How a JFKA CT "God" came to be disowned by the JFKA CT crowd

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Online Tom Graves

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How a JFKA CT "God" came to be disowned by the JFKA CT crowd
« on: August 05, 2025, 05:01:16 AM »
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Professor John M. Newman, a former high-level Army Intelligence analyst and executive assistant to the Director of NSA, wrote a book in 1995 titled Oswald and the CIA about the Agency’s apparent interest in, and possible manipulation of, Lee Harvey Oswald before he allegedly killed President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on 22 November 1963. For this, Newman became very popular in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy Buff Community. In 2008, Newman added an epilogue to the book in which he accused the CIA’s legendary head of Counterintelligence, James Angleton, of masterminding the assassination, and for this he became a “God” in the conspiracy buffs’ eyes.

2008, ironically, was the same year that Newman’s colleague, British researcher and National Archives habitue, Malcolm Blunt, met former CIA officer Tennent H. Bagley at the Raleigh Spy Conference. Bagley had joined the CIA in 1951, been Angleton’s colleague (albeit in a different division), and had retired to Brussels where he had been Chief of Station for the final four years of his 21-year career. Although Blunt was a “Conspiracy Theorist” and Bagley a “Lone Nutter,” they became good friends. Factoid: Bagley was on the fast track to become Director of CIA before putative KGB staff officer Yuri Nosenko physically defected to the U.S. two months after the assassination of JFK.

For background, when Blunt and Bagley met in 2008, Bagley had already written scathingly about CIA officer Bruce Solie in his 2007 book, Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games, for having “cleared” Nosenko in 1968, and for having helped another pro-Nosenko CIA officer by the name of Leonard V. McCoy “lose” CIA’s Nicholas Shadrin to KGB kidnappers in Vienna in 1975.

In 2012, Blunt showed Bagley some CIA documents that he hadn’t been privy to in 1959-60. These documents led Bagley to conclude that Oswald must have been a “witting defector,” i.e., he’d knowingly been sent by the CIA to Moscow on some sort of mission. (Based on the documents he had found, on what he had learned by reading Oswald and the CIA, and what he had learned from “Pete” Bagley, in 2016 Blunt began expressing his belief that Solie may have been a KGB “mole.”)

Specifically, the documents showed that all of the incoming non-CIA cables (e.g., from Consul Richard Snyder and the Naval Attaché at the U.S. Embassy, and the Department of the Navy in Washington) on Oswald’s 30 October 1959 defection had been routed by the Records Integration Division and the Office of Mail Logistics to the Office of Security’s mole-hunting Security Research Staff rather than to where they would normally have gone — the Soviet Russia Division — and had disappeared into a “black hole” there for at least six weeks.

Bagley knew from experience that such a change in routing had to be arranged in advance with RID and OML.

As Newman pointed out in 1995 and 2008, three of the people who were involved in assessing the ramifications of Oswald’s defection were Paul Gaynor and Bruce Solie in the Office of Security, and James Angleton, Chief of Counterintelligence. In his 2022 book, Uncovering Popov’s Mole — which he dedicated to Bagley — Newman tells us that Gaynor was the chief of the Office of Security’s mole-hunting Security Research Staff and that in 1959 he was too busy working on mind-control projects ARTICHOKE and BLUEBIRD to concentrate on the Oswald defection. Therefore, Newman says, Gaynor’s deputy, Solie, did most of the work, and did it in consultation with his confidant, protégé, and mole-hunting subordinate, Angleton. (Angleton told KGB true defector Anatoliy Golitsyn and CIA officers David E. Murphy and Ray Rocca on 29 June 1964 that Solie’s office was the only one in the CIA that he was certain wasn’t penetrated by the KGB.)

Regarding why the CIA might have sent Oswald to Moscow, Newman reminds us in Uncovering Popov’s Mole that CIA’s spy, GRU Lt. Col. Pyotr Popov, told his CIA case officer in West Berlin in April of 1958 (six months before he was secretly arrested and played back against the CIA by having him give it a “secret” message as to how he’d been uncovered) that he’d recently heard a drunken GRU colonel brag that the Kremlin had all of the specifications for the top-secret U-2 spy plane. Whereas Bagley believed that recently-fired-by-CIA Edward Ellis Smith — Popov’s incompetent and honey-trapped dead drop setter-upper in Moscow — had betrayed Popov to a high-level KGB officer in Washington, D.C., movie houses in early 1957, Newman theorizes that it was actually Solie (who had access to information about Popov and the U-2 secrets in the Office of Security) who had betrayed Popov in said movie houses, and did so with logistical support from Smith and James McCord of future Watergate notoriety. Newman believes that Solie then protected himself by sending (or duping Angleton into sending) Oswald to Moscow as an ostensible “dangle” in a (unbeknownst to Angleton and Oswald) planned-to-fail hunt for the mole (Solie) in the wrong part of the CIA. This ostensible mole hunt lasted nine years, tore the Soviet Russia Division apart, protected Solie from being uncovered, and drove Angleton nuts. Although Bagley (who died in 2014) and Newman disagree as to who, exactly, betrayed Popov, they agree that “source protection” was the reason there was a 20-month gap between his betrayal and his "secret" November 1958 arrest (he was publicly arrested on 16 October 1959 — the same day Oswald arrived in Moscow.)

By admitting in Uncovering Popov's Mole that he was wrong to accuse Angleton of being the mastermind of the JFK assassination, Newman became a pariah in the eyes of the JFK Assassination Conspiracy Buff Community, even though, dyed-in-the-wool conspiracy theorist that he is, he says that some yet-to-be-named high level military officers killed JFK because he refused to nuke Moscow and Peking in 1963, and that said evil high-level military officers somehow manipulated Oswald into incriminating himself, Nikita Khruschev and Fidel Castro for the assassination.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2025, 04:25:41 PM by Tom Graves »

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How a JFKA CT "God" came to be disowned by the JFKA CT crowd
« on: August 05, 2025, 05:01:16 AM »


Offline Michael T. Griffith

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Re: How a JFKA CT "God" came to be disowned by the JFKA CT crowd
« Reply #1 on: August 05, 2025, 01:13:58 PM »
By admitting in Uncovering Popov's Mole that he was wrong to accuse Angleton of being the mastermind of the JFK assassination, Newman became a pariah in the eyes of the JFK Assassination Conspiracy Buff Community, . . .

This is erroneous. What is your basis for this fiction?

Take a look at the Education Forum and the Kennedys and King website and see how many prominent JFKA researchers there still cite and praise Newman, including James DiEugenio, John Simkin, Jeff Carter, John Washburn, John Cairns, and James Galbraith.

Can you name one WC critic who has repudiated John Newman? Just one?

Online Tom Graves

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Re: How a JFKA CT "God" came to be disowned by the JFKA CT crowd
« Reply #2 on: August 05, 2025, 01:25:39 PM »
This is erroneous. What is your basis for this fiction?

Take a look at the Education Forum and the Kennedys and King website and see how many prominent JFKA researchers there still cite and praise Newman, including James DiEugenio, John Simkin, Jeff Carter, John Washburn, John Cairns, and James Galbraith.

Can you name one WC critic who has repudiated John Newman? Just one?

Griffith,

Newman, himself, said about a year ago that he's now a pariah (or words to that effect), and "highly respected" Bobby Montenegro rather viciously attacked him and Pete Bagley a few months ago at the Ed Forum, IIRC.

Question: Do James "I Never Met a Communist I Didn't Cherish" DiEugenio, Jeff "Ditto" Carter, and John Simkin, et al. ad nauseam, at the so-called JFK Assassination Debate - Education Forum agree with Newman that Nosenko was a false defector-in-place in Geneva in June 1962, sent there by the Second Chief Directorate's Gribanov to discredit what true defector Anatoliy Golitsyn was telling Angleton (and naive Angleton was sharing with Solie) about possible KGB penetrations of the CIA, the FBI, and the intelligence services of our NATO allies, and that father-figure-requiring Angleton's confidant, mentor, and mole-hunting superior, Bruce Leonard Solie, was a KGB "mole"?
« Last Edit: August 05, 2025, 01:42:22 PM by Tom Graves »

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Re: How a JFKA CT "God" came to be disowned by the JFKA CT crowd
« Reply #2 on: August 05, 2025, 01:25:39 PM »


Offline Michael T. Griffith

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Re: How a JFKA CT "God" came to be disowned by the JFKA CT crowd
« Reply #3 on: August 05, 2025, 02:08:25 PM »
Griffith,

Newman, himself, said about a year ago that he's now a pariah (or words to that effect),

Aaah, "or words to that effect." Uh-huh. How about you quote what he actually said, hey?

and "highly respected" Bobby Montenegro rather viciously attacked him and Pete Bagley a few months ago at the Ed Forum, IIRC.

Montenegro and Bagley are at the extreme left end of the research community. They're even more radical than DiEugenio and Carter.

Question: Do James "I Never Met a Communist I Didn't Cherish" DiEugenio, Jeff "Ditto" Carter, and John Simkin, et al. ad nauseam, at the so-called JFK Assassination Debate - Education Forum agree with Newman that Nosenko was a false defector-in-place in Geneva in June 1962, sent there by the Second Chief Directorate's Gribanov to discredit what true defector Anatoliy Golitsyn was telling Angleton (and naive Angleton was sharing with Solie) about possible KGB penetrations of the CIA, the FBI, and the intelligence services of our NATO allies, and that father-figure-requiring Angleton's confidant, mentor, and mole-hunting superior, Bruce Leonard Solie, was a KGB "mole"?

You don't like to admit when you're wrong, do you? What does this have to do with the fact that DiEugenio, Carter, and Simkin still ardently defend, cite, and praise Newman? You can confirm this fact by a brief visit to the Education Forum. Just in the last few months, I have personally tangled with DiEugenio over Newman's fringe claim that JFK was determined to unilaterally withdraw from Vietnam after the '65 election. See, for example:

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/31526-lets-stick-to-credible-well-supported-claims-about-the-jfk-assassination-conspiracy/?do=findComment&comment=573484

Now, the fact of the matter is that you were simply and demonstrably wrong: Most WC critics have not repudiated Newman. Newman is as popular as ever among most liberal WC critics.






Online Tom Graves

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Re: How a JFKA CT "God" came to be disowned by the JFKA CT crowd
« Reply #4 on: August 05, 2025, 02:24:10 PM »
Montenegro and Bagley are at the extreme left end of the research community.


How is Tennent H. Bagley, who died in 2014, "at the extreme left end of the research community"?

Did you mean to say Newman, instead?

You don't like to admit when you've made a mistake, do you?
« Last Edit: August 05, 2025, 04:08:28 PM by Tom Graves »

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Re: How a JFKA CT "God" came to be disowned by the JFKA CT crowd
« Reply #4 on: August 05, 2025, 02:24:10 PM »


Online Tom Graves

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Re: How a JFKA CT "God" came to be disowned by the JFKA CT crowd
« Reply #5 on: August 05, 2025, 03:40:36 PM »
[...]

Griffith,

How many JFKA conspiracy theorists agree with Newman that James Angleton wasn't the mastermind, that a KGB mole in the CIA's mole-hunting Office of Security sent Oswald to Moscow as an ostensible "dangle in a planned-to-fail mole hunt, that Anatoliy Golitsyn was a true defector, and that Yuri "The KGB Had Nothing To Do With Oswald In The USSR" Nosenko was a false defector?
« Last Edit: August 05, 2025, 10:45:08 PM by Tom Graves »

Online Tom Graves

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Re: How a JFKA CT "God" came to be disowned by the JFKA CT crowd
« Reply #6 on: August 06, 2025, 06:14:55 AM »
Take a look at the Kennedys and King website and see how many prominent JFKA researchers still cite and praise Newman,

The following is an excerpt from a long article that Paul Bleau wrote about Newman's book, Uncovering Popov's Mole, at DiEugenio's "Kennedys and King website:

In the introduction, Newman passes on his valuable knowledge on the importance of human intelligence penetration in espionage and the potential damage caused by even a staff level leaker if he has access to strategic information. The reader is also introduced to Pete Bagley, a veteran in the analysis of double-agents and a key source for Newman who he met through Malcolm Blunt. Bagley revealed how a mole hunt in 1956 helped uncover Edward Ellis Smith who became a deep cover KGB operative after being compromised in a sex trap. The key to uncovering Ellis: travel records. If one can believe it, Solie's travel records, obtained in 2010 trough Ancestry.com, became a key piece of evidence for Newman.

Problem is, that's not what Bagley wrote in his 2007 book, Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games, nor is it what Newman wrote in his 2020 book, Uncovering Popov's Mole (which he dedicated to Bagley, btw).

In a nutshell (pardon the pun), Mr. Bleau has conflated the mole Edward Ellis Smith with the mole Bruce Leonard Solie.

Neither was uncovered by a "mole hunt."

Smith was the "One-Man CIA Station" at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow who had been sent there in 1953 to serve as dead drop setter-upper for CIA's spy, GRU Colonel Pyotr Popov upon Popov's anticipated return from Vienna in 1955, and who was . . . wouldn't you know . . .  honey-trapped by his beautiful KGB maid!

After he was honey-trapped, he met with the KGB twice at the KGB's "suggestion."

About a week later, he belatedly reported his being honey-trapped to the U.S. Ambassador -- who didn't know he was CIA -- but lied to him when he said he'd met with the KGB only once and that he had "turned them down."

Within a couple of days, Smith was escorted by the Office of Security's James McCord (of future Watergate notoriety) back to CIA headquarters where he was interrogated and fired.

Bagley wrote in Spy Wars, that he thought Smith had met with a high-level KGB officer by the name of Vladislav Kovshuk who had come to Washington to reestablish contact with him, and that Smith betrayed Popov to Kovshuk in Washington, D.C., movie houses in early 1957.

Newman, on the other hand, says in Uncovering Popov's Mole that it was Solie who betrayed Popov in those movie houses, and that Smith and McCord (who secretly arranged for Smith to be retained by the CIA and given a gig at the Hoover Institution) provided Solie with logistical support.

The "travel records" that Newman found at geneaology.com around 2001 were not Edward Ellis Smith's travel records, but Bruce Solie's travel records which showed that he had flown to Beirut, Lebanon (where Kim Philby had moved into his father's secluded house six months earlier) in February 1957, and that in mid-1962, he visited Paris twice within 30 days (for very short stays) -- which visits tie in with Newman's theory that Solie communicated with a high-level KGB officer by the name of Mikhail Tsymbal in Paris to tell him what naive Angleton had shared with him about what Anatoliy Golitsyn was telling him, and also to tell him about Bagley's and (probable mole) George Kisevalter's interviews of Nosenko in the Geneva safe house, which safe house Solie unexpectedly visited on 15 June 1962 -- between his two stops in Paris -- to "ask Nosenko about some names that Golitsyn had mentioned." (Bagley says in Spy Wars that Nosenko "drew a blank."

Bottom line: Why should anyone care what the likes of "great researchers" like DiEugenio, Bleau, and [fill in the blank] say about what Newman says about Solie, Bagley and Nosenko, et al, in Uncovering Popov's Mole when the story is evidently too complicated for them to understand?

LOL!



 
« Last Edit: August 06, 2025, 09:56:32 AM by Tom Graves »

Offline Michael T. Griffith

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Re: How a JFKA CT "God" came to be disowned by the JFKA CT crowd
« Reply #7 on: August 06, 2025, 06:32:54 PM »
The following is an excerpt from a long article that Paul Bleau wrote about Newman's book, Uncovering Popov's Mole, at DiEugenio's "Kennedys and King website:

In the introduction, Newman passes on his valuable knowledge on the importance of human intelligence penetration in espionage and the potential damage caused by even a staff level leaker if he has access to strategic information. The reader is also introduced to Pete Bagley, a veteran in the analysis of double-agents and a key source for Newman who he met through Malcolm Blunt. Bagley revealed how a mole hunt in 1956 helped uncover Edward Ellis Smith who became a deep cover KGB operative after being compromised in a sex trap. The key to uncovering Ellis: travel records. If one can believe it, Solie's travel records, obtained in 2010 trough Ancestry.com, became a key piece of evidence for Newman.

Problem is, that's not what Bagley wrote in his 2007 book, Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games, nor is it what Newman wrote in his 2020 book, Uncovering Popov's Mole (which he dedicated to Bagley, btw).

In a nutshell (pardon the pun), Mr. Bleau has conflated the mole Edward Ellis Smith with the mole Bruce Leonard Solie.

Neither was uncovered by a "mole hunt."

Smith was the "One-Man CIA Station" at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow who had been sent there in 1953 to serve as dead drop setter-upper for CIA's spy, GRU Colonel Pyotr Popov upon Popov's anticipated return from Vienna in 1955, and who was . . . wouldn't you know . . .  honey-trapped by his beautiful KGB maid!

After he was honey-trapped, he met with the KGB twice at the KGB's "suggestion."

About a week later, he belatedly reported his being honey-trapped to the U.S. Ambassador -- who didn't know he was CIA -- but lied to him when he said he'd met with the KGB only once and that he had "turned them down."

Within a couple of days, Smith was escorted by the Office of Security's James McCord (of future Watergate notoriety) back to CIA headquarters where he was interrogated and fired.

Bagley wrote in Spy Wars, that he thought Smith had met with a high-level KGB officer by the name of Vladislav Kovshuk who had come to Washington to reestablish contact with him, and that Smith betrayed Popov to Kovshuk in Washington, D.C., movie houses in early 1957.

Newman, on the other hand, says in Uncovering Popov's Mole that it was Solie who betrayed Popov in those movie houses, and that Smith and McCord (who secretly arranged for Smith to be retained by the CIA and given a gig at the Hoover Institution) provided Solie with logistical support.

The "travel records" that Newman found at geneaology.com around 2001 were not Edward Ellis Smith's travel records, but Bruce Solie's travel records which showed that he had flown to Beirut, Lebanon (where Kim Philby had moved into his father's secluded house six months earlier) in February 1957, and that in mid-1962, he visited Paris twice within 30 days (for very short stays) -- which visits tie in with Newman's theory that Solie communicated with a high-level KGB officer by the name of Mikhail Tsymbal in Paris to tell him what naive Angleton had shared with him about what Anatoliy Golitsyn was telling him, and also to tell him about Bagley's and (probable mole) George Kisevalter's interviews of Nosenko in the Geneva safe house, which safe house Solie unexpectedly visited on 15 June 1962 -- between his two stops in Paris -- to "ask Nosenko about some names that Golitsyn had mentioned." (Bagley says in Spy Wars that Nosenko "drew a blank."

Bottom line: Why should anyone care what the likes of "great researchers" like DiEugenio, Bleau, and [fill in the blank] say about what Newman says about Solie, Bagley and Nosenko, et al, in Uncovering Popov's Mole when the story is evidently too complicated for them to understand? LOL!

You are avoiding the fact that you were clearly wrong when you said Newman has become a pariah among JFK assassination conspiracy theorists. He has not. Most WC critics still think highly of him and cite and recommend his research.

I think most of his research is accurate and important, but I think his research on the Vietnam War and JFK's Vietnam policy is badly flawed, if not fringe.



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Re: How a JFKA CT "God" came to be disowned by the JFKA CT crowd
« Reply #7 on: August 06, 2025, 06:32:54 PM »