Was Tosh Plumlee in Dealey Plaza on November 22nd?
- Fred Litwin
- 2 hours ago
- 10 min read
Tosh Plumlee has long insisted that he was part of an abort team which was flown into Dallas on November 22nd to try and stop the JFK assassination. I have posted two videos from an interview conducted with Gus Russo in 1991.
Part One of two parts.
Second of two parts.
The whole story is ridiculous from start to finish, and it changes every time he tells it.
So, here is the latest iteration from his new book, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves.
In late November, Plumlee is in Miami eating a hot dog and drinking an Orange Julius when a short Cuban comes up to him and tells him that someone wants to meet him in a park.
While I sat on a bench under the palm trees enjoying the sun, a big dude walked up to me and said, "Walk with me to the library."
There among the stack of books, he gave me a briefing: "A driver's going to pick you up in fifteen minutes and take you to West Palm Beach. You'll spend the night at Loxahatchee and in the morning pick up a C-47 at Lantana Airport. You'll get a flight plan there. You're going to fly to Tampa to pick someone up, then New Orleans, and, finally, Dallas. Redbird Airport in Dallas will be your final destination. [page 8]
Of course, Plumlee was a CIA employee at the time!
At the CIA's Miami Station Cuba Desk, I worked alongside men like William "Wild Bill" Harvey, David Atlee Philipps, Tracy Barnes, Robert Bennette, E. Howard Hunt, and other former OSS operatives who had infiltrated Germany and France during World War II. Mostly, my role was as a co-pilot (code name Eagle Redbird One) in military operations, which were controlled and directed out of the Pentagon. My operational names included William "Buck" Pearson, Zapata, Juan Cabrillo and James Rawlins. My handlers were Tracy Barnes, Wild Bill Harvey and Robert Bennette. [page 7]
I should point out that there is absolutely no evidence that Plumlee ever worked for the CIA. When the HSCA queried the CIA about Plumlee, they said they had no information:
This is not absolute proof that Plumlee did not work for the CIA, but he has never been able to show any proof that did work for the CIA.
Back to the story. Plumlee gets picked up by a 1949 Ford with four CIA operatives.
As I gazed out the window, my mind settled on the rumors I had recently heard about plans to assassinate the president. It was common knowledge among us operatives that President Kennedy had made enemies in the Mob and among right-wing Republicans, the banking community, pro-Castro Cubans, and anti-Castro Cubans. [page 11]
I love the phrase -- "common knowledge among us operatives."
Plumlee was then told to fly to New Orleans where he was to pick up Johnny Roselli. The flight plan indicated they would stop at Tampa, New Orleans, Houston, and then Dallas.
Everything was rushed and hush-hush, and the ominous feeling I had started to build. Does this flight had anything to do with a rumor that was circulating about Operation Northwoods? I asked myself. Are we being dispatched to Dallas as part of a false flag operation to make it loo like the Castro government is trying to assassinate our president, which would then precipitate a US invasion of Cuba? Does this explain why Wild Bill Harvey had secret returned to the US from his post in Rome? Whatever questions I had, I kept to myself. [page 16]
What complete nonsense. There were no rumor circulating about Operation Northwoods. How his supposed mission would precipitate an American invasion of Cuba is beyond me. And Bill Harvey was in Italy, not the United States. We know exactly where he was when JFK was assassinated.
Plumlee then drove to the airport in West Palm Beach where he met his friend Sergio [known as Gator] and E. Howard Hunt. They then flew to Tampa and picked up Johnny Roselli. They then flew to New Orleans and picked up Frank Bender and Frank Sturgis. A Frenchman who spoke English with a French accent boarded as well as several Cubans. They then flew to Houston for the night.
Plumlee writes that the next morning there was rain in New Orleans "which made a VFR {visual flight rules} flight into Redbird Airport southwest of Dallas impossible." But, they were in Houston, no? Anyways, they decided to fly to Garland Airport in northeast Dallas and wait until the weather cleared at Redbird.
While waiting at Garland, Plumlee borrowed a 1961 Studebaker and drove to visit with his stepmother. He then returned to Garland and the weather cleared and they flew ten minutes into Redbird. Plumlee and his friend Rojas then went to a CIA safe house.
I'd never been there before and didn't know the people there. But I remember them coming and going and talking about being late. For what I wondered? A false flag operation? Amid the chaos, someone had put out a big spread for breakfast -- eggs, bacon, hash browns and so on.
After breakfast, Rojas, left to see a girlfriend who worked at the Circle Theater, which was not far from Love Field. The CIA had rooms there as well. [page 23]
Plumlee then planned to return to Redbird and wait with the plane when his friend asked him if he wanted to see the president. So, they headed for downtown Dallas.
Sergio sitting next to me on the backseat, turned to me and said, "You know someone's supposed to hit the president today."
"What?" I sat up abruptly as thought I'd been hit by lightning. Like mentioned before, I'd heard rumors. But based on the tone of Sergio's voice, this wasn't a rumor. And judging from his serious expression, Sergio wasn't messing around.
He explained that the Pentagon had picked up some information about a hit on the president as his motorcade drove through Dealey Plaza. He said that he and the others were part of an abort team, and we would be looking for some form of triangulation. Bingo! Suddenly, the flight to Dallas, my strong sense of foreboding and the strange mix passengers on the C-47 made sense. [page 25]
Sergio then told Plumlee the plan. He said that we would be looking for shooters on the south side of the plaza, and that here would be other teams on the north and east side, as well.
If we were to stop teams of shooter, that could result in a possible shootout, I asked Sergio if he was armed. He said he was carrying a .38 pistol, but if we saw a shooter, we were supposed to interrupt that person's timing. This was to avoid endangering the people who had gathered in Dealey Plaza to see the President. [page 25]
So, let me get this straight. The Pentagon learns of the assassination attempt and the only way they can stop it is to fly in several teams of abort agents? They couldn't alert the Secret Service and stop the motorcade?
Sergio and Plumlee enter a parking lot on the south side of Dealey Plaza, and they start looking for "suspicious activity."
Sergio pulled a radio from his pocket and started communicating with other operatives in the plaza. I assumed they were members of the other abort teams. [page 27]
They got out of the car and were now in Dealey Plaza.
The mounting excitement of the crowd added to my own. But something put me off.
Sergio felt it too. He muttered, "Something isn't right."
What?!?
Ahead and to our right, about a hundred and fifty feet away, stook the seven-story red-brick Texas Book Depository Building. I saw someone I believed was Lee Harvey Oswald standing near the entrance and wondered if he was part of the abort team. I also recognized a tall man from JM/WAVE as an operative named Rip Robertson near the corner of Elm and Houston [page 28]
Sergio and Plumlee were on the south knoll when the motorcade came down Elm Street.
I watched all this with my heart pounding in my chest. Though I didn't see Johnny Roselli or Frank Sturgis, I did spot E. Howard Hunt crossing the plaza from south to west. I also saw Gator [one of Plumlee's associates] near Elm Street, sitting beside a man who was holding an open black umbrella. Gator caught us looking at him and pointed to the walkie-talkie he was holding and ran his hand across his neck. I didn't know what he meant at first, then Sergio [another Plumlee associate] said, "He's telling us that the radios aren't working."
"What do you mean they're not working,?" I asked incredulously.
"Something's wrong," groaned Sergio. "The teams can't communicate. I think someone switched the crystals."
JFK was then shot, and Sergio said to Plumlee, "We'd better get the fuck out of here!"
The above story was taken from chapter two in Plumlee's book. The story continues in chapter eleven.
Most of the team that Plumlee had flown into Dallas reassembled at Redbird.
Heads bowed, each man in turn took a seat at the rear of the aircraft. I entered through the rear door and slowly made my way to the cockpit. I couldn't help but notice the deep burden of loss etched into each individual face. Each man seemed deep in thought, seemingly wrestling with the implications of what we had just experienced and their own sense of responsibility. [page 138]
On the plane is "Charlie "the Blade" Sturgis," somehow quickly changing his name from Frank. But guess who else is on the plane?
Carlos Bringuier, my other Cuban friend who ran the exile community in New Orleans, was seated across the aisle looking pissed off and confused.
Some people were not on the plane.
Johnny Roselli and E. Howard Hunt who had both been on the flight into Dallas were both missing. I had last seen Hunt minutes before the shots rang out hurrying across the plaza in a suit. Roselli had seemingly disappeared. I learned later that he left Dallas with Mob enforcer and hitman Charles Nicoletti, who had driven to Dallas with my friend and fellow cut-out Chauncey Holt.
Plumlee had questions.
What had happened with the other abort teams including fellow cut-outs Danny and Charley who were with Gator on north side of the plaza? Who had changed the crystals that had been in our radios so that we couldn't communicate with one another? Why had the limousine slowed down after the first several shots, instead of speeding up? [pages 138 - 139]
The first several shots?
That is Plumlee's story of what happened on November 22nd. After this return, Plumlee was arrested for a bad check. The only problem is that occurred earlier in 1963.
But the coverup had started!
A mop-up operation was underway. Cut-outs who knew too much like me, Sergio, Chauncey Holt and others would be silenced or eliminated as well as witnesses to the assassination, friends of Lee, and anyone with the potential to poke holes in the official coverup story. [page 142]
And they had nabbed Plumlee.
I was screwed and knew it. There was no running and hiding. I was already in handcuffs and was convinced that the bad-check charge was part of the conspirators' plans to eliminate me so I couldn't talk.
Why did they consider me a problem? I knew the answer, which started with what I knew about Lee. We were both young intelligence recruits who had received illusionary warfare training at Nags Head, North Carolina. I knew he had been an intelligence operative and was acting as one in Dallas when I had seen him in the spring.
I had even met Jack Ruby at the barn-like Sportatorium in Dallas and knew his reputation as a gangster with connections to Johnny Roselli and others. Jack Ruby used to set up the wrestler who did battle at the Sportatorium with strippers from his club. He did the same with members of the dangerous and corrupt Dallas police intelligence unit -- the Red Squad [page 143]
Wow -- Plumlee had met Jack Ruby. And he knew "his reputation as a gangster with connections to Johnny Roselli and others."
Plumlee then claims that on the flight to Denver he told Detective Stone his story about what had happened in Dealey plaza.
He looked at me like I was nuts. [page 143]
But wait, there's more!
Plumlee then claims that he was visited by the FBI and that he drew them a map of Dealey Plaza which he had already drawn for Bernard Fensterwald.
Interestingly, the one I drew for the FBI in the spring of '64 is still somewhere in FBI files and has never been released. [page 144]
Of course, it's never been released.
Plumlee then brings up Chauncey Holt who was at the railroad switching yard [he was one of the tramps] "where his job was to deliver forged Secret Service credentials."
As soon has he [Holt] heard the shots, he ran and hid in a boxcar as per instructions from his handler CIA officer Philip Twombly. He was joined in the boxcar by Charles Harrelson -- a well-known criminal and father of the famous Hollywood actor Woody Harrelson, and CIA cut-out Charles Rogers (also known as Richard Montoya}. When Dallas police searched the boxcar an hour and a half later, Chauncey, Harrelson and Rogers were arrested and escorted across Dealey Plaza to Dallas Sheriff's Department headquarters while being photographed by reporters. Because Chauncey was dressed as a railroad worker, they became known as the "three tramps." The three men were questioned by the FBI and released. [page 146]
In 1967, Plumlee meets in Dallas with two members of the north knoll abort team, and he finds that they had shot the Frenchman on the plane and had also shot a Cuban Alpha 66 member in Dealey Plaza.
I also found out that all members of the three assassination teams were dead within twenty-four hours of the death of President Kennedy. The clean-up was so thorough, that anyone closely associated with the killing was also done away with, including the designated patsy, Lee Harvey Oswald.
Cut-outs like myself and Chauncey Holt who were peripherally involved, were either killed, arrested or character assassinated. [page 150]
So, that is basically Plumlee's story for what happened on November 22, 1963.
Is there anybody out there gullible enough to believe this nonsense.
And believe me, there is a lot more nonsense throughout his book.
Previous Relevant Blog Posts on Tosh Plumlee
Plumlee claims to have met Oswald on several occasions.
Plumlee's new book is quite the novel.
Part One of two parts.
Second of two parts.
Some of Plumlee's interesting activities in 1959.
A bizarre story in which Plumlee writes to the FBI that he has provided bad information to an article about him in a Denver magazine.
Plumlee steals a plane and writes some bad checks.
Did Plumlee fly an abort team to Dallas or the actual assassins?
Plumlee writes to Palamara that Dinkin's messages might have been the intelligence to send the abort team to Dallas.
PBS Frontline investigated Plumlee's allegations about Nags Head, North Carolina and could not corroborate any part of his story
Wow, Tosh finds someone who has a photograph of Jack Ruby, Johnny Roselli, Sam Giancana, Ed McLamore, and Lee Harvey Oswald.