Jefferson Morley's Congressional NothingBurger
- Fred Litwin
- Apr 1
- 7 min read
JFK Facts Smackdown Live was a hoot. Congresswoman Luna's task force on government secrets threw lobs at Jefferson Morley, Oliver Stone and James DiEugenio. I couldn't tell what was worse - the testimony or the inane questions by the Congresspeople.
Morley provided a written statement and I will address that. His spoken remarks were slightly different, perhaps because of time, but the major points were still made. He has also uploaded his testimony on his Substack platform.
Morley brought with him copies of a file he had put together of material on Oswald in the CIA's possession before the assassination.
What I did see was an emerging fact pattern. In the spring of 2023, the CIA fully declassified its pre-assassination file on Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin who said he was a “patsy” for others who committed the crime.
I have a copy of the CIA’s complete pre-assassination Oswald file here and I will submit it for the record.
The Oswald file runs to 198 pages. In November 1963, all this information was held in one place: the second floor office of counterintelligence chief James Angleton at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, not five miles away from the White House where President Kennedy lived and worked.
There was more than one CIA file on Oswald. There was a defector file, a main file on Oswald, and then there was HTLINGUAL material.
Of course, the CIA was going to have material on Oswald in its files before the assassination. After all, he defected to the Soviet Union. At the height of the Cold War, he visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City.
Does Morley expect the CIA would not have this material in its files?
Of course, the release of JFK assassination documents on March 18th changed his views dramatically:
To be sure, the fully declassified Oswald file is NOT a smoking gun. When I showed the Oswald file to fellow journalists whose judgment I trust, they shrugged. The Oswald file, they said, is only evidence of CIA CYA, cover your ass incompetence. I doubted that but I couldn’t disprove it. Until March 18.
That’s when the new JFK files were posted on the National Archives site. I started by reading nine long-secret, newly-declassified documents about Angleton, my reservations about assigning responsiblity vanished.
I have discussed the Angleton documents in my five-part series on Morley's search for an Oswald operation:
An FBI memo that quoted James Angleton is used by Morley to reach an unwarranted conclusion.
Morley misreads Angleton's testimony before the HSCA.
Morley believes a document proves the CIA did not believe that a lone gunman killed JFK.
Morley claims that there is some connection between the suicides of Gary Underhill, Charles Thomas, George de Mohrenschildt, and the overdose death of Dorothy Kilgallen.
Morley believes that Agustin Guitart was spying on pro-Castro forces in New Orleans
There is really nothing to Morley's allegations. He believes that Angleton was interested in Oswald as a source or a contact, but he reads way too much into an FBI memo (see Part One above).
Morley thinks that Richard Helms lies to the Warren Commission and quotes an excerpt of his testimony. But this is completely misleading. Helms was only commenting on the amount of information the CIA had from the State Department:
Mr. Dulles: Looking back now that you have the full record, do you feel that you received from the State Department adequate information at the time that they were aware of Oswald's defection and later activities in the Soviet Union, did you get at the time full information from the State Department on those particular subjects?
Mr. McCone: Well, I am not sure that we got full information, Mr. Dulles. The fact is we had very little information in our files.
Mr. Helms: It was probably minimal.
Representative Ford: In this case, Oswald attempted to defect, he did not, he subsequently sought the right to return to the United States, he had contact with the Embassy. Was the Central Intelligence Agency informed of these steps, step by step, by the Department of State?
Mr. McCone: You might answer that.
Mr. Helms: Mr. Ford, in order to answer this question precisely I would have to have the file in front of me. I have not looked at it in some time so I don't have it all that clearly in mind. But it is my impression that we were not informed step by step. When I say that there is no requirement that I am aware of that the State Department should inform us and when I said a moment a go that we had minimal information from them, this was not in any sense a critical statement but a statement of fact.
Morley also makes a big deal out of Jane Roman's initials (JAR) on routing slips of FBI documents to the CIA.
Morley goes on to claim that J. Edgar Hoover forwarded a report of an Oswald interview with FBI agent John Fain James Angleton in the CIA. But he provides no sources that Hoover sent it to Angleton.
The FBI sent the report of John Fain to ONI New Orleans, INS Dallas as well as 5 copies to FBI Headquarters. Copies were also sent to the State Department, the CIA and other agencies.
Morley alleges that because it was routed to the Counterintelligence Operations office (CI/OPS) that this "is strong evidence that the returning ex-Marine defector was being used for operational purposes. Why would CI/OPS be notified about Oswald if he was not involved in counterintelligence operational activity?"
There might be many reasons.
We have no idea of who actually read the file at CI/OPS, how closely it was read, or what some people might have thought, let alone if Angleton read it. There were probably many documents routed through the office that were of limited interest.
It's easy to read too much into routing slips. I worked for Intel Corporation for nine years. I was included in many email strings in which I had absolutely no interest. I'd hate for Morley to review my emails from Intel -- I am sure he would find all sorts of anomalies.
The plain fact of the matter is while a document might have been routed through Angleton's office, we have no idea if he read it or even saw it.
And, of course, Morley talked a lot about George Joannides, even leading to a pretty serious allegation:
The new JFK fact pattern leads to a new conclusion. We now know what they knew and when they knew it. We now know that Helms, Angleton, and Joannides were responsible for, or complicit in, JFK’s death, either by criminal negligence or covert action.
Oliver Stone and James DiEugenio were also there to testify and answer questions:
Some highlights:
DiEugenio mentioned that the CIA might have been behind the attempted coup against French President Charles de Gaulle. I thoroughly debunked that claim years ago.
Oliver Stone brought up the "40 witnesses" who saw a gaping hole in the back of JFK's head. I debunked this in my series on the Parkland doctors:
Attending physicians often make mistakes in determining the nature of gunshot wounds. Should we care what the Parkland doctors think?
A look at what the Parkland doctors wrote and what they said.
The Boston Globe interviewed several doctors and a few nurses in 1981 and their recollections were all over the map.
Both Oliver Stone and James DiEugenio brought up chain of custody. I have blogged about this multiple times:
Dr. Lee is not the great criminologist that some believe.
Darrell Tomlinson did identify CE 399 at the bullet found at Parkland.
There would have been little problem admitting JFK evidence in 1964.
Oliver Stone's documentary makes a big mistake!
James DiEugenio's Deflector Shields
A large segment of this blog post discusses chain of custody.
The Congresspeople on the committee were clueless. Lauren Boebert asked Oliver Stone about his book alleging that Lyndon Johnson killed JFK. (1:14:00) Of course, it was Roger Stone that wrote that book.
James DiEugenio was asked about this tweet of his: (57:00 in the video linked above)
DiEugenio was startled and just said he could not remember it: "Did I say that?" He did not want the MAGA folks on the Committee to know he was not one of them.
DiEugenio's closing statement mentioned the supposed plots in Chicago and Tampa in November of 1963. (1:47:00) But there is absolutely no evidence of these plots.
This document was supposedly destroyed by the Secret Service.
Chad Nagle tries to argue that there was a plot.
The HSCA did speak to Edwin Black. It was a memorable interview.
There is no evidence of a plot in Chicago against JFK.
Bolden's story about the supposed Chicago plot has changed over the years.
An examination of supposed other plots against JFK.
Bolden didn't say one word about a supposed plot against JFK in Chicago.
There is no evidence of any plot in Tampa.
Congressman Eric Burlison just threw three softball questions. He actually said that we now know that Oswald met with Kostikov, who might have been in department 13, at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City, because of Oliver Stone. Sorry, this has been known for years. A lot of KGB agents worked in consular affairs as well:
He is also one of the KGB officers stationed at the Embassy. It is standard Soviet procedure for KGB officers stationed in embassies and in consulates to carry on the normal duties of such a position in addition to the undercover activities.
Surprisingly there was very little talk of where the Committee could find additional documents. No mention of documents in Mexico City, Havana, Minsk, or Moscow. No mention of massive private collections like Mark Lane, David Lifton, and the AARC. No mention of the RFK papers in the Kennedy library.
This was a disappointing start to Luna's task force. I tried my best to reach out to the Committee but they weren't interested.
