One of the Top JFK Assassination Experts Has Been Going Through the Declassified Documents and a Chilling Pattern is Starting to Emerge

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Now that we're weeks removed from the JFK Assassination Files getting declassified after 61 years and more than 8 years since they were required to be released by a unanimous Act of Congress, it's natural to feel frustrated over the lack of any real news. In the first few hours, X was, of course lousy with fake news and memes. But since then, nothing. Which is tough in a world where we're used to the gang at NCIS putting a bow on a caper like this in 53 minutes.  

But at the same time, you didn't see anyone volunteering to be first one on the JFK Archives website and pour through 80,000 documents. We live in an ADD, TikTok, Instagram Stories world. So en masse we all decided to let the real journos and the detail-oriented information nerds do all the heavy lifting while we watched college hoops. So we have no right to be impatient. Besides, after six decades, the SS Get it Fast has has long since sailed. For now the focus should be on "get it right." 

One of those real journos is Jefferson Morley. I sort of damned him with faint praise calling him "one of" the best JFK experts, since he's in all likelihood THE best. He's been at it for 30 something years. Virtually every podcast or documentary I dive into on the subject uses him as a source. Which is why I cited him in my conversation with JFK Congressional Task Force Chair Rep. Anna Paulina Luna:

So I'm glad that he's not only going deep and methodically through all the released documents, but that he'll be testifying before Luna's committee this coming Tuesday. Unfortunately that happens to be April 1st, but what can you do? The universe has a dark, twisted sense of humor.

With all that said, if you're remotely interested in the biggest unsolved crime of all time, a moment that changed the course of world history forever and can find the time, I very much suggest you check out this interview he just gave:

If you can't, because this is not part of your job like it is mine, I'll take a sh-- … stab … at trying to reduce it down to Morley's bull-- … major points. (At times like these I can't believe how many assassination metaphors the English language has.) 

--There probably will not be any smoking gun (I know, right?). Morley suggests that instead, we look for "a fact pattern." Some consistent through line that you find across multiple documents from various sources. 

--He's found a fact pattern that keeps pointing back to the CIA's involvement. In the coverup, if not the assassination itself. 

-- One significant document that is now unredacted for the first time is from Kennedy advisor Arthur Schlesinger. JFK felt betrayed by the CIA after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and famously said he wanted to shatter it into a million pieces and scatter it to the wind. Schlesinger told him that at the time, 47% of all State Department employees overseas were spying for the Agency. And essentially had no interest in carrying out JFK's foreign policy, just their own. 

--French President Charles de Gaulle barely survived an assassination himself. And he was convinced it was the CIA, who didn't want him pulling out of a war in Algeria. 

--So far he's got nine documents related to a man with the Bond villain name of James Jesus Angleton. What I know about the guy is he goes back to the days of the OSS during World War II, helped create the CIA after the war, and was one of the most diabolical minds ever to be involved in the field of counter-espionage. He's famous for an approach he called "A Wilderness of Mirrors." Double agents. False flag operations. Fake leads. A world of confusion to everyone involved or trying to look into what was happening, but only the guy pulling the strings - invariably him - truly understood what the big picture was. Here, Morley calls Angleton "a world historic figure." Why does he matter today? Because Lee Harvey Oswald was an asset of his for four years. 

--During that time, Oswald was under constant surveillance, no matter where he traveled to. And at no point did top CIA officials not have his home address. Morley says they have 42 documents and 180 pages of material on him. All of which Angleton later denied. Meaning he flat out lied about it.

--Angleton was one of the most powerful intelligence officials in the history of the United States, and was personally following every move Oswald made. In fact, he had Oswald's file on his desk, and knew he was in Dallas. And yet they denied knowing him. And the entire US government apparatus pushed the narrative that he was a lone kook who just happened to have a clean shot at the President of the United States, whatareyagonnado?

--The clear implication is that JFK was in direct conflict with his intelligence agencies. The major one had been tracking one particular crackpot closely at its highest levels. They knew where he was on November 22, 1963. And that's the day he turned the Commander-in-Chief's brains into salsa. 

--Don't take Morley's word for it. For certain, do not listen to some bloggers on a comedy/sports site. As he points out, there are recordings of Presidents Johnson and Nixon saying they think the CIA did Kennedy in. 

--Then of course, there's Jack Ruby, who according to Morley was unquestionably working for the mob. He cites retired mobsters who denied having any involvment in the shooting of the President, but who readily admitted they were given the task of taking out the guy who did. Oswald was the one major loose thread, and it fell to Ruby to cut it off.

It's beyond chilling to think this could've been carried out, by the very people working underneath the duly elected, very popular POTUS. In broad daylight. In front of the world. Then whack the guy who was accused of pulling the trigger. And not one of them was ever brought to justice. That they could pull this off and get the public to buy into the story they told, seems unthinkabe. And yet here we are.

We still don't know for sure. But thanks to the experts who are sifting through the mountain range of info in this massive document dump, the picture that has been incomprehensibly cloudy since before most of us were born is coming into focus. And they've only just begun to look. Next Tuesday's hearings ought to be great theater. Stay tuned.