JFK Assassination Forum

It sounds like, as a result of your work, you could easily compile a list of 6 or more CIA officers.

No way. I might be able to guess the names of one or two CIA officers from among the guys I worked with, but not six. (Obviously, this does not include the one or two guys who I later learned were CIA.)   

If you doubt me, talk to anyone who has worked in joint assignments in the intel field and who had at least a TS clearance. They will tell you it is astonishing that Nagell knew the names of six CIA personnel, not to mention that he wrote them down.

Nagell's notebook contained names of six persons who would much later be identified as CIA personnel. (The names were submitted by the FBI to the CIA in October '63 and were eventually verified by the CIA as being names of actual employees.)

And while it might seem odd to you to have written down their names in a notebook, if you were someone like Nagell who suffered from mental problems, you can see how Nagell might have written their names down in a notebook in case he ever wanted to make contact with the CIA.

Nagell had an excellent memory, as we'll see in a moment. There is a big difference between having neurological issues due to brain trauma (plane crash) and being insane. There is a big difference between excessively suspicious and being crazy. Nagell was quite lucid and intelligent. Nagell also had a drinking problem off and on. So did William Harvey. So did many other intel personnel.

The psychiatric exam reprinted in the CIA OS file notes that Nagell was "of superior intelligence and shows a remarkable memory for dates and names" ("Psychiatrist's Report on Richard Case Nagell," October 29, 1968, p. 3). Nagell admitted that he was prone to be "highly suspicious" of others, which he himself also described as "chronically paranoid," and that he tended to "impute intentions where none may exist." Trust me: Lots of counter-intel guys fit this description to a tee, but they are most certainly not insane. The psych exam concluded that Nagell showed "no overt evidence of psychosis" (p. 4), and that "he is not psychotic and seems competent in a legal and psychiatric sense" (p. 5).

The CIA said that Nagell might of known of Parker, Churchill and Guthrie through their work in the far east.

Oh, come on, Fred! Occam's Razor! No ordinary Army CI guy working in the Far East would have known the names of three CIA officers. He might, might, might have known the name of one officer, if that officer was his POC or operational handler at the time, and that's assuming the CIA officer was using his real name.

Nagell lived in LA as did Leibacker and Davanon - he might have had some contact with the Domestic Contact Office.

Again, come on! More reaching and straining and avoidance of Occam's Razor. Fred, you have no idea what you are talking about. You don't understand how stove-piped and carefully guarded CIA operations were at the time (and largely still are). Contact between Army intel offices and CIA offices was strictly regimented by "need to know" protocols.

The problem is that you are determined, no matter what, to dismiss Nagell as an unimportant nut who had no high-level intel connections.

The CIA OS file documents that Nagell was an Army counter-intel officer. He attended and graduated from the Army Intelligence School at Fort Holabird, Maryland. That school later moved to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, and I myself attended that school and had friends who were instructors there. When you graduate from that school, you become part of the Army's intelligence corps (aka command). The CIA OS file also confirms that Nagell worked in counter-intelligence assignments in Korea and Japan. Military counter-intel guys sometimes work with CIA guys, but only if they are working as part of a CIA-controlled operation. The CIA oversees military counter-intel operations, just as NSA oversees military signals intelligence operations.

And then there is the fact that Nagell had a military ID with Oswald's name and signature on it but with Nagell's photo on it. Where and how did Nagell get this ID card?

You argue that the Nagell-Oswald military ID was not found on Nagell when he was arrested because it is not listed in any of the property reports. However, we know that the police and SS property lists are not complete: The police report doesn't mention a military ID, yet the SS report does. And, neither the police report nor the SS report mentions the notebook, much less that it listed six CIA agents. Yet, someone clearly knew that he possessed the notebook when he was arrested because the CIA OS file acknowledges that he did. Thus, it is not a convincing to argue, as you do, that he did not have the Nagell-Oswald military ID when he was arrested because it's not listed in the police property list and is not expressly listed in the SS property list (although the SS list does include a military ID).

Nagell told the Satsi he was CIA.

It didn't take long for them to realize he was bat-shit crazy. If he was really CIA, they would have traded him to the west. Instead they just
let him go.

Here is a llnk to his Stasi file.

https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/richard-case-nagell-s-stasi-file

CIA documents show that Bruce Solie hid Office of Security files on Lee Harvey Oswald and Richard Case Nagell from the HSCA.

One wonders if Solie's withholding Oswald's file had anything to do with the fact that in late 1959, all of the incoming non-CIA cables on Oswald's defection were routed to Solie's office rather than to where would have normally gone -- the Soviet Russia Division.

The following is the first document in Richard Case Nagell’s 221-page Office of Security file (RIF: 104-10305-10005)


23 August 1978

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

From: Bruce L. Solie
Chief, Security Analysis Group [formerly known as the Security Research Staff's Research Branch]

Subject: Nagell, Richard Case
#264 170

1. This memorandum identifies those Office of Security files which were reviewed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) staff members in conjunction with the HSCA's investigation into the deaths of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

2. Under procedures established with the HSCA, certain items of information were not reviewed by HSCA staff members [emphasis added].  These items were placed in envelopes, sealed, appropriately identified, and put back into the Security file prior to HSCA’'s review. Office of Security personnel reviewing these files should maintain the integrity of each envelope below so that interested parties may know what was and what was not reviewed by HSCA staff members.

3. In some instances, the above files contain material marked in the lower right-hand corner with a green circular dot. This mark should alert Office of Security personnel to the fact that this material was located and placed in the file at the time of the HSCA review and was seen by an HSCA staffer(s). This material should not be removed from the file.

4. Attached to this memorandum is a review sheet which identifies the name of the HSCA reviewer(s) and the date of his review.

5. Questions regarding the above procedure and or the HSCA's review should be redirected to the Security Analysis Group.

-- Bruce L Solie



My comments:

1. Other than a different date and the replacement of Nagell's name and OS file number (Nagell, Richard Case #264 170) with Oswald's (Oswald, Lee Harvey #351 164), the first page of the Office of Security's file on Oswald reads exactly the same as the one for Nagell (see above).

2. It's interesting to note that at the bottom of a January 1997 memo from ARRC's David G. Maxwell to CIA's John Pereira (Director of the Historical Review Group, Center for the Study of Intelligence, CIA) there is a footnote that says, "One Office of Security file on Oswald (or relating to Oswald) may have been numbered 351-164. In addition, Margaret Stevens [Solie's assistant] may have held an Office of Security "MS-" file on Oswald."

Nagell himself claimed to be a double agent, and that he was assigned by Moscow to interdict LHO, who had been trained to assassinate JFK.

Unfortunately, Nagell appeared troubled. Also, the provenance of whatever was in his lawyer's office papers is unverified, including the dubious Hidell ID card, which was likely fabricated after 11/22.

That there was interaction between LHO and G2 and KGB all along the line in the second half of 1963 is indisputable. That Castro threatened the Kennedy brothers in September '63 with a revenge assassination attempt is matter of historical record.

The US Ambassador to Mexico, Thomas Mann, and the State Department staffer Charles Thomas, both thought there was a lot to the Cuba-LHO connection, and they were both shut down.

In some circles, the LHO as G2-KGB asset version of the JFKA is heresy. I am open minded.

Nagell? I don't know. When intel agencies say "So-and-so was too unstable to ever be a staffer," that may be true, but manipulating a troubled soul may still be on the table.

On 3/03/65, a CIA officer by the name of Robert J. Leonard sent a "SECRET" memo (RIF: 104-10123-10035) to the Chief of the Security Research Staff's Research Branch, probable KGB mole Bruce Leonard Solie (look him up), regarding John Richard Sloss,, a CIA officer whose name was found in Richard Case Nagell's notebook.

Here's the highly redacted memo:

Page 1: His name is perhaps identical with a name among six names of agency employees found on a mentally disturbed and disaffected form CIG intelligence officer who alleges contact with Russian and Cuban intelligence agents.

Page 2: 3. The name of John Sloss may be identical with the name J. Sloss found on the person of Richard Case Nagell when arrested in connection with a bank robbery in El Paso, Texas, on 20 September 1963. A notebook found on Nagell made reference to Fair Play for Cuba Committee, the addresses of foreign embassies, the names of purported CIA agents and other information. Although Nagell is unquestionably mentally unbalanced, he tells a story of being involved in espionage which is not fully contradicted by evidence. There is no apparent explanation of why the name J. Sloss as well as five other names of CIA personnel should have been in the possession of Richard Case Nagell. The weird story of Nagell is contained in a chronological listing of his activities appended to this this memorandum.

. . . . . . .


The following is an article written in 2018 by Richard Russell, author of The Man Who Knew Too Much.

My comments are in brackets.

Why would a man who knew Lee Harvey Oswald and had apparent connections to intelligence walk into a bank, shoot two holes in a wall, and await arrest months prior to JFK’s assassination? There is no better alibi than being in federal prison.

On September 20, 1963, two months before President John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, a highly decorated Army veteran named Richard Case Nagell walked into a bank in El Paso, fired two shots into a wall from a revolver, and went outside to await arrest. There was speculation, even by the officer who put him in handcuffs, that for some reason he wanted to be locked up. Nagell was charged with attempted bank robbery. Only later would he indicate to the FBI that he feared being implicated in an “inimical act” — one that involved accused JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.

Nagell would end up serving more than four years in federal prisons following two trials presided over by Judge Homer Thornberry — a close friend of new President Lyndon Johnson, who suddenly resigned a congressional seat to take over the Nagell case early in 1964. Following Nagell’s release from Leavenworth Penitentiary in April 1968, he quickly obtained a passport, left the country, and traveled to East Germany. There he was removed from a train and held behind the “Iron Curtain” for another four months, until being returned to US intelligence officials at the Berlin border.

What could be known of Nagell’s strange saga was featured in my book on the Kennedy assassination, The Man Who Knew Too Much. Now recent releases from the National Archives of long-withheld CIA and FBI assassination-related files shed new light on Nagell, and on which branches of the CIA had the strongest interest in him.

A 220-page CIA Office of Security file on Nagell — including a section on “Alleged Connection with Lee Harvey Oswald” — raises more new questions than it answers. A primary responsibility of the Office of Security (OS) is the protection of classified material. Upon his arrest prior to the assassination, Nagell had suggested that the FBI look in the trunk of his car. Besides a small Minolta spy camera and other items, it contained a notebook. According to the just-released OS file, the contents included “what purport to be various codes, CIA and FBI agents’ names, Soviet and other Communist embassy addresses and names, and the addresses of various other people and organizations, including the Los Angeles address of the ‘Fair Play for Cuba Committee.’”

Lee Harvey Oswald had set up a Fair Play for Cuba Committee chapter in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. His own notebook, found at the time of his arrest after the assassination, had other similar listings to Nagell’s — including the telephone number for the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City. Nagell’s notebook designated the same phone number — 11-28-47.

The CIA’s OS file makes no mention of these similarities. Indeed, the OS goes out of its way to portray Nagell as a mentally disturbed individual, while at the same time conducting an extensive investigation into six names listed under “CIA” in Nagell’s notebook. Each name had a check mark beside it. One was “J. Sloss,” who the OS concluded was likely John Richard Sloss, a longtime employee with the Agency’s Senior [sic; Security] Research Staff. According to a March 3, 1965 memo [emphasis added; see my previous post on this 3/03/65 memo, above] to the OS from the Chief of the Research Branch, Sloss had been “granted a ‘Q’ Clearance in October 1963” — higher than Top Secret — while subsequently being polygraphed in 1964 “regarding giving CIA documents or classified information to unauthorized persons [and] contact with a possible Communist sympathizer.”

Sloss’s name has never come up in connection with the assassination, but his appearance in Nagell’s notebook certainly adds credence to the likelihood that Nagell was engaged in intelligence-gathering activities. The OS file goes on to describe Nagell’s having walked into the American Embassy in Mexico City in the fall of 1962, saying that he wanted to renounce his citizenship. Three autumns earlier, ex-Marine Oswald had done the same thing in Moscow in an alleged “defection” with radar secrets to the Soviet Union, where he remained until the summer of 1962. The OS document on Nagell cites an FBI interview with Fred Morton, the district attorney in the El Paso bank case, that Nagell also “allegedly turned over secret material to Soviet agents while in the Military Service.”

So the pattern of both their lives make it appear that Oswald and Nagell were staunch leftists and even enemies of the state. But were they? Or was something else going on? According to a not-previously-seen CIA interview about Nagell with a Colonel Ned Glenn (March 24, 1964), the colonel and Nagell had in the 1950s both been attached “to an Intelligence Branch of the United States Army in the Far East.” Nagell was “a member of the US Army Counterintelligence Corps in Japan,” designated as the 3rd Operations Group, until “terminating in about 1958.”

That was the same timeframe when Oswald served as a Marine radar operator at the Atsugi Naval Air base in Japan. Nagell told this author in 1975 that he’d had a “purposeful, but casual acquaintance” with Oswald while both were stationed there.

FBI files released some years ago had cryptic references to a Nagell-Oswald relationship, and are quoted anew in the OS document. On December 19, 1963, Nagell had “advised Special Agents of the El Paso Office of the FBI that ‘for the record’ he would like to say that his association with LEE HARVEY OSWALD was purely social and that he had met OSWALD in Mexico City and in Texas.” (Nagell’s arrest outside the bank preceded Oswald’s alleged trip to Mexico City a week later; if accurate, Nagell would have been referring to an earlier sojourn).

Then, on January 2, 1964, Nagell advised agents of both the FBI and Secret Service “that he had been acquainted with MARINA, the wife of LEE HARVEY OSWALD. Subject further pointed out that OSWALD was having marital difficulties with Marina.” The Secret Service is on record as having interviewed Marina Oswald about Nagell, but no transcript or notes are known to exist — only the FBI’s assertion that a photo of Nagell was shown to her, and that she supposedly said she’d never seen him before.

The OS file also describes an FBI report of an earlier meeting Nagell had had with Bureau agents in Miami, on January 24, 1963: “Subject stated he wished to be advised if he was given a pistol with a silencer and possibly some microfilm by sources — Cuban, Russian or both — from Mexico City through a Cuban in Miami — if he would be permitted to return these items to his contact so he could be of further use to the United States Government … He gave the impression that he was better at determining what the enemy is up to than the agencies regularly handling these matters, except the FBI.” Nagell also “claimed he had the names of all Americans involved in activities against the United States in a safe deposit box, the key to which he gave to a close friend in the event of his death.”

So the Nagell files also point to his involvement in some kind of counterintelligence (CI) operation, one that could well have overlapped with Oswald. Indeed, a number of other newly released files, pertaining to Nagell’s mysterious 1968 arrest in East Germany upon release from prison, bear routing initials of “CI,” a subject we will take up in Part 2 of this article.

While the OS release on Nagell contains no smoking guns, it’s obvious he was far more than a “lone nut” whose temporary insanity brought about his arrest outside the El Paso bank. That defense, upheld by a US appellate court, would eventually be the basis of his release — after Judge Homer Thornberry had sentenced Nagell to the maximum ten years, oddly enough “with the provision he may be released at any time the U.S. Bureau of Prisons decides.”

According to the CIA’s Office of Security, “A ten-year prison sentence does seem harsh,” although “NAGELL’s complaint that he was ‘salted away’ is open to speculation.” The same previously classified file adds: “His story of being involved in espionage is not fully contradicted by evidence.”

That evidence, briefly mentioned in the OS material, includes an article that appeared in the El Paso Times (January 27, 1964) concerning Nagell’s arraignment for attempted bank robbery. It was headlined: “Suspect Says Agents Asked Him About Oswald, Activities Link.” According to the article, Nagell “said he had been questioned by the FBI and the US Secret Service, regarding alleged subversive activities and also Lee Harvey Oswald … Nagell’s assertions came when he was attempting to have some documents and photographs returned to him.”

They never were. Judge Thornberry, President Johnson’s close friend, apparently made sure of that.

https://whowhatwhy.org/politics/government-integrity/avoid-linked-jfk-assassination-get-locked/