Response to Kelly re: "HSCA Evidence of Conspiracy"

Researcher Bill Kelly recently published a blog article that attempts to debunk the “Lone Nut factoid” that “the only evidence of conspiracy that the HSCA came up with was the acoustical study, that has since been debunked.” Apparently because he is unhappy with my eBook, The Bishop Hoax, Kelly chose to focus his wrath on me.

Kelly writes:

Parnell tried to contest [Brian] Bennder’s (sic) mentioning the fact that the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) conclusion that there was probably a conspiracy in the assassination of President Kennedy, saying the only evidence of conspiracy that the HSCA came up with was the acoustical study, that has since been debunked.

The problem is, I never said this. What I did say is that the conclusion by the HSCA of a probable conspiracy was based primarily on the now debunked acoustic evidence.

The first draft of the HSCA report dated December 13, 1978, states:

The committee finds that the available scientific evidence is insufficient to find that there was a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy.

In his dissenting view to the final HSCA report (HSCA, 495), Robert W. Edgar noted:

Up to that moment in the life of the committee, we were prepared to go to the American people with that conclusion. Only after the report of Mark R. Weiss and Ernest Aschkenasy, in the 11th hour of our investigation, was the majority persuaded to vote for two gunman and a conspiracy. I respectfully dissented.

Indeed, the HSCA report listed four factors that led to the conspiracy conclusion:

(1) Since the Warren Commission's and FBI's investigation into the possibility of a conspiracy was seriously flawed, their failure to develop evidence of a conspiracy could not be given independent weight.
(2) The Warren Commission was, in fact, incorrect in concluding that Oswald and Ruby had no significant associations, and therefore its finding of no conspiracy was not reliable.
(3) While it cannot be inferred from the significant associations of Oswald and Ruby that any of the major groups examined by the committee were involved in the assassination, a more limited conspiracy could not be ruled out.
(4) There was a high probability that a second gunman, in fact, fired at the President. At the same time, the committee candidly stated, in expressing it finding of conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination, that it was "unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy.

But it is obvious that the first three factors listed by the committee were known to them at the time of the first draft and were not persuasive enough to lead to a finding of conspiracy. As noted by Edgar, it was only the “high probability” of a second gunman by way of the acoustics evidence that caused the committee to change its mind.

Kelly also notes that:

And the acoustical echo analysis, though often disputed, has never been debunked because the only way to prove or disprove a scientific study is to repeat it, and the HSCA acoustical echo analysis has never been duplicated.

Of course, this is nonsense. All that is needed is to show that the methodology of the original acoustics study was flawed and this has been done again and again. To date, the best summary of the problems with the acoustics data comes from Nicholas Nalli in his article The Ghost of the Grassy Knoll Gunman. Nalli draws on the work of noted acoustics critics including Dale Myers, Michael O’Dell and Steve Barber.

In addition to his misrepresentation of my position on the HSCA conspiracy findings, I have a few other problems with Kelly’s piece. He writes:

Parnell, one of the numerous die hard lone nutters who still try to contend the President was killed by a deranged loner for no apparent reason …

Again, I have never said that Oswald killed JFK for “no apparent reason.” In fact, I know of no “lone nutter” who has stated this. The Warren Commission did write that they “could not make any definitive determination of Oswald's motives.” Since Oswald was dead, this seems very reasonable. But they did, in fact, list several “factors” which “might have influenced his decision to assassinate President Kennedy.” They were:

• His inability to enter into meaningful relationships with people, and a continuous pattern of rejecting his environment favor of new surrounding;
• His urge to try to find a place in history and despair at times over failures in his various undertakings;
• His capacity for violence as evidenced by his attempt to kill General Walker;
• His avowed commitment to Marxism and communism, as he understood the terms and developed his own interpretation of them; this was expressed by his antagonism toward the United States, by his defection to the Soviet Union, by his failure to be reconciled with life in the United States even after his disenchantment with the Soviet Union, and by his efforts, though frustrated, to go to Cuba.

My own vote goes to “a place in history,” although any or all of these could be correct.

Back to Kelly as he turns his ire toward my book:

And a point that I don’t expect Parnell to address in his mythical interpretation of Antonio Veciana’s story, is how David Atlee Phillips, as Maurce (sic) Bishop, took Veciana to an office in the Pan Am Bank building in Miami in order to sign a security oath and begin his lessons in psychological warfare.

But Kelly has his Veciana stories mixed up, which is understandable considering their nonsensical nature. The training Veciana supposedly received was in Havana not in Miami. What was ostensibly at the Pan American building was a Knights of Columbus-like “commitment ceremony.” But the CIA has no such ceremony although they do have real agency employees sign a secrecy oath. But an examination of Veciana’s actual CIA paperwork created when he was an (unused) asset of sorts for a short period starting in 1961 shows no such oath and no evidence of CIA employment.

Finally, Kelly writes:

[Lopez and Hardway] also went to Mexico and wrote the long censored Lopez Report, that details many of the conspiracy leads that Parnell won’t even recognize. Both Lopez and Hardaway, to this day, are dedicated and proud conspiracy theorists.

Dan Hardway may or may not be a “dedicated and proud” conspiracy theorist. But he definitely is the person who became so skeptical of Veciana’s claims that he asked John Newman to look into them. Newman found that both the 1959 and 1960 stories of how Veciana met Bishop are false if you believe Bishop was David Phillips. Summing up, Kelly promises to “get to” my book with a rebuttal. That is fine with me, but I hope in the future he will not mischaracterize my views as he has done in this latest blog article.

The Bishop Hoax Released

Did anti-Castro activist Antonio Veciana really see Lee Harvey Oswald with CIA man David Atlee Phillips just weeks before the assassination of JFK? My new eBook—The Bishop Hoax: Fonzi, Veciana and the Making of a Conspiracy Myth—seeks to answer that question for all time.

In 1976, Veciana met with Congressional researcher Gaeton Fonzi for a series of three interviews. During those meetings, Fonzi reported that Veciana said that he met with a case officer code named Maurice (Morris at first) Bishop for thirteen years. It was Bishop who directed the anti-Castro efforts of Veciana and Alpha 66. Most significantly, before one of his meetings with Bishop, Veciana claimed he saw the mysterious mentor in the company of Oswald.

For twenty-five years, David Atlee Phillips was one of the most distinguished agents in the history of the Cold War CIA. In 1975, he retired to defend the agency from what he believed were unfounded accusations fueled by a media frenzy in the wake of Watergate. An unfortunate side-effect of the publicity Phillips garnered during his crusade was the accusation, based on Veciana’s statements, that he was “Maurice Bishop,” ran a secret campaign to assassinate Fidel Castro and was the “handler” of Oswald.

For over a decade, Phillips denied the charges and won two out of three lawsuits against individuals who promoted the Bishop story and related theories. But after Phillips died in 1988, a book was published by Fonzi titled The Last Investigation that popularized the Bishop story and became a classic JFK conspiracy text. Consequently, Phillips became one of the most popular suspects of CIA-did-it theorists who scrutinized every aspect of his career and added to the body of “facts” impeaching him. The notion that Phillips was Bishop became accepted by both JFK researchers and the public even though Veciana repeatedly denied that Phillips was Bishop over a nearly forty-year period.

The story underwent a demonstrable evolution from those initial interviews through Fonzi’s HSCA writeup, to his infamous 1980 article in the Washingtonian to his 1993 book. Finally, after Fonzi’s death in 2012, Veciana began a final revision of the narrative beginning with his 2013 claim that Bishop was Phillips after all and culminating with his dubious 2017 autobiography Trained to Kill. In that tome, Veciana abandoned all restraint and included virtually fictionalized accounts of the Bishop saga and supporting events.

Highlights of The Bishop Hoax include:

• A biography of Veciana that shows what he really was doing during key periods of his life. Includes the formation and early history of Alpha 66, the 1961 and 1971 Castro assassination plots, the truth about his drug conviction, the “ambush in Reston” when Veciana and Phillips came face to face, the post Fonzi years and much more.
• Why neither of Veciana’s stories about how he met Bishop could be true if Phillips was Bishop.
• How Veciana tried to insert himself into historical events such as the Pedro Pan exodus.
• Who was really running Alpha 66 in the years 1961-1965?
• A profile of David Phillips focusing on the real human being rather than the caricature of him that has been popularized in conspiracy literature.
• Phillips and Mexico City.
• Phillips’ battles with conspiracy authors.
• How Gaeton Fonzi deceived theorists for years by changing facts to fit his theories.
• An analysis of the alleged Bishop-Oswald meeting.
• Repudiations of numerous conspiracy theories, some of which come from other conspiracists.
• An extensive summary of the book’s conclusions.

The Bishop Hoax makes a powerful case that the shadowy Maurice Bishop never existed. It was a narrative promoted by those that wanted to believe in a CIA conspiracy to kill JFK. That notion was then marketed to others with the same proclivity—including a former Washington Post editor. The resulting disinformation campaign went on for over forty years and sullied the reputation of a respected public servant and family man. The Bishop Hoax sets the record straight and finally puts one of the most enduring JFK myths to rest.

My Final Word on Wynne Johnson

There have been several examples through the years of individuals inserting themselves into the JFK story including James Files, Beverly Oliver and Gordon Arnold. The most egregious of these may be Judyth Vary Baker whose claim that she was the girlfriend of Lee Harvey Oswald and worked with him, David Ferrie, Guy Banister and Clay Shaw on a top-secret bio-weapons project has earned her a position as the head of a JFK conference. The only confirmation for any aspect of her story comes from a pay stub from the Reily Coffee Company which shows she was employed there shortly after Oswald was. In his article, “The Making of a Fantasist,” author and researcher Greg Parker refers to the works penned by Baker and those like her as “creative non-fiction.”

A recent entrant into this group related to Veciana and the Bishop story may be one Wynne Murphey Johnson who says he was a witness to the alleged meeting of Veciana, Bishop (who Johnson predictably believes is David Phillips) and Oswald. Johnson admits that he did not “remember” the meeting of the three men until he read Fonzi’s book in 2014. In April of 2017, I published a blog article that was critical of Johnson’s story and included some questions for him. Since Johnson and I were both members of the Education Forum, I had some expectation that he would respond. More than two years later, Johnson finally replied to the original questions as well as some follow-up concerns for a total of 33 responses. My interaction with Johnson is documented here. The following account of Johnson’s story is based on a series of videos he posted at Vimeo.com and his responses to my questions.

Johnson insists that he is a “witness, not a researcher” and that he “made a deliberate decision” to forget his story at the end of 1963. Johnson says that in 1963, he was a 15-year-old student at Jesuit High School in Dallas, an all-boys Catholic Prep School. Johnson had a girlfriend named Vicki who was a student at another Dallas school and the same age. Johnson now says that he “stupidly” believed Vicki was the “love of his life.” Johnson states that he and Vicki had been to the Southland building at least twice before the fateful day of September 7, 1963. Their routine was to visit the Dallas Library before venturing to Southland. The attraction for the two youngsters was apparently the 360-degree view afforded by its observation deck.

In his very first video, Johnson says that he used several “facts” to determine the date of the alleged meeting. But comparing these facts with statements made by Veciana in his earliest interviews and testimonies reveals some problems. The first of Johnson’s facts is that “it had to be a Saturday or Sunday because school had started” and the youngsters “could not get downtown during the week.” But in his 1978 HSCA testimony, Veciana was specifically asked what part of the week the meeting occurred, and he stated that it was a weekday.

Another of Johnson’s facts is that Veciana described the incident as “happening toward the end of the first week in September.” But as I have previously documented, in his interviews with Fonzi, Veciana (after first saying the meeting occurred “around ‘62”) indicated through his interpreter that “his memory isn’t certain, but he thinks it was in the summer of ’63 in August. But he can’t give [a] specific date.” In a subsequent interview with Fonzi, Veciana said the date was “July or August.” In a June 1976 interview with Dick Russell, Veciana again said the meeting happened in August.

It was only after being influenced by Fonzi’s theories that Veciana “said” the date was specifically at the end of the first week of September. Not coincidentally, this was a time frame that Fonzi incorrectly believed that Oswald had a window of opportunity to travel to Dallas from New Orleans. But evidence places Oswald in New Orleans during that time and there is no indication that he traveled anywhere either by car, bus or air as would be necessary. When confronted with these inconsistencies, Johnson told me that “what you wrote does not change my mind.”

Johnson says that the Southland Building was normally referred to as the “Southland Life” building because “big white letters on two sides of its top said, “SOUTHLAND LIFE.” Johnson told me that except for the name, “Fonzi was right” in his identification of the building. But Johnson is apparently unaware that Veciana told Fonzi in their March 2nd interview that the meeting between Veciana, Bishop and Oswald took place in a building with a “big bank or insurance company” that could have been “blue or white.” Veciana’s description apparently made Fonzi think of Southland and during a follow-up interview on March 11th, he specifically asked Veciana if the meeting took place there. Veciana replied through his interpreter “he doesn’t remember.” Veciana only recently (2017 as near as I can determine) began saying that the building where the meeting with Phillips and Oswald took place was the Southland building. Evidently, Veciana was unable to recall the large and obvious white letters that Johnson describes (and photographs confirm) or the building’s unusual height. Southland, at 550 feet, was the tallest building west of the Mississippi river from 1959-1964 according to Wikipedia.

Johnson says that he heard a rebroadcast of Oswald’s interview by a New Orleans radio station in August of 1963 although he was “not fascinated” by it. Johnson states that he reveals this “relevant” fact to the viewers of his video because it proves that Oswald was known to the public at large before the assassination although he was not yet “extremely famous.” Johnson adds that he did not commit Oswald’s name to memory, nor does he recall seeing a photograph of him before the assassination.

On September 6th, Johnson’s sisters told him that he had missed a phone call from an unidentified male. Johnson says ominously that he has “never known for sure who the caller was.” Johnson’s video then shows a frame of a 1963 calendar with Saturday, September 7th highlighted as a prelude to his story of the meeting. Vicky called that morning and wanted to know if Johnson had received a call from “some people.” Johnson, somehow forgetting the previous day’s missed call despite having what he refers to as a “gift” for memory, replied in the negative. In his video reply to me, Johnson says, “Vicki knew something beforehand, and I cannot deny the indications for this. But exactly what she knew, and how much, and especially from whom, I do not know to this day.” The fact that Vicki was aware of the call is the first example among several of what Johnson considers to be Vicki’s foreknowledge of the events that were to occur.

Vicki asked if Johnson would take her to the Southland building and he readily agreed although he was surprised since the two had been there so often. Vicki also asked Johnson to bring a camera. Although he is not sure on this point, Johnson guesses that the “source” who provided her with foreknowledge asked her to do this. Johnson’s video goes on to show several maps and photographs to try to add legitimacy to his story including a picture of the “old Statler Hilton Hotel” where he says portentously that “Richard Nixon stayed … the night before the assassination.”

Johnson goes on to describe the journey from the library where the two met to Southland in excruciating detail saying that they met and briefly talked to a classmate of his. He says that a taxi revved its engine behind them on Live Oak Street and “careened left onto Olive Street” and this is “an important detail.” When the taxi passed them, Vicki said, “Did you see that?” After Johnson said that he had, Vicki said, “There is something I need to tell you. There will be some people in the building.” Vicki did not elaborate, and Johnson did not ask what she meant by the remark. Johnson says he “cannot now rule out Vicki’s having been told that [Oswald] might be among the aforementioned “some people.” Johnson does not say who could have told Vicki this or how this instance of foreknowledge on her part could have occurred.

As they continued walking, Johnson remembers the “distinct sound of a car door slamming shut” and observed the taxi discharge a young man at the corner of Live Oak and Olive. This young man, according to Johnson, was Oswald. The “fact” that Oswald took a taxi to Southland is one of several realities that only “lately” occurred to Johnson, but he does not regard this as detrimental to his credibility.

Interestingly, Johnson has developed a new theory about the taxi. He now believes that the encounter was planned and that the taxi had been waiting for the teenagers and had followed them for a short distance. Johnson believes that the taxi was rented by the plotters and the driver was none other than perennial conspiracy favorite David Ferrie. Johnson is sure of this because Judyth Baker has reported that Oswald and Ferrie were friends by this time and since both men were CIA operatives, they would have known how to rent a taxi without a driver. Additionally, Ferrie would have wanted to help Oswald during his meeting with Phillips in any way possible according to Johnson.

Johnson believes that the reason for all of this was to have “friendly witnesses” in place at Southland who could be identified and found later. Johnson has no idea why two 15-year-old kids were picked as “witnesses” nor does he explain why the conspirators never called on the duo to confirm the meeting. According to his video reply to me, Johnson does not see his late occurring memory of the taxi or his theory about David Ferrie being the driver as significant factors when evaluating his believability.

After entering the building, Vicki asked Johnson if he would walk more slowly at first and then, at some point, she told Johnson to resume his normal pace. Johnson apparently did not find this behavior strange enough to ask about and still does not know why Vicki did this. He does admit that the effect of her action was to give Oswald, Veciana and Phillips enough time to encounter them in the lobby, again suggesting foreknowledge on the part of 15-year-old Vicki. Johnson observed the three men near the wall to their right. The youngest of the men, who Johnson believes was Oswald, was the same man he had observed getting out of the taxi. “Somehow,” Johnson claims, “I was surprised to see him again so soon and my surprise must have shown involuntarily on my face as I was soon to find out.” Johnson does not say why he should be surprised to see an admitted total stranger or why he would pay any attention to him at all for that matter.

The oldest man “turns out” according to Johnson, to be David Atlee Phillips of the CIA. Again, Johnson does not explain how after forcing himself to forget for years and years he was able to remember the details of a chance encounter such as where each man was standing, where other passersby were located and what they all did. Inevitably, Johnson says the third man was Antonio Veciana, but he admits that he knew none of these “facts” before reading Fonzi’s book in 2014. Johnson claims that Phillips asked the youngsters where he could find a coffee shop and Vicki gave him directions.

Johnson’s claims here disregard several commonsense facts. Harold Weisberg, a researcher and former OSS operative who Johnson quotes in his videos and seems to respect, said that Phillips would never bring together two of his clandestine contacts. Johnson answers this criticism by saying that Weisberg was noting what “would have been normal.” But since the JFK assassination “was unique in human history” that “nobody should be surprised that unusual events were a part of it.” But Johnson’s logic asks us to ignore the fact that if Phillips were to inexplicably try such an ill-advised maneuver it seems logical that he would know the layout of the building rather than calling attention to himself and his assets by asking directions in public.

It was at this point, according to Johnson that Oswald spoke up and said, “he recognized me.” Johnson speculates that Oswald said this because before the two youngsters arrived Phillips might have asked him if he had been seen entering the building. Oswald would have told Phillips, Johnson speculates, that two teenagers had indeed seen him. When Vicki replied, “We saw you outside” Phillips’ demeanor “suddenly changed” from “friendly” to “the opposite” and he intoned, “does he [Johnson] have a camera?” After Vicki assured Phillips that Johnson did not, the clueless Phillips asked, “Is this the way out?” as he gestured to a door behind Vicki. Oswald interjected, “There is another way out here.” The three men left, but Johnson was “sufficiently distracted by what he had just witnessed” to the point that he started toward the wrong door to the observation deck elevator even though there was a sign for it. Why Johnson was “distracted” at all by an innocuous conversation with three strangers he does not say.

A brief digression is needed before continuing the evaluation of this part of Johnson’s story. In 2014, Johnson began contacting prominent researchers and other relevant individuals to alert them to his story. One of these people was Gaeton Fonzi’s widow, Marie. According to Mrs. Fonzi, Johnson sent her “an abstract of about a hundred pages.” Mrs. Fonzi instructed Johnson to prepare a two-page summary of his story, and she gave out copies of this at the 2014 AARC conference. This action by Mrs. Fonzi was probably responsible for Johnson’s story becoming more widely known among researchers. During her 2014 AARC presentation, Mrs. Fonzi said that Johnson was “very valid” and was surprised that others, such as Jefferson Morley, did not feel the same way. Mrs. Fonzi also expressed “regret” that her husband “had not lived long enough to know” about Johnson and Vicki. For more detail about Mrs. Fonzi and Johnson from her perspective in 2014, see the AARC video “Dr. Marie Fonzi-On the Home Front” starting at the 22:00 minute mark.

Ultimately however, Mrs. Fonzi began to sour on Johnson and later told him that she had reservations about “late-occurring” memories. Additionally, Johnson admitted to me that one of the last things Mrs. Fonzi told him was to “leave me out of it.” The trouble between the two may have started when Johnson was forced to admit that some of the dialog that he reported to Mrs. Fonzi did not appear in his very first video. Evidently, some astute researcher (or Mrs. Fonzi herself) caught on to this fact and confronted Johnson. While admitting that his omission of these lines is “puzzling” Johnson goes on to relate them as an integral part of his story anyway.

In his latest version of events, Johnson says that the dialog between Vicki and Phillips was slightly longer with Vicki repeating the directions to the coffee shop twice. Johnson also now remembers thinking that he should suggest to Phillips that the men follow them up to the observation deck restaurant but ended up saying nothing while Vicki did the talking. Finally, in this new version Oswald has an additional line. After Phillips became unfriendly, he said “I thought he [Johnson] was on our side” to which Oswald replied, “That’s what you’re going to find out.” The rest of the conversation was as Johnson previously described.

Johnson evidently was caught in another sticky situation during his conversations with Marie Fonzi. Johnson firmly denies this, but it is possible that he may have tried to further embellish his story for Mrs. Fonzi’s benefit. In this questioned conversation, Phillips asked Veciana in Spanish, “Is it him?” (referring to Johnson). Veciana then replied, “yes younger.” Johnson acknowledges that this exchange implies that Phillips and Veciana already had knowledge of him, a very unlikely situation to say the least. Johnson now says that this had to be a “vaticinal” dream that occurred in the late 1963 to 1965 time period rather than a real event and attributes it to “some kind of deep sleep time warp.” Johnson seems to understand that this incident adds to his diminished credibility and may cause some to think that he dreamed the entire Southland incident.

After the encounter, Johnson showed Vicki that he did have his camera and he believes this fact somehow proves his claims about the conversation with the three men. After pushing the button for the elevator, Vicki told Johnson she would be “right back.” When she returned, Vicki, who acted like she had seen a celebrity, told Johnson, “I think I just saw …” and then repeated a three-part name with “Lee” included. Inevitably, Johnson is sure that she said, “Lee Harvey Oswald” rather than “Jerry Lee Lewis” or any of a hundred other names. How or why a fifteen-year-old girl would be interested enough in Lee Harvey Oswald, a name unknown to likely 99 percent of Americans at that point in time, to recognize him on sight is not satisfactorily explained by Johnson. It is obvious that Johnson has received a great deal of flak from researchers about this claim since he devotes much time in a later video talking about it. But ultimately, Johnson stands by this assertion and insists that it was “possible” for Vicki to know the name. After a brief time on the observation deck, the youngsters took their time returning to ground level to give the “peculiar” and “suspicious” men time to leave the area.

The pair walked past the Library to where Johnson’s car was located so that he could drive Vicki home but sat in the car and talked for a time before leaving. Vicki told Johnson that the men they had seen in the lobby “wanted to kill Castro and Kennedy,” the first of two times before the assassination that she would divulge this startling information. Vicki suggested that they call the police, but Johnson did not want to do anything since he did not think that she “had any real information” and believed she was reacting to the fact that they were “right-wingers.” How Vicki was able to ascertain this in such a short time is not explained, but perhaps Johnson again chalks this up to Vicki’s foreknowledge of the situation. Johnson, in one of the more sensible claims he makes, was “already forgetting” about the men and considered them a “forgettable interruption” in their day and would remain so for 51 years.

Before leaving the area, Vicki told Johnson that she wanted to see a woman at Titche’s Department Store, and he waited in the car while she went in. When Vicki finally emerged, she told Johnson “You may need to know this name. Ruth Ann.” Evidently, Johnson had no curiosity then about “Ruth Ann” and asked no questions. However, Johnson now believes that “Ruth Ann” ties into the Loy Factor conspiracy theory, a fact that seems to again indicate Vicki’s foreknowledge of assassination related matters. "It is not unthinkable," Johnson maintains, that Malcolm Wallace was there at Southland to meet with David Phillips, although he concedes “that does not make it so.” Under this unlikely scenario, Phillips would be at Southland to meet with, not one, but three assets in the same day.

After arriving at Vicki’s house, she invited Johnson inside. Vicki then told an unseen person in an adjacent room that the woman she went to see at Tiche’s was not there. Johnson now assumes this hidden individual was probably Vicki’s brother who may have been made aware of other relevant events. In any case, Johnson departed shortly thereafter. Sometime later, Johnson and Vicki went on a date to the Texas State Fair and Vicki again brought up the mysterious men in the lobby. Johnson, understandably, had to be reminded about the unextraordinary incident with the men that he now recalls in excruciating detail. Vicki again wanted to go to the police, but Johnson once more saw no reason for such action. Johnson now blames himself for not taking Vicki seriously.

After the assassination, Johnson visited Vicki’s home and she informed him that her mother needed to speak to him. Vicki also said in a somewhat worried tone of voice that she believed she had, “run into Lee Harvey Oswald” who by now was known to Johnson and the rest of the world. Johnson says he still did not associate Vicki’s revelation with the meeting of the mysterious men at Southland although Oswald “seemed familiar” to him. Presently, Vicki’s mother came into the room and confirmed her desire to talk to Johnson but not just then. Johnson says that “importantly” Vicki’s mother did not seem upset.

On November 24th, Johnson attended mass and upon returning home was informed by his sister that Oswald had been shot and killed. Johnson admits that he still did not recall having seen Oswald at this point. On the 26th, Johnson decided to see Vicki’s mother after school as she had asked. Again, Johnson’s remarkable memory for detail is on display as he recalls specifics such as where the members of Vicki’s family were positioned in the home as the meeting began. Vicki’s mother exclaimed, “Vicki tells me that you and she ran into Lee Harvey Oswald downtown.” Johnson still did not remember seeing Oswald but when Vicki told him it was at Southland he finally remembered. Vicki’s mother, who was now clearly worried, instructed Johnson not to talk to anyone about the incident since “they could kill Vicki.”

Johnson and Vicki pacified her mother somewhat by assuring her that the incident with the men had taken place in September and not recently. Vicki’s mother told Johnson that her admonition to not speak did, of course, not include the police. Johnson understood that he was primarily not to speak to their “stupid friends” and agreed with Vicki’s mother “in the short term.” It should be noted that Johnson’s father did not believe the story and suspected that one or both teens had “made it up.” Johnson does not find his father’s skepticism significant and says that he “thought that the authorities would get to the bottom of the matter.”

Johnson feels that the only other member of Vicki’s family that was aware of the situation would have been her brother. The following day, Johnson’s mother told him that she had spoken with Vicki’s mother and agreed with her assessment of the situation. “Let the authorities handle it” she advised her son, although Johnson is now doubtful that his mother could have “had an adequate idea of what happened” during their observation of the men at Southland. Nevertheless, after this conversation, Johnson decided to forget “the men in the lobby” unless he was contacted by authorities, which he never was.

At a subsequent visit to Vicki’s house, she spoke to Johnson privately regarding rumors of an “atrocity apparently committed by people suspicious of the official story” or unhappy with Lyndon Johnson’s presidency. Johnson says that this “dark rumor” kept him from talking freely about the JFK assassination until 2014. Johnson also claims that this rumor was a “factor in my forgetting the relatively trivial encounter at the Southland building.” Johnson, who often mentions race in his videos, speaks of past lynchings as an example of a “general breakdown of order” that could occur in the wake of certain revelations regarding an event such as the assassination. Johnson has consistently refused to talk about the “dark rumor” and declined again when I specifically asked him about it.

One morning not long after the assassination, Vicki called and asked Johnson to meet her at the library. Johnson was waiting when Vicki arrived, and she greeted him but then immediately excused herself to speak to a stern-looking middle-aged man in a business suit nearby. Johnson has since determined, through undisclosed means, that this individual was “a G-man” probably from “the FBI” and working for the Warren Commission. Like before, Johnson remembers minute details such as where the principals were situated and provides a diagram to prove his point. Evidently oblivious to Johnson’s presence, the pair spoke for “a long time.” Finally, the “G-man” left the library and Johnson understandably questioned Vicki about the man and their conversation. But she told him that she regrettably could not tell him the nature of their conversation. Undaunted by this revelation, Johnson proceeded to escort Vicki to the classical music section of the library. Johnson now believes that diligent researchers might be able to unearth an FBI report of the incident, although they will have to endure the “badly programmed websites” where such documents reside to do so.

Two and a half years later, Johnson learned more about the meeting between Vicki and the “G-man” in a private conversation with her. She told him that the conversation had been about one word- “Oswald.” Johnson immediately “realized” that their discussion had been about the Southland meeting. Johnson later surmised, although Vicki did not say this, that her family responded to public calls by authorities for information on the assassination. That is why Johnson believes that the “G-man” wanted both him and Vicki present at the library, although he chose not to speak to Johnson. Why Vicki could not tell Johnson about the meeting right away is never explained. Nor is it explained why the “G-man” would not want to speak with Johnson as it is a standard practice in law enforcement to compare witness statements. If the story of the meeting with the man is true and he was from the FBI, Johnson has apparently never considered the possibility that he listened to Vicki and did not believe her information was relevant.

Johnson next discusses an alleged incident from 1965 that occurred at a party that a friend invited him to. His friend said that Vicki, who Johnson was not permitted to see at this time, would be at the party and Johnson was keen to attend for this reason. His friend also mentioned that “an important government man” would be there. At the party, Johnson did speak to Vicki outside, but their conversation was “disappointing” which seems to mean that she refused his advances. After going back inside, Johnson observed the “government man” arriving through the front door. This man looked like David Phillips and Johnson is now “convinced” that he was. This man was immediately surrounded by young people who told him that an individual they had discussed was at the party. “I want to meet him” Phillips told the youngsters. Although Johnson was sure that he was the man Phillips wanted to meet, he had “a bad feeling” and left through a side door before Phillips spotted him.

Johnson defends his dubious recollections regarding this incident by saying that the people at the party were either finishing high school or already in college. And since most were into the humanities and especially drama, it is not “unthinkable” that Phillips would be at the party recruiting for the government. Johnson says that Phillips, who was stationed overseas in a high-level CIA post at the time, “just happened to be in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.” Johnson argues that a spy is an actor at heart and Phillips’ background as an actor is not in dispute. Johnson apparently believes that Phillips wanted to speak with him and that his intentions could have been “benevolent.”

Eventually, Johnson attended college and served in the military. He married a woman named Beverly who filled him in on the details of the “dark rumor” Johnson had first heard from Vicki although he refuses to say what those specifics were. In 1973, Vicki’s husband told Johnson that he was concerned that she might be subpoenaed during any new investigation about the assassination. By 1990, Johnson learned that Vicki “seemed to be under stress” but could not pursue the matter. Johnson followed news reports about the HSCA investigation in the late seventies and learned of Veciana’s Bishop story but did not connect it with his experiences. Johnson admits that this lack of recognition might “be hard to believe” but says that he “put the topic out of his mind” in 1963 and “developed a further aversion to it” after his wife’s 1971 revelation about the “dark rumor.”

By the year 2000, Johnson was working as an English teacher. In his leisure time, he began what was obviously an intense study of the conspiracy literature of the JFK assassination. As Johnson learned more, it became “clearer and clearer what a fraud the Warren Commission had been.” By 2014, Johnson had read Fonzi’s book and learned of two key points of information; that the meeting was at the Southland building and that Phillips and Veciana went to a coffee shop. That was enough to “start bringing back the memory to me” Johnson says. What followed was his attempt to get “corroboration from Vicki and Veciana.”

The fact is Johnson has gone to considerable lengths to make his story known in the conspiracy community. In addition to his interaction with Mrs. Fonzi, Johnson contacted well-known researcher James DiEugenio sometime after the 2014 AARC conference. In 2015, DiEugenio told members of the Deep Politics forum that Johnson “deserves a fair hearing” (DPF, “The Southland Center Revisited”). Additionally, Johnson contacted Judyth Baker, who, as mentioned, spins her own dubious tale of an experience with Oswald. However, Baker told Johnson that Oswald never said anything about two teenagers at Southland.

In 2015 Johnson traveled to Miami to see Veciana himself. Veciana gladly used Johnson’s story in his book as “confirmation” of his own tale and claimed to remember him and Vicki. This is surprising since in his initial interviews with Fonzi, Veciana could not remember simple details such as exactly where and when the meeting took place-a fact that Johnson seems unaware of or chooses to ignore. Johnson believes that although Veciana never told Fonzi or anyone else about seeing him and Vicki, that Veciana may have simply forgotten this aspect of the story. But speaking to Johnson possibly triggered Veciana’s memory in the same remarkable way that Johnson’s own memory was rekindled by reading Fonzi’s book. Johnson notes that Veciana made several “mistakes” in his book when recounting his tale. Johnson feels that he remembered some of Veciana’s story “better than he did” and seeks to correct these blunders in a recent video. The biggest disagreement seems to be that Veciana remembered that Oswald never said a word while Johnson says that Oswald uttered, “he recognized me.”

At some point, Johnson became aware that many in the conspiracy research community did not believe his claims and therefore he made a few videos to answer questions from skeptics. Johnson says that he “cannot help” the fact that his story is hard to believe but he is obliged to tell it. Johnson says it is “hard to know what to say” about negative reactions to his videos but adds that he has “no motive” to lie. Johnson adds that he can “hardly keep track of waves of skepticism” and says that money is not a motive since he has received little renumeration for his efforts, which is undoubtedly true.

Johnson counters those who think his reason for coming forward with his story is to insert himself into history by saying that his motive is instead “patriotic” and “religious and moral.” For those who say he is seeking attention, Johnson says that is “rubbish” and a “dismissive insult and smear used on many witnesses in this case starting with Lee Oswald himself.” Johnson adds that “a truthful witness CANNOT AVOID (emphasis in original video subtitles) that attention except through silence.” However, Johnson admits that discussions with conspiracy researchers caused him to “remember more” of his story.

Johnson hopes that Vicki, which he insists is her real first name, will see his videos and come forward to confirm his story. However, Vicki’s husband wrote to Johnson saying that she does not remember anything regarding the incident, which would be hard to believe if Johnson’s story is true. Johnson is doubtful that Vicki, “really does not remember beyond recall,” but adds that if she doesn’t, he would “not hesitate to call it an innocent case of amnesia.” Johnson believes that such an instance of amnesia might be “commonplace” in the case of an individual who was acting out of a need to “safeguard the lives of loved ones or their own life.” Vicki’s husband also told Johnson that he hoped he would not write again and that they do not want to be contacted by him or anyone regarding his videos. Since Vicki’s husband is a career military man, Johnson suspects that his refusal to speak with him is because of the military’s “conformity of political opinion” regarding the “coup of 1963.”

Editor's Note

Researcher Tom Scully advised me that Johnson himself revealed Vicki's full name on the Internet. Her identity will not be revealed by this blog out of respect for her privacy.

What to make of Johnson’s claims? First, it is significant when evaluating Johnson’s allegations to note that he believes several of the popular JFK and 9/11 conspiracy theories. Johnson says that “evidence uncovered by private citizens” shows that Lee Harvey Oswald was “not guilty of the charges” of killing JFK and JD Tippit. Johnson adds that Oswald “was not on the sixth floor of [the book depository] when the motorcade passed by and never shot at Kennedy.” Johnson cites the “Prayer Man” conspiracy theory as proof of Oswald’s innocence in this regard. According to the video he made in response to my questions, he also believes that Robert Kennedy was assassinated because of a conspiracy and that “World Trade Center 7 was not brought down by office fires” and this fact is made “perfectly obvious from the video evidence, including from a nearby camera showing detonations within the building as they happened.”

Although he denies it, a possible motive for Johnson is a desire to insert himself and his story into the JFK case, a subject that he cares deeply about and has studied extensively. Despite his protestations, Johnson has gone to considerable trouble to contact researchers and make his story known and has spoken at two JFK assassination conferences. It is entirely possible that Johnson had some of the experiences he has described. Perhaps he and the girl did visit the Southland building and did see a group of men together. Perhaps Vicki did later convince him that they had seen Lee Harvey Oswald and they told her parents about it contemporaneously. Conceivably her family did take the extra step of reporting what they knew to the authorities and an investigator went to the library to interview Vicki. But even if all of this is true, it would not be unusual. Dozens and dozens of other people thought they had seen Oswald or had other information that they believed was relevant to the assassination. The FBI, who had no choice, spent hundreds of wasted hours chasing down these leads and found that most of them were without foundation.

In my opinion, Johnson has projected a series of events he believes he witnessed onto the historical record. Johnson does not seem to realize that most of the skepticism regarding his claims comes from the fact that he only “remembered” these events after reading and falling under the sway of conspiracy books. He also seems to be unaware that much of the information in these books, specifically about Veciana, is demonstrably false. Johnson admits that he “easily forgot” about the alleged incident at Southland by the time of the assassination. Indeed, that is what would have happened in any normal situation-the mind forgets what it has no need to retain. Johnson believes that he “made a conscious decision to forget” the incident and it “receded far into his subconscious memory.” Later, the memory came back to him “naturally” and, according to his own analysis, “reliably.” But it just would not work that way in real life. After all, Johnson is not claiming that he recalled the incident through therapy or hypnosis. You do not experience an incident and then just happen to remember more and more detail after reading conspiracy books and talking to conspiracy-oriented researchers.

Johnson, who is obviously intelligent and probably a sincere and well-meaning man, has exactly one relevant individual who is willing to support his claims. Vicky, wherever she may be, will not support him. Evidently, neither will anyone in her family. Marie Fonzi was polite to Johnson but firmly skeptical. Even Judyth Baker would not help him. Only Antonio Veciana, whose story is now being exposed by myself and others as a gross distortion, “confirms” his tale.

Newman Says Phillips Was Not Bishop

“But it’s no doubt in my mind what happened and there was a classic, you know, ambush. He was never gonna get out of [Dealey Plaza] alive.”

This statement by author John Newman during the question-and-answer session after his November 2020 presentation titled, “The CIA, the Army and the Pentagon: The Veciana Misdirection 3.0” was no doubt warmly received by the virtual attendees. But the real headline was his answer to another query. That response will be troubling to JFK research community members who endorse the prevailing theory that the CIA killed Kennedy.

“Was Bishop really Phillips?”

“No, I don’t think so …” Newman answered. “at best [Bishop] would be a composite of several people that played roles in the saga.”

One of the pillars of the CIA-did-it believers has been the story of Antonio Veciana who told Congressional investigator Gaeton Fonzi that he saw Lee Harvey Oswald meet with his mentor, a shadowy figure named Maurice Bishop, shortly before the JFK killing. Newman has been slowly but surely working to dismantle specific aspects of Veciana’s tale since about 2017. Regrettably, he is seeking to replace that false history with another one-the Pentagon and certain members of the Joint Chiefs of staff (working with obligatory CIA elements) were really behind the November 22, 1963 murder.

Before looking at the gist of his presentation, I need to clear up a minor mistake Newman made. At slide number three, he states, “That afternoon [the March 2, 1976 initial interview] in the living room with Fonzi, Veciana did not say that his Bishop character’s first name was Maurice. Veciana did not mention a first name at all” (emphasis added). Shortly thereafter Newman says, “… In 1976 Veciana did not know the first name of Bishop. Over the next 12 months, Veciana added the first name as Morris and then later he finally changed it to Maurice.”

But Veciana did mention the first name of Bishop as “Morris” in that initial interview (see Fonzi, 200; RIF 157-10007-10311, p. 4). Moreover, Newman understates Bishop’s first name problem. Veciana’s Church Committee deposition (which is now missing) resulted in the generation of documents that referred to “Jim” or “John” as other possibilities for the unseen mentor’s first name.

At the virtual conference, Newman described his current theory regarding Veciana, which he now characterizes as “highly probable,” in the following manner:

“In exchange for his immediate release from prison [where he was serving time on a drug charge], Veciana had to fabricate a complete makeover of his past life as a CIA agent who witnessed Oswald with his CIA handler in the fall of 1963. Veciana agreed.”

According to Newman, the “crucial moment in Veciana’s life” was the “secret deal” he made to get out of prison in February 1976. Newman maintains that Veciana dropped a “big shining lie” on Gaeton Fonzi during the initial interview. “That event was no accident. Those who offered Veciana the secret deal knew that Fonzi was a staff investigator for the Senate Select Committee and knew that Fonzi was going to interview Veciana,” Newman asserted, “And I have the evidence for that.” Newman concluded, “… they weaponized Veciana to control the narrative of the Congressional investigation of the Kennedy assassination.”

To prove his theory, Newman says that he is working to have information released to the public. “Now, we want all the documents of anything the parole board did,” Newman said, “and if they’ve been destroyed we want all the documentation of when and why they were destroyed.”

In the meantime, Newman offered several pieces of evidence to support his hypothesis. He says that three of Veciana’s friends believed in the “secret deal” and believes that their statements confirm the arrangement. The first of these friends is Felix Zabala, a sports promoter who worked on various projects with Veciana in Puerto Rico. The second was Roger Redondo who was a member of SNFE. The final friend remains unidentified but goes by the FBI pseudonym of “Wild Stallion.” Newman says that “Wild Stallion” was a “senior Alpha 66 member.”

Each of these men indeed expressed the opinion that Veciana had hatched a “secret deal” (perhaps using false statements) to achieve an early prison release. But the men’s beliefs were just that with no confirmation offered. For example, in the case of “Wild Stallion,” the FBI report called his assertions, “pure speculation” and added that he “has no tangible evidence to support this theory.” And although Zabala believed in the “secret deal” theory, he also stated that in all the years he had known Veciana, he “never indicated he had anything to do with or had information concerning the assassination of Kennedy” that would justify such a deal.

Newman offers additional evidence for the “secret deal” theory in the form of a statement made by Veciana during his 1978 HSCA testimony:

“Nevertheless, I feel compelled to answer because going to [j]ail at this point in time for a person who is on parole would mean to paralyze certain very important investigations that I am now controlling within the courts of my country” (emphasis by Newman in his presentation slide).

Newman calls this a “remarkable confession” that “gave away an important clue to the hazardous mission [the secret deal] that Veciana had to undertake to win his freedom from prison”. But Veciana launched into more than one rambling and self-serving monologue during his HSCA testimony. The speech that Newman draws the quote from started out as a response to a question about the 1971 plot to kill Castro in South America that Veciana says he was a part of. However, the country Veciana was referring to was likely his homeland of Cuba and the (probably imaginary) investigations he referenced were doubtless related to two of his pet peeves-his drug conviction “setup” (which he blamed “the Cuban government” for in this same testimony) and his fear that Castro was trying to kill him. Although the evidence shows that Veciana was guilty of the drug charge, his latter concern was a real one since he was indeed slightly wounded during an assassination attempt in 1979.

As a researcher who believes that Bishop did not exist, if Newman were to prove that Veciana procured an early release to tell his story, it would be a stroke of luck for me. Veciana’s motive for the Bishop story would then become obvious-he wanted to give the investigators their “money’s worth.” But I doubt the “secret deal” theory for several reasons.

First, Newman says that the conspirators “knew” that Fonzi was going to interview Veciana. I take this to mean that Fonzi was unaware of the scheme and was an unwitting dupe which simplifies things. The conspirators contacted Veciana and got him to agree to this “secret deal.” In exchange for his freedom, Veciana was to represent himself-to use Newman’s words, “as a CIA agent who witnessed Oswald with his CIA handler in the fall of 1963.” The problem is he did no such thing.

As I wrote in a previous blog post:

[during the first interview with Fonzi] Veciana inexplicably uttered, “a few times [I] asked [Bishop] if he worked for the CIA. And the answer he would give … was that there isn’t only one agency, the CIA, there are a lot of agencies working for this” [the anti-Castro cause]. Veciana went on to say that he believed Bishop was “working for a private organization, not the government.” As the saying goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Despite the perfect opportunity to tie his mysterious mentor to the CIA, Veciana somehow completely forgot about the mission his Pentagon masters had ordered him to undertake. In fact, he seemed to be going out of his way to not implicate the agency. Worse, his reference to other “agencies” had opened the door to the possibility that Fonzi, or another investigator reviewing his notes, would consider Army Intelligence as a source of Bishop’s authority. And given Veciana’s provable ties to that group, that was a distinct possibility.

Indeed, as Newman notes in his presentation, Senator Schweiker did his own legwork which led to the Church Committee deposition of Veciana’s true Intelligence handler, Milford Hubbard of the US Army. Both Schweiker and Fonzi became aware of Veciana’s link to the Army and the lack of evidence that tied him to the CIA. Others in the US government also learned of Veciana’s Army ties. We now know that the CIA’s Scott Breckinridge was referring to the Army when he told Robert Blakey, “you know Veciana was an asset of another US government agency and not of CIA.” Because there was no Bishop, Schweiker hit a dead end in his pursuit of the ethereal mentor as an Army Intelligence asset and dropped the matter. Fonzi simply ignored the evidence that Veciana’s more tangible association was with the Army and blindly pursued the CIA angle.

Veciana again had a chance to put everyone on the right track in June of 1976 when he spoke to Dick Russell. Granted, Russell was not a government investigator, but Veciana’s statements to him show that he was not pushing the CIA angle to anyone. Veciana told Russell that Bishop was, “part of an American intelligence service, but instructed him not to ask which one.” Once again, Veciana not only refused to implicate the CIA through Bishop, but again opened the door to the possibility that he was working with another intelligence service such as the Army’s.

In August of 1977, well over a year after those first interviews with Fonzi, Veciana had yet another chance to identify Bishop as CIA. Once again, he failed miserably to do the plotters’ bidding and made a point of forcefully denying that Bishop was with the agency. Veciana told Fonzi’s assistant Al Gonzales that he “never said that Bishop was CIA” but believed that he was with “some sort of [other] intelligence agency or with a powerful interest group.” And Veciana’s reference of another intelligence agency again opened the door to potential scrutiny of the very agency he was supposed to protect-the Army. By the way, it was during this interview with Gonzales that Veciana initally said that Bishop’s first name was “Maurice.”

Veciana’s final opportunity to implicate the CIA under Fonzi’s tenure came during his 1978 HSCA testimony. Predictably, Veciana once again stated, "I always had the opinion that Maurice Bishop was working for a private firm and not the government." Veciana also refused to name David Phillips, Fonzi’s perennial Bishop suspect, as the unseen mentor. So much for directing the attention of investigators away from the Pentagon and toward the CIA. A simpler and more likely motive for Veciana to initially speak to Fonzi was his two pet peeves previously mentioned-his drug conviction and his fear of Castro. Veciana probably believed that having government investigators in his corner would lend credibility to his assertion that he was “setup” for the drug charge (and Fonzi indeed promoted that canard) and make it harder for Castro to kill him.

In addition to the “secret deal” theory, there are a few other points that I disagree with Newman about. I will offer more detail about these in my forthcoming book.

To show that Veciana disliked the CIA and would not have worked with them, Newman says the MRP endured a “CIA nightmare” in Cuba before the Bay of Pigs. The MRP asked the agency for “weapons of war” but the CIA distrusted them and provided only sabotage weapons and equipment. According to Newman, a schism in the MRP developed in June 1961 and Veciana became “military coordinator.” Veciana was very bitter toward the CIA when Cuban Intelligence crushed Operation Liborio in 1961. I assume Newman means that Veciana was bitter regarding the fact that the CIA did not provide more substantial weapons to the MRP. But why? Did Veciana really believe that having a few weapons would allow the MRP to crush Castro’s substantial security forces? Besides, Veciana had a bazooka-the problem (depending on who is telling the story) was evidently finding anyone who was willing to risk their own life by firing it at Castro.

Newman says a “secret merger” between Alpha 66 and SNFE during the Cuban Missile Crisis helped to hide the Army’s work with Alpha 66 and transfer blame for pushing JFK into war with Cuba (which, of course, never happened) from the Pentagon to the CIA. My contention is that such a merger never occurred, at least not the way Newman indicates.

Newman doubts the story that Hubbard told to Schweiker about visiting the frogmen at the Alpha 66/SNFE base. Hubbard said that SNFE leader Eloy Menoyo was the one who accompanied him to the base but Newman believes it was Veciana. Newman bases this on a report that says Veciana was scheduled to take the trip. Of course, this does not prove that he did. As further proof that Menoyo could not have made the trip Newman maintains (slide 113) that Menoyo left the US on October 10, 1962 and never returned “for years.” But a quick check of my records shows Menoyo made a speech in Chicago in May of 1963.

In conclusion, John Newman should be congratulated for recognizing that David Phillips was not Bishop and stating that publicly. Similarly, he should be commended for some of his work on the Veciana-Maurice Bishop matter. For example, Newman was the first one to show that both the 1959 and 1960 scenarios regarding Veciana meeting Bishop/Phillips in Cuba are false when checked against the known actions of Phillips. But it is regrettable that he is trying to replace Veciana’s conspiracy canard with his pet theory of Pentagon involvement in the death of JFK.

The Last Laugh

Antonio Veciana has the last laugh, at least for the time being. The former anti-Castro activist died last Thursday at the age of 91 and his hometown paper, the Miami Herald, provided him with exactly the sort of obituary he would have wanted.

Herald reporter Sarah Moreno wrote that Veciana was “trained by the CIA” to carry out military actions. “Veciana worked for the CIA in Bolivia” Moreno’s article continues, “until he fell out with the agent who was running him, David Atlee Phillips.” According to Moreno, at a meeting with Phillips, whose code-name was Maurice Bishop, Veciana observed his handler talking with Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President Kennedy. Fearing for his life and the safety of his family, Veciana did not mention the incident during congressional hearings on the assassination, according to Moreno who was quoting Veciana’s daughter Ana Veciana-Suarez.

It is unfortunate that a respected publication such as the Herald did not take more care in the preparation of the obituary. It is apparent that only two sources the Herald used were Veciana-Suarez and Veciana’s virtually fictionalized autobiography Trained to Kill. The claims against Phillips, a highly decorated CIA officer who rose to the number three position in the agency, are particularly regrettable and should have been presented as allegations instead of facts. The purpose of this article is to attempt to untangle the mess the Herald has created.

The myriad problems with Veciana’s changing story of his life have been discussed at this site in detail and will therefore only be summarized here. There is no evidence, save for Veciana’s word, that he was trained by the CIA to do anything or that he “worked” for the agency. He was an asset of sorts for a brief time and in December of 1961, the agency requested a Provisional Operational Approval to use him as a “sabotage man.” But shortly thereafter, Veciana began his work with Alpha 66 as an organizer and fundraiser and there is no evidence that he did any sort of sabotage work for the agency. And his case officer during this abortive sojourn was not David Phillips but Cal Hicks. The POA was canceled in October of 1962 because of a lack of “further interest” by the agency.

There is no evidence that Veciana ever received a dime from the CIA. A one-time payment of $500 often mentioned by theorists came from CIA asset Luis A. Ferre. But this was a private donation by Ferre to the Alpha 66 cause rather than any sort of payoff for Veciana’s services. In 1962, Veciana provided information to Army Intelligence that he hoped would secure money and arms for Alpha 66. This relationship lasted for four years although Veciana always attempted to minimize the association.

Despite the quote attributed by Moreno to his daughter, Veciana most certainly did mention his Maurice Bishop story during “congressional hearings.” He first told his story in a series of interviews with government investigator Gaeton Fonzi in March of 1976. Later that year, Veciana testified before both the Church Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In 1978, he testified on consecutive days before the House Select Committee on Assassinations and repeated his Bishop tale. Fonzi championed Veciana’s cause until his own death in 2012 and authored a scandalous article in 1980 that resulted in a lawsuit by Phillips, who always denied that he was Bishop. Fonzi was forced to admit in his HSCA report that “No corroboration was found for Veciana's alleged meeting with Lee Harvey Oswald.” Fonzi later wrote a book that popularized Veciana’s story in the conspiracy culture and promoted the notion of CIA complicity in the death of JFK utilizing the Bishop story.

Veciana initially never claimed that Phillips, or anyone else, was Bishop and he supposedly was looking for his former case officer so he could rejoin him in the anti-Castro effort. In various interviews with Fonzi and others, Veciana stated that Bishop was not necessarily CIA but could have been an agent for another intelligence service or acting on behalf of a powerful interest group. After a face-to-face meeting with Phillips, Veciana told Fonzi that the CIA man was not Bishop and Fonzi admitted in his book that Phillips showed no recognition of Veciana. Testifying under oath in 1978, Veciana swore that Phillips was not Bishop and repeated this claim for most of his life.

However, in 2013 at the urging of Fonzi’s widow Marie, Veciana reversed course and declared that Phillips was Bishop after all. But JFK conspiracy researcher and author John Newman discovered that both of Veciana’s stories about meeting Phillips as Bishop in Cuba were demonstrably false. In Veciana’s first version of the story, he met Bishop in mid-1960 but Phillips had left the island permanently no later than March of that year and perhaps earlier. By the time of his Assassinations Archives and Research Center conference appearance in 2014, Veciana, perhaps aware of the 1960 timing problem, was floating a new scenario that placed his meeting with Phillips in 1959. But Newman found that, during the time Veciana claims he met Phillips that year, the latter was involved in a potentially life-threatening security problem that precluded any recruitment of new agents.

Veciana’s 2017 autobiography repeated the Bishop canard and added new details that he had unaccountably neglected to mention to investigator Fonzi or anyone else. Veciana expanded his tale to include suicide pills, disappearing ink, lie detector tests, truth serum and other unverified specifics apparently designed to move books. Similarly, Veciana’s AARC appearance inexplicably added new “facts” to the Bishop lexicon. As one astonished conference attendee put it, Veciana claimed among other things that, “David Atlee Phillips imagined and organized the entire Mexico City scenario [Oswald traveled there in 1963 just before the assassination].” It should be noted that when Veciana made the new claims in his book and at the conference, he was well into his eighties.

It is likely that there was no Maurice Bishop. Veciana almost certainly made up an imaginary case officer to have someone to blame for his 1974 drug conviction. In the early interviews with Fonzi, Veciana mentioned his drug conviction repeatedly and stated that Bishop may have had something to do with it. Later, he was just as likely to say that Castro had “set him up” although a review of the trial transcripts shows that the evidence against Veciana was compelling. In the final analysis, the Miami Herald should have at least qualified the information they provided in the obituary and their failure to do so is lamentable. Veciana has the last laugh for now but increasing scrutiny of his life story by researchers may ultimately deliver him a different place in history.

Newman's "New Paradigm"

JFK conspiracy theorist and author John Newman has done a good job of convincing both conspiracy skeptics and some members of the JFK conspiracy community that former anti-Castro activist Antonio Veciana lied about how and when he met David Phillips in Cuba, thereby casting doubt on Veciana’s whole sorry tale. Unfortunately, instead of issuing a clarion call to his devotees that further research regarding the duplicitous Veciana is a waste of time, Newman is using his success as a launching pad for an entirely new conspiracy theory. And it is likely not a coincidence that this thesis supports the preferred villains in Newman’s hypothetical JFK assassination scenario. These alleged conspirators include Generals Edward Lansdale, Curtis Lemay and Lyman Lemnitzer as well as the “enigmatic Texan Howard Burris” and perhaps others.

Newman's presentation at the 2019 Citizens Against Political Assassinations Conference titled, "Turning Antonio Veciana's Misdirection into a Roadmap," was his first opportunity to reveal this hypothesis, which has been called a “new paradigm,” to the conspiracy community. However, over two months after the presentation, the reception is decidedly mixed. Newman has received rave reviews from his loyal fanbase that consists of devotees who are willing to pay $32 for his latest tome. But another faction, representing the CIA-did-it wing of the community, is more skeptical. This group is led by Lisa Pease, whose mentor Jim DiEugenio is the dean of the Langley-did-it school of thought. Pease has already expressed skepticism of Newman’s work and had some uncomfortable Facebook exchanges with him.

Newman associate Alan Dale attributes the criticism of Newman to the fact that those who believe Veciana’s claims regarding the alleged meeting between Phillips and Oswald do so because that allegation “is regarded by many as too sacred to dispute.” Just exactly what does Newman’s theory, which has been called “a work in progress,” postulate? At first glance, that seems to be a difficult question to answer since a video of the presentation has yet to materialize. Also missing is a promised report by CAPA’s Bill Kelly who took “ten pages of notes” at the conference.

Finally, not one meaningful review of the presentation has surfaced from any of the conference attendees. Either these individuals were not impressed sufficiently by what they heard to comment or were suddenly afflicted with mass amnesia. My guess is the former. Fortunately for skeptics, in the wake of criticism of the presentation, Newman and Dale were forced to go on Facebook to defend it. Their comments provide enough information to make a significant analysis possible, although some speculation is still necessary. All information used in writing this critique was taken from a Facebook summary of Newman’s work by Dale and comments by Newman on Facebook and elsewhere on the Internet.

Newman’s most startling claim is that, “a campaign of misdirection [was] launched by Antonio Veciana the day he walked out of the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary in February 1976.” The purpose of this misdirection campaign, achieved through the “sudden early release of Veciana,” was to “control the narrative of the unfolding congressional investigations” and to "place blame on the CIA and direct attention away from the Pentagon.” This alleged state of affairs began during the tenure of the Church Committee which predated the HSCA and involved not only Veciana but other “former assets of U.S. military intelligence [who] were weaponized and used as messengers.”

Therefore, according to Newman, an unseen power, presumably a federal judge or the Church Committee itself or both, pulled some strings at the behest of the assassination planners to release Veciana. Carl Sagan wisely said that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” But what proof exists for Newman’s audacious statements?

Newman could not be in possession of court documents that show such a release of Veciana. A Google search shows that FOIA requests for such records would be denied while the individual is alive unless they sign a waiver. And presumably Veciana has been made aware of Newman’s recent desire to paint him as a co-conspirator and would neither grant Newman such a request nor give him access to papers already in his possession. In any case, such records would not necessarily reveal that Veciana was being released explicitly for the purpose of speaking to the Church Committee. Therefore, any documentary proof of the early release of Veciana for the specific purpose of speaking with Senate investigators would have to come from the JFK records or a formerly silent “witness” of potentially dubious credibility.

Conceivably, Newman believes that the plotters went to the Church Committee and persuaded them to facilitate Veciana’s release. Under such a scenario, the committee members were convinced that Veciana had to be released “in the interest of national security” or for some similar reason. Later, they figured out that they had been duped by the plotters but by then were too embarrassed to admit that they had participated in such an ill-advised plan. But it defies belief that the entire committee would not have known about the release. In that case, active committee member Richard Schweiker, who came up with the idea that the Bishop sketch looked like Phillips, was in on the plot yet delivered an academy award-level acting job for the benefit of Gaeton Fonzi and other conspiracy-oriented investigators.

On the other hand, it is at least conceivable that Malcolm Blunt or some other astute researcher could have very recently managed to unearth a document from the National Archives that alludes to an arranged parole of Veciana. And it is plausible that the wily Veciana could have contacted committee representatives through an intermediary and offered his services and certainly had the motivation to do so. But if it indeed exists, such documentation of an early release proves nothing unless you are willing and eager to attach the most sinister connotations to it. After all, there is no doubt that the committee would want to speak to someone like Veciana who claimed to have relevant information. But perhaps the committee was concerned that the release of Veciana would result in less than favorable publicity because of his drug conviction and kept it quiet for solely that reason. In this case, in an uncommon but not inconceivable circumstance, the staffers were kept unaware.

But such a release at the behest of the Senate committee would undoubtedly have been contingent on Veciana producing relevant and verifiable information. And he would have undoubtedly been warned that his parole would be immediately reversed if he were found to be less than candid. In Fonzi’s book, he wrote glowingly of a number of things that could be verified regarding Veciana’s story. But in the HSCA report, where Fonzi had to answer to others, he admitted that “no definitive conclusion could be reached about the credibility of Antonio Veciana's allegations regarding his relationship with a Maurice Bishop.” I think the congressional investigators would have expected a better performance out of Veciana for their trouble.

In the end, it is doubtful that any document proving Veciana’s early release exists or that Newman’s theory depends on one. I say that because, if it had been shown at the presentation, it would have been trumpeted as a major revelation and the reaction of the attendees does not support that. What is likely is that Newman will follow the path of least resistance and say that one of the conspirators (or an acolyte) whispered in the ear of a federal judge and persuaded him to facilitate the release. Maybe the conspirators “had something” on the judge that enabled them to demand this unusual request. Or perhaps the judge was part of the same secret right-wing cabal that Newman believes was behind the assassination and did the deed willingly. In such a case, as mentioned, the paperwork would just be of the generic variety and say that Veciana was released for “good behavior” or a similar reason.

Having established how Newman could credibly postulate the manner of Veciana’s release by the conspirators, we need to assess the role of the two key players in this scenario, Veciana and Fonzi, as Newman sees it. Bill Kelly says that Veciana “used journalist and Congressional investigator Gaeton Fonzi to get out of federal prison.” But this statement can be easily discounted since I see no way that Fonzi, who was merely an investigator, could achieve such a feat. For further clues regarding the role of Fonzi, we can turn to a Dale’s Facebook summary of Newman’s work.

After informing skeptics of the new theory of the benefits of “staying current” by consuming four previous volumes of Newman’s work, Dale quotes Newman’s declaration that Fonzi’s “sixth sense” led him to suspect that he was being used by Veciana. However, Newman admits that, “Fonzi did not develop these impressions into a possible alternative paradigm for consideration.” Newman’s statement that Fonzi was “being used” indicates that he was unaware of the plot to implicate the CIA using Veciana-at least at first. This at least makes sense as Fonzi would have had to falsify much of his book if he were in on the plot. But if Fonzi ever had suspicions as Newman believes, he chose not to act on them and did nothing to interfere with Veciana’s activities.

In an obvious attempt to pacify the CIA-did-it people who might be offended by an overly negative portrayal of Fonzi, Newman reminds them that he admires Fonzi and considers him a friend. Newman also says that Fonzi, “stayed in my home to look over my collection of records about CIA Staff Officer David Morales.” Newman then says, “I am confident that had Gaeton lived to see the 2017-2018 documents’ release, he would have revised The Last Investigation accordingly.”

But just how could Fonzi “revise” his book to achieve such an end when the implicit thesis of that volume was that the CIA (in the form of David Phillips) was somehow involved in the JFK killing and his proof of that was the now largely debunked Veciana yarn? Does Newman believe that Fonzi could insert a disclaimer at the end of his book to inform readers that much of what Veciana said was sheer nonsense and hope they didn’t see it?

Let there be no mistake. What Newman’s theory implies is that Fonzi, rather than being a courageous investigator who fought the system to uncover CIA complicity in the assassination, was actually a clueless dupe who did precisely what the real killers of JFK wanted by drawing attention away from them. And even though he eventually realized through his keen “sixth sense” that he had been had, he sold out anyway and published a book full of falsehoods-presumably because there was a market for it. This implied characterization of Fonzi will probably not win Newman the everlasting devotion of either Marie Fonzi or Lisa Pease.

What about Veciana’s role? Newman says Veciana may not have “fully appreciated the true purpose behind his new calling.” Despite this mysterious lack of understanding on Veciana’s part, he evidently acted as the conspirators wanted anyway. Veciana’s calling, according to Newman, was to “sow confusion and use it to manipulate the unfolding narrative of congressional investigation” at the behest of his Pentagon masters. So, color Veciana a full-fledged co-conspirator. And although he was unaware of the plot, Fonzi served as an effective accomplice of the conspiratorial cabal by virtue of his sheer incompetence.

Having established a set of reasonable assumptions to work with, we can begin an examination of the plausibility of the theory. Unfortunately for Newman and his followers, problems with the concept are immediately apparent. Presumably, Newman thinks that, once the CIA-did-it oriented Fonzi called Veciana’s family and expressed an interest in him, the plotters arranged for Veciana’s release. If Fonzi or another government man had been in the pocket of the conspirators, they could have released Veciana at their leisure, but Newman is not saying that. Evidently, Veciana’s family must have also been under the control of the plotters and kept them updated on interesting developments such as government investigators phoning for an interview. But Fonzi only became interested in Veciana after reading an article by Paul Hoch, so it appears that the plotters had luck on their side. What contingency plan the plotters employed in the event they couldn’t locate a willing target such as Fonzi is not explained.

In any case, on March 2, 1976, the stage was neatly set for the plotters. They had a clueless CIA-did-it believer in the form of Fonzi ready to interview their man Veciana. And all went according to their script, at least at first. Veciana told Fonzi about a powerful American mentor (Bishop) who had planned and directed his actions as head of Alpha 66. Bishop, as Veciana’s all-powerful mentor, was obviously the perfect individual to link to the CIA in order to draw attention away from the Pentagon. Fonzi listened carefully to Veciana’s description of Bishop. Finally, he breathlessly asked Veciana if Bishop was “officially with the government.” Then, Veciana blew it.

With this golden opportunity before him, Veciana inexplicably uttered, “a few times [I] asked [Bishop] if he worked for the CIA. And the answer he would give … was that there isn’t only one agency, the CIA, there are a lot of agencies working for this” [the anti-Castro cause]. Veciana went on to say that he believed Bishop was “working for a private organization, not the government.” As the saying goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Despite the perfect opportunity to tie his mysterious mentor to the CIA, Veciana somehow completely forgot about the mission his Pentagon masters had ordered him to undertake. In fact, he seemed to be going out of his way to not implicate the agency. Worse, his reference to other “agencies” had opened the door to the possibility that Fonzi, or another investigator reviewing his notes, would consider Army Intelligence as a source of Bishop’s authority. And given Veciana’s provable ties to that group, that was a distinct possibility.

And it wasn’t a case of Veciana initially “freezing” in the spotlight and then redeeming himself later in the interview. Veciana mentioned Cellula Fantasma, the leafletting operation over Cuba that he claimed Bishop ordered him to infiltrate. But Veciana was quick to caution Fonzi that the operation was not run by the CIA (which proves Veciana knew nothing about it since it actually was). Of course, Veciana related the now familiar story of seeing Oswald and Bishop together. While this got Fonzi’s attention, it didn’t help the plotters since Veciana was not claiming that Bishop was CIA. The rest of the first interview covered Veciana’s own conspiracy babblings regarding Howard Hughes, Jack Ruby, HL Hunt and Gerry Hemming but little else.

Another subject that Veciana covered extensively in that first interview was his drug arrest and it is apparent that this was one of his true motives in speaking to Fonzi. Veciana went on ad nauseum about his innocence and assured Fonzi that he could prove he was “setup.” All he needed was “eight or nine months” to work on his personal innocence project. Veciana gave Fonzi the false information that there was only one witness against him but there were four witnesses besides Veciana’s two co-conspirators who indicated his guilt. The point is, Veciana spent a great deal of time in this first session talking about everything under the sun. But he spent almost no time telling Fonzi anything that could implicate the CIA in the JFK assassination and take attention away from the Pentagon plotters, particularly regarding Bishop.

A chance for Veciana to redeem himself took place in June of 1976 when he spoke to journalist Dick Russell. But Veciana again ignored the plotters’ instructions and told Russell that Bishop was, “part of an American intelligence service, but instructed him not to ask which one.” Once again, Veciana had not only refused to implicate the CIA through Bishop, but also opened the door to the possibility that he was working with another intelligence service such as the Army’s.

In August of 1977, well over a year after those first interviews with Fonzi, Veciana had yet another chance to identify Bishop as CIA. Once again, he failed miserably to do the plotters’ bidding and actually made a point of forcefully denying that Bishop was with the agency. Veciana told Fonzi’s assistant Al Gonzales that he “never said that Bishop was CIA” but believed that he was with “some sort of intelligence agency or with a powerful interest group.” And Veciana’s reference of another intelligence agency again opened the door to potential scrutiny of the very agency he was supposed to protect-the Army. Predictably, such scrutiny did occur. We now know that the CIA’s Scott Breckinridge was referring to the Army when he told Robert Blakey, “you know Veciana was an asset of another US government agency and not of CIA.” Due to Fonzi’s bias, he never seriously followed-up on the Army intelligence angle but that was in spite of Veciana rather than because of him.

Veciana’s final opportunity to implicate the CIA under Fonzi’s tenure came during his 1978 HSCA testimony. Inevitably, Veciana once again stated, "I always had the opinion that Maurice Bishop was working for a private firm and not the government." Notably at this hearing, Veciana was given the chance to once and for all identify David Phillips as Bishop but refused to do so. Similarly, when Veciana had come face to face with Phillips two years before at the ARIO meeting in Reston, Virginia, Veciana said the CIA’s Phillips was not the ethereal Bishop. Despite having the ear of one of the keenest devotees of the CIA-did-it hypothesis, Veciana’s “misdirection” of the investigation from the Army to the CIA didn’t happen under Fonzi’s watch. When the HSCA report was published in 1979, Fonzi’s conclusion contained the following quote that summarizes the failure of Veciana’s “mission”:

… whether Veciana's contact was really named Maurice Bishop, or if he was, whether he did all of the things Veciana claims, and if so, with which U.S. intelligence agency he was associated, could not be determined. No corroboration was found for Veciana's alleged meeting with Lee Harvey Oswald.

As a postscript to my analysis of Newman’s theory, I add the following quote from a draft of his presentation:

I have also labored to show you how—for Veciana’s post-prison story to hold up all of these years—he had to superimpose that same false paradigm on one of the most unbelievable dramas of human history—the Cold War confrontation of 1962. Veciana’s role in that crisis is the biggest secret of his life.

Unbelievably, Newman thinks that Veciana was a key player in the Cuban Missile Crisis. To my knowledge, he is the only “historian” in possession of this belief. But that is a subject for another article.

In conclusion, John Newman believes that Veciana was ordered to run a “misdirection campaign” to both control the congressional investigations and take heat off the Pentagon-based murderers of JFK and place it on Langley. The most logical way for Veciana to accomplish this feat was to gain the ear of the credulous Gaeton Fonzi, who was very amenable to the idea of CIA complicity in the death of JFK. But while Veciana indeed told Fonzi about his mysterious mentor “Maurice Bishop,” he inexplicably refused to characterize Bishop as CIA in every relevant discussion of him between 1976 to 1979 when the “misdirection campaign” was supposedly at its peak. It wasn’t until years later that Veciana began to hint at CIA involvement and finally took that to the next stage in 2013 with his “identification” of Phillips.

The Bishop Sketch-Who Did it Look Like?

The infamous sketch of Maurice Bishop is one of the things most often mentioned as “proof” that David Phillips was Bishop since theorists believe it looks like Phillips. The sketch was prepared with the help of a professional artist and represented a “pretty good” idea of what Veciana thought Bishop looked like. Of course, a sketch is just an artist’s representation and the interpretation of it is subjective. Show it to a hundred people and you’ll get a hundred different answers as to who it looks like. Fonzi and his staff showed the sketch to a number of relevant people and this was the result

Fonzi himself originally thought it looked like Paul Bethel, former head of the US Information Agency in Cuba. Sam Kail was an Army attaché who worked at the US embassy in Cuba and who Veciana said Bishop directed him to for help. Kail, who denied knowing Veciana, also thought the sketch looked like Bethel, a fact that Fonzi left out of his HSCA report. Barney Hidalgo, A CIA employee who was interviewed by the HSCA regarding his claim that a “Bishop” worked at the CIA, thought it looked “a bit” like CIA employee Willard Galbraith. This contradicts what Fonzi wrote in the HSCA report when he said, “B. H. [Hidalgo] could not identify [the sketch] as anyone he recognized.”

Bradley Ayers was a US Army Captain on special assignment with the CIA based out of JM/WAVE near Miami. Ayers thought the sketch looked to be “a very accurate drawing” of Gordon Campbell, another CIA employee. Ayers thought that Bishop was Campbell and not Phillips, but this is unlikely since Campbell died in 1962. Ultimately, I compiled a list of 14 relevant individuals who saw the sketch and only three thought it looked like Phillips. Five people did not recognize the sketch as anyone they knew and the remaining six each identified six different persons. Ironically, one of the people who thought it looked like Phillips was Phillips himself. The others were Senator Richard Schweiker whose identification of Phillips was the beginning of Fonzi’s quest to link Phillips to Bishop and CIA agent Joseph Burkholder Smith.

Please contact me at wtparnell@hotmail.com if you know of any other people that saw the sketch who are not on this list. Note that I am looking for documented interviews with individuals who were shown the sketch and asked who it looked like. I am not interested in anecdotal cases such as David Phillips' brother and his employees who allegedly thought the sketch looked like David after being told that it did.

NAME	WHO SKETCH LOOKED LIKE	SOURCE
Colonel Samuel Kail	Paul Bethel	180-10072-10179
Gaeton Fonzi	Paul Bethel	TLI
Bradley Ayers	Gordon Campbell	Sworn Statement 8-6-2007
Captain Milford Hubbard (Patrick Harris)	Owen Darnell	157-10014-10084, p. 16
James Cogswell	Former President of Freeport Sulphur	Davy, Let Justice Be Done, 87
Barney Hidalgo	William Galbraith	104-10146-10142
Max Lesnik	Did Not Recognize	180-10065-10373
William Kent (Doug Gupton)	Did Not Recognize	HSCA X Paragraph 179
Guy Vitale	Did Not Recognize	180-10083-10181
John Roselli	Did Not Recognize	157-10014-10000, p. 40
Manolo Ray Rivero	Did Not Recognize/Unknown Government Official	180-10093-10063, p. 5
Joseph Burkholder Smith	David Phillips	180-10070-10404
Richard Schweiker	David Phillips	HSCA X Paragraph 171
David Phillips	Himself or his brother	180-10131-10327, p. 93