Rob Reiner's "Who Killed JFK?" Part 2

On Oswald, and the lead up to the murder

                            

(This review will discuss the next three parts of the Rob Reiner podcast, that is sections 4-6.)

                                                            I

Part 4 is entitled ‘The Patsy” and the focus in this section is on the alleged assassin. Dick Russell sketches in some of the childhood background of Oswald: his broken home, the fact that his father passed on before his birth, and the move from New Orleans to New York City at age 13. The show spends some time on Dr. Renatus Hartogs, a psychiatrist who examined Oswald at Youth House in New York, because the lad was skipping school too much. Here, Russell spends some time attempting to tie in Hartogs to a CIA connected colleague at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.

I thought this was ill advised, unless one was going to prove that the CIA was somehow handling Oswald at that age. The importance of Hartogs was--as pointed out back in 1967--that he lied to the press about his examination of Oswald in 1953. (Sylvia Meagher, Accessories After the Fact, p. 244) As Sylvia Meagher also noted, he may have been prompted in this by the FBI. Even the Warren Commission pointed this out.  As Meagher notes, his Youth House examination was allegedly the basis for an inference that Oswald was unbalanced or deranged. These claims were exaggerated.  As the report actually said:

No indication of psychotic changes; superior mental endowment; no retardation despite truancy; no psychotic mental changes. Disturbed youngster who suffers under the impact of really existing emotional isolation and deprivation. (Meagher, p. 244)

In 1953 Hartogs thought Oswald suffered from the lack of a father figure. Its pretty clear that he changed his tune when the FBI and then the media began calling on him in the wake of the assassination.  Or as he told the Commission, his report “contradicts my recollection”. (WC Vol. VIII, p. 221) There are two other things that could have been used against Hartogs. First, he tried to cash in on his Oswald association by co-writing a cheapjack book on Oswald and Jack Ruby entitled The Two Assassins in 1965. The capper against him should have been that he was later successfully sued for inducing a patient to have sexual relations with him during therapy--and two of his other patients testified against him at trial saying he did the same to them. (NY Times, March 20, 1975.)  As Meagher wrote about the man, “Not a very professional performance.”

The podcast multiplies that tenuous CIA association in New York by jumping to Oswald’s attempt to join the Marines. Reiner says he tried to join up at age 15;  it was actually at age 16, by using a false affidavit from his mother saying he was 17. (Warren Report, p. 680) But the setting for this was New Orleans, amid his jobs at Pfisterer Dental Labs and Gerald F. Tujague, Inc. While in New Orleans, Oswald met David Ferrie and was part of his Civil Air Patrol squadron. (William Davy, Let Justice be Done, p. 5) This undoubtedly had an influence on Oswald joining the service. Why this was left out eludes me.

The family moved to Fort Worth and Oswald then joined the Marines a week after his 17^th birthday. The podcast describes his service at Atsugi Airbase in Japan, home of the U2. Russell talks about Oswald’s meeting up in Japan with Richard Case Nagell, a fascinating figure who Russell wrote a long book about entitled The Man Who Knew too Much. They then describe Oswald’s move to the USA at Santa Ana, California, his status as a radar operator and fellow Marine David Bucknell’s statement about Oswald mentioning to him he was learning Russian in order to later defect to Russia. (Jim Marrs, Crossfire, p. 110)

Then comes a genuine error by using none other than Tosh Plumlee to somehow place Oswald at Nags Head Naval Base in North Carolina while in the service.  First of all, no one knows if Oswald was really at Nags Head--where they allegedly trained false defectors--in the first place. But to use someone as dubious as Plumlee to do so is a very questionable turn. Author Larry Hancock spent a lot of time on Plumlee and simply did not find him credible. And he is not alone in that judgment.  Meanwhile, there is no mention of Oswald’s relationship with Kerry Thornley, or Thornley’s subsequent role in smearing Oswald before the Warren Commission. (See “Kerry Thornley: A New Look”, at Kennedysandking.com, by James DiEugenio)

We now shift to Oswald’s controversial hardship discharge, and surprisingly, the show spends almost no time elucidating the odd circumstances surrounding it. As several authors have noted, it was achieved in almost world record time, due to his mother having a candy box drop on her nose at work--and the mother predicted what it was all about in advance. (James DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, second edition, pp. 135-36)  Relating this would have been much more profitable than Tosh Plumlee and Nags Head. Reiner then says that on the day Oswald was let go, he picked up his passport. It was actually a week later that he picked it up and began his defection to the USSR from New Orleans. (Warren Report, p. 689)

The podcast describes Oswald’s journey across the Atlantic to Helsinki, Finland and finally to Moscow. Russell talks about how expensive this should have been, but how little money Oswald had. The show fails to mention that, in spite of that, Oswald stayed at two upscale hotels in Helsinki. And further it does not ask the question: How did Oswald know that it was through this embassy he could arrange for a passport into Russia very quickly? (DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, pp. 137-39). To its credit, the program has CIA employee James Wilcott discussing being told the CIA handled something called the Oswald Project. He recalled disbursing certain funds to that project while working in Tokyo, presumably while Oswald was in Russia.

The Russians were suspicious of Oswald, even after he threatened to renounce his citizenship at the American Embassy. After an ersatz suicide attempt, they allowed him to stay in the country but sent him to Minsk, 715 kilometers east of Moscow. There he met and married Marina Prusakova, the niece of a Russian intelligence officer.  Again, the show missed a good opportunity to discuss what was happening with Oswald’s files at CIA during this defection.  Namely the compelling discoveries by Malcom Blount about HSCA investigator Betsy Wolf. These strongly indicate that someone was rigging the Oswald file while he was on his way to Russia.  (See “Creating the Oswald Legend”, by Vasilios Vazakas, Pt. 4, at Kenendysandking.com)

                                                                        II

Part 5 of the podcast is entitled “Wilderness of Mirrors”. This segment centers on the character of James Angleton who, as John Newman revealed, was the one man at CIA who had access to all of Oswald’s files. The segment begins by posing the old question:  Why did the CIA not debrief Oswald upon his return from Russia? They couple this along with the fact that Oswald never really formally renounced his citizenship while in Russia. The supposition being: Was it all a charade?

When Oswald and his Russian wife landed in New Jersey, they were greeted by someone requested by the State Department, Spas Raikin.  He was also secretary-general of the American Friends of the Anti-Bolshevik Nations. (Warren Report, p. 713; Michael Benson, Who’ Who in the JFK Assassination, p. 374) Journeying to Dallas-Fort Worth, Oswald became friends with the dashing George DeMohrenschildt, nicknamed The Baron, a leader of the White Russian community in Dallas. Thus the question: Why would a White Russian befriend a communist? The program tells us that later, The Baron told author Edward Epstein that he would have never met Oswald unless he had been instructed to by local CIA Station Chief J. Walton Moore. And perhaps not by accident, the Baron ended up with $300,000 in his bank account for his future adventure in Haiti.

It was through DeMohrenschildt that the Oswalds were later introduced to Ruth and Michael Paine. This couple had some interesting connections. For example, Ruth’s sister worked for the CIA, her father worked for US AID, which was CIA connected. The show says that Allen Dulles’ girlfriend, Mary Bancroft, was the best fried of Ruth, but Mary was really friends with Ruth Forbes Young, the mother of Michael.

The program then says there was an eyewitness who saw The Baron eating lunch with Allen Dulles during the Warren Commission hearings.  In over 30 years of research on this case I had never heard that one before. Then there is another unprecedented discovery: somehow, in the files of Jim Garrison, DeMohrenschildt confessed to Oswald that the was hired by the Agency to look out for him. There are few people who had more access to those files than I did, and I do not recall seeing such a thing.  I would love to be corrected on both matters. Russell then describes that DeMohrenschildt had a turnaround in his feelings about the assassination and Oswald.  As time went on he felt that Oswald was set up to take the fall.

We then follow Oswald as he moves to New Orleans in the spring of 1963. I was truly surprised during this segment.  Why? There was no mention of 544 Camp Street. And I do not mean Oswald being there;  there was no mention of the pamphlets he had stamped with that address. In other words, Tosh Plumlee and Nags Head is OK, but prima facie evidence about Oswald being someplace he shouldn’t is not? What makes this even more puzzling is that they do mention the obsession the CIA had with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. They mention Oswald’s debates with broadcast host Bill Stuckey, but not that Stuckey had been telling the FBI he wanted to do this as far back as 1962! (FBI memo  of 4/6/62) There is also evidence of Oswald writing the FPCC in New York in that year. (“Exposing the FPCC”, Part 1, by Paul Bleau, at Kenendysandking.com)

The podcast then says Angleton was obsessed with Cuba.  I thought he was obsessed with Russia.  But I think I understand why they say this: Because they now concentrate on Kennedy’s back channels to Castro, but without naming Jean Daniel and Lisa Howard. Bill Harvey and his project ZR Rifle, aimed at assassinations abroad, is also mentioned.

Next up is the altercation between Oswald leafleting and Carlos Bringuier of the New Orleans DRE accosting him. Again, Reiner missed a beat by not noting that the incident had been written about by Oswald before it happened. (DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, p. 159) The section closes with the revelation that a CIA employee named Reuben Efron was reading Oswald’s mail less than a year and a half before the JFK assassination.

Before we leave Part 5 I would like to note another rather surprising lack.  In addition to there being no notice of 544 Camp Street, I did not detect the name of David Phillips. This is quite odd, in more than one way. First, Phillips was running the anti-FPCC campaign in its early stages. (John Newman, Oswald and the CIA, pp. 95, 238-42, p. 301) Second, according to Howard Hunt, Phillips helped found the DRE.  (James DiEugenio, JFK Revisited, p. 198) Third, he was allegedly at 544 Camp Street in late 1960 or early 1961. (Davy, pp. 22-24) Fourth, he was inspecting New Orleans camps for the Bay of Pigs invasion afterwards to ensure there was no CIA trace left behind. (Davy, p. 31) Finally, there was a film made at one of these Crescent City Cuban exile training camps in New Orleans, and Phillips was there. (Davy, p. 30; JFK Revisited, p. 198)

Consequently, his absence here is quite puzzling.

                                                III

Part 6  of “Who Killed JFK?” is entitled ‘The Lead Up”. 

This largely deals with the actions of Richard Case Nagell to try and halt the assassination; they failed, and he subsequently tried to save himself.  Anyone who has read the book Dick Russell wrote on Nagell, The Man Who Knew too Much, will be quite familiar with the story.  Nagell was hired by the KGB to stop an assassination plot that they felt was in its nascent state and they felt would be blamed on Moscow. He trekked all over the USA, including Miami and Los Angeles, in order to locate it.  He found it in New Orleans. As the KGB told him, look out for this Oswald guy.

Nagell did locate such a plot there. And it appears to have had Sergio Arcacha Smith and Carlos Quiroga involved in it. But Nagell figured that Oswald was oblivious to how he was being used. Nagell could not convince Oswald as to what was happening: he would be used as an excuse to invade Cuba.  And he could not bring himself to do what the KGB wanted, namely liquidate him.  Because the mission failed, Nagell now thought he would be targeted. So he walked into an El Paso bank, asked for some travelers checks, and then started shooting at the ceiling. He walked outside and waited in his car to be arrested. Once the policeman got to his car Nagell showed him what was in his trunk and inside the car: a tiny Minolta camera, leaflets, the unlisted number of the Mexico City embassy and an ID card for Oswald.  He then told the cop, “I would rather be arrested than in Dallas.” The policeman wondered what he meant by that.  Nagell said, “You’ll see soon enough.”

Let me here make an objection as to style and what was missing in that regard. So far there have been no recreations, which are rather easy to do on radio.  They are all voices and sound effects. This scene at the bank would have been perfect for a radio dramatization: voices, ambient sound, gunshot pops, steps.  I have no idea why Reiner did not perform it that way. It would have really added some pizzazz to the show.

As we all know, Nagell was railroaded at his trial and ended up in jail for over 4 years. This included a stay in a psychiatric ward. On his second meeting with Russell, Nagell told him that Oswald had ruined his life.  In 1995, Nagell was living in Silver Lake near Echo Park in Los Angeles. The Review Board arrived in town to drop off a request for an interview.  Within 24 hours Nagell died.  Russell got in contact with his son who said his apartment had been ransacked. Nagell kept his storage trunks in Tucson. The Kennedy evidence trunk was purple in color.  Someone got to it, it was gone. (For further reading on Nagell, go to my article “Dick Russell, On the Trail of the JFK Assassins-Richard Case Nagell: The Most Important Witness, Part 2” at Kennedysandking.com)

The show then brings in two other untimely deaths, that of George DeMohrenschildt, after being served notice of an upcoming interview by the HSCA, and Johnny Roselli, who the podcast says died before he testified.  Roselli had actually already testified to the Church Committee before he was killed.

In discussing what is still being concealed in the classified files, Reiner says he does not think there will be a smoking gun type document there.  But he hints that there was a smoking gun document already released.  This was, in his opinion, the Northwoods documents. They then compare Northwoods to events like the sinking of the Maine in Havana which provoked the Spanish-American War and the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, which President Johnson used to pass a declaration of war against North Vietnam.

Northwoods was a concept that the Joint Chiefs used to try and get Kennedy to go along with an attack on Cuba. It consisted of ideas for a provocation to be used as a False Flag operation against Cuba. Some of the ideas were a disguised terrorist attack in Miami, or blowing up an airliner over Cuba.  These would then be hailed as pretexts for launching an assault on Havana. He turned it down.

The program concludes with the idea that perhaps the JFK assassination was the substitute for the false flag.  Oswald as communist, being broadcast by the DRE as working for Castro when he killed Kennedy.  The last word is given to Bob Blakey: Oswald was developed as a False Flag assassin.

ADDENDUM:I should note here, we are six segments into the series, and there has not been a discussion of Kennedy’s plan to withdraw from Vietnam. Or any mention of the ARRB declassification of the bombshell memoranda from the May 1963  Sec/Def meeting in Hawaii.  Which even the New York Times said proved that Kennedy was leaving Indochina at the time of his death. I hope this is cured soon.