Jefferson Morley: When I was reading that document [Angleton's testimony before the Church Committee] and trying to absorb its meaning, I looked at all of the documents about James Angleton that had been released, and in fact, there were nine of them that contained redactions. So I haven't finished going through all of them, but a couple of them jumped out at me, you know, quite extensively, and I want to talk about them because they set the stage for the Senate testimony. So while we, you know, had one Angleton document on the wanted list, we got three, and those three are actually very important,
The first one of those, and this is the one that really jumped out at me and caused me to really think hard about what I was saying about JFK's assassination and the CIA's role in it.
There's a 1954 FBI memo, where the FBI learns that Angleton is running a mail
intercept operation and opening the mail of people who he wants to spy on, and the FBI is surprised, and in this memo, they say we have stumbled on a major CIA covert operation. And in the redacted version, in the version that you are not allowed, the only version you could see as of last week, some key details were redacted, and when they came off, we understood why the CIA had been hiding okay, because the mail surveillance program was far bigger than anybody knew. Okay, what came off was the details that the mail surveillance program cost a million dollars a year, and two to three hundred people were involved in. This is what Angleton told the FBI. So I, you know, we knew about the mail operation before, and people say, "Oh, that's a nothing burger. You know, somebody from the CIA is spying on the American people, and they're using three hundred CIA assets to do it. That's a nothing burger, you know," I don't think so. I think that's a pretty important development. And the fact that the scope of the program was hidden from people. You know, that's very telling. Again, was that national security information? No, but release of that information doesn't harm or threaten the national security of the United States. It just threatens the agenda of the CIA. So, fortunately, those redactions have come off, and we have a clearer picture of what James Angleton was up to.
In that document was a line, though, that really jumped out at me. And what Angleton was trying to explain to the FBI was, why do we put people under mail surveillance? Which he called by the rather more neutral term, mail coverage. And when he was asked about mail coverage, Angleton told the FBI that the sole purpose, and this was the line that jumped out at me, the sole purpose of putting somebody under mail coverage was so that they could be approached to be a CIA source or contact behind the Iron Curtain.
Okay, so that's the criteria for intercepting somebody's mail, and it's the sole purpose that they can be approached and possibly used as an agent or a source or a contact. Source or contact was the language that Angleton used, okay. That was in 1954.
In November, October, 1959 a young man named Lee Harvey Oswald went to the Soviet Union and said he wanted to move there, and wanted to live there. He acted out of sympathy with communism. He told Russian officials that he would share information that he had from from his military experience, from his time in the Marines, and he was granted entry into the Soviet Union. So, that's what Oswald was doing.
A week after he did that, 10 days after he did that, James Angleton put his name -- the name of a twenty-year-old, dyslexic high school dropout who had left the Marines with a less than honorable discharge, and he put him on the mail surveillance list. It was a CIA operation code named HTLINGUAL and Angleton on November 9, said, we're going to open the mail and copy the mail of this fellow, Oswald. Oswald's name went on to the HTLINGUAL list. That was the first code-named CIA operation that collected intelligence on Lee Harvey Oswald. But as we will see, it was far from the last.
So, why did Angleton put his name on the list? Well, if you look at that FBI document, the sole purpose of putting somebody under mail coverage was so that they could be approached as a contact or a source. So, it stands to reason, Angleton might have had other reasons for approaching Oswald, but we can say with confidence that one of the reasons that he put Oswald on the list was he wanted to at least think about or consider the possibility that he could be a CIA contact or source. Is that a smoking gun? No, that's not a smoking gun, but it is smoking-gun-proof that Angleton had a very strong interest in Lee Harvey Oswald and probably considered him for as a CIA contact or source. Now, did he? There's nothing in the file that proves that, although there would be nothing in the file, if he was, because those are the kind of things that are not put on paper.
What we do know is that Angleton kept Oswald under surveillance for the next four years, close surveillance, wherever Oswald went from November 1959 to November 1963, the CIA had reports on what he was doing. In most cases, they had his home address, and they had information about his current state of mind, his family situation, his political activities and his foreign contacts. So, as I said at the at the top of the show, by November 15, 1963, Angleton had a 180-page dossier on Oswald sitting on his desk. Okay, so that was the result of Angleton putting Oswald's name on the mail coverage list.
Okay, that's where we that's what we learned in the last couple, in the last couple of days.
It was written in 1958, not in 1954.
And here is the relevant paragraph:
The only redaction were the sentences "He said two or three hundred CIA employees are exclusively engaged on various facets of the coverage. Angleton also indicated that the cost of the operation was well over a million dollars a year."
The sentence that triggers Morley -- "... the sole purpose for the coverage was to identify persons behind the Iron Curtain who might have some ties in the U. S. and who could be approached in their countries as contacts and sources for CIA." -- has been out there for five years.
Morley claims the redaction was because the program "was far bigger than anyone knew," but the Church Committee published details of the program in 1976:
They also published exactly how much mail was intercepted:
Of course, this is an FBI agent reporting what Angleton supposedly told them. In addition, Angleton might not have been too happy that the FBI was inquiring about HTLINGUAL. Perhaps by saying that its sole purpose was to find sources and contacts, he might have been trying to stop them from realizing that the program could provide the FBI with a bountiful supply of information.
As you can see there were several purposes of the program:
To provide leads to SR Division on contacts between individuals and organizations in the USSR and USA.
To spot individuals in the USSR who were disaffected and of potential help to the U.S.
To acquire sources for names to be used as addressors of mail to the USSR.
To spot individuals in the U.S. who were sympathetic to Soviet interests.
For possible positive intelligence take from letters opened on a selective basis.
The closest to the "sole purpose" in the FBI document was to "spot individuals in the USSR who were disaffected and of potential help to the U.S." And, of course, that would certainly not describe Lee Harvey Oswald -- a bitter disillusioned young man who so hated America that he defected to the Soviet Union.
Morley says the document is not a smoking gun:
So, why did Angleton put his name on the list? Well, if you look at that FBI document, the sole purpose of putting somebody under mail coverage was so that they could be approached as a contact or a source. So, it stands to reason, Angleton might have had other reasons for approaching Oswald, but we can say with confidence that one of the reasons that he put Oswald on the list was he wanted to at least think about or consider the possibility that he could be a CIA contact or source. Is that a smoking gun? No, that's not exactly a smoking gun, but it is smoking-gun-proof that Angleton had a very strong interest in Lee Harvey Oswald and probably considered him for as a CIA contact or source. Now, did he? There's nothing in the file that proves that, although there would be nothing in the file, if he was, because those are the kind of things that are not put on paper.
Of course, there is absolutely no evidence that Angleton had any interest in using Oswald as a contact or a source.
On November 9, 1959, Lee Harvey Oswald's name was added to the watch list because of his defection to the Soviet Union. The Church Committee estimated that 75% of the letters that were opened were chosen at random, not because the name was on the watch list. The program intercepted a letter from Marguerite Oswald to her son and that was it. After the assassination, additional items of potential relevance to the assassination investigation were recovered from the HT-Lingual files, but those additional items did not include any correspondence to or from Oswald himself.
Had Angleton been specifically interested in Oswald in 1959, the program probably would have captured more than one letter, you may be thinking.
Why did the HTLINGUAL program only retrieve one letter since Oswald was on the watch list?
There is really nothing all that mysterious here. Oswald was put on the watch list because of his defection. The program intercepted only one letter. There was no attempt to use Oswald as a source or a contact. Oswald returned to the United States. He was then taken off the watch list.
Lee Harvey Oswald in Russia was not surveilled by the CIA. The people identified through HTLINGUAL were observed, not surveilled.
Next up: Angleton's testimony before the HSCA.
Previous Relevant Blog Posts on Jefferson Morley
Several months ago, I posted an article, in association with several researchers, that showed what was contained in the redacted section of Schlesinger's memo.
Morley somehow knows what is in the supposed 2,400 recently-discovered FBI files.
Morley discusses Israel with Tucker Carlson.
Morley believes that the United States can never be great unless it solves the JFK assassination.
An analysis of the 13 documents Morley wants to see.
Morley claims I am a CIA apologist and then misquotes me.
It would be worthwhile for the CIA to release the Joannides file just to stop the incessant posts from Jefferson Morley.
Actually, Oswald stayed at two budget-priced hotels in Helsinki.
He keeps asking the same questions, and we keep posting the same answers.
Conspiracy authors are playing fast and loose with the facts.
There is no evidence that Diaz was involved in the JFK assassination.
There are clues as to what is in a redacted section of Schlesinger's memo.
Chad Nagle and Dan Storper's article on New Orleans gets everything wrong.
Believing Michael Kurtz is problematic.
Morley wrote that there are two redacted memos on CIA reorganization, but there is only one. He wrote about Goodwin's copy as if it was a different memo, rather than a copy of the Schlesinger memo.
The phrase 'who shot John' does not refer to the JFK assassination.
Only one word is redacted in Harvey's deposition.
There are no redactions in the Operation Northwoods document.
Kilgallen had nothing to tell.
An underwhelming interview of Marina Oswald.
Morley often repeats stories and changes their meanings.
Chad Nagle claims there was an assassination plot against JFK in Chicago in November 1963. One problem: There is no evidence of such a plot.
A response to Morley's Substack post alleging that I am a CIA apologist.
A rebuttal to Morley's response to my post Was Bill Harvey in Dallas in November of 1963?
There is no credible evidence Harvey was in Dallas in November of 1963.
Morley repeats the claim that Dulles was at a CIA training center during the weekend of the JFK assassination. He wasn't.
Morley's claims about Efron are all wrong.
Morley responded to my article "The Truth about Operation Northwoods." Here is my reply.
W. Tracy Parnell is one of the best JFK assassination researchers out there. Here is his look at Jefferson Morley with several important articles.
Operation Northwoods can only be understood as part of the Kennedys' war against Cuba and Operation Mongoose.
And a response from me.
There is no evidence that Dr. West petitioned the court to examine Jack Ruby before his trial.
There is absolutely no evidence that Dr. Louis Jolyon West interfered with Jack Ruby's case.
Jefferson Morley used a fake Oswald handbill in his press conference for the Mary Ferrell Foundation.
An examination of redactions in the JFK collection of documents.