The Incurious Dr. Pearcy
- Fred Litwin
- 1 day ago
- 11 min read
Hat Tip: Robert Reynolds and Paul Hoch provided much of the research for this article.
A CIA whistleblower, revealing his identity for the first time, tells Axios he saw a secret document in which an agency official bragged about misleading congressional investigators about Lee Harvey Oswald's activities in Mexico before President Kennedy was assassinated.
"It's a blueprint of a cover-up, how to lie to Congress and the American people," former CIA-State Department historian Thomas L. Pearcy tells Axios.
Why it matters: Pearcy's description of the nearly 50-page document — a CIA inspector general's report — sheds new light on how intelligence agents routinely have covered up facts and records about Kennedy's slaying that still haven't been made public.
Yesterday, Marc Caputo of Axios revealed the identity of a CIA whistleblower who first approached JFK Facts editor Jefferson Morley anonymously. JFK Facts reported on the story in summer of last year. The whistleblower is identified as Thomas L. Pearcy, now a history professor at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania but a CIA contractor at the time he made his discovery.
So, what is really going on here?
The document in question is a three-volume History of the Mexico City Station.
The Hawkins memo does not say Blakey was incurious, it simply says he did not ask questions, despite Hawkins offer to fill him in on details. The Hawkins memo WAS released, all the way back in the 1990s, then again in 2017, 2018, and finally in full in 2021. That last 2021 release opened the redacted description of what pages Blakey saw in the History of the Mexico City Station.
Pearcy is claiming that he saw an "unredacted" version of the above memo, but the memo is already unredacted. Is Pearcy claiming there is a second version of this memo?
Pearcy claim that the one document at issue was "the agency's three-volume series of investigative files from the CIA's Mexico City Station." This is wrong. It is a station history -- not investigative files -- covering the period from 1947 to 1970.
When Jefferson Morley first reported the story about a whistleblower, he wrote that the document said that Blakey was "the most intellectually uncurious human being I have every associated with." The Axios story only says that the memo denigrated Blakey as "incurious."
Regarding the "intellectually uncurious" accusation, Reynolds says, "Under Blakey's command, HSCA played its cards very close to the vest. They wanted the CIA to know as little as possible about their investigation's direction and strategy. Blakey did not ask questions because he did not want to let CIA know what he was looking for in the history. Scott Breckinridge knew this and would never have said Blakey was ‘uncurious’. Morley's source has either misremembered the passage he read or has embroidered it out of whole cloth."
The real incurious person was Dr, Pearcy. Did he not take notes from this document? Did he not consider going public or at least contacting a lawyer who represented whistle-blowers? Why does he remember the phrase "most intellectually uncurious human" but not any identifying information about the document in question. What was the document's classification level?
The CIA certainly did have sensitive material in the history of the Mexico City Station. One such 'secret' was a CIA deception operation regarding Teresa Proenza, who was the Cultural Attache at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City.
So, the CIA's reluctance to fully share documents probably had nothing to do with the JFK assassination and had lots to do with other secrets.
I asked Robert Reynolds, an expert on JFK assassination files, about Pearcy's claims, and he replied:
Pearcy claims that the CIA IG did a report on whether the CIA was successful in deceiving the HSCA, something too preposterous to credit. He identifies what is clearly a three-volume history of CIA’s Mexico City Station as three volumes of investigative files, and he claims there is a second, “unsanitized” version of a known CIA memo that is already open in full.
If there were any sort of IG report on the handling of documents such as the Mexico City station history, it would have many details that Pearcy clearly does not know.
There was a long acerbic controversy over the history which led to an HSCA subpoena and two months of intensive and thoroughly documented negotiations on the subject. Contrary to what Pearcy says, senior HSCA personnel unquestionably reviewed the entire MC station history.
It is interesting to note that Dr. Pearcy is somewhat of a JFK assassination buff. He wrote a blurb for William Law Matson's book on the medical evidence.
"William Law is the finest oral historian that I have ever encountered. Publication of this new edition will assist educators at all levels as we seek to teach our nation’s youth about President John F. Kennedy’s life and his tragic death." —Dr. Thomas L. Pearcy, Professor of History, Slippery Rock University
And today, I'd like to share with you what I have on my bookshelf. My bookshelves are divided into three parts. The first part are specialized books, that look at the Kennedy assassination. This is a book called Best Evidence, written by a friend of mine, David Lifton, who passed recently. But David Lifton was the first person to suggest and prove with documents that, in fact, the casket that came off of Air Force One that night was empty, that the President's body was not in that casket. And over the years, I got to know David pretty well ...
Pearcy believes many things which are not true. For example:
15. Are the autopsy photographs at the Archives all originals—and unaltered? [no]
16. Are the JFK brain photographs at the Archives truly those of JFK? [no]
38. Did the pathologists overtly lie about some of their findings? [yes]
39. Is the Zapruder film in the Archives an unaltered original? [no]
47. The Oxford English Dictionary defines conspiracy theory: "…the theory that an event or phenomenon occurs as a result of a conspiracy between interested parties; spec. a belief that some covert but influential agency (typically political in motivation and oppressive in intent) is responsible for an unexplained event." Do you believe in any conspiracy theories? [yes, one or a few]
49. Are all your above answers logically consistent? [probably not]
Pearcy also wrote:
Do I believe that "some covert but influential agency (typically political in motivation and oppressive in intent) is responsible for an unexplained event." NO. I do not "believe" that.
I know it to be true.
In 2019, Pearcy wrote an email to David Lifton which included this paragraph:
I’m writing simply to touch bases and tell you how much your work continues to profoundly affect me and my students and, thus, the next generations of history teachers (K-12). I’ve had more than 24,000 students (in four nations, three languages) pass through my classrooms these past 25+ years. 8-10% of those are teachers. A majority of that subset have (a) been taught about the assassination, and (b) leave my tutelage knowing who you are and why your work matters so much to an accurate account of our nation’s history. Thank you David.
Dr. Pearcy blew his supposed "opportunity" to crack the JFK case. The JFK assassination buff suddenly became incurious!
Representative Anna Paulina Luna now has CIA Director John Ratcliffe searching for the supposed IG Report.
I predict he will not find any such report.
The plain fact of the matter is that the CIA had legitimate secrets -- not related to the JFK assassination -- that it could not afford to leak.
Previous Relevant Blogs 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
How many times must Morley repeat this story?
It wasn't hard to find evidence that Charles Niles worked for the FAA.
The truth about FAA credentials.
A rebuttal to Good regarding Ruth Paine.
Morley presents several conspiratorial allegations about Ruth Paine.
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.
The CIA was just quoting from a State Department memo.
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.
Joannides did not come out of retirement to work with the HSCA.
There is no mention of an "Oswald Operation" in the Joannides' personnel file.
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.
Morley somehow knows what is in the supposed 2,400 recently-discovered FBI files.
Morley discusses Israel with Tucker Carlson.
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.