lanz; Bernard Barker; Porter Goss**; and Barry Seal. Members took part in the April 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion directed against the government of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro.


The only known picture of Operation 40
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_40

**Porter Goss was co-chair of the original 911 "investigation" and co-author of the Patriot Act. Isn't that interesting.

Even if Oswald was guilty and the official story is true, does anyone think the above atrocities won't come back around?

[ancianita]

6. Thank you. No excuse is acceptable.

[Archae]

7. Don't forget...

You're talking about the same people who have classified documents from the Spanish-American War.

They love stamping stuff "secret," getting stuff UN-secret is like pulling teeth.

[Warren DeMontague]

9. and whoever impersonated "Oswald" in the Mexico City phone call, presumably also acted alone.

So now we've got three totally random lone actors, just sort of doing shit.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/biographies/oswald/oswald-the-cia-and-mexico-city/


Interesting, though, that it is the documents pertaining to Oswald and Mexico which seem to comprise a bunch of the stuff still "too sensitive" to release.

[Holly_Hobby]

62. The impersonator is bottom right, without his 'stache

William Seymour

[defacto7]

10. Very logical post.

Could there be security information hidden in those files that are not directly connected to the assassination? Possible but not likely that there are issues really detrimental to the function of the US government right now in 2013. There could be certain individuals named that are still alive but not active in government who could be in danger. But the fact that there are hidden files is a real indication of something we're not meant to know until it is revealed to clarify history for future generations.

I'm not an advocate for keeping those files secret; I think they need to be open to public scrutiny for the purpose of having a government that is the people's, not a government that exercises an exclusive power above us, without us. That kind of power makes democracy a sham. My personal desire is to know what's in those files, but that is neither here nor there.

[nyquil_man]

13. I agree. Release all of them.

Now let's push to make it happen.

[ancianita]

14. Perfect time to do it. Where do I sign up.

[nyquil_man]

20. I said this to someone the other day:

Imagine what would happen if one million people jammed the Capitol phone lines demanding the release of the files.

Are there one million people who care enough about this case to do that? Or are they all convinced that it won't work?

[ancianita]

25. I've called the Capitol many times. No problem. Let's do it.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

15. I'm thinking, I'm thinking.

[JackRiddler]

16. Yas! How interesting...

That the usual faction of WCR defenders aren't present in this thread. Because what can the answer possibly be? Even Posner and Epstein felt they had to go along with the demand that the CIA release the Ioannides files -- the "deputy director for psychological warfare" at the JM-WAVE / Mongoose squad attacking Cuba and apparently running assassinations out of Miami, who then became the CIA liaison to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, without anyone on the HSCA knowing that this guy was directly involved with the anti-Castro Cubans they were investigating!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/us/17inquire.html?pagewanted=all

However, note that even Posner can be right about something. At the end of the above linked NYT article, he is quoted as follows:

Mr. Posner, the anti-conspiracy author, said that if there really were something explosive involving the C.I.A. and President Kennedy, it would not be in the files — not even in the documents the C.I.A. has fought to keep secret.

“Most conspiracy theorists don’t understand this,” Mr. Posner said. “But if there really were a C.I.A. plot, no documents would exist.”

[Spider Jerusalem]

17. Easy

the names of agents and informants in Cuba, in Russia, in other countries, who may still be living. "The USSR doesn't exist anymore", but US agents and informants in Russia whose names are revealed and are still alive would probably not be well-treated anyway. Nor in Cuba. The names of sources and informants are pretty much the only information that could possibly still be a "national security" issue, at this late date.

[scheming daemons]

19. If Oswald acted alone... Then none of those agents or nations were involved!

What involvement of any agents would be relevant if Oswald acted alone?

[Th1onein]

23. There you go!

[Spider Jerusalem]

24. Agents, and informants

you know why the Warren Commission was established, right? You ARE aware that there was a significant worry on the part of much of the US Government at the time that Kennedy's assassination may have been a conspiracy...and, specifically, a Communist conspiracy? Having informants in the KGB or Cuban government or other foreign intelligence services who would be in a position to say "there was no Cuban/Soviet/whatever involvement, that can be determined" would have been useful to the inquiry even if such information would necessarily remain classified. Is protection of agents and informants not relevant, somehow?

[A-Schwarzenegger]

31. Seems like one black magic marker might take care of that.

Course that raises the question of how much
will be redacted when it's all released. There are supposedly
thousands of pages of documents still sealed, of which it seems
only a small percentage would include agents' names. By the
way, where's Anonymous in this case? I guess the docs haven't been
digitized?

[Spider Jerusalem]

32. JFK Records Act says "released by 26 October 2017"

And it did so in 1992 when it was passed, this has been known for over 20 years, now.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

33. Sorry, don't understand what your post specifically refers to

in my post... ?

EDIT: Ah, youre talking about the lifting of redactions in already released docs?

[scheming daemons]

46. surely every agent is dead or retired by now

Even the youngest of them would be in their late 70s or older.

[Spider Jerusalem]

52. "and informants"

is there some sort of reading comprehension problem, here?

[scheming daemons]

54. if Oswald acted alone... what informants?

And the same math applies.... the youngest of "informants" would be in their late 70s now and no longer working as informants.

And their names could be redacted if that is true.

[Spider Jerusalem]

56. The ones who would've told the US government that Cuba and the Soviet Union et al weren't involved?

As I said in my original response? Maybe there is a reading comprehension problem.

[Kablooie]

22. I remember hearing that the files wouldn't be opened until 100 years after the event.

They wanted to make sure that everyone involved was dead before allowing the info released.
The rumor at the time was that there was some embarrassing information about Kennedy family members.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

28. It doesn't "threaten National Security"....

It threatens the security of people with the power to lock up files.

[moondust]

34. They may simply be embarrassing.

Perhaps revealing dislike or distrust of the President, or J. Edgar Hoover style surveillance of him and his family, or possibly plotting more operations in Cuba or elsewhere without the President's knowledge or approval. Maybe stuff similar to the Snowden leaks that wasn't technically illegal but nevertheless unflattering or downright nasty that could damage some agency's reputation and recruiting efforts.

[scheming daemons]

51. embarrassment isnt "national security"

.

[Logical]

36. LOL, because you cannot think of a reason means there are none? Classic! nt

[JDPriestly]

41. Can you think of a reason?

[scheming daemons]

47. 50 years after the fact... no reason is good enough now.

[SaveAmerica]

37. I don't know who you're talking about... could it be? could it be...SATAN???!!!

[ucrdem]

39. Truth will out

and when it does a certain airport on the Potomac will quietly change its name.

[scheming daemons]

48. Dulles has been dead for a while.

No need to hide anything now.

[avaistheone1]

42. K&R I strongly support your message.

K&R

[TomClash]

44. Sources and methods

Usually the only legitimate reason to classify information top secret, particularly sources.

[scheming daemons]

49. Sources are dead or very very old now.

[TomClash]

58. You still protect them and their families

You don't want people in Russia to know who collaborated with the US. Ever.

Otherwise you no longer have sources. Anywhere.

Of course, this assumes this is the real reason the USG records remain classified. I am skeptical.

[Fumesucker]

45. You know who ~is~ alive still, eh?

I'm not gonna say it out loud, it wouldn't be prudent, but you can read my lips.

[scheming daemons]

50. if there was no conspiracy, poppy isnt relevant

If Oswald acted alone as we are told.. then no living person was involved.

[Enthusiast]

53. Kicked and recommended.

"Since both men acted alone, without the support or involvement of any foreign or domestic governmental agency ... then there is no logical explanation for keeping documents secret 50 years after the fact."

Excellent.

[Ichingcarpenter]

55. Totally agree

Exit wound..... all these witnesses, doctors and nurses were wrong?

[DanTex]

57. The flaw in this argument is the assumption that a conspiracy to kill JFK is the only

possible reason for wanting to keep the documents sealed. I'm actually with you in the sense that I would like to see the documents released. But non-releasing of documents is not evidence of anything. Particularly when, on the other side, there are things like fingerprints and witnesses and ballistic evidence and all that, plenty of evidence to prove conclusively that Oswald was the lone shooter.

[riderinthestorm]

59. This is a great point and the one thing that has always made me go hmmmm

If there's nothing to hide, then why all the effort to keep this stuff hidden?

K&R