New FPCC-Oswald article

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

http://www.counterpunch.org/simpich07242009.html

Would be interested in hearing some critiques of this article. Anyone see anything new here?

[Jack White]

The FPCC was either a product of the CIA, or was heavily infiltrated
by them."Researcher" Hal Verb was an officer in the San Francisco
chapter of FPCC.

Jack

[Peter Lemkin]

The FPCC was either a product of the CIA, or was heavily infiltrated
by them."Researcher" Hal Verb was an officer in the San Francisco
chapter of FPCC.

Jack

HEAVILY!....including both infiltrator and unknown to LHO being sheep-dipped in it for use as a patsy.

[Magda Hassan]

Very interesting piece Nate. This is not an area I know much about but I did notice the reference to a "Lt. Harvey Oswald" which I hadn't heard of before but maybe others have.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Much of this occurs during the period when the CIA was allegedly providing funds to the "guerilla" Castro - for whatever strategy of tension reasons They may have been pursuing.

The article also reports specific claims about Oswald in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs.

Right after the Bay of Pigs, the FBI organizes a campaign of disruption against the FPCC

In response, FBI man number three Cartha “Deke” DeLoach began a well-documented red-baiting campaign against the FPCC during May 1961. "As part of his counterintelligence responsibilities, DeLoach developed a "Mass Media Program" that included over 300 newspaper reporters, columnists, radio commentators, and television news investigators."

Meanwhile, during that same month, something very odd was going on in Havana. Dr. Enrique Lorenzo Luaces told Army Intelligence that Taber introduced him to “Lt. Harvey Oswald, an arms expert” while having drinks at Sloppy Joe's, better known as the "Sardi's for spies". When the FBI interviewed Taber, he denied knowing Oswald. A popular position to take, especially since the common wisdom is that Oswald was continuously in the USSR between 1959 and 1962.

During June, 1960, a few months after Oswald's defection to the USSR in late 1959, J. Edgar Hoover himself sent a memo to the State Department alerting it to the possibility that an imposter was using Oswald's identity. Hoover was tipped to the problem by a telegram from Harold F. Good at the New York field office. Former Cuban Prime Minister Tony Varona testified to a House committee that he believed Oswald was in Cuba during 1961. There is a long and well-documented history of reports involving individuals impersonating Oswald, no matter where one stands on the JFK assassination.

Alternately, we're in Harvey and Lee territory here, and the two Oswalds are having legends created.

[Helen Reyes]

critique:

convoluted. full of typing errors, missing words, sentences that don't make sense, acronyms used before they're explained, or never explained. appears to be a left-leaning journey down memory lane for the purpose of remembering how great the fpcc was/is, and to pretend they achieved something.

some of the tidbits are enticing though.

according to my faulty memory, the head of fpcc new york testified that oswald was not a member, that he had no authority to open a chapter in new orleans and that he had received a letter from oswald expressing interest and mailed flyers back in response.

i have no idea about tv coverage, but oswald did do a radio debate in new orleans and presented himself as the head of the local fpcc chapter. recordings of this exist, or partial recordings.

as i recall, oswald did well during the debate and came off like the winner. my faulty memory says he had two opponents, one a right-wing religious figure of local importance.

as i further recall, the fpcc head in new york got news of oswald's antics on the streets and airwaves of new orleans, , and ordered him to stop because it was discrediting their organization.

with the local anti-castro groups, oswald alternately offered them military training manuals and got into fisticuffs with them.

regarding the "unknown citizen" who passed on one of oswald's descriptions to dallas police, the anti-castro groups fingered oswald as the assassin within half an hour, according to one source i don't recall. if you read the fbi/cia memo sent by one george bush of houston the day after, it makes sense to think george bush made sure the anti-castro people fingered oswald, and not someone else.

memory is so fickle though.

[Myra Bronstein]

...
i have no idea about tv coverage, but oswald did do a radio debate in new orleans and presented himself as the head of the local fpcc chapter. recordings of this exist, or partial recordings.

as i recall, oswald did well during the debate and came off like the winner. my faulty memory says he had two opponents, one a right-wing religious figure of local importance.

...

Audio of Oswald's interview is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy9k5C94ENw

...
with the local anti-castro groups, oswald alternately offered them military training manuals and got into fisticuffs with them.
...

I believe it was sheep dipping street theater.

...
if you read the fbi/cia memo sent by one george bush of houston the day after, it makes sense to think george bush made sure the anti-castro people fingered oswald, and not someone else.
...

Interesting theory on that notorious memo Helen.

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

I have to agree with Helen re: the dangers of conflating FPCC with other left groups, for example, CISPES, which I was a member of-- I even worked with the Van Gosse dude mentioned in the article. It is, IMO, dangerous "leftist" conflation to speak of the FPCC in the same breath as groups of the late sixties seventies and eighties. There was still very much a McCarthyite vibe out there in the days of the FPCC. This meant that the percentage of intel operatives and manipulation of (if not complete control of ) the whole organization would have been much greater than later groups like CISPES, although there were infiltrators there too, and ...

[Helen Reyes]

Interesting theory on that notorious memo Helen.

george h w bush is a notorious telephone phreak. if he called the local fbi office from tyler texas that day to rat out a red herring (russ baker's family of secrets, tarpley's unauthorized bio et al.), you can be sure he made more than one phone call during that session. i'm betting he called dallas police with a tip (one of the CIA physical descriptions of Oswald) and probably his anti-castro contacts in Dallas, to get them to finger Oswald quickly. I'm not buying at all the idea the state department even at the outermost lowest level was afraid anti-Castro Cubans would launch an invasion of Cuba just because JFK was dead.