Should We Believe Victor Marchetti?, Part Two
- Fred Litwin
- Sep 17
- 16 min read
The article alleges a CIA plan to use a limited hangout:
But inside the CIA, a vastly different plan was taking shape. A leaked analysis by Victor Marchetti — a former CIA officer turned whistleblower — revealed that Langley wasn’t preparing to tell the truth. Instead, it was preparing to stage-manage the hearings using a deception tactic known in intelligence slang as a “limited hangout.
This analysis, preserved in the JFK Records Act files (RIF No. 104-10412-10020), warned that the public would be given just enough to believe something new was being revealed — but never enough to threaten the agency itself.
Looks like a CIA document since the CIA is the originator.
But have a look at the first page:
This does not look like a CIA document. You can see the stamp at the top and the writing at the bottom that this is Plaintiff's Exhibit 10, or No. 1. This document was part of E. Howard Hunt's lawsuit against The Spotlight and Victor Marchetti.
And this exhibit is nothing more than an article that Victor Marchetti wrote for the August 14, 1978, edition of The Spotlight, a weekly newspaper published by the antisemitic Liberty Lobby.
And you can see that the text in the article matches the text in the supposed CIA file above.
Here is what the article alleges:
In March 1978, there was a meeting at CIA headquarters attended by top ranking clandestine officers and some former top officials.
The topic was what to do about recent revelations associated Oswald with the Cold War spy game. The decision was made to stage a "limited hangout" when the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) starts its hearings.
E. Howard Hunt will be exposed by the new investigation and the CIA has now decided to sacrifice him to protect its clandestine services.
In the public hearings, the CIA will "admit" that Hunt was involved in the conspiracy to kill JFK. The CIA might even admit there were three gunmen in Dealey Plaza.
A. J. Weberman and Michael Canfield, authors of Coup d'État in America, published photographs of the "three apparent bums" who were arrested in Dealey Plaza. One of them was E. Howard Hunt, and another was Frank Sturgis.
The HSCA discovered a CIA memo from 1966 that said someday they will have to explain Hunt's presence in Dallas on November 22nd, 1963.
Also marked for exposure was former CIA agent Gerry Patrick Hemming, who once worked for Castro as a CIA double agent, then later surfaced with the anti-Castro Cubans in various attempts to rid Cuba of the communist dictator. But there are two things in Hemming's past that the CIA, manipulating HSCA, will be able to use to tie him to the JFK assassination.
First, Castro's former mistress, Marita Lorenz (now an anti-Castroite herself), has identified Hemming, along with Oswald and others as being part of the secret squad assigned to kill President Kennedy.
Secondly, Hemming was Oswald's Marine sergeant when he was stationed at CIA's U-2 base in Atsugi, Japan-where Oswald supposedly was recruited as a spy by the Soviets, or was being trained to be a double agent by the CIA.
Here is a text version of the article:
A few months ago, in March, there was a meeting at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., the plush home of America's super spooks overlooking the Potomac River. It was attended by several high-level clandestine officers and some former top officials of the agency.
The topic of discussion was: What to do about recent revelations associating President Kennedy's accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, with the spy game played between the U.S. and the USSR? (Spotlight, May 8, 1978.) A decision was made, and a course of action determined. They were calculated to both fascinate and confuse the public by staging a clever "limited hangout" when the House Special Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) holds its open hearings, beginning later this month.
A "limited hangout" is spy jargon for a favorite and frequently used gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting - sometimes even volunteering some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case. The public, however, is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further.
We will probably never find out who masterminded the assassination of JFK - or why. There are too many powerful special interests connected with the conspiracy for the truth to come out even now, 15 years after the murder.
But during the next two months, according to sensitive sources in the CIA and on HSCA, we are going to learn much more about the crime. The new disclosures will be sensational, but only superficially so. A few of the lesser villains involved in the conspiracy and its subsequent coverup will be identified for the first time - and allowed to twist slowly in the wind on live network TV. Most of the others to be fingered are already dead.
But once again the good folks of middle America will be hoodwinked by the government and its allies in the establishment news media. In fact, we are being set up to witness yet another coverup, albeit a sophisticated one, designed by the CIA with the assistance of the FBI and the blessing of the Carter administration.
A classic example of a limited hangout is how the CIA has handled and manipulated the Church Committee's investigation of two years ago. The committee learned nothing more about the assassinations of foreign leaders, illicit drug programs, or the penetration of the news media than the CIA allowed it to discover. And this is precisely what the CIA is out to accomplish through HSCA with regard to JFK's murder.
Chief among those to be exposed by the new investigation will be E. Howard Hunt, of Watergate fame. His luck has run out, and the CIA has decided to sacrifice him to protect its clandestine services. The agency is furious with Hunt for having dragged it publicly into the Nixon mess and for having blackmailed it after he was arrested.
Besides, Hunt is vulnerable - an easy target as they say in the spy business. His reputation and integrity have been destroyed. The death of his wife, Dorothy, in a mysterious plane crash in Chicago still disturbs many people, especially since there were rumors from informed sources that she was about to leave him and perhaps even turn on him.
In addition it is well known that Hunt hated JFK and blamed him for the Bay of Pigs disaster. And now, in recent months, his alibi for his whereabouts on the day of the shooting has come unstuck.
In the public hearings, the CIA will "admit" that Hunt was involved in the conspiracy to kill Kennedy. The CIA may go so far as to "admit" that there were three gunmen shooting at Kennedy. The FBI, while publicly embracing the Warren Commission's "one man acting alone" conclusion, has always privately known that there were three gunmen. The conspiracy involved many more people than the ones who actually fired at Kennedy, both agencies may now admit.
A.J. Weberman and Michael Canfield, authors of Coup d'État in America, published pictures of three apparent bums who were arrested at Dealey Plaza just after President Kennedy's murder, but who were strangely released without any record of the arrest having been made by the Dallas police. One of the tramps the authors identified as Hunt. Another was Frank Sturgis, a long-time agent of Hunt's.
Hunt immediately sued for millions of dollars in damages, claiming he could prove that he had been in Washington D.C. that day-on duty at CIA. It turned out, however, that this was not true. So, he said that he had been on leave and doing household errands, including a shopping trip to a grocery store in Chinatown.
Weberman and Canfield investigated the new alibi and found that the grocery store where Hunt claimed to be shopping never existed. At this point, Hunt offered to drop his suit for a token payment of one dollar. But the authors were determined to vindicate themselves, and they continued to attack Hunt's alibi, ultimately completely shattering it.
Now, the CIA moved to finger Hunt and tie him to the JFK assassination. HSCA unexpectedly received an internal CIA memorandum a few weeks ago that the agency just happened to stumble across in its old files. It was dated 1966 and said in essence: Some day we will have to explain Hunt's presence in Dallas on November 22, 1963 - the day President Kennedy was killed. Hunt is going to be hard put to explain this memo, and other things, before the TV cameras at the HSCA hearings.
Hunt's reputation as a strident fanatical anti-communist will count against him. So will his long and close relationship with the anti-Castro Cubans, as well as his penchant for clandestine dirty tricks and his various capers while one of Nixon's plumbers. E. Howard Hunt will be implicated in the conspiracy and he will not dare to speak out-the CIA will see to that. In addition to Hunt and Sturgis, another former CIA agent marked for exposure is Gerry Patrick Hemming, a hulk of a man-six feet eight inches tall and weighing 260 pounds. Like Sturgis, Hemming once worked for Castro as a CIA double agent, then later surfaced with the anti-Castro Cubans in various attempts to rid Cuba of the communist dictator. But there are two things in Hemming's past that the CIA, manipulation HSCA, will be able to use to tie him to the JFK assassination.
First, Castro's former mistress, Marita Lorenz (now an anti-Castroite herself), has identified Hemming, along with Oswald and others as being part of the secret squad assigned to kill President Kennedy. And secondly, Hemming was Oswald's Marine sergeant when he was stationed at CIA's U-2 base in Atsugi, Japan-where Oswald supposedly was recruited as a spy by the Soviets, or was being trained to be a double agent by the CIA.
In any event, Hemming's Cuban career and his connection with Oswald make the Lorenz story difficult for him to deny, particularly since the squad allegedly also included Hunt and Sturgis.
Who else will be identified as having been part of the conspiracy and/or coverup remains to be seen. But a disturbing pattern is already beginning to emerge. All the villains have been previously disgraced in one way or another. They all have "right wing" reputations. Or they will have after the hearings.
The fact that some may have had connections with organized crime will prove to be only incidental in the long run. Those with provably ties to the CIA or FBI will be presented as renegades who acted on their own without the approval or knowledge of their superiors.
As for covering up the deed, that will be blamed on past Presidents, either dead or disgraced. Thus, Carter will emerge as a truth-seeker, and the CIA and FBI will have neatly covered their institutional behinds.
The timing of the hearing is another clue of what to expect and why. The committee has scheduled its open sessions on network TV to begin after Congress adjourns for the election campaign. The first order of business will be the Martin Luther King Jr. hearings -- with James Earl Ray and his family as the star witnesses. Then there will be a short break and the JFK hearings will begin.
The committee plans to conclude its work by early October, just a month before the elections, perfect timing to cash in on the publicity the hearings are certain to create. And perfect timing for the Carterites to get the American public to forget about inflation, taxes, foreign affairs, and other White house blunders and elect a Congress more indebted and responsive to the presidency.
The entire article was ridiculous. Marchetti believed A. J. Weberman and Michael Canfield's ridiculous thesis that E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis were two of the three tramps. Gerry Patrick Hemming was not Oswald's Marine sergeant in Japan. And Marita Lorenz was a complete fraud -- the HSCA "could find no evidence" to support her allegations.
And there was a second article by Joe Trento and Jacquie Powers about the supposed HSCA memo.
Trento's article also discusses the supposed 1966 CIA and says it was initialed by Richard Helms and James Angleton. The article claims the information came from "sources close to the Select Committee on Assassinations." Trento was deposed in the Hunt libel case but refused to say what his sources were. He did claim to have seen the memo.
But if there was no such CIA memo, then where did Marchetti and Trento get their information from?
Marchetti was deposed in 1984 as part of the litigation between E. Howard Hunt and the Liberty Lobby.
Marchetti's source about the March meeting at CIA headquarters was William Corson:
William Corson was a former Marine Corps officer who eventually became Penthouse Magazine's Washington correspondent. He collaborated closely with Joseph Trento, and they even wrote a book together. Corson told Trento a lot of stories that too fantastic to be believed. For instance, he said that Alen Dulles recruited him to check out Jack Ruby in 1964.
I can find no evidence that Corson was sent by Dulles to investigate Ruby. Trento's assertion that Dulles was "not one of the prestigious group originally selected by Lyndon Johnson" to serve on the Warren Commission is not true. In fact, it was Robert Kennedy who suggested Dulles serve on the Commission.
And so Marchetti admits that a lot of his information on the assassination comes from the buffs.
Howard Leek was a counsel for the HSCA. But did he really tell Marchetti that Hunt would be exposed?
More Weberman:
Of course, Marchetti never actually talked with Gaeton Fonzi.
A memo that Corson had not seen.
Marchetti's information came from William Corson and A.J. Weberman. It appears that no one actually saw the memo in question. Weberman wrote in his book that "when deposed by Mark Lane, Corson categorically denied being Marchetti's or Trento's source since he stated he never saw the document."
Angleton was deposed during the trial. He was given the Marchetti and Trento articles to read:
Trento was out of his league:
Trento writes that it was "maddening to deal with" Corson "because he seldom told me anything directly."
Here is how the press reported the Marchetti-Trento brouhaha:
Miami Herald, February 2, 1985
The article mentions that "the columnist, Bill Corson, later denied in a sworn deposition even talking about the rumors with Marchetti. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of his testimony.
Here is a good overview of the entire Hunt libel case vs. Liberty Lobby:
We will never know who instigated this hoax -- Bill Corson, A. J. Weberman, Victor Marchetti, or Joe Trento. But it was a hoax.
Previous Relevant Blog Posts on Victor Marchetti
Marchetti said that Clay Shaw was a domestic contact of the CIA.
Nagle and Storper use Marchetti as a source on Clay Shaw.
Marchetti wrote about a fake defector program, but actually knew nothing about it.
Wecht uses Marchetti as a source about an ONI program.
Previous Relevant Blog Posts on Jefferson Morley's Congressional Testimony
An analysis of Congresswoman Luna's Congressional Hearings
An FBI memo that quoted James Angleton is used by Morley to reach an unwarranted conclusion.
Morley misreads Angleton's testimony before the HSCA.
Morley believes a document proves the CIA did not believe that a lone gunman killed JFK.
Additional documents relevant to Part Three.
Morley claims that there is some connection between the suicides of Gary Underhill, Charles Thomas, George de Mohrenschildt, and the overdose death of Dorothy Kilgallen.
Morley believes that Agustin Guitart was spying on pro-Castro forces in New Orleans
Previous Relevant Blog Posts on Jefferson Morley
Right after his Substack article that went after Ruth Paine, Jefferson Morley's Substack provided a platform to Max Good, producer of a tendentious documentary on Ruth
My response to Peter Voskamp, author of the article on Morley's Substack.
I don't even have law degree!
A new CIA file on Herminio Diaz does not sustain allegations that he was a grassy knoll gunman.
Richard Russell always believed that Oswald was the lone gunman.
An article by Chad Nagle, on Morley's Substack, gets it wrong on Hoover's testimony.
My latest article for Quillette.com
The recent segment on CBS about Morley and JFK documents was not journalism.
Morley's list of six CIA operations do not prove that Oswald was under surveillance.
Morley claims the SpyTalk authors are working as pro bono lawyers for the CIA.
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SpyTalks replies to Jefferson Morley.
Gerald Posner on the Joannides' file.
Fact Checking Morley's Fact Check
Morley's Fact Check on SpyTalk needs a fact check.
Gus Russo and Michael Isikoff on the Joannides' personnel file.
Now that the entire personnel file of George Joannides has been released, Jefferson Morley has now published his unified theory of nothingness.
More Morley Nothingburgers on the way
Morley is requesting more documents -- they will reveal nothing about the assassination.
Morley got the headlines he wanted to a complete non-story.
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Morley believes that Dr. Robert McClelland's recollections provides proof of a shot from the front. Here is the truth about McClelland.
A reply by Nicholas Nalli to Jefferson Morley.
Morley suspected a redacted file would reveal major secrets. It didn't.
Several months ago, I posted an article, in association with several researchers, that showed what was contained in the redacted section of Schlesinger's memo.
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Morley believes that the United States can never be great unless it solves the JFK assassination.
An analysis of the 13 documents Morley wants to see.
Morley claims I am a CIA apologist and then misquotes me.
It would be worthwhile for the CIA to release the Joannides file just to stop the incessant posts from Jefferson Morley.
Actually, Oswald stayed at two budget-priced hotels in Helsinki.
He keeps asking the same questions, and we keep posting the same answers.
Conspiracy authors are playing fast and loose with the facts.
There is no evidence that Diaz was involved in the JFK assassination.
There are clues as to what is in a redacted section of Schlesinger's memo.
Chad Nagle and Dan Storper's article on New Orleans gets everything wrong.
Believing Michael Kurtz is problematic.
Morley wrote that there are two redacted memos on CIA reorganization, but there is only one. He wrote about Goodwin's copy as if it was a different memo, rather than a copy of the Schlesinger memo.
The phrase 'who shot John' does not refer to the JFK assassination.
Only one word is redacted in Harvey's deposition.
There are no redactions in the Operation Northwoods document.
Kilgallen had nothing to tell.
An underwhelming interview of Marina Oswald.
Morley often repeats stories and changes their meanings.
Chad Nagle claims there was an assassination plot against JFK in Chicago in November 1963. One problem: There is no evidence of such a plot.
A response to Morley's Substack post alleging that I am a CIA apologist.
A rebuttal to Morley's response to my post Was Bill Harvey in Dallas in November of 1963?
There is no credible evidence Harvey was in Dallas in November of 1963.
Morley repeats the claim that Dulles was at a CIA training center during the weekend of the JFK assassination. He wasn't.
Morley's claims about Efron are all wrong.
Morley responded to my article "The Truth about Operation Northwoods." Here is my reply.
W. Tracy Parnell on Jefferson Morley
W. Tracy Parnell is one of the best JFK assassination researchers out there. Here is his look at Jefferson Morley with several important articles.
Operation Northwoods can only be understood as part of the Kennedys' war against Cuba and Operation Mongoose.
And a response from me.
There is no evidence that Dr. West petitioned the court to examine Jack Ruby before his trial.
There is absolutely no evidence that Dr. Louis Jolyon West interfered with Jack Ruby's case.
Jefferson Morley used a fake Oswald handbill in his press conference for the Mary Ferrell Foundation.
An examination of redactions in the JFK collection of documents.
Morley doesn't understand Alecia Long's arguments about homophobia and Jim Garrison.
Jefferson Morley asks why "what the CIA knew about Herminio Diaz is still off limits."
Morley misses that a lot of redactions are actually available.
Jefferson Morley's press conference presents evidence that belief in a conspiracy has dropped.
