Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War: Why the Kennedy Assassination Should Be Reinvestigated

By Greg R. Parker

The author examines the life of Lee Harvey Oswald in the context of the Cold War climate of the times and the people who shaped and used him. Includes the solving of a precedent case along with many new revelations in the Kennedy assassination itself. The ineluctable conclusion is that Oswald was the patsy he claimed to be.

The activities of Lee Harvey Oswald during his short life did not take place in a vacuum to be filled with plot scenarios purloined from Saturday Matinees. His was a real life, in a real world on the brink. And in that real world there were studies, policies, programs and overt and covert operations all pulling it either closer to the brink, or back from it. The trick was never to tip it over, but to perpetuate the feeling that it just might tip at any minute.

From his time in New York City, there is a distinct pattern of activities fitting sweetly into just those curious little boxes. In the field of logic there is a fallacy known as cum hoc ergo propter hoc ("with this, therefore because of this"). Basically, it states that correlation does not imply cause and effect. However, logic also dictates that a long pattern of correlation considerably shortens the odds in favor of just such an implication.

Noted statistician, Edward R Tufte, goes so far as to suggest that the oft-quoted maxim "correlation is not causation" is incomplete and therefore innacurate. According to Tufte, the shortest true statement that can be made about causality and correlation is, "correlation is not causation, but it sure is a hint."

With that in mind, this book, where it is not concentrating on various types of evidence, is a journey through those correlations: hints for future inquiries to ponder and investigate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Mar 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9780992446017

Greg R. Parker

Greg Parker was born in Newcastle, NSW Australia in 1958. Since his late teens, he has traveled around "the wide brown land" working in various blue and white collar jobs including an 11 year stint as a federal public servant. Married with twin boys, he currently runs his own business in the Central West of NSW.Parker's interest in the Kennedy assassination began in 1999 while living in Darwin and he was given a copy of Anthony Summer's "Conspiracy" to read. Parker was intrigued by the book and has been doing his own research since 2000. That same year, he was runner-up in the Darwin Poetry Cup, and had a lot of fun as a performance poet in between band sets at local venues.His work on the Kennedy case has been widely cited in articles and books by such writers as Joan Mellon, George Michael Evica, Larry Hancock and Jim Di Eugunio.

Book preview

Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War:

Why the Kennedy Assassination Should Be Reinvestigated

Volume One: Bogotá, China, New Orleans, Fort Worth, Korea & New York

by

Greg Parker

Copyright © 2014 Greg Parker

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning, or otherwise without permission in writing from the copyright owners, except brief passages for bona fide educational or review purposes.

First Edition © Greg Parker, 2014

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The right of Greg Parker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

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This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the place of purchase and buy your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

For Alex, Ben and Thom

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to acknowledge the help, encouragement, inspiration, support and friendship offered in the research and writing of this book. The task would not have been contemplated without knowing it would be there.

It has been a truly global effort with help in finding and obtaining records, the provision of research leads, and assistance with editing, proof-reading and in genealogy.

Specifically, I wish to thank…

In Australasia

Steven Duffy, Toni Parker, Mick Purdy, James Richards, Anthony Thorne, Frankie Vegas and Hasan Yusuf

In Europe

Lee Farley, Bernie Laverick, Sean Murphy and John Watters

In North America

Herbert Blenner, Eric Catuccio, Robert Charles-Dunne, Jim Di Eugenio, Lee Forman, Richard Gilbride, Mark Groubert, Larry Hancock, Lisa Harbatkin, Nathaniel Heidenheimer, Robert Howard, Bill Kelly, Erin Lacey, Duke Lane, Ed LeDoux, Carlos Mucha, William O'Neil, Jim Olmstead, Bill Simpich, Andrea Skolnik, Stig, and Stu Wexler

It would be remiss not to also mention the wonderfully talented members at the reopenjfkcase forum. It has been a privilege. The good will is endless, the humor thought-provoking.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

Part 1 – BOGOTÁ RIPPLES: 1903-1948

Part 2– TOTAL CONTROL: 1919-1952

Part 3 – DOWN AND OUT IN NYC: 1952-1954

CAST OF CHARACTERS

ENDNOTES

Note: Due to technical issues, this version of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War does not contain automatic Footnotes, even though it does contain Endnotes. Footnotes have been inserted into the text where appropriate and can be identified by the number preceding them and the square brackets around them, e.g. [1. The Lincoln assassination may be regarded by some as the exception, but Booth has long been successfully painted as a lone nut despite having co-conspirators.]

PREFACE

I was 5 years old in 1963 and staying with my grandmother on the shores of Lake Macquarie, between Sydney and Newcastle in New South Wales. The area had been settled by my great grandfather, Charles Robert Thomas Parker and some of his brothers. Fisherman all, and sons of a convict who had been transported from Surrey, England for theft of some cloth. This was all hidden history to me growing up (when having convict blood was not quite the badge of honor it is today) and was replaced by the myth that we were related to the legendary middleweight boxer, Les Darcy. There was evidence, after all. My grandmother’s maiden name was Darcy, and Les was from Maitland, a mere jog-trot away through the back-roads of the Hunter Valley. My younger brother John even bore a striking resemblance to the tragic, uncrowned champ, and my father had a brief career in the ring around Newcastle fighting as Bob Darcy. It was a source of much pride and even comfort, this blood relationship to a great hero, especially when times were lean.

It is easy to hide history if what replaces it conforms to subconscious needs. It is only in recent years through the efforts of relatives that I learned of my real heritage.

Uncovering hidden history takes time and a need to know. My grandmother’s fisherman’s shack, November 24, 1963, local time: a world away from the Cold War, I froze in front of the black and white images flickering on the TV. Something very bad had happened involving someone named Kennedy, who had apparently saved the world somehow the previous year. Then the papers showed the face of the culprit, and it was all wrapped up very quickly. Things didn’t have to return to normal because they hadn’t changed; not in my little corner of the world, anyway. Except for the fact that I would never forget those images. All the big memories from my childhood come from my grandmother’s shack. The JFK assassination, the first time I heard the Beatles, ditto Dylan. I even watched the moon landing from the safety of that big old sofa.

Debunking the family myth turned out to be the easy part. Les Darcy was of solid Irish stock. My grandmother on the other hand was the daughter of an immigrant engineer: a half French-Canadian, half Cree Indian from Montreal. Getting to the truth about my grandfather’s lineage was more problematic, but ultimately rewarding and successful. We knew our great-great grandfather – the convict – was George Parker. The major stumbling block had been that there were a number by that name transported courtesy of His Majesty, William IV. One by one however, the right dots were slowly connected.

And so it is with the Kennedy assassination. Debunking the Oswald-As-Lone-Nut myth was the easy part. Replacing it with facts has taken time, and a need to know.

This book is the result.

Greg, September 15, 2012

INTRODUCTION

Ultimately, the lone nut myth served both as a salve to public disquiet, and as a means of exonerating everyone – not just those agencies and groups accused of the assassination itself, but also those responsible for stopping it. A committed lone nut, in the absence of sheer luck, is virtually an unstoppable force. While government law enforcement and intelligence agencies can detect a conspiracy by various means and take appropriate steps, such will often not be the case with a determined solo effort.

The very fact that every assassination of a US politician has been found to be the work of a lone nut [1. The Lincoln assassination may be regarded by some as the exception, but Booth has long been successfully painted as a lone nut despite having co-conspirators.] is prima facie evidence, if not of complicity at the highest levels, then at least of high level concern that the door be left open for further assassinations where other means of achieving certain aims have failed. Admission of a conspiracy in any of the well-known cases after all, would leave the door ajar for all of them to be reinvestigated, whilst simultaneously making the use of patsies and false flag operations that much more difficult. [2. The HSCA finding of conspiracy was based on acoustical evidence which was quickly overturned by having the same evidence re-evaluated by other experts. In any case, the HSCA never uncovered the truth, and was never going to. It was hamstrung by its own Chief Counsel Robert Blakey, parachuted in as a last minute replacement for just that purpose, and by CIA subterfuge in making George Joannides the liaison officer to the committee. Joannides ran the Cuban exile group Oswald had interacted with in New Orleans, but this was kept from the committee.]

None of this is to say that every assassination in the US has been the result of a conspiracy. That proposition is no more or less likely than what is officially accepted. The point is that there is a reason for the reactive lone nut response which is adhered to because of, or despite any emerging evidence from official investigators or any other source.

All that said, breaking through the barriers is possible. Cases of murder and suspicious deaths are reopened all the time. Sometimes even famous ones are. In 2011 for example, the investigation into the death of movie star Natalie Wood was reopened when a witness admitted lying to police. This new investigation resulted in the Coroner changing the cause of death from accidental drowning on the Death Certificate to drowning and other undetermined factors. Reopened Civil Rights cases have ended with some success. And then there are the victims of District Attorney, Henry Wade and the Dallas Police Department. It is now beyond all doubt that witness coercion, planted evidence, junk science and friendly court appointed defense attorneys were all part of the arsenal which gave Wade such a sterling conviction success rate. [3. Read Henry Wade’s Tough Justice: How Dallas Prosecutor’s led the Nation in Convicting the Innocent by Edward Gray for specific examples.] In the service of justice, any cases at all with any doubt attached and which were handled during the Wade era, should automatically be re-examined, regardless of cost or time needed. There is no reason, given the amount of substantial new information gathered here in this book and elsewhere in recent years, not to reopen this one.

Past efforts to bring closure have been akin to reaching into the closet, grabbing a broom handle instead of the family skeleton and hoping that no one would notice the difference. It is past time for those skeletons to take center stage before being laid to rest.

Greg, June 24, 2012

Part 1 - BOGOTÁ RIPPLES: 1903-1948

The Whirligig beetles are wary and fast

with an organ to detect the ripples

Tom Waits

The CIA came into being on July 26, 1947 when President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947. It replaced the Central Intelligence Group (CIG), which itself had formed from the simmering embers of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the FBI’s Special Intelligence Service (SIS).

The Cold War required new intelligence and counter-intelligence concepts, along with the creation of the first US civilian peace-time intelligence agency.

Before this alphabet soup of agencies, there existed the War and Navy Departments and the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). The latter came into being in 1882 for the strict purpose of reporting on advancements in the navies of other nations, but its role eventually grew so that by 1929, it had responsibility for the protection of navy personnel, censorship, and the hunting down of spies and saboteurs.

From the early days of the fledgling Superpower, there was one continent warranting special strategic attention: South America.

By the late 1800’s, US owned companies had become entrenched in exploiting the cultural and political conditions of their southern neighbors, as well as the climate, labor and natural resources of those countries. At the same time, untold millions flowed into Wall Street banks. The owners of these companies were connected by blood and/or personal fortunes to the power structures in Manhattan and Capitol Hill. At the top of this list was United Fruit.

Herein is an examination of what was one of the first (if not the first) assassinations carried out by the CIA. The target was the leader of the Liberal Party in Bolivia, Jorge Gaitán. The time and place; Bogotá, 1948. It is an assassination too long ignored insofar as it provides a precedent case for the later assassinations of the Kennedy brothers.

In deconstructing the mechanics of it, and in understanding the motivations involved, it is entirely necessary to step back and take in some history of United Fruit, the annexing of Panama, and the real role of the SIS in Latin America during World War II.

In the process of discovery, we may have also uncovered a related, but previously undetected, second assassination.

Banana Massacre, December 6, 1928

In the Magdalena Department, Colombia, 32,000 fruit workers, mainly with United Fruit, had been striking for little over a month in an effort to obtain better wages and conditions. The company had been skirting local labor laws by calling its workers subcontractors (a practice lamentably entrenched in various industries today).

It was the biggest strike in Colombian historyi, and the conservative government of President Miguel Abadia Mendez was under enormous pressure from the US Consulate to end the strike by whatever means were available. Failure to take action, it was warned, would result in the arrival of war ships to ensure the protection of Americans and American interests.ii

A declaration of martial law had only inflamed the situation, and through the ensuing outbreaks of violence and looting, the death toll began ticking over.

Under such pressure, and with the Colombian government now claiming that Communists had infiltrated the strike and its support network which was spreading from the Radical Left to the Liberal Left, the decision to send in the army was all but inevitable.iii

United Fruit had formed in Boston in 1899. It was the product of the marriage between Boston United Fruit and a New York born Bostonian magnate, Minor Cooper Keith who owned banana plantations under the banner of the Colombian Land Company in Ciénaga. Ciénaga, as it is today, was the second biggest district in Magdalena after the capital of Santa Marta.

Managers for the Colombian plantations quickly began to establish the kind of Dixie lifestyle they could only dream of back home, even in the southern states from which they mainly hailed. It was a life of swimming pools, dinner parties, servants, expensive cars and tennis on one side of the wire fences; slave wages and soul crushing conditions for the (mainly) mixed race workers on the other.iv In short, the divide could hardly have been wider.

That Thursday was a typical hot and humid day in Ciénaga as the army set up machine guns on the roofs of low buildings facing in toward the town’s main square. To this day, no one can say for sure just how many workers were fatally gunned down, with estimates varying wildly between 9 and 3,000.

But this is what happens when history is suppressed. [4. Cover stories were put out in Colombia and repeated by the US press suggesting that the soldiers had only dispersed strikers and that all was now much quieter. Apparently the dead don't make much noise.]

The void was not filled until 1967 when Gabriel Garcia Márquez came out with the novelized meta-history, One Hundred Years of Solitude. As linguist Stephen Minta put it in his deconstruction,

Garcia Márquez seems to be concerned with three important issues in his reconstruction of the Ciénaga massacre. First, there is his natural sympathy with the position of the strikers, with their demands for better living and working conditions, with the general political dimension of the strike. Second, there is his desire to rescue from a continuing conspiracy of silence an important event in the history of Colombia. The fact that neither of those who witnessed the massacre is able to persuade others of the truth about what happened is a reflection of both the fear which later silenced so many who took part in the events of 1928, and of the unwillingness of the Colombian establishment to acknowledge its share of responsibility. This large-scale collective repression of the past has potentially lethal consequences. For once you fail to admit the existence of something important in your past, you are close to denying the past any significance at all; and, from then on, it is easy to deprive the present and the future of all significance too. In their submission to a process of willful forgetfulness; the people of Macondo are taking a road that leads towards the picture-postcard cliché of the endlessly backward, yet always happily smiling, group of natives, caught in the illusion of an eternal circularity, reduced to a passivity which only the intrusion of an historical perspective might work to disturb. This process of repression can be seen in the response of the woman whom José Arcadio Segundo meets as he escapes from the train that is carrying away the dead. The woman may well have lost members of her own family in the massacre; she must, at least, have some idea of what has occurred, but she says: There haven’t been any dead here; and she adds Since the time of your uncle, the colonel, nothing has happened in Macondo. That is precisely the attitude which the establishment seeks to create. A little later, as the leaders of the strike are being systematically rounded up by the military and killed, we have a confirmation of the ‘official view’. Relatives of the dead and missing come in search of news, but the army officers tell them: You must have been dreaming… Nothing has happened in Macondo, nothing is happening, and nothing will ever happen. This is a happy town.

Garcia Márquez’s third area of interest, in connection with the Ciénaga massacre, relates to a question that recurs frequently in his writing: what can anyone legitimately seek to know about the ‘truth’ of an historical event? Something clearly happened in the square in Ciénaga, but what exactly? What is recoverable?

One could swap the Ciénaga town square for Dealey Plaza and ask the same questions. One could also swap Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude for Oliver Stone’s JFK and find that both the author and director admitted their exaggerations as a counterweight to government lies and cover-ups. For our purposes, the difference between Ciénaga and Dallas is that with the latter,