"As early as 1961, they knew Kennedy was not going to war in Southeast Asia.
Like Caesar, he is surrounded by enemies and something's underway...
but it has no face.
Yet everybody in the loop knows..."
Like Caesar, he is surrounded by enemies and something's underway...
but it has no face.
Yet everybody in the loop knows..."
 |
| June 20, 1999 - President Clinton, Secretary Albright and National Security Advisor Sandy Berger meet with Russian President Boris Yeltsin and members of his delegation at Cologne’s Renaissance Hotel |
Suddenly, Yeltsin reached below his desk and produced a yellowing loose leaf file of papers.
"A gift, for my old friend, Bill...!"
Clinton's eyes widened like saucers - "Oh, I can use this...!"
"We have $100,000,000 spent against us in all these inspections and investigations *... ONE PERSON in my administration was found guilty of doing something which violated his job responsibilities in the White House; Twenty-Nine in the Bush-Reagan years... They have NO IDEA what I was subject to.... And what a lot of people supported.
No other President had to endure someone like Ken Starr, indicting innocent people because they wouldn't lie, in a systematic way... whilst EVERY DAY, an entire apparatus was devoted to destroying him....
I though I lived in a country where people believed in the law, and the Constitution and the Freedom of Speech; you never had to live in a time where people you knew and cared about were being indicted,carted off to jail, bankrupted, ruined...Because they were Democrats. And because they WOULD NOT LIE...
"No one has any idea of what that’s like.”
* 1986 Challenger disaster investigation budget : $75,000,000
2004 Columbia disaster investigation budget: $50 000,000
9/11 Commission budget (final) : $14,000,000
9/11 Commission budget (original appropriationl) : $3,000,000
As told from the Diaries of Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair's Press Secretary
"To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
- Robert H. Jackson
- Chief Prosecutor, Nuremberg, 1946
....which was actually a war on all Slavs (including Russia) in furtherance of Neoliberal globalisation and a manifestation of GLADIO B in Europe.
"To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
The first article of the United Nations Charter says:
The Purposes of the United Nations are:
1) To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
2) To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
The interdiction of aggressive war was confirmed and broadened by the United Nations' Charter, which states in article 2, paragraph 4 that
All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
Article 33
"The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.
The Security Council shall, when it deems necessary, call upon the parties to settle their dispute by such means."
Article 39
"The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security."
Article 51
"Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security."
On 12th June 1999, Russian and NATO forces stood poised closer to the brink of war than at any point since the Able Archer exercise of 1983 and closer to a shooting war between the forces of East and West than at any point since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Following the relentless 11 week air war over Serbia, chiefly directed towards the peaceful civilian infrastructure of Yugoslav-Serbian society to force a withdrawl from the Serbian province of Kosovo (an action akin to a multilateral coalition carpet-bombing London in order to compel unilateral British military withdrawl and civic disengagement from Northern Ireland), NATO sent the troops in to Kosovo to "enforce the peace".
When the 30,000 KFOR personnel advanced into the province, however, they arrived to discover 200 Russian Army Special Forces occupying the airport at Pristina, having advanced forward from the East (with Serbian acquiescence) to secure the supply channels in and out during the occupation.
This plucky act of insurgency did not impress NATO commanders on the ground.
Not the American ones, at least.
Captain Blunt and General Sir Mike Jackson (3-Star, NATO Command) disobeyed a direct order from NATO Supreme Commander General Wesley Clark to open fire on 200 Russian troops who had secured control of Prestina Airport in Serbian Kosovo
"I'm not prepared to start World War III for you".
General Sir Mike Jackson with characteristic British understatement.
Serbian News Item on Captain James Blunt's Actions at Pristina Airport, June 12th, 1999 from Spike1138 on Vimeo.
Translated from the Serbian:
"Shortly after the 200 Russians from Ugljevik (without the knowledge of the Yeltsin Kremlin!) Occupied Pristina airport in 1999, a British unit led thirty thousand NATO troops received an order from the U.S. General Wesley Clark to take the airport, and if you disarm the Russians to open fire on them. "
The room at the G8 Conference in Frankfurt was as tense as it was possible to be - one week earlier, the forced within and behind Bill Clinton's administration, plotting his doom had brought the world to the brink of a Third World War, a shooting war between NATO and 200 Russian Troops acting either unilaterally or on their own recognisance to seize Pristina Airport and cease the Western assault on Belgrade and the Serbs.
Yeltsin has no idea and was rapidly loosing what grip he still retained on his country and his faculties.
Both men had lost control of their respective governments.
The Russian Delegation to Frankfurt arrived a day late.
Immediately, both Presidential national security teams went directly into closed door bilateral session with one another - in spite of Clinton's smiles, the scene could not have been more tense.
Thirty seconds after the above official photo was taken, the door was closed, and the room sealed.
You could have cut the air with a knife.
Suddenly, Yeltsin reached below his desk and produced a yellowing loose leaf file of papers.
"A gift, for my old friend, Bill...!"
The file contained the original, unredacted KGB File on both Lee Harvey Oswald and the Kennedy Assassination, along with full transcript and English translations - Yeltsin have strip-mined the KGB archive on ascent to the Russian presidency, offering out tidbits like the Soviet record of the Katyn Forest Massacre and the shoot down of KAL-007 in 1983.... But this was his ace in the hole.
Clinton's eyes widened like saucers - his only reply, was reportedly to exclaim,
"Oh, I can use this...!"
Two weeks later, John F Kennedy Jr.'s plane went down off the tip of Martha's Vineyard.
http://spitfirelist.com/f175
When John F. Kennedy, Jr. died in the crash of a private plane in July of 1999, media pundits ruminated at length about the recklessness of the Kennedys and "the Kennedy curse". This program explores the striking contradictions between the official version of JFK, Jr.'s death and the facts concerning his demise. The available data suggest that JFK, Jr. may have been the victim of foul play.
The program consists of an interview with veteran journalist John Bryan, who worked for the San Francisco Examiner (among other papers). John's experience with the Examiner led him to begin questioning the official version of the story. Familiar with the Examiner's weekend publishing practices, John became convinced that the Examiner (for whatever reason) was deliberately withholding the story. (Kennedy's plane crashed on a Friday evening.) Sensing a possible cover-up, Bryan religiously combed the print and electronic media for the truth about the deaths of Kennedy, his wife and sister-in-law.
Beginning with discussion of Kyle Brady (a veteran pilot who flew from the same airport Kennedy departed from), Bryan relates Brady's observation that JFK, Jr.'s preflight actions indicated that Kennedy seemed to feel that something was wrong with the plane.
Next, Bryan discusses the reality of the conditions around Martha's Vineyard at the time of Kennedy's disappearance. Contrary to news reports at the time, the weather was clear and the visibility was from between two and five miles. Kennedy was about four minutes from the airport, was within visual contact radius of the island and had radioed the airport to get permission to land. He did not broadcast a "Mayday" distress call. Eyewitnesses reported Kennedy's plane approaching the airport at an altitude of less than 100 feet. (This contrasts markedly with the "radar track" which was leaked to the media, showing Kennedy's plane beginning its "graveyard spiral" at an altitude of 1800 ft. It is extraordinarily unlikely that Kennedy would have been at that altitude when coming in for a landing. Contrary to press reports at the time of Kennedy's death, he was an excellent pilot with over 300 hours of flying time. Some reports erroneously said he had as little as 35 hours.)
Mr. Bryan also reports eyewitness reports of seeing a "flash" or explosion over the water when Kennedy's plane disappeared. Most importantly, John recounts numerous observations by media political pundits that Kennedy was going to be offered either the Presidential or, more likely, the Vice-Presidential nomination, in an attempt to assure victory for the Democrats in the election of 2000. His death eliminated that possibility. In addition, Mr. Bryan discusses the extraordinary secrecy that surrounded the retrieval and disposal of the plane's wreckage and the bodies of the deceased. Reporters were not allowed to view the wreckage or the autopsy. No autopsy photographs were taken, in direct contravention of Massachusetts law. The bodies were cremated within 10 hours of discovery and buried at sea. John points out that the Kennedys are Catholic and Catholics traditionally bury their dead. Cremation was completely forbidden by the Catholic Church until 1963, and since then only under certain extraordinary circumstances. Scattering ashes at sea is strictly forbidden. Bryan questions this extraordinary secrecy and departure from accepted procedure and points out that the tail section of the plane appears to have disappeared.
The discussion features several observations by Mr. Emory, including the fact that the Kennedy assassination was back on the political front burner after Boris Yeltsin publicly gave President Clinton the KGB files on Oswald (which demonstrated that they felt Oswald was probably an American agent). Mr. Emory also points out that the Kennedy assassination was part of a lawsuit that was proceeding through the courts in 1999.
The program concludes with a reading of the obituary of Anthony Stanislaus Radziwill, JFK, Jr.'s best friend. (They were best men at each others weddings.) Radziwill died of cancer about three weeks after the death of Kennedy. (The intelligence community has been able to assassinate people via cancer for decades.) A broadcast journalist, Radziwill had covered the O.J. Simpson case and had received a Peabody award for his work on the emergence of "neo"-Nazism in America. (There are numerous evidentiary tributaries between the O.J. Simpson case and the intelligence community, including the Kennedy assassination. The killing of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson appears to have been the work of Nazi elements.
Our Own Private Bin Laden - The Brzynski Doctrine, Operation Cyclone and the BCCI from Spike1138 on Vimeo.
Most crucially, in concert with PROMIS Software, BCCI was the covert mechanism by which then-Vice President Bush and the Kissingerites such as Al Haig could covertly aid and supply the Islamic Republic of Pakistan under Zia al-Huq with technology, technical assistantce and materiel for the Pakistani nuclear weapons program behind the backs of the Reagan White House.
Featuring candid on-camera interviews with: Zbignew Brzynski, Admiral Stansfield Turner,Benazhir Bhutto, Milt Beardon and others.
Published: September 21, 2000
"This office has now concluded, with certain limited exceptions, its investigation of the matters commonly referred to as ''Madison Guaranty-Whitewater.'' At this time, it is appropriate, in the public interest and consistent with the law to inform the public of the findings and conclusions regarding the core matters within this office's Madison Guaranty-Whitewater jurisdiction. Except for limited pending matters, the Madison Guaranty-Whitewater investigation is now closed.
Following enactment of the Independent Counsel Reauthorization Act of 1994, this office was established on Aug. 5, 1994, to continue the work of regulatory independent counsel Robert B. Fiske Jr. to investigate the relationship of James B. McDougal and President and Mrs. Clinton to Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan Association (''Madison Guaranty''), Capital Management Services, Inc., (''C.M.S.''), and the Whitewater Development Corporation (''Whitewater Development'').
Eleven months ago, on Oct. 18, 1999, the judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit's division for appointing independent counsels appointed me as independent counsel with respect to all matters within the previously ordered jurisdiction of this office, including the Madison Guaranty-Whitewater investigation. Since my appointment, this office has concluded two matters within our jurisdiction, matters commonly referred to as the ''F.B.I. Files'' matter and the ''Travel Office'' matter.
The Madison Guaranty-Whitewater investigation resulted in the conviction of 12 defendants, including former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, Jim and Susan McDougal, and former Associate Attorney General Webster L. Hubbell. This office investigated whether Jim and Susan McDougal committed any crimes in connection with Madison Guaranty, C.M.S., or Whitewater Development by using control of two financial institutions -- Madison Guaranty and Madison Bank and Trust -- to lend money to or for the benefit of Whitewater Development and to pay Whitewater Development financial obligations at a time when the McDougals and the Clintons jointly owned Whitewater Development. In May 1996, Jim and Susan McDougal were convicted in federal court in Arkansas of various crimes involving Madison Guaranty, C.M.S., and Whitewater Development. According to one federal bank regulatory agency, the failure of Madison Guaranty cost the taxpayers $73 million.
This office investigated whether President and Mrs. Clinton knowingly participated in any criminal conduct related to Madison Guaranty, C.M.S., or Whitewater Development or had any knowledge of such conduct. This office determined that the evidence was insufficient to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that either President or Mrs. Clinton knowingly participated in any criminal conduct involving Madison Guaranty, C.M.S., or Whitewater Development or knew of such conduct. The evidence relating to their testimony and conduct, in connection with this investigation and other investigations involving the same entities, was also, in the judgment of this office, insufficient to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that either of them committed any criminal offense, including perjury or obstruction of justice.
The following findings and conclusions relate to publicly disclosed matters investigated by this office. Information obtained through grand proceedings or other confidential methods is not included in this statement. Upon conclusion of pending matters, this office intends to submit to the court a final report ''setting forth fully and completely a description of the work'' of the office.
The investigation made the following findings and conclusions:
Madison Guaranty Loan
This office investigated whether President Clinton knowingly gave false testimony when he testified in the 1996 trial of Mr. McDougal, Mrs. McDougal, and Governor Tucker that he ''never borrowed any money from Madison Guaranty,'' ''never caused anybody to borrow any money for (his) benefit'' and ''never had any personal loan with Madison Guaranty at any time.''
* At Susan McDougal's 1999 trial for criminal contempt and obstruction of justice for her refusal to testify about matters that included an alleged $27,600 Madison Guaranty loan to President Clinton, the government introduced two checks as evidence of the challenged loan. The first check was an actual Madison Guaranty loan check, dated Nov. 15, 1982, made out to ''Bill Clinton'' in the amount of $27,600 that was found, by happenstance, among other Madison Guaranty records in the trunk of a car in July 1997 following a tornado.
Clinton Impeachment Trial - Closing Arguments for the Defence, February 8th 1999 from Spike1138 on Vimeo.
Mr. Ruff argued that the case against the president was weak and that the managers had not conclusively proven that President Clinton had either lied under oath or obstructed justice.
He said that the manager’s case was based on inference alone and that even if the inference were true did not “put at risk the liberties of the people.”
Entry from the Clinton Body Count Deadpool :
Charles Ruff - Clinton lawyer
Died: 11/20/00
"Charles Ruff was one of Clinton's attorneys during the impeachment trial and was known to have inside information on the White House emails scandal as well. Original reports were that he died in an accident in his home although no details were given.
Then the report changed to claim that he was found in his bedroom unconscious, then declared dead on arrival at the hospital.
The authorities will provide no details other than the usual (and quite premature) assurances that there was no foul play involved."
Newsday
Tues, 8/17/99
Tues, 8/17/99
Conspiracy Revisited
By Michael Dorman
Staff Writer
By Michael Dorman
Staff Writer
Long-secret documents recently handed to President Bill Clinton by Russian President Boris Yeltsin raise new questions about possible special treatment that top Soviet officials accorded Lee Harvey Oswald on his arrival in Moscow four years before President John F. Kennedy's assassination. The documents immediately generated fresh conspiracy claims from assassination theorists.
Within hours of Oswald's arrest as Kennedy's assassin in 1963, the documents also revealed, the Soviet ambassador to Washington sent a top-secret coded message to the Kremlin reporting "there is nothing that compromises us" in correspondence with Oswald and his wife. The ambassador said the Soviets might discuss this correspondence with the U.S. authorities "as a last resort." But there was no explanation of why the Soviets feared being compromised or why they would cooperate with the United States only as a last resort.
Oswald, Kennedy's accused assassin, arrived in Moscow from Finland as a tourist on Oct. 15, 1959, holding a six-day visa. He was an unknown former Marine not quite 20 years old. Yet, once he arrived, the documents show, memos about him circulated among top Soviet officials including a deputy premier, the foreign minister and the head of the KGB spy agency. The documents reveal that the officials approved plans to permit Oswald to stay in the Soviet Union for at least a year, to give him a job and an apartment, provide him with 5,000 rubles to furnish the apartment and 700 rubles a month in spending money.
Although some information about Oswald's defection to Moscow had previously been made available to American investigators, the level of early interest shown by high Soviet officials was not generally known. State Department officials, American intelligence sources and Russian officials say they have no ready explanation for that interest. "These events took place 35 to 40 years ago," one U.S. intelligence official said. "There aren't many people still around here, or in Russia, who remember the details."
Lem Johns, one of the Secret Service agents guarding Kennedy's motorcade in Dallas at the time of the assassination and later assistant Secret Service director in charge of protective operation, said he found the involvement of the foreign minister, deputy premier and KGB chief highly unusual. "People of that rank have a lot to worry about besides some kid tourist," he said. "They might have felt he threatened them in some way for them to show that much interest. What kind of threat did he pose? Or could there have been something else?"
Some conspiracy theorists suggested the "something else" might have been a plot by the Soviets to use Oswald in killing Kennedy. The Warren Commission and other U.S. agencies that have investigated the assassination said they found no evidence of Soviet involvement. But they apparently did not have access to all the Russian documents given to Clinton.
University of Maryland history professor, John Newman, the author of "Oswald and the CIA" and a consultant on the assassination film "JFK," called some of the Russian documents "highly significant." Until now, he said, he and other conspiracy theorists could only speculate on Soviet conclusions.
"Now we know their conclusions that a right-wing conspiracy was responsible for the assassination, that the U.S. government wanted to consign the case to oblivion, and that the plot was designed to make it look like Oswald was employed by the KGB," Newman said.
A parallel observation on Oswald's Soviet experience came from another conspiracy theorist, Debra Conway, who heads the JFK Lancer (his Service Service code name) assassination research organization.
"My opinion is that Oswald was there for some reason," Conway said in a telephone interview from her headquarters in Lake Forest, Calif. "There had to be some type of program. Oswald was a low-level operative for our government - or at least he thought so."
A State Department translation of one of the Russian language documents shows that on the day of the assassination, Nov. 22nd, 1963, Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin sent a top-secret coded telegram marked "highest priority" from Washington to the Kremlin. It reported that Oswald had been arrested in the assassination and publicly identified as a former defector to the Soviet Union, "where he married Marina Nikolayevna Prusakova (b. 1941)."
The Oswald's moved to the United States in 1962, the message said. Marina Oswald applied in March, 1963, to return to the Soviet Union with their daughter, but not her husband. Dobrynin wrote that both Oswald and his wife had written Soviet officials about the request.
"The last letter from Lee Oswald was dated November 9," the coded message said. "It is possible that the U.S. authorities may ask us to familiarize them with the correspondence in our possession. The U.S. authorities are aware of the existence of this final correspondence since it was conducted through official mail. Inasmuch as there is nothing that compromises us in this correspondence, we might agree to do this as a last resort (after removing our internal correspondence with the MFA)." The MFA was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Numerous documents Yeltsin turned over the Clinton at a June summit meeting detail the high-level interest shown in Oswald upon his arrival in Moscow, where he renounced his American citizenship and asked for permanent residence. When Oswald reached Moscow, top-secret reports about him were sent to such officials as Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, Deputy Premier Mikhal Porfirovich and KGB chief Aleksandr Nikolaevich Shelepin.
Gromyko and Shelepin recommended to the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee: "It should be advisable to grant him the right of temporary sojourn in the USSR for one year and to provide him employment and housing. In such case, the question of Oswald's permanent residency in the Soviet Union and his receiving Soviet citizenship could be resolved upon the expiration of that period."
The Central Committee approved the recommendation, granting Oswald expense money, directing "the Byelorussian Economic Council to find employment for Oswald as an electrical and the Minsk City Council of Workers Deputies to assign him a separate small apartment." Oswald later was granted permission to stay indefinitely in the Soviet Union, but he returned to the United States after three years.
The 80 documents turned over by Yeltsin also included a top-secret draft resolution prepared by Gromyko for the Central Committee, purporting to "debunk" American news reports connecting the Soviet Union and Cuba to the assassination. The Central Committee approved the resolution and instructed Dobrynin to issue a terse report to American authorities "in the event they ask you about" Oswald's activities in the Soviet Union. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushehev sent his deputy, Annastas Mikoyan, to represent him at Kennedy's funeral. From Washington, Mikoyan sent a top-secret coded message to the Kremlin reporting on a private conversation with former U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Llewellyn Thompson. He said Thompson told him Soviet press allegations that right-wingers were responsible for the assassination had brought American counter-assertions of "communist and Cuban connections."
The deputy premier said he told Thompson the Soviet Union did "not want to make complications" but resented such implications when the case had not even been fully investigated. Mikoyan said the U.S. government "clearly prefers to consign the whole business to oblivion as soon as possible."
-End-
UPDATE 8-4-99
Russia's JFK Documents Released
.c The Associated Press By DEB RIECHMANN
WASHINGTON (AP) - Nine days after President Kennedy was assassinated, his widow wrote to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that while the two leaders were adversaries, both were committed to peace, according to long-secret Russian documents released today by the National Archives.``You and he were enemies, but you were also allies in your determination not to let the world be blown up,'' the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis wrote Dec. 1, 1963, on White House stationery. ``The danger troubling my husband was that war could be started not so much by major figures as by minor ones.''
The contents of the letter was included in more than 80 pages of KGB and Soviet diplomatic documents that Russian President Boris Yeltsin gave to President Clinton in June when the two were in Cologne, Germany.
``You respected each other and could have dealings with each other,'' Mrs. Kennedy wrote in her letter to Khrushchev. ``I know that President Johnson will make ever effort to establish the same relations with you.
``I am sending you this letter because I am so deeply mindful of the importance of the relations that existed between you and my husband and also because you and Mrs. Khrushchev were so kind in Vienna. I read that she had tears in her eyes as she was coming out of the American embassy in Moscow after signing the book of condolences. Please tell her `thank you' for this.''
Other documents released offer a previously unopened window into high-level discussions in the former Soviet Union following the president's murder Nov. 22, 1963 in Dallas. They also contain material that Soviet officials gathered on Lee Harvey Oswald, Kennedy's assassin, when he lived in the Soviet Union from 1959 to 1962.
According to the documents, the Soviets drafted a statement three days after the assassination complaining that U.S. media reports about Oswald's communist connections were part of a disinformation campaign crafted by the ``real masterminds'' of the assassination to put the investigation on a ``false trail.''
The statement, drafted for publication in the government-controlled Soviet press, was written after Oswald was killed by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby, two days after the assassination. It is uncertain whether the statement was actually published.
``Now that Lee Harvey Oswald, accused of murdering the president, has himself been killed under mysterious circumstances, one can see even more clearly the absurdity and malice of the slanderous fabrications in certain organs of the American press, which are trying to establish Oswald's `connection' with either the Soviet Union or Cuba, using the fact that he spent some time in the Soviet Union as the basis for their insinuations,'' the statement said.
``Who does not realize that the physical destruction of Oswald is an additional link in the chain of crimes leading to the real masterminds of President Kennedy's assassination, who stop at nothing in their efforts to mislead the investigation and put it on a false trail?'' the statement read.
JFK OPEN RECORD ADVOCATES
CALL FOR FULL ACCESS
TO YELTSIN DOCUMENTS
JFK OPEN RECORD ADVOCATES
CALL FOR FULL ACCESS
TO YELTSIN DOCUMENTS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sunday, June 27, 1999
JFK OPEN-RECORD ADVOCATES CALL FOR FULL ACCESS TO YELTSIN DOCUMENTS
All Soviet files on the assassination of President Kennedy which were given by Russian President Yeltsin to President Clinton should be released in a timely manner to the National Archives, with any redactions or exclusions of documents held to a bare minimum, according to former Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) officials and a coalition of open-records advocates.
Former ARRB Chief Analyst for Military Records Doug Horne said that he was alarmed at press reports indicating that a U.S. interagency task force would be reviewing the documents before releasing anything to the public.
"These are Russian documents, not American-I cannot stress that enough-and it is the Russians who have already conducted a declassification review. If, as the U.S. Government has always claimed, Lee Harvey Oswald was NOT on an intelligence mission for the United States while in the Soviet Union from 1959-1962, then there should be absolutely no reason for U.S. officials to have to "declassify" these records."
Federal judge John Tunheim, former ARRB Chair, was quoted by CNN as saying that while he was pleased the Russians apparently had released some of the documents the ARRB had requested, he hoped that they would be released publicly "in the next several months." But National Security Council (NSC) Spokesman David Leavy, according to the Associated Press, refused to estimate how long the documents would be under review by the interagency panel.
"A private research group, the National Security Archive, also supported a timely and complete release of the materials, which Yelstin provided to Clinton in Cologne, Germany on June 20 as a goodwill gesture, and expressed concern about the interagency panel, which is said to include CIA, State Department, Defense Department, and NSC officials.
``This procedure they are talking about is very troubling to us,'' Kate Martin, a lawyer for the research group, told the Associated Press. ``It's very hard to imagine any real national security considerations for withholding these documents from the American public.''
Lancer Independent News Exchange spokesman Chris Courtwright said that confusion over the legal status of the Yeltsin files and other JFK materials needed to be clarified in the wake of the ARRB's sunset on September 30, 1998. He said that questions about the declassification procedures began immediately after US National Security Adviser Sandy Berger announced to the media in Cologne that "all interesting elements" of the Yeltsin release would be made public after the review.
"With all due respect to Mr. Berger, the law requires that everything which does not otherwise qualify for an exemption pursuant to the JFK Act is to be released - whether he or anyone else finds it °interesting' or not," said Courtwright.
"Moreover, this begs the question of who would decide on the validity of an exemption claim under that law if the CIA or another agency wants to have certain documents redacted or totally withheld," he said. "The ARRB filled that role through last September, and they strongly recommended in their Final Report to President Clinton that action be taken to assure that the National Archives, in conjunction with a professional oversight group with historical, legal, and archival expertise, would have inherited many of the ARRB's powers, duties, and functions."
agency wants to have certain documents redacted or totally withheld" - Chris Courtwright |
Courtwright said that he believed transitional legislation may be necessary to implement the ARRB recommendations and clarify that the National Archives and the professional oversight group could continue to administer the ongoing provisions of the JFK Act.
"I have been in touch with Amy Krupsky at the National Archives, and she tells me that another interesting question the legal staff has been pondering is whether they have subpoena powers like the ARRB did," Courtwright said.
He also said that the declassification issues which had arisen as a result of Yeltsin's goodwill gesture were likely to continue to arise as additional JFK assassination-related materials surface over the years.
"The ARRB said that the Mexican government may well have additional records which they refused to release to the U.S. State Department," he said, "and that J. Edgar Hoover may have had additional records which could not be located during ARRB's tenure."
Former ARRB Supervisory Analyst Horne agreed, and reiterated his belief that the assembly of the interagency declassification team to review the Yeltsin materials was "extremely arrogant behavior" and "totally contrary" to the spirit of the JFK Act.
"Since these are not U.S. government documents, the White House should have turned them over immediately to the JFK Collection at the National Archives," Horne said. "The American people deserve to know, 36 years after the fact, what the internal Soviet reaction was to President Kennedy's assassination, and what conclusions they may have reached, or what suspicions they may have held, about JFK's assassination between 1963 and the present time. There is no valid argument or acceptable reason to withhold such information from the public in this country."
From the KGB's Oswald files
WASHINGTONThe documents from the KGB file on Lee Harvey Oswald that President Boris Yeltsin presented to President Clinton have now been translated. There are no sensations, but there are interesting sidelights on the two years that Oswald spent in Russia before he came back to the United States and eventually assassinated President Kennedy.The KGB assigned to the defector the file number 31451 and the code name "Likhoi," which means "reckless." Recorded in the file is Oswald's application for Soviet citizenship in 1959: his slitting his wrists in a Moscow hotel when told his tourist visa was expiring and he had to leave, and the unexplained intervention of Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan to grant him a residence permit.Recorded also is Oswald's being told he would have to live in Minsk, which he first thought was in Siberia. In Minsk, which is in Belarus, he was given a job in a radio and TV factory and kept under constant surveillance, his home bugged.Of ironic interest is that Oswald joined the factory's hunting club, but was never able to hit anything. A fellow worker shot a rabbit for him.Various documents reflect the KGB decision not to recruit Oswald for any intelligence assignment, because he was considered too unstable, or perhaps even a CIA agent. One KGB officer called Oswald "an empty person." Recorded also are reports from female informants of Oswald's offensive behavior with women at factory socials.Much of the file starts after the assassination in Dallas. Premier Nikita Khrushchev ordered the KGB to make a crash investigation to establish whether the intelligence agency had any connection with the assassination. The answer was no. Khrushchev asked what it meant that, before Oswald's return to the United States in April 1963, a KGB officer in Minsk noted, "Before he left for the States, we tried to influence him in the right direction." The KGB assured Khrushchev this meant only that Oswald was urged to say nice things about his stay in Russia.Apparently unsatisfied, the Kremlin followed the Warren Commission's investigation closely; the file contains dozens of news reports translated into Russian.There is nothing in the file that contradicts the version given to the FBI in 1964 by KGB defector Yuri Nosenko. CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton believed that Nosenko was a Soviet plant, and tried to break him down over a period of several years. In the end, the CIA determined officially that Nosenko had told the truth.The final entry in the KGB file is dated April 29, 1964, and says, "This file is of such historical importance that it should never be destroyed."Over the years, there have been many - including, at one point, President Johnson - who believed a communist plot lay behind the assassination of President Kennedy. No credible evidence of that has emerged, nor is there any in this KGB file.Daniel Schorr is a senior news analyst at National Public Radio.
