JFK Assassination Forum

GD--

Even Max Holland admitted that Shaw lied in court, regarding his role as a CIA asset.

I doubt Shaw was knowingly involved in the JFKA.

Was Shaw monitoring LHO in 1963, on behalf of Solie or someone else in the CIA? That seems like a legit question.

The Storm Drain 

A massive CIA disclosure -- the fatal head shot came from the storm drain.

DESOLATION ROW -- Bob Dylan

They’re selling postcards of the hanging

They’re painting the passports brown

The beauty parlor is filled with sailors

The circus is in town

Here comes the blind commissioner

They’ve got him in a trance

One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker

The other is in his pants

And the riot squad they’re restless

They need somewhere to go

As Lady and I look out tonight

From Desolation Row



Cinderella, she seems so easy

“It takes one to know one,” she smiles

And puts her hands in her back pockets

Bette Davis style

And in comes Romeo, he’s moaning

“You Belong to Me I Believe”

And someone says, “You’re in the wrong place my friend

You better leave”

And the only sound that’s left

After the ambulances go

Is Cinderella sweeping up

On Desolation Row



Now the moon is almost hidden

The stars are beginning to hide

The fortune-telling lady

Has even taken all her things inside

All except for Cain and Abel

And the hunchback of Notre Dame

Everybody is making love

Or else expecting rain

And the Good Samaritan, he’s dressing

He’s getting ready for the show

He’s going to the carnival tonight

On Desolation Row



Now Ophelia, she’s ’neath the window

For her I feel so afraid

On her twenty-second birthday

She already is an old maid

To her, death is quite romantic

She wears an iron vest

Her profession’s her religion

Her sin is her lifelessness

And though her eyes are fixed upon

Noah’s great rainbow

She spends her time peeking

Into Desolation Row



Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood

With his memories in a trunk

Passed this way an hour ago

With his friend, a jealous monk

He looked so immaculately frightful

As he bummed a cigarette

Then he went off sniffing drainpipes

And reciting the alphabet

Now you would not think to look at him

But he was famous long ago

For playing the electric violin

On Desolation Row



Dr. Filth, he keeps his world

Inside of a leather cup

But all his sexless patients

They’re trying to blow it up

Now his nurse, some local loser

She’s in charge of the cyanide hole

And she also keeps the cards that read

“Have Mercy on His Soul”

They all play on pennywhistles

You can hear them blow

If you lean your head out far enough

From Desolation Row



Across the street they’ve nailed the curtains

They’re getting ready for the feast

The Phantom of the Opera

A perfect image of a priest

They’re spoonfeeding Casanova

To get him to feel more assured

Then they’ll kill him with self-confidence

After poisoning him with words

And the Phantom’s shouting to skinny girls

“Get Outa Here If You Don’t Know

Casanova is just being punished for going

To Desolation Row”



Now at midnight all the agents

And the superhuman crew

Come out and round up everyone

That knows more than they do

Then they bring them to the factory

Where the heart-attack machine

Is strapped across their shoulders

And then the kerosene

Is brought down from the castles

By insurance men who go

Check to see that nobody is escaping

To Desolation Row



Praise be to Nero’s Neptune

The Titanic sails at dawn

And everybody’s shouting

“Which Side Are You On?”

And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot

Fighting in the captain’s tower

While calypso singers laugh at them

And fishermen hold flowers

Between the windows of the sea

Where lovely mermaids flow

And nobody has to think too much

About Desolation Row



Yes, I received your letter yesterday

(About the time the doorknob broke)

When you asked how I was doing

Was that some kind of joke?

All these people that you mention

Yes, I know them, they’re quite lame

I had to rearrange their faces

And give them all another name

Right now I can’t read too good

Don’t send me no more letters no

Not unless you mail them

From Desolation Row

All true. I might have to amend my video.

So why was “Mexico Man” (= Pro KGB assassin) sent? 

What makes you think the burly "Mexico City Mystery Man" was 1) a pro-KGB assassin, and 2) sent?

Excellent post, Steve. Thanks for the reminder about this info. Mailer's book is really underappreciated for its level of new details.

"It's a Small World" Factoid: On 29 November 1956, evidently while on her way home from Moscow, Priscilla Johnson checked in with Army Major Alexander Sogolow in Frankfurt. Sogolow was Chief of CIA's SR/10 (Soviet Russia Division's Branch 10) which interviewed American "legal travelers" to the USSR as they were coming and going. Interestingly, Sogolow was a KGB "mole" and was the CIA's boss of another "mole," Golitsyn's SASHA / Sasha, Igor Orlov, aka Alexander "Sasha" Kopatzky, who was "uncovered" four years after he'd retired from the Agency by probable mole Bruce Leonard Solie (look him up) based on a "hot tip" from Kremlin-loyal triple agent KGB Major Igor Kochnov. Sogolow confessed and wasn't prosecuted because he allowed himself to be "played back" against the KGB.

When Golitsyn was being exfiltrated from Helsinki by the CIA on 15 December 1961, his plane was diverted to Frankfurt either intentionally so Golitsyn could be debriefed and have his bona fides assessed or due to bad weather. Golitsyn freaked out and told one of his escorts that he was afraid he'd be assassinated by SASHA / Sasha in Frankfurt, and the escort unwisely sent an unlimited-distribution cable to CIA to that effect. Orlov / Kopatzky got wind of the cable in Washington and sent a letter to CIA headquarters saying Sogolow was a "mole."

I say SASHA / Sasha because Golitsyn mistakenly believed Kopatzky's codename was SASHA when in reality it was his nickname. (The nickname for Alexandr in Slavic countries is "Sasha.")

One can only wonder what Sogolow and Priscilla spoke about . .  .

Scroll down to the last entry on page 4.

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32272679.pdf

Scroll down to page 7.

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2018/180-10145-10441.pdf