WEBVTT - The Wilderness of Mirrors 0:00:08.760 --> 0:00:12.039 In nineteen seventy four, just months after the Watergate scandal 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:17.079 ended with Richard Nixon's resignation, another man who for decades 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:21.360 had also helped shape America's place in the world was 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:25.520 quietly dismissed from his job. William Colby, who was then 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:31.200 the head of the CIA, fired spymaster James Jesus Angleton. 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:35.479 Colby made the decision after a front page expose in 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.400 The New York Times revealed that Angleton was running a 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:42.840 massive domestic spying program. The CIA was spying on ten 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:47.240 thousand Americans involved in the anti war movement and other 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:48.479 dissident groups. 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:52.159 Colby had been trying to get rid of Angleton for years, 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:55.760 but Angleton was a bit of a legend. He was 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:59.280 the head of counterintelligence for the CIA, and for better 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.840 or for worse, he was one of the agency's founding fathers. 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:06.319 Journalists who are hoping to be the next Woodward and 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:09.759 Bernstein were all over this story. They wanted to know why. 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:13.760 The buzz around Angleton's firing prompted the formation of a 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:17.839 special Senate committee headed up by Idaho Senator Frank Church, 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.960 and for the first time in the CIA's history, their 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:24.760 dirty laundry was about to be exposed. 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.920 The Church Committee published its final report in April of 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:33.199 nineteen seventy six. It revealed a trove of secret abuses 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:37.880 at the hands of the CIA, NSA, FBI, and the IRS. 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:42.319 Before and after the Cold War. These agencies were involved 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:48.280 in global assassination conspiracies, infiltrating news programs, and conducting mind 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:53.680 control experiments through programs like mk Ultra. The Committee's revelations 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:54.920 shocked Americans. 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.000 We'll get into all of that over the next few episodes, 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:01.400 but for now, what's important understand is that in the 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:06.200 nineteen sixties, James Jesus Angleton had control over a network 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:10.600 of spies, informants, and double agents that reached into the 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:14.720 farthest corners of the globe, and the events that would 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:18.280 be the cause of his dismissal were just getting underway. 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:24.880 This is who killed JFK. Sixty years later, What can 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:29.160 we uncover about the greatest murder mystery in American history? 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.919 And why does it still matter today? I'm your host, 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:34.000 Solidad O'Brien. 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:40.440 Welcome to the counterintelligence world of James Jesus Angleton, a 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:43.799 world he referred to as the wilderness of mirrors. 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:47.280 The term wilderness of mirrors points to the tactic of 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:52.239 deception and disinformation that both the CIA and the KGB 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:55.720 used against each other during the Cold War. 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:59.840 It's a world where it's virtually impossible to tell what 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.840 his reality and what is merely a reflection of reality, 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:08.680 and our journey into the wilderness starts with Lee Harvey Oswald. 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:14.799 So let's recap. Oswald was a disenchanted young man who 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:17.760 found himself in the psychological study run by a doctor 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:22.080 with connections to the CIA. At age seventeen, he enlisted 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:25.280 in the Marines and was shipped to Japan, where he 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:28.960 received a security clearance to work as a radar operator 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:33.560 on U two spyplanes. Upon returning to the United States, 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:36.360 he spent time at a base in California and another 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:42.080 base in Nagshead, North Carolina, which focused on special operations. Then, 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:46.280 after learning Russian, he defected to the Soviet Union. Two 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:49.400 years later, he returned to the United States with his 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:53.440 Russian wife and baby, and was welcomed back with open arms. 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:56.360 He was never questioned why. 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:01.640 Well Oswald didn't actually renown his US citizenship when he 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:04.320 was in Russia, even though he tried at the embassy, 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:07.640 So maybe they didn't take him all that seriously. Maybe 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:09.320 they saw him and thought, eh, that guy. You know, 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:13.640 he's all bark and no bite. There's this philosophical theory 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.440 I know, you know, called Ockham's razor, right, that says 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:20.680 the simplest answer is often the correct one. So if 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:25.200 you apply that here, what if he's just a communist sympathizer. 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:27.920 What if he just defected, He just came back to 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.640 the US and sort of slipped under the radar. 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:34.080 It's possible, but don't forget. We are at the height 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:37.599 of the Cold War. The fear of nuclear annihilation is 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:41.359 hanging over our heads. Now. If you are willing to 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:45.080 enter that wilderness of mirrors with me, by the time 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:48.560 we exit, I think things will become clear. But I 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:54.240 have to warn you. Before things become clear, they will 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:59.080 become confusing. And in fact, confusion is the point. So 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:03.320 why don't we try to embrace the confusion and step 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:10.159 into the wilderness of mirrors. During World War II, America 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:14.599 had an intelligence gathering agency called the OSS the Office 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:18.320 of Strategic Services. The information that they were able to 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:21.839 gather help us win the war. The OSS was officially 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:26.640 disbanded nineteen forty five, but certain factions of their work continued. 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.320 America's biggest enemy at the time was the Soviet Union, 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:34.080 and for years they had been honing their skills of 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:38.480 covert intelligence operations, so in an effort to play catchup, 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:43.279 the OSS was revamped into a full blown intelligence gathering 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:47.520 agency in nineteen forty seven. It was called the CIA. 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:51.480 In the wake of its creation, President Harry Truman drafted 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:56.000 Directive ten slash two, which was a top secret memo 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:59.520 that gave the CIA the green light to engage in 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:05.320 different forms of warfare, including propaganda, sabotage, and deadly covert 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:10.160 operations against anyone it deemed quote hostile to the United States. 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:14.839 I think of the ten slash two memo as marching 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:19.320 orders into the dark arts of spycraft. And to protect 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:24.640 the president, the CIA developed a practice called plausible deniability. 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:28.520 If the President wasn't told about a particular secret plan, 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:32.440 then he could plausibly deny having anything to do with it. 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:38.159 Plausible deniability empowered the CIA to act without presidential approval. 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:42.680 They would carry out missions with no awareness outside the agency. 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:48.080 Accountability was intentionally clouded. Solidad Could you read this from me? 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:51.520 The better you lied, and the more you betrayed, the 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.840 more likely you would be promoted. I did things that 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:58.240 in looking back on my life, I regret, but I 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:00.640 was part of it and I loved in it. 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.919 That is a quote from James Angleton. Now, if you 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:09.560 visualize a creepy secret agent from the fifties and sixties, 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:11.520 you will see Angleton. 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:14.840 I can confirm that pictures of him show a lanky 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:19.640 guy with thick glasses, hollow cheekbones, and translucent looking skin. 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:23.800 Angleton could do virtually anything he wanted under the name 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:25.120 of protecting America. 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.120 He was the Chief of Counterintelligence, so he was in 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:33.040 charge of defending the CIA. But that position required him 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:36.440 enabled him to do anything, and so there was no 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:38.680 check on his power whatsoever. 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:43.320 That's our old friend. Jefferson Morley, creator of jfkfax dot Org. 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:47.880 Morley wrote the book on Angleton called The Ghost. Why 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:49.880 do you call the book the Ghost? 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:53.480 Because he was this invisible presence in the US government 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:56.920 that nobody could see. I mean, I think President Kennedy 0:07:57.000 --> 0:07:59.800 knew who Jim Angleton was, but not many people in 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:02.160 the US government knew what Angleton did. 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:04.680 Describe him, he was very. 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:08.360 Charismatic, intellectually. He had been an English major at Yale 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:09.680 with a literary bent. 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:14.520 He was known as the Poet's spy. His friend, the 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:18.480 poet E. E. Cummings, said the following about Angleton, quote, 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:22.640 what a miracle of momentous complexity is the poet? 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:26.320 He was the spy. As intellectual, he was a very 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.680 creative thinker. People who knew him in his prime were 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:33.960 very impressed and regarded him as really something of a genius. 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:38.560 Camera intelligence has been described as organized paranoia. To catch spies, 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:41.679 you have to be very suspicious of everybody. 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:45.000 He referred to his work as the wilderness of mirrors, 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:51.120 a phrase that he borrowed from TS. Eliot. There was information, disinformation, 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:55.320 secret agents, and double agents, anything to deceive the enemy, 0:08:55.600 --> 0:09:01.000 hide the CIA's tracks, and create confusion. Confusion was his 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:06.240 weapon of choice, and that confusion came into play when 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:14.040 Oswald returned to the United States. Oswald, his Soviet wife Marina, 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:17.440 and their infant child June. They land on the docks 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:21.560 of Hoboken, New Jersey, on June thirteenth, nineteen sixty two. 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:26.440 There they're met by a man named spaz Rakin Racn 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:31.320 was a representative of the Traveler's Aid Society. Now I 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:33.720 want you to take a look at this through the 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:38.720 lens of James Angleton. Okay, spas Racan was not only 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:42.120 a representative of the Traveler's Aid Society, he was also 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:45.800 an official of the Anti Bolshevik Nations, a group with 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:50.240 deep ties to US intelligence, a fact that was totally 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:54.320 ignored by the Warrant Commission. Now understand that the Traveler's 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:59.360 Aid Society wasn't there to massage Oswald's feet after his 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:03.920 long trip. It was an anti communist organization that had 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:05.800 direct ties to the CIA. 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:09.599 Oh, so he's pretty much welcome backed by the CIA. 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:12.360 Right and again, if you look at this through Angleton's eyes, 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:16.520 Reken is the perfect person to meet Oswald in order 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:20.160 to make sure that his re entry into America goes smoothly. 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:24.240 Rakean was somebody they could trust and couldn't be tied 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:27.960 directly back to them. So Recn helps the Oswalds get 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:31.440 through customs and immigration, then sends them on their way 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:36.120 to Fort Worth, Texas. In Fort Worth, Oswald meets a 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:41.040 man named George de Moorenshield. Now I'm guessing that name 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:43.000 doesn't ring any bells. 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:45.960 This is the first time you're hearing the name George 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:49.840 de Moornshield. He's key when we consider the movements of 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:53.400 Lee Harvey Oswald on his return to the United States. 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:56.560 George de Moornscheld was a Russian speaker who worked for 0:10:56.600 --> 0:11:00.000 oil companies looking for petroleum all over the world. 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:02.160 That's Jefferson Morley again. 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.800 And so in nineteen sixty two he was living in 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:10.600 Dallas and he heard of this man who had returned 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:14.400 from the Soviet Union, Lee Harvey Oswald. So they become 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:15.960 good friends. 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:20.400 Don't you think it's odd that a wealthy, worldly, aerodype 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:24.120 and much older man would become good friends with Lee 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:25.160 Harvey Oswald. 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:30.320 De Moornshield told the journalist Edward Epstein, quote, somebody gave 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:33.480 me Lee's address, and one afternoon I drove to Fort Worth, 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:35.640 about thirty miles from Dallas. 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:40.679 De Moorinshield told Epstein that a CIA operative J. Walton 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:43.800 Moore was the person who gave him the address of 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:47.480 Lee Harvey Oswald and suggested that he meet him, that 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:49.760 he would be doing the CIA a favor. 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:54.040 De Moornshield told Epstein that J. Walton Moore asked him 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:57.559 to find out about Oswald's time in the Soviet Union. 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:03.160 And for essentially babysitting, Oswald de Moornshield was awarded a 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:07.480 mineral contract from the Haitian government for three hundred thousand dollars. 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:11.600 De Moornshield told Epstein that he assumed this was because 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:16.359 of the help De Moornshield had given to the CIA. 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:19.040 When you think of people who work for the CIA, 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:22.199 you think of people who work directly with the agency. 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:26.360 But it's not that simple. There are also people who are, 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:31.400 for lack of a better term, CIA adjacent. They're assets, 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:35.839 and these assets will do favors for the CIA, and 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:38.280 sometimes they expect favors in return. 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:41.520 So that would describe George de Moornshield, Yeah, right. 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:45.480 And as part of his babysitting duties, De Moorinshield introduces 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:47.640 the Oswalts to a friend of his. This is a 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:53.199 woman named Ruth Paine, who was supposedly interested in learning Russian. 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:59.800 Hmm, that's convenient. Dick Russell interviewed Ruth Payne in nineteen seventy. 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:04.600 The way that you first met the Oswalts was at 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:05.520 that party. 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:07.200 It was at private party. 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.160 What was it about the Oswalts that you liked? 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:14.880 I was especially interested in Marina who's native in Russian, 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:18.720 and I didn't really talk to her much that evening, 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:21.600 but I did get the ads and visit it then 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:23.240 at their apartment in. 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:27.800 Nowas it's important to know who Ruth pain is. Her 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:31.200 sister was a CIA operative, although that was hidden and 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:35.080 then denied for decades. Her father was employed by the 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:37.880 United States Agency for International Development. 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:42.160 For decades, there's been suspicion that the US Agency for 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:47.000 International Development was a Cold War policy tool created in 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:51.640 nineteen sixty one to implement CIA operations around the world. 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:56.400 Ruth Payne's husband and other family members had intelligence connections 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:59.880 as well. In nineteen sixty seven, when the District Attorney 0:13:59.920 --> 0:14:02.959 for New Orleans, Jim Garrison, tried a case that questioned 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:05.960 the Warren Commission's findings, he tried to get the Pains 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:10.480 tax returns and he was told they were classified. Another 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:15.920 little tidbit, Ruth's best friend, Mary Bancroft, was Alan Dulles's mistress. 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:20.160 Because of her friendship with the Oswalts, Ruth Payne was 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:23.800 a key witness for the Warren Commission. In her testimony, 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:28.160 she was asked by Alan Dulles what she suspected Oswald's 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:31.200 motive might have been. She said that she always felt 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:35.520 that Oswald saw himself as a small person and that 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:39.360 he wanted to be greater and to be noticed. George 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:43.440 de Moornshield also testified to the Warren Commission and left 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:46.600 out many of the key details that he would share 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:50.280 later on in his life, details that may have caused 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:54.240 severe damage to the lone Gunman case that the Warren 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:55.960 Commission was trying to build. 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:59.720 And during the time of his testimony and I w 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:04.360 miss saw De Moorenshield having private lunches with Alan Dulles. 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:07.800 It's like Alan Dulles is everywhere. 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:11.840 Yes, he was controlling the flow of information in and 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:14.280 out of the Warren Commission. So it should come as 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:17.840 no surprise that the Warren Report went out of its 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:21.360 way to conclude that the Moornshield had no connection to 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:25.120 the CIA. But three years later, in nineteen sixty seven, 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:29.560 New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison interviewed De Moornshield and 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:32.760 discovered that not only was he connected to the CIA, 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:37.040 he was hired by them to look after Oswald, and 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:40.840 after talking with Garrison, De Moornshield started to change his 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:41.880 public stance. 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:45.440 What's interesting about de Moornschield is that he testified to 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:51.400 the Warren Commission and really was influential in depicting Oswald 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:54.440 as a man who could have killed President Kennedy. De 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:58.160 Morenschild came to regret that later in life, and he 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:02.000 believed that he was mistaken and that Oswald did not. 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:05.360 Kill the President. Demornschild wrote about that in his book, 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:08.640 which was titled Lee Harvey Oswald As I Knew Him. 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:11.240 It's one of the first books written by someone who 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:13.720 had a personal relationship with Oswald. 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:18.000 After the book was published, De Mornshield started talking to 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:18.600 the press. 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:22.640 I interviewed George de Mornshield twice in nineteen seventy six, 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:25.120 and I remember he said, of course, we know it 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:28.160 was a vast conspiracy, and his wife tried to shut 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:30.360 him up, and then he stood up started walking around 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:32.960 the room, saying, it's defiling a corpse. It's defiling a corpse. 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:35.280 Oswald had nothing to do with it. It was remarkable 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.360 to see him like this. He was really upset. He 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:41.920 was revealing something huge, and I wasn't the only person. 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:42.720 He said that too. 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:47.360 He was talking to Edward Epstein, a journalist who had 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:49.200 written about the Kennedy assassination. 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:50.640 That's Jefferson Morley. 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:54.120 Again, de morn Schild said that he was quite certain 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:57.520 Oswald did not kill the president and that he was 0:16:57.680 --> 0:16:59.520 indeed what he said, he was a patsy. 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:03.920 He also said, quote, I would never have contacted Oswald 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:06.960 in a million years if Moore had not sanctioned it. 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:10.119 That's j Walton Moore, his CIA contact. 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:13.360 Right. He said he wouldn't have reached out to befriend 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:18.000 Oswald unless he was instructed to. Epstein's interview with demorn 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:22.480 Shield happened fourteen years after Kennedy's assassination, and it was 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:25.160 the final interview that demorn Shield would ever give. 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:41.640 So let's set the stage because with all of these 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:43.560 moving parts, it gets very confusing. 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:48.120 Okay. So the first few months of nineteen sixty three 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:50.359 are very tough for Oswald. 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:53.640 So he returns from the Soviet Union, he gets job, 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:57.200 he loses a job, having trouble with his wife, and 0:17:57.640 --> 0:18:01.119 in April nineteen sixty three, he leaves Dallas and he 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:03.720 decides to go to New Orleans, where he had grown up. 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:06.919 In New Orleans, he gets a job at a place 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:09.320 called the Riley Coffee Company. 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:12.640 Which is owned by William Riley, a supporter of CIA 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:16.679 efforts against Castro. Documents show us that Riley had a 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:19.000 relationship with the CIA for years. 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:22.800 So we're seeing the same pattern, the same kind of 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:26.080 thing we saw with Demor and Shield. In Dallas. Oswald 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:30.520 is secretly introduced to another CIA connected guy whose Riley 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:36.360 Coffee company is located right next to the local FBI, CIA, Naval, Intelligence, 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:39.879 and Secret Service offices. And it's here in New Orleans 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:42.800 where Oswald is about to get sheep dipped. 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:44.880 Sheep DiPT What does that mean? 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:48.960 Sheep DiPT is a term of art in the intelligence 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:54.080 world that means coding someone to give them CIA operative status. 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:58.479 It's a tactic of deception. It gives the appearance that 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:02.080 a person is some one other than who he really is. 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:04.760 So how would that even work? 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:08.800 By using assets of the agency to build a narrative 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:13.240 around that person, you're carefully led into a new identity 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:17.200 and it's all documented. You yourself, may not know where 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:20.800 this new identity will lead, but when it's finished, you'll 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:24.720 have the bona fides of someone to appear completely legitimate. 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:28.320 And the plan for Oswald in New Orleans was to 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.639 sheep dip him in order to make him look like 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:33.720 he was a pro Castro communist. 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:37.719 Couldn't he just be a pro Castro communist. 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:41.719 If you think that the poet spy has succeeded. 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:46.680 The poet spy. If you'll remember, is James Jesus Angleton, 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:51.720 head of CIA Counterintelligence, and the Wilderness of Mirrors were in. 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:54.520 It's the world he created. 0:19:55.200 --> 0:20:00.119 We know. Angleton's tactics employ CIA adjacent people, asset s 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:02.600 that have enough distance from the agency that they can 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:06.200 deny knowing them. Then send these people to look after 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:09.280 someone the agency is interested in, pick them up at 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:12.640 the airport, help them get a job, to manipulate this 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:17.440 person they're interested in without being traced back to what end. 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:22.000 Angleton was obsessed with Cuba. He wanted to take down Castro, 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:25.160 and this was not in line with the president's agenda. 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:30.080 After the Cuban missile crisis, if you remember, Kennedy realized 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:33.480 taking a hard line against Cuba could lead to an 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:37.840 all out nuclear war, so he started back channel communications 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:41.359 with Khrushchev and Castro to find a packed peace. 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:45.879 But Angleton didn't see that as an obstacle. He said, 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:49.320 and I am quoting here, it is inconceivable that a 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:52.760 secret intelligence arm of the government has to comply with 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:55.920 all the overt orders of the government. He thought it 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:59.800 completely fair game that the CIA, the secret intelligence armor 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:02.760 of them the United States, could have their own set 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:04.240 of rules and directives. 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:09.159 So, while Kennedy was trying to forge a path to peace, 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:13.720 the CIA was conducting major anti Castro operations out of 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:17.840 New Orleans and Miami. They sent boats to harassed Cuban ships. 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:21.600 They ran guns to exile groups. They even had training 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:24.680 camps where they were helping the exiles prepare to mount 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:29.400 another invasion. Bill Harvey, the CIA agent who had been 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:33.119 demoted and sent to Rome after the Cuban missile crisis, 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:34.800 played a big part in all of this. 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:40.560 Bill Harvey created and led something called ZR Rifle. This 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:44.640 was a CIA program designed to assassinate foreign leaders. 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:48.240 It wouldn't be until the nineteen eighties that we learned 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:51.760 how the CIA had a hand in overthrowing governments in 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:57.720 the nineteen fifties and sixties, including Iran, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:01.639 the Congo. This often inclined gluted the assassination of the 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:05.360 leader in charge. This is some of the dirty laundry 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:06.360 we mentioned earlier. 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:10.280 The CIA wanted to use that same force in an 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:14.520 attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro, and Bill Harvey was at 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:17.680 the head of it. To understand Harvey's stance toward Cuba, 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:20.560 read a segment of this seventeen page memo that he 0:22:20.640 --> 0:22:23.600 sent to Dick Helms, who was running covert operations for 0:22:23.640 --> 0:22:24.919 the CIA at the time. 0:22:25.320 --> 0:22:28.760 It goes quote the assurance of no invasion and no 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:33.440 support of invasion will in effect constitute giving Castro and 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:36.680 his regime a certain degree of sanctuary. 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:38.600 His belief was that every day that passed that we 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:42.520 didn't try to invade Cuba would make Castro grow stronger. Essentially, 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:45.480 he's saying, if you're not trying to kill him, you're 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:49.920 emboldening him. And in many people's minds, the one emboldening 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:52.280 him the most was President Kennedy. 0:22:53.520 --> 0:22:57.560 A declassified document reveals that Bill Harvey sent his memo 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:01.879 to the head of the CIA in November nineteen sixty two. 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:06.040 Six months later, in May of nineteen sixty three, Angleton 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:08.800 published a twenty seven page paper of his own on 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:09.879 the topic of Cuba. 0:23:10.400 --> 0:23:13.280 This was just about seven months before the assassination of 0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:17.880 President Kennedy and within weeks of Oswald's decision to move 0:23:17.920 --> 0:23:18.720 to New Orleans. 0:23:19.080 --> 0:23:24.320 Engleton's paper was called Cuban Control and Action Capabilities. And 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:28.200 it's important to understand who received this paper. The Pentagon, 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:33.800 the CIA, the NSSA, the intelligence chiefs of the State Department, Army, Navy, 0:23:33.800 --> 0:23:36.480 and Air Force, and the Justice Department. 0:23:36.960 --> 0:23:39.120 And guess who didn't receive this paper. 0:23:39.640 --> 0:23:41.200 The President Bingo. 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:45.159 Angleton didn't send it to the White House, to his 0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:49.119 National Security Council, or to the president's brother, Attorney General 0:23:49.200 --> 0:23:53.440 Robert Kennedy. And there's one thing that becomes particularly interesting 0:23:53.600 --> 0:23:54.280 in hindsight. 0:23:55.560 --> 0:23:57.960 The fair Play for Cuba Committee, The fair Play for 0:23:58.040 --> 0:23:58.840 Cuba Committee is. 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:00.840 The fair Play for Cuban Committee. 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:04.560 If you're taking notes, put a big red circle around 0:24:04.560 --> 0:24:06.600 the fair Play for Cuba Committee. 0:24:06.640 --> 0:24:09.399 The fair Play for Cuba Committee was a real organization. 0:24:09.600 --> 0:24:12.800 They had chapters around the country with hundreds of members. 0:24:13.320 --> 0:24:17.959 Their goal was to provide grassroots support for Cuba in America. 0:24:18.160 --> 0:24:21.200 In Angleton's eyes, members of the fair Play for Cuba 0:24:21.200 --> 0:24:25.199 Committee were pro castro agents in the United States. This 0:24:25.359 --> 0:24:29.640 is exactly what Angleton spent his career trying to protect 0:24:29.640 --> 0:24:33.000 America against and so in order to better understand the 0:24:33.119 --> 0:24:39.520 organization and hopefully stop them, he needed information, and Oswald. 0:24:39.119 --> 0:24:41.600 Was about to be sent right into the thick of it. 0:24:49.640 --> 0:24:52.800 Oswald arrived in New Orleans at almost the exact time 0:24:52.920 --> 0:24:56.520 that Angleton sent out his Cuban paper. And one of 0:24:56.560 --> 0:25:00.439 the first things that Oswald does is form a local 0:25:00.560 --> 0:25:03.520 chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. And guess 0:25:03.560 --> 0:25:06.800 how many members there were in this chapter one hundred 0:25:07.080 --> 0:25:11.960 You're close one just one, just Oswald, nobody else. 0:25:12.720 --> 0:25:15.639