LBJ

by Phillip F. Nelson

  In return for all their efforts, Johnson assured the oilmen they would get their extensions of their oil depletion allowance, and the military, industrial, and intelligence people got the war they had been promised. A lot of other men got a lot of money for their work and assurances that they would be protected forever from prosecution, under the single caveat that they must keep their lips sealed, forever. Some of the shooters made it to freedom while others died in the mysterious crash of an airplane in the Gulf of Mexico, off Corpus Christi. And Lyndon Johnson would not only step up to the succession plate but be in a position to force the congressional leaders of his own party to shut down both congressional investigations into his own activitities, which had already gotten too far along; had they proceeded, the evidence already collected was enough for RFK’s Justice Department to push for an indictment that would have led to near-certain imprisonment. Thanks to his manipulative skills and his deeply embedded tentacles into the pockets of many politicians on Capitol Hill, he had already created enough IOUs to ensure that he would be saved from any further embarrassing investigations. He had already developed a legislative agenda comprising pent-up House and Senate bills that were ready for passage as a memorial to the fallen president. The credit, of course, would not go to him; it would be given to the new president of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson.

  Despite the careful measures taken by Bill Harvey and his lieutenants to keep the planning secret, such an audacious and treasonous action would present the potential for inherently risky leaks, which might endanger its execution. One in particular occurred in October 1963 in France, involving Eugene B. Dinkin who discovered the plot as he routinely processed messages between the plotters. He then made the mistake of informing his superiors “that a conspiracy was in the making for the ‘military’ of the United States, perhaps combined with an ‘ultra right wing economic group.’”14 His discovery—and the extreme retribution it caused to him personally—will be explored shortly, but it is noteworthy here because it proves conclusively that the use of military communications and intelligence assets played a critical role in the preplanning of the operation and was therefore an essential element of a very sophisticated and widely based covert operation involving those very U.S. assets for the purpose of a domestic coup d’état. This is regarded as the single most important of the enumerated instances in which the plot surfaced before Dallas, though, as we shall see, it is by no means the only one.

  The Georgetown Crowd Meets the Suite 8F Group

  The general political tilt of the members of the Georgetown crowd has been described in earlier chapters; their primary interest lay in international affairs and the contemporary anti-Communist fervor. It was probably due to their notion of privileged erudition that they saw, paradoxically, in Lyndon Johnson the leadership qualities and a willingness to adapt that had the makings for being in their minds a “good president.” Certainly, he had known how to “talk their talk,” an ability he could skillfully exercise with whomever he wished. His friendship with his fellow manic Philip Graham, often over numerous drinks with their charm and charisma at full splendor, eventually brought him broad support from this group as he mounted his short-lived candidacy for president in 1960. As previously noted, when it became apparent before the convention that Kennedy would get the nomination, Phil Graham, the “chairman” of this group, became actively involved in lobbying Kennedy.15 He and Sam Rayburn set out to try to convince JFK that Johnson was his best choice for vice president.

  Johnson’s primary source of support, however, was not the Georgetown crowd but the Texas-based wealthy businessmen, attorneys, and politicians referred to as the Suite 8F Group. That both of these groups somehow thought that Johnson represented their own views—on questions of political and social issues, economic theory, and tax policy—speaks volumes about Johnson’s ability to portray himself differently to diverse audiences. Johnson was uniquely able to bring seemingly disparate and unconnected groups together to assist him in his plans to become president. Not every member of these groups was involved of course, only those who had to be recruited for specific purposes, as described elsewhere. People from all of these groups had their own reasons to distrust and hate John F. Kennedy, as described in other previous chapters; they had only one thing in common: all were convinced that the plan was not only essential to the “security” of the nation, but it was also, in their view, the ultimate patriotic act that they could perform. Their common goal was the destruction of international communism, but beyond that they were counting on Johnson to fulfill their respective lists of objectives while keeping them safe from prosecution. They knew that, as long as Johnson remained free, so too would they be. The highest-level co-conspirators would discreetly sign on others who they knew could be relied upon to fill out their respective rosters. The men they would select were professionals in their field, thoroughly trained or schooled in their chosen specialties, men who had access to every conceivable tool they would need. The nucleus of CIA men at the top knew precisely who could be trusted implicitly to devise the operational planning that would ensure success. Their recruitment of men like Bill Harvey, David Morales, David Atlee Phillips, and over a dozen others lower in the hierarchy would proceed over a period of many months.

  The “Johnson plan” would be based upon the concept that the operational and tactical plans would be carefully kept away from the highest level planners; Johnson and Angleton, possibly Hoover and LeMay as well, consistent with the precepts of “plausible deniability” and interagency secrecy protocols, would protect others throughout the hierarchical chain.

  James Jesus Angleton, the CIA counterintelligence master, probably signed on after he found out about Kennedy’s secret negotiations, through Lisa Howard and Jean Daniel, to achieve a peaceful coexistence with Cuba. This would have caused many others at Langley similar concern given that such negotiations, if successful, would be exactly opposite their long-held objective of returning capitalism to Cuba. But even more than that, their biggest concern was Kennedy’s intent to dissolve the CIA early in his next term if he were reelected. Angleton had been behind Oswald and the other Soviet infiltrators all along and was the “puppet master” who had the other handlers move him back to Fort Worth then Dallas and New Orleans, originally for the purpose of being involved in a fake (and failed) assassination of Kennedy intended to be used as the basis for an invasion of Cuba. But when all of the anti-Kennedy forces described throughout these pages came together as a “critical mass,” and it was made clear to them that Johnson was behind the mission and would protect them, the middle-level planners morphed the original plan into the more diabolical scheme to assassinate Kennedy.

  The first associate Angleton would involve was Harvey; everyone at Langley knew he hated both Kennedys with a passion, especially Bobby whom he felt was a bull-headed amateur and had no business being in charge of clandestine activities. Harvey would then enlist others with whom he had worked closely in Operation Mongoose, starting with David Phillips and others he knew to be born renegades and fellow haters of the Kennedys: men such as David Morales, Rip Robertson, and Carl Jenkins. It was Harvey who posted David Morales in Miami in 1961 as chief of covert operations for JM/WAVE, with the objective of destabilizing Castro by whatever means they could. Morales was a cold-blooded killer who had been involved in all of the deepest black ops situations which called for someone’s elimination. Harvey had no problem recruiting those men, but others were very resistant, at least initially, because even they were afraid of some of the men already part of the operation, such as Morales. The anti-Castro exiles, with whom Harvey and Morales had shared many other missions, were easy to recruit even though they had only the vaguest idea of their single compartment of the entire operation since they had only been told what they “needed to know.” According to E. Howard Hunt, “The Cuban paramilitary group consisted of Antonio Veciana, ruthless leader of Alpha 66 and a well-known Kennedy hater, whose CIA handler was none other than David Atlee
Phillips; David Morales, admitted CIA executioner with a list of bodies dating back to 1954 when he and Hunt worked to overthrow the Guatemala government. Morales was part of the ground team and was at the meetings at which the ‘Big Event’ (Kennedy’s killing) was discussed and organized. Morales died mysteriously just before he was to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978.”16

  Researcher/author John Newman, in an appendix he added in 2008, after thirteen years of further reflection to his 1995 book Oswald and the CIA, argued persuasively that the only person who could have possibly set up Oswald was Angleton:17

  The person who designed this plot had to have access to all of the information on Oswald at CIA HQS. The person who designed this plot had to have the authority to alter how information on Oswald was kept at CIA HQS. The person who designed this plot had to have access to project TUMBLEWEED, the sensitive joint agency operation against the KGB assassin, Valery Kostikov. The person who designed this plot had the authority to instigate a counterintelligence operation in the Cuban affairs staff (SAS) at CIA HQS. In my view, there is only one person whose hands fit into these gloves: James Jesus Angleton, Chief of CIA’s Counterintelligence Staff … In my view, whoever Oswald’s direct handler or handlers were, we must now seriously consider the possibility that Angleton was probably their general manager. No one else in the Agency had the access, the authority, and the diabolically ingenious mind to manage this sophisticated plot. No one else had the means necessary to plant the WWIII virus in Oswald’s files and keep it dormant for six weeks until the president’s assassination … The only person who could ensure that a national security cover-up of an apparent counterintelligence nightmare was the head of counterintelligence.

  The mission would be run by men who were experts at covert intelligence work, operatives whose experience included assassinations of leaders in Central and South America and Africa. They learned their espionage, counterespionage, and assassination skills during the early cold war, just as the CIA was coming into being, and were dedicated to preventing the spread of communism throughout the world, but especially in the Western Hemisphere. The key participants were rogue government officials using their cover and the tools available to them. There were men with intelligence backgrounds as well as exiles from Cuba. Many of the operatives involved in setting up Oswald were told that the operation was to fake an assassination for the purpose of scaring Kennedy into taking forceful action against Castro. Most were so hateful of JFK that they would not have flinched at being involved in his assassination even if they knew it was to be real. They were convinced that John Kennedy had betrayed them in the Bay of Pigs incursion and that he now stood in the way of having their homeland returned to them. There were others who represented men who had lost millions when Fidel Castro had expropriated their investments in valuable properties and businesses. Others were part of what J. Edgar Hoover had always resisted acknowledging even existed: the “Mafia” network of organized crime.

  The Three-Pronged Plan

  To ensure absolute confidence that the assassination of John Kennedy would succeed, the plotters agreed early on that operational redundancy was key. Too many things could go wrong with a single plan, even if there were multiple shooters from two or three directions. In that situation, discovery of one operative beforehand, even one of a low-level handler, could give it away and lead to the exposure of the entire operation, which could only lead to disastrous results for everyone connected with it. Even short of that kind of calamity, if something went wrong with the logistics of putting the shooters or their equipment in place, the objective might not be successful. The men at the top, schooled in “black bag operations” for decades, knew that it would be necessary to run three parallel operations, each one nearly autonomous from the others. It was finally settled that they would be set up according to this loosely defined plan:

  • Team 1: The first would be a team deployed in the Texas School Book Depository, to include the “patsy,” a decoy assassin set up to believe that he was helping to carry out a simulated assassin only; he would take a shot with an old Italian rifle not nearly capable of the precision necessary to shoot a moving target, hitting the pavement in front of the limousine. He would then be served up to satisfy the public need for a quick closure, with plenty of phony evidence generously planted to support the frame-up, but be killed upon capture. The handlers of this naive vagabond, the wannabe spy Lee Harvey Oswald, knew him to be highly malleable, and a background would be fabricated for him that would ensure his guilt would be well established. A “double” had been employed for several months to help create false trails of Oswald’s connections to Dallas-area people and businesses; another would be sent to Mexico and Cuba for the creation of a “plan B” in case it became necessary to show a “communist conspiracy” as being behind the assassination.

  Fortunately, Oswald had already been used in a rather transparent operation to insert him into the Soviet Union as a spy, which would now help to establish his credentials as a dedicated Communist for either plan and ensure his continued unwitting cooperation. CIA agent David Phillips (a.k.a. Maurice Bishop) and his operatives were already working closely with Cuban exiles in Miami and New Orleans who would be employed to help embellish his Communist credentials; all of this was more background for getting him set up as the “assassin” with a two optional trails for later selection by the new president: A for the “lone nut” canard, B for the international Communist conspirator hoax.

  • The expensive precision rifle found on the sixth floor of the book depository (a 7.65 Mauser)—before the Mannlicher-Carcano allegedly used by Oswald was discovered on a lower floor—was put there for use by one of the sharpshooters (either Morales himself or someone under his direction). This rifle—clearly identified correctly by Deputies Boone, Weitzman, and Craig before the first two were forced to recant their original statements—was later snuck out of the building by someone on the Dallas Police Department. Men matching the descriptions of both Mac Wallace and David Morales were seen in the windows of the Texas School Book Depository Building. Lyndon Johnson’s personal hit man, Malcolm Wallace, was there simply to help frame Oswald at the scene. He was Johnson’s “chip,” it being understood that each of the sponsors had to contribute someone just to keep everyone honest afterward.

  • Team 2: The second team would consist of professional French and/or Corsican assassins equipped with the best rifles available at the time. Their sharpshooters would be positioned on the “grassy knoll” at the south end of the Triple Overpass, near concrete sewer ventilation/access structures, which directly faced traffic coming down Elm Street beginning just past the Houston Street intersection. It appears that at least one rifle was equipped with frangible bullets that would explode on impact, ensuring that any shots taken with it would be fatal. Author Twyman showed that Bill Harvey and David Sanchez Morales had connections to the Antoine Guerini Mob headquartered in Marseilles, France. Moreover, he reported that Christian David had been initially offered a contract to murder Kennedy, but he turned it down, after which the offer was then given to Lucien Sarti who, with two accomplices, accepted it.18 It appears that he may have been using the pseudonym “John Marty.” Unfortunately for himself, as described shortly in detail, an elisted man named Eugene Dinkin was innocently caught up in those connections when he discovered secret communications between Harvey and/or Trafficante and the French Mafia Corsicans.

  • Team 3: The third team would be comprised of hit men from the Mob, courtesy of Carlos Marcello, Santos Trafficante, Sam Giancana, and others, intent on cutting off the “head” of the serpent, which was out to destroy their livelihoods. They would operate from buildings across Houston Street, the least obvious location: the Dal-Tex Building and/or the County Records Building. Their shooters would also utilize expensive, high-quality modern rifles with finely tuned telescopic sights; their shots would be relatively easy, and their locations would help assure their quick escape as the attention
of the few police officers would be focused on the first two locations. Johnny Rosselli would play a double role in the assassination, having assisted in recruiting the French Mob as well as the Mafia shooters.