Paul Bleau's first chokehold is that "the official record impeaches the Warren Commission." He believes that: (page 38 in the Kindle edition of his book Chokeholds)
U.S. investigations into the assassination, statements made by investigation insiders and foreign government conclusions about the assassination prove that there is a strong consensus by the independent investigative authorities that there was a conspiracy in the murder of President John F. Kennedy.
Bleau's chapter then lists out a variety of statements that seemingly prove conspiracy. Of course, Bleau doesn't tell readers the full truth about these viewpoints.
John Moss Whitten - Chief of CIA Covert Operations in Mexico and Central America
Bleau Assertion: (page 56)
Whitten was assigned by Richard Helms to be the CIA liaison to the Warren Commission. Though he initially posited that Oswald acted alone, he learned of hidden evidence by the CIA and argued for more examination. Helms eventually replaced him with James Jesus Angleton.
Whitten was also later to discover that CIA officer George Joannides had in 1963 been the case officer for the Student Revolutionary Directorate, the Cuban exile group Lee Harvey Oswald had multiple interactions with in New Orleans. This was unknown to the HSCA when he became an obfuscating liaison for that investigation.
Whitten testified to the HSCA that his team of thirty agents was provided with no details about “Oswald’s political activity in the United States, especially the ‘pro-Castro activity’ and autobiographical sketches … found among his effects.” … that had he known about Oswald’s activities in New Orleans and contacts with the DRE Cubans, he would have focused his investigation on the “possible involvement of the Miami station.”
Whitten also knew nothing about William Harvey (a madman according to him) and the CIA’s executive action programs.
What Bleau Doesn't Tell You:
At the time of the JFK assassination, Whitten was chief of a branch responsible for operations in Mexico and Central America.
Bleau makes it sound like Whitten (who testified under the name John Scelso) wanted to reexamine his conclusions that Oswald acted alone. But that is not the case. He just wanted to look at the possibility that Castro was behind the assassination.
Mr. Goldsmith: Is there anything else that you would have done differently?
Mr. Scelso: Well, if Helms had disclosed the Cuban assassination plots, we would have gone at that hot and heavy. We would have queried the agent about it in great detail I would have had him polygraphed by the best operatives security had to see if he had a double-agent informing Castro about our poison pen things, and so on.
I would have had all our Cuban sources queried about it.
Bleau also makes it sound like Whitten believed that the CIA's Miami Station might be involved in the assassination. He actually talked about it being involved in the investigation. Here is an excerpt from his testimony:
Mr. Goldsmith: How big was your staff?
Mr. Scelso: I had about 30 officers and about 30 clerical help. Not all of the officers do this, but a great many of them did.
Mr. Goldsmith: What instructions, if any, were given to the field stations as to investigating the assassination?
Mr. Scelso: The only station that was directly involved was Mexico. The possible involvement of our Miami station did not emerge, as I recall it, until we read the Bureau report and a few of Oswald's pro-Castro activities in the United States.
Scelso clearly thought that it was possible Castro had been involved in the assassination.
Mr. Scelso: Anything is possible, whether Oswald was a CIA agent, but it certainly was concealed from me if he were. I will say that Oswald was a person of a type who would never have been recruited by the Agency to work behind the Iron Curtain, or anyplace else.
Mr. Goldsmith: Why not?
Mr. Scelso: Because his personality and background completely disqualified him for clandestine work or for work as an agent to carry out the instructions of the Agency.
Mr. Goldsmith: Could you go into more detail? This is really an important area, if you would care to elaborate a bit.
Mr. Scelso: When the Agency hires an agent, engages someone to do our work and gives him a certain amount of training and places him under our guidance, whether we pay him or not or whether he signs an agreement or not, he has to meet certain standards, he has to go through a security check, a file check. And the Counterintelligence staff has to examine his personality and his background and evaluate his reliability.
Well, Oswald, by virtue of his background and so on, would miserably fail to meet our minimum qualifications. Oswald would have been debriefed had he walked in and volunteered information, you see. However, he would not have been given any mission to perform.
He might have been given instructions, you see, which would tend to neutralize him and make him less of a nuisance and danger than he otherwise would be, like go away and do not contact us anymore.
Mr. Goldsmith: What about the flip side of all of this? Is there any reason to think that Oswald was recruited by the KGB?
Mr. Scelso: Indeed, he certainly must have been debriefed by the KGB. I would think they would have debriefed him on his military information. I do not think that the KGB would have recruited him to be their agent after he left Russia.
Mr. Goldsmith: Why not?
Mr. Scelso: Because they were intimately acquainted with his ways and his habits and his background and would not have regarded him as a reliable collaborator.
Mr. Goldsmith: Unless both, in the case of the KGB or CIA, as Epstein says in his book, Oswald's background is simply a legend, a fabrication. It does not accurately portray his true characteristics.
Mr. Scelso: If Oswald, you mean, in his teens had been briefed to act like an unreliable kook and build up a legend like that. However, the Russians are just as careful, or more careful, about this kind of thing than we are and I just do not think -- Oswald's whole pattern of life was that of a very badly, emotionally unbalanced young man.
Previous Relevant Blog Posts on Paul Bleau
Bleau gets it all wrong on Dr. George Burkley.
Bleau doesn't tell the whole story about John Sherman Cooper.
Bleau claims that J. Lee Rankin questioned the findings of the Warren Report. This is just true.
Bleau tries to make it appear that Dallas policeman James Leavelle had doubts that Oswald could be found guilty at a trial.
Bleau gets it all wrong on the FBI Summary Report.
Bleau discusses the conclusions of the HSCA but leaves out it most important finding.
Bleau leaves out some important details about a Warren Commission staffer.
Was Oswald a loner? Bleau says no, and then says yes.
Bleau leaves out some important details about Malcolm Kilduff.
An introduction to Paul Bleau's new book, Chokeholds.
Was David Ferrie Clay Shaw's pimp?
Did Lee Harvey Oswald have an escort?
Edward Girnus was in prison for forgery, and he told a fanciful story about Clay Shaw and Lee Harvey Oswald.
Leander D'Avy told the HSCA he saw Oswald and Ferrie with the three tramps.
Bleau's analysis of Garrison's files is full of errors.
Bleau believes there were seven plots against JFK before Dallas.
Bolden's allegation that there was a plot against JFK in Chicago has changed over the years.
There is no evidence that there was a plot against JFK in Tampa.
There is no evidence that there was a plot against JFK in Chicago.