Dead Wrong: Straight Facts on the Country's Most Controversial Cover-Ups (29 page)

• I co-piloted a flight that infiltrated a Military Intelligence team into Dallas on the morning of November 22, 1963, in an attempt to abort the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This mission was at the direction of the Pentagon with CIA logistical support. John Roselli was a passenger on that flight. Intelligence for our mission, after some confusion, had identified Dealey Plaza as the sight for the operation of an assassination attempt. The detailed “inside” information as to how this operation came about, I would not know. I could only speculate as to how this information, which led to the formation of the abort team, was obtained or deciphered.

Upon reaching Dealey Plaza, the Intell Team split in three directions, looking for three or more shooters or teams that could form a triangulated crossfire. I was asked to act as a spotter, reconnoitering the south knoll in this operation with my friend and operational partner, “Sergio”. We were also looking for a diversionary act, something that would give shooters an opportunity to secretly set up. Therefore, while people were congregating around Elm Street and the Book Depository and we heard sirens coming closer, instead of looking toward the commotion, we looked away from it, scanning the perimeter and looking for a shooter or shooters attempting to set up triangulation shooting in a kill zone that we had identified. We arrived at the plaza too late to abort the assassination; there was not enough time, our people were not in position and our communications between scattered team members were very poor. Shortly after the limo turned from Houston Street and came into our view, Sergio and I both heard at least four shots, very distinctly from our vantage point on the south knoll. Two of those shots were very close together, basically on top of each other—and my partner and I were both aware that it was not the result of an echo-effect, but two clear and distinct rifle reports that were very close together. One of the shots was also from a different direction than the others; one came from the southwest, meaning from the front of the limousine, not the rear. We both knew that with certainty. When my partner and I debriefed each other later that day, we were both sure on that one different-sounding shot. That fact was hard for us to miss because the other shots came from the north and east of us and that one shot from the southwest of us had a totally different sound and came whizzing right over our heads. We were both experienced veterans of gunfire, and very familiar with its sound, and we were both certain that one gunshot came from a westerly direction.

We knew we had to ex filtrate the scene immediately because we both had extensive secret Intelligence associations and liaison, which would provide no legitimate reason to logically explain our being there as the President was fired upon. As we cleared the area, Sergio and I both caught the distinct smell and “taste” of gunpowder at a location high on the south knoll of Dealey Plaza, near the south structure of the overpass.

We flew out of Dallas a couple hours after the assassination, from Redbird Airport. We flew VFR (Visual Flight Rules) coming into and out of Redbird, because we did not have to file a flight plan which would establish a record and flight log. John Roselli was not a passenger on the flight that left Dallas after the assassination. Everyone on board the flight out of Dallas was very quiet and dejected. It was a very somber experience; heads were low, with nothing said.

I do not know the names of most of the men who were on that mission because those type of operations are intentionally structured in a manner that minimizes individual knowledge. In “Black Operations” one does not ask questions of others— that is an unwritten rule. The official post-mission debriefing took place at West Palm Beach, Florida on November 25th, my birthday. That debriefing was conducted by Rex Beardsley, Bob Bennette and Tracy Barnes.

I hereby declare that the above statements stem from my personal knowledge and direct experience and are true and correct to the best of my knowledge.

Signed and dated this 27th day of July, 2010
William Robert “Tosh” Plumlee
(NOTARIZED)

It should be noted that Tosh Plumlee’s long career in covert operations has spanned many decades. At this writing, he is involved in intelligence operations against the deadly drug cartels in Mexico, working with a joint American/Mexican Military Task Force as a “contract advisor”; he is currently at work on his memoir entitled
Deep Cover, Shallow Graves.

The testimony of former high-ranking CIA officer Victor Marchetti completely corroborates Plumlee’s testimony regarding Oswald’s intelligence training at Nag’s Head, North Carolina and the ONI False Defector Program in which Oswald participated:

STATEMENTS OF FORMER CIA OFFICER VICTOR L. MARCHETTI

(Marchetti was Executive Assistant to Deputy Director, CIA; resigned, 1969)

“One of these activities was an ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence) program which involved three dozen, maybe forty, young men who were made to appear disenchanted, poor, American youths who had become turned off and wanted to see what communism was all about. Some of these people lasted only a few weeks. They were sent into the Soviet Union, or into eastern Europe, with the specific intention the Soviets would pick them up and ‘double’ them if they suspected them of being US agents, or recruit them as KGB agents. They were trained at various naval installations both here and abroad, but the operation was being run out of Nag’s Head, North Carolina.”
²⁵¹

“Interviewed from his Northern Virginia home, Marchetti confirmed the existence of the ONI base to me privately, saying the plan was to send young men to the Soviet Union as defectors, but who in actuality were hoping to be picked up as agents by the KGB. This process is known as “doubling,” as the young men would then in effect be double agents for both American and Soviet Intelligence. Once placing an agent in the KGB, American Intelligence could then begin funneling in disinformation. According to Marchetti, this was the plan for Oswald.”
²⁵²

Oswald’s operational activities certainly coincided precisely with the operational activities of the ONI False Defector Program described by Marchetti.

(The following is from Marchetti’s testimony regarding Oswald’s mysterious phone call from the Dallas jail to an otherwise unknown person:)

“The FBI, while publicly embracing the Warren Commission’s ‘one man acting alone’ conclusion, has always privately known that there were three gunmen.”
²⁵⁴

Multiple use of Oswald cover names

A great deal of evidence also suggests that there were actually
two
Intelligence operatives using the name Oswald as a component of their operation in the False Defector Program. The evidence is extensive, from several authors: John Armstrong has researched that particular point for decades, and his book
Harvey & Lee
examines that issue in precise detail. It is also well summarized in the 2010 book
American Conspiracies
by Jesse Ventura and Dick Russell:

“My hunch is that they were both part of a false defector program that James Angleton and his friends in counterintelligence were running out of the CIA. While Harvey was over in Russia, Lee was working with anti-Castro Cubans in Florida planning to bump off Castro (he was seen by a number of people down there at the same time). Harvey, the wimpy-chinned one in the photographs, was married to Marina. Lee, the thick-necked one, was used to set up Harvey. I believe it’s Harvey laying in the grave, and whatever happened to Lee, I have no idea.”
²⁵⁵

BOMBSHELL DROPPED FROM HIGH LOCATION

David Atlee Phillips, Director, WHO (Western Hemisphere Operations), CIA

Dave Phillips was a twenty-five-year CIA officer and one of very few in history to be awarded the Career Intelligence Medal. He rose from full-time operative, to CIA Chief of Station, and then all the way to Chief of All Operations, Western Hemisphere. During that time he handled “the night watch” at CIA and was privy to a great degree of inside knowledge.

Phillips made this astounding admission late in his life:

“My final take on the assassination is there was a conspiracy, likely including American intelligence officers.”
²⁵⁶

Phillips also used a literary vehicle with which to give us an amazing clue to the actual context of the assassination. In addition to being a brilliant strategist, Phillips was also a gifted writer. In an unpublished manuscript that he’d made sure would be discovered, he apparently utilized that to tell us what really happened in the JFK assassination. Intelligence veterans have often used manuscripts, that are technically not works of non-fiction, as vehicles for making statements in a manner that skirts the security obligations of their lifetime secrecy agreements.

The unpublished manuscript was entitled The AMLASH Legacy. AMLASH was the CIA program to assassinate Fidel Castro, with which Phillips was closely familiar. He details characters who closely mirror himself, Oswald and others at CIA.

Then, in a climactic explanation of what actually happened, the character explicitly based on Phillips himself reveals: