John Barbour: Averill Harriman ordered the assassination

[Phil Dagosto]

Thanks for your reply Cliff. I still don't see any real evidence of Harriman's involvement in the assassination.

I think we're looking at Harriman's possible knowledge of the plot.

The Wise Men, Walter Isaakson & Evan Thomas, pg 640:

[11/22 Harriman's Chief of Staff] Bill Sullivan found Averell Harriman that afternoon sitting on the edge of his chair, in front of a television set, holding his head in his hands.

Sounds like Harriman was extremely uptight that afternoon.

Seems like he was more distraught than uptight. Or maybe he was simply stunned by the event like most other people. Besides, if he had knowledge of the plot and was enabling the coverup as you claim then why would he have reacted that way to an event that should have not been surprising to him and that he was in favor of?

That bit about "US gov't top Kremlinologists" was clearly a lie.

It was BS but may have just as easily been dissembling rather than a deliberate lie based on knowledge of the plot and a desire to enable the coverup.

He may have been full of it regarding his opinion about what "top Kremlinologists" had said and yes, it was way too soon to conclude that but how does that equate to "ordering the assassination" which is what this discussion is about?

I'm laying out my approach to the case, your mileage will vary no doubt. Look for the liars. Like Bundy:

The President Has Been Shot. Charles Roberts (p. 141) A reporter for Newsweek Roberts was on AFI and met McGeorge Bundy at Andrews.

I remember looking at (McGeorge) Bundy because I was wondering if he had any word of what had happened in the world while we were in transit, whether this assassination was part of a plot. And he told me later that what he reported to the president during that flight back was that the whole world was stunned, but there was no evidence of a conspiracy at all.

Was he actually lying or just repeating something he heard? Can we really know that? And couldn't that statement just as easily mean that there was no evidence of a conspiracy that he knew of at that time?

11/23 George HW Bush called the FBI to put the finger on fellow Young Republican James Parrott. Liar.

I agree that Bush's actions are suspicious and could represent covering his own tracks.

The evening of 11/22 Jock Whitney went into his office at the New York Herald Tribune to write an editorial identifying Oswald as a lone psychopath. Liar.

Whitney hated Kennedy and the "Jock, Pack. Jack" memo firing him probably did not help that relationship. Again, its hard to distinguish BS and personal enmity from outright lying. Whitney was part of the Mighty Wurlitzer and could have just as easily been parroting what he was told by Dulles and that crowd without actually having any first-hand knowledge or involvement.

Harriman, Bundy and Bush were Skull & Bones.

So, everyone in Skull and Bones was in on it?

Whitney, Harriman and Bush had pads in uber-exclusive Jupiter Island, Florida.

Interesting but hardly probative.

The cover-up was directed by high level WASPs.

Well, given that most high-level government positions were occupied by WASPS that's certainly true. The real question is which ones.

And even if he was lying as you claim he was he would have only been lying about his certainty that there was no Soviet involvement because in actual fact, there wasn't any! And again, there were many, many people in government discounting the possibility of any conspiracy , Soviet or otherwise, without having any more basis for their opinions than Harriman had for his. Were they all conspirators?

At 7pm EST 11/22/63 there was one guy pushing the no-conspiracy story -- McGeorge Bundy.

I don't think that's true at all. Ther most prominent examples are the most obivous ones - LBJ and Hoover (probably at the direction of LBJ). Johnson personally intervened with the Dallas Police not to charge Oswald with conspiracy and had Hoover barge into the case even though the FBI technically had no juridstiction. If you consider all of the evidence tampering and concealment of Oswald's real background and identity that was going on within 24 hours of the assassination (removing the body to DC, the fraudulent autopsy, the transfer of evidence from Dallas to Washington after which many new, suspicious items appeared, the confiscation of Oswald's seconday school records, etc.) all of which happened way too soon unless there was foreknowledge of the need to cover up a domestic conspiracy and exactly what needed to be done then that effort makes the "Castro did it" efforts seem puny by comparison. Of course, LBJ did use the "Castro did it" stories to strong-arm Warren into the no-conspiracy cover up.

If you consider that even Kennedy allies like Katzenbach were pushing the no conspiracy angle in the days immediately following the assassination then its hard to conclude that everyone who did so was somehow part of the WASP establishment that was behind the plot and the cover up. Remember that the issue that started this thread was Garrison's speculation that Harriman "ordered the assassination". I still don't see any convincing proof of that in anything you've written.

There was more activity painting Oswald as a Red agent.

Bill Kelly compiled the following:

6)Julio Fernandez, one of three anti-Castro Cubans whose boat was financially supported by Clair Booth Luce, called Luce, wife of the publisher of Time-Life on the evening of the assassination to report information on Oswald's activities in New Orleans. Fernandez, a former Cuban publisher, was married to an attorney who worked for Catholic Welfare Services in Miami.

7)In Miami, shortly after the assassination, Dr. Jose Ignorzio, the chief of clinical psychology for the Catholic Welfare Services, contacted the White House to inform the new administration that Oswald had met directly with Cuban ambassador Armas in Mexico.


8)In Mexico City, David Atlee Philips of the CIA debriefed a Nicaraguan intelligence officer, code named "D," who claimed to have seen Oswald take money from a Cuban at the Cuban embassy. [see: Alvarado Story]


10)Brothers Jerry and James Buchanan, CIA propaganda assets, began promoting the Castro-did-it theme immediately. According to Donald Freed and Jeff Cohen (in Liberation Magazine), the source of the Buchanan's tales was the leader of the CIA supported International Anti-Communist Brigade (IAB). "Back in Miami," they wrote, "a high powered propaganda machine was cranking out stories that Oswald was a Cuban agent…" Sturgis is quoted in the Pampara Beach Sun-Sentinel as saying that Oswald had talked with Cuban G-2 agents and fracassed with IAB members in Miami in 1962.

None of this proves Harriman-dunnit, but it does make him a Person of Interest deserving closer scrutiny.

Sorry, not convinced at all. If I were on the Grand Jury I'd vote no-bill.