Oswald at the Radio Factory in Minsk

[Lance Payette]

I don't know who first said it but they were right: the JFK assassination is a Rohrschacht test, a mirror, a reflection. What one sees in it tells us more about them then it does about the actual event. So we have people with axes to grind, with grievances, with complaints who use the event to go after the source of those grievances. It's why the major conspiracy advocates have been people who think the Cold War was due to the US, to our policies. The Chomsky/Zinn view. Now it's migrated to the Right who think the CIA got JFK like they tried to get Trump. Put the mirror down, please.

Even for a dyed-in-the-wool Lone Nutter, which I'm really not, it does have enough twists and turns and genuine anomalies to be one of the more interesting historical events. Oswald. even if he was just the Actual Oswald I believe him to have been, was a fascinating character. If one can approach the JFKA as just another hobby, as I try to do, I think one can maintain some sort of rational perspective. It's the foaming-at-the-mouth emotional involvement on the part of many, Lone Nutters and CTers alike, that puzzles me; truly, those who have a near-religious fanaticism for the Lone Nut perspective are as puzzling to me as their conspiracy counterparts. I try to keep abreast of the discussions, but I'd be equally interested if the Truth could be conclusively proven to have been the most elaborate conspiracy imaginable - that would be absolutely fascinating. Like Fred Litwin, I once thought the Lone Nut perspective was inconceivable. The more I learned, the more I realized quite the opposite was true. In my modest forays into JFKA Research, I have tracked down perhaps 10 or 15 little factoids of Conspiracy Gospel uttered by such conspiracy Gods as Armstrong, Newman and DiEugenio. Every damn one failed to stand up to scrutiny, but the proponents just yawned, moved the goalposts and went their merry way. My bottom line is, I haven't seen the conspiracy theory yet that can accommodate the Actual Oswald. I haven't yet finished Hancock's and Boylan's new book, The Oswald Puzzle, but I'm now only a couple of months from 11-22 and so far their Oswald has been exactly who I believe him to have been.

"Nutcase" was probably too harsh a term for Newman. He has shown some flexibility. Anyone who has read extensively in the UFO debate or particularly the Who Wrote Shakespeare? debate has encountered the Newman Type, who eventually becomes more comical than anything. I do think his book on Jesus the Yogi Master provides an interesting insight into his mindset.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

I read Mailer's book but didn't recall that incident. It is, however, definitely different from the one Titovets describes. In Titovets' account, there was definitely a discussion within the apartment as to how a bomb might be made from the tube. The tube itself was pretty distinctive and when Titovets later drew it, someone recogized it as part of an experimental radar device. Of course, every incident where Oswald did things that a sane false defector would never have done cuts decisively against the false defector nonsense.

Hmm, two different bomb incidents? Seems more likely that people are misremembering details of a single one. If Titovets *was* working for the KGB and keeping track of Oswald for them (as I strongly believe) then I find it hard to imagine he didn't report this second "bomb" incident to them. And they to Mailer. It sounds to me like the Rashomon effect. Be helpful to see the actual KGB files on the monitoring of Oswald in Minsk. That would clear up a lot of questions, e.g., about Nosenko, this, et cetera.

[Tom Mahon]

"Nutcase" was probably too harsh a term for Newman. He has shown some flexibility. Anyone who has read extensively in the UFO debate or particularly the Who Wrote Shakespeare? debate has encountered the Newman Type, who eventually becomes more comical than anything.

Newman is, of course, really off in right field (no pun intended) on the assassination, but I think that he, with input from former Chief of CIA's Soviet Russia Division Counterintelligence, Tennent H. Bagley (via his writings and through Bagley's friendship with Malcolm Blunt), is spot-on regarding the reason putative KGB officer Yuri Nosenko was sent to the CIA in Geneva in 1962 -- to protect "mole" Bruce Solie from being uncovered by true defector Anatoliy Golitsyn -- and that he's probably correct in saying Solie sent (or duped his confidant, protégé, and mole-hunting subordinate, James Angleton, into sending) Oswald to Moscow in 1959 as an ostensible "dangle" in the hunt for "Popov's U-2 Mole" / "Popov's Mole" (Solie) in the wrong part of the CIA.

[John Iacoletti]

Lance, you love to throw around the word "decisive".  "False defector" and "weirdo" are not mutually exclusive.

[Lance Payette]

Hmm, two different bomb incidents? Seems more likely that people are misremembering details of a single one. If Titovets *was* working for the KGB and keeping track of Oswald for them (as I strongly believe) then I find it hard to imagine he didn't report this second "bomb" incident to them. And they to Mailer. It sounds to me like the Rashomon effect. Be helpful to see the actual KGB files on the monitoring of Oswald in Minsk. That would clear up a lot of questions, e.g., about Nosenko, this, et cetera.

I don't believe Titovets was aligned with the KGB. Moreover, the incident took place in Oswald's KGB-bugged apartment (hence no need for reporting) and Titovets was astounded by the whole discussion. I don't think he took Oswald seriously; his astonishment was at the foolhardiness of the discussion. In his book, the focus is on what he later learned about the curious tube being part of a classified radar device. Based on what I know about the factory, my belief is that the whole thing was a KGB set-up just to see what Oswald would do if afforded an opportunity to "steal" the tube.

[Lance Payette]

Newman is, of course, really off in right field (no pun intended) on the assassination, but I think that he, with input from former Chief of CIA's Soviet Russia Division Counterintelligence, Tennent H. Bagley (via his writings and through Bagley's friendship with Malcolm Blunt), is spot-on regarding the reason putative KGB officer Yuri Nosenko was sent to the CIA in Geneva in 1962 -- to protect "mole" Bruce Solie from being uncovered by true defector Anatoliy Golitsyn -- and that he's probably correct in saying Solie sent (or duped his confidant, protégé, and mole-hunting subordinate, James Angleton, into sending) Oswald to Moscow in 1959 as an ostensible "dangle" in the hunt for "Popov's U-2 Mole" / "Popov's Mole" (Solie) in the wrong part of the CIA.

FWIW, authors Hancock and Boylan in The Oswald Puzzle do a very thorough analysis of all this and conclude that (1) Oswald was not a false defector or a witting participant in any intelligence activities but (2) may well have been an unwitting tool in one of Angleton's mole hunts. In other words, he wasn't "sent" at all, but his "going" may have served a mole-hunt purpose of which he was completely unaware.

[Lance Payette]

Lance, you love to throw around the word "decisive".  "False defector" and "weirdo" are not mutually exclusive.

Fair enough, but: To again refer to The Oswald Puzzle, Hancock and Boylan do a very thorough job of discussing the various aspects of the false defector program, the careful screening of potential participants, and what knowledge and skills characterized those who were chosen. Oswald just didn't fit the profile at all, and they conclude he was the genuine defector he appeared to be. I find it inconceivable - yes, decisively inconceivable!  - that a false defector would thumb his nose at his new country at every opportunity and engage in insanely risky conduct that could result in a long stint in Siberia. The conspiracy answer, of course, would be: "That's just how damn clever he was! He was such a canny false defector he did stuff no sane false defector would have done."

[Tom Mahon]

Hancock and Boylan do a very thorough job of discussing the various aspects of the false defector program, the careful screening of potential participants, and what knowledge and skills characterized those who were chosen. Oswald just didn't fit the profile at all, and they conclude he was the genuine defector he appeared to be.

Ask Larry if Oswald would have "fit the profile" (i.e., disgruntled American, Marxist, former Marine U-2 radar operator) of someone a KGB mole in the CIA would send to Moscow as an ostensible (i.e., mistakenly believing he was on a mission for the CIA) "dangle" in a planned-to-fail hunt for said "mole" who had, at some point around April 1958 given the Soviets the top-secret specifications of the U-2 -- especially since all he would be required to do is walk into the American Embassy, say he wanted to defect, and tell the Consul (and the sure-to-be-hidden KGB microphones) that he was a Marine radar operator and that he was planning to tell (or had already told?) the Soviets everything he knew about Marine Corps radar operations and . . . gasp . . . something of "special interest."