The Paul Schrade and JFK and RFK connection was to Inglewood, the P-51 and battle of Brittain, and Windsors groomig bastared sleepers inside the USA including Barrack Obama Jr fo roverthrows.

I. SUMMARY AND FINDINGS
The Select Committee’s investigation of alleged assassination attempts against foreign leaders raised questions of possible connections
between these plots and the assassination of President John Fitzgerald
Kennedy. Questions were later raised about whether the agencies adequately investigated these possible connections and whether inform ation about these plots was provided the President’s Commission on the
Assassination of President Kennedy (the Warren Commission). As a
result, pursuant to its general mandate to review the performance of
the intelligence agencies, the Select Committee reviewed their specific
performance with respect to their investigation of the assassination of
the President.

SENATE

94TH CONGRESS

2d Se8sion

REPORT

No. 94-755

THE INVESTIGATION OF THE
ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
JOHN F. KENNEDY: PERFORMANCE
OF THE INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES
BOOK V
FINAL REPORT
OF THE

SELECT COMMITTEE
TO STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS
WITH RESPECT TO

INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES

UNITED STATES SENATE

APRIL 23 (under authority of the order of APRIL 14), 1976

U.S.

72-059

GOVEP.NMENT

PRINTING OFFICE –

WASHINGTON : 1976

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Washington, D.C. 20402 – Price $1.40
Stock Number 052-071-00487-4

SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE TO STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS
WITH RESPECT TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES
FRANK CHURCH, Idaho, Chairman
JOHN G. TOWER, Texas, Vice Chairman
HOWARD H. BAKER, Jn., Tennessee
PHILIP A. HART, Michigan
WALTER F. MONDALE, Minnesota
BARRY GOLDWATER, Arizona
CHARLES McC. MATHIAS, Ja., Maryland
WALTER D. HUDDLESTON, Kentucky
ROBERT MORGAN, North Carolina
RICHARD SCHWEIKER, Pennsylvania
GARY HART, Colorado
WILuAM G. MILLER, Staff Director
FREDERICK A. 0. ScHwARz, Jr., Chief Counsel
CURTIs R. SMOTHERS, Counsel to the Minority
AUDREY HATRY, Clerk of the Committee

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
On behalf of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental
Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, and pursuant to
the mandate of Senate Resolution 21, I am transmitting herewith to
the Senate the volume of the Committee’s Final Report entitled, “The
Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy:
Performance of the Intelligence Agencies.”
I want to express the deep appreciation of the Committee to Senator
Richard S. Schweiker and Senator Gary Hart for their excellent work
on this phase of the Select Committee’s investigation.
FRANK CHURCH,

Chairman.

(III)

NOTE
On May 26, 1976, the Select Committee voted to release the section
of its final Report entitled. “The Investigation of the Assassination
of President John F. Kennedy: Performance of the Intelligence
Agencies.” Senators Church, Baker, Philip Hart, Mondale, Huddleston, Morgan, Gary Hart, Mathias, and Schweiker voted to release
this Report. Senators Tower, and Goldwater voted against the release
of this report.
This Report has been reviewed and declassified by the appropriate
executive agencies. After the Committee’s original draft of this report
was completed, copies of it were made available to the executive
agencies. These agencies submitted comments to the Comihittee on
security and factual aspects of the draft report. On the basis of these
comments, the Committee and staff conferred with representatives of
the agencies to determine which sections of the Report should be redrafted to protect sensitive intelligence sources and methods. These
sections of the original draft were then revised to reflect the agencies
concerns while retaining the original thrust of the Report.
Names of individuals were deleted when, in the Committee’s judgement, disclosure of their identities would either endanger their safety
or constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy. Consequently, footnote citations to testimony and documents occasionally contain only
descriptions of an individual’s position.

CONTENTS
————————————Letter of Transmittal ——I. SUMMARY AND FINDINGS_———————————A. The Scope of the Committee’s Investigation—————-B. Summary ———————————————–C. Findings ————————————————II. BACKGROUND FOR THE WARREN COMMIS1SION INVESTIGATION: CUBA AND THE INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES ———III. THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO THE
ASSASSINATION: NOVEMBER 22, 1963 TO JANUARY 1, 1964-A. The CIA Response ————————————-B. The FBI Response —————————————IV. THE INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES AND THE WARREN COMMISSION: JANUARY TO SEPTEMBER 1964 ———————-A. The Relationship between the FBI and the Warren Commission ————————————————-.
B. The Relationship between the CIA and the Warren Commis-

B. Summary
In the days following the assassination of President Kennedy,
nothing was more important to this country than to determine the
facts of his death; no one single event has shaken the country more.
Yet the evidence the Committee has developed suggests that, for different reasons, both the CIA and the FBI failed in, or avoided carrying out, certain of their responsibilities in this matter.
The Committee emphasizes that this Report’s discussion of investigative deficiencies and the failure of American intelligence agencies
to inform the Warren Commission of certain information does not
lead to the conclusion that there was a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy.
Instead, this Report details the evidence the Committee developed
concerning the investigation those agencies conducted into the President’s assassination, their relationship with each other and with the
Warren Commission, and the effect their own operations may have had
on the course of the investigation. It places particular emphasis on
the effect their Cuban operations seemed to have on the investigation.
However, the Committee cautions that it has seen no evidence -that
Fidel Castro or others in the Cuban government plotted President
Kennedv’s assassination in retaliation for U.S. operations against
Cuba. The Report details these operations to illustrate why they were
relevant to the investigation. Thus, the CIA operation involving a
high level Cuban official, code-named AMLASH, is described in order
to illustrate why that operation, and its possible ramifications, should
have been examined as part of the assassination investigation. Similarly, although Cuban exile groups opposed to Castro may have been
upset with Kennedy administration actions which restricted their
activities, the Committee has no evidence that such groups plotted the
assassination.
Almost from the day Castro took power in Cuba, the United States
became the center of attempts to depose him. Cuban exiles, anticommunists, business interests, underworld figures, and the United
States Governmeit all had their own reasons for seeking to overthrow the Castro government. These interests generally operated
independently of the others; but on occasion, a few from each group
would join forces in a combined effort.

In April 1961, a force of Cuban exiles and soldiers of fortune backed
by the CIA, attempted an invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. In
November of that year, the United States Government decided that
further such overt paramilitary operations were no longer feasible,
and embarked on Operation MONGOOSE. This operation attempted
to use Cuban exiles and dissidents inside Cuba. to overthrow Castro.
When the United States faced a major confrontation with the Soviet
Union during the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis, it terminated
MONGOOSE; the CIA’s covert operations against Cuba were reduced; and the FBI and other agencies of government began to restrict the paramilitary operations of exile groups. This rather sudden
shift against paramilitary activity of Cuban exile groups generated
hostility. Supporters.of some of these groups were angered by the
change in government policy. They viewed this as a weakening of the
U.S. will to oppose Castro.
Throughout this period, the CIA had been plotting the assassination
of Castro -as another method of achieving a change in the Cuban government. Between 1960 -and early 1963 the CIA attempted to use underworld figures for this assasination. By May 1962, the FBI knew of
such plots, and in June 1963 learned of their termination.
Following a June 1963 decision by a “Special Group” of the National Security Council to increase covert operations against Cuba,
the CIA renewed contact with a high-level Cuban government official,
code-named AMLASH. At his first meeting with the CIA in over a
year, AMLASH proposed Castro’s overthrow through an “inside
job,” with U.S. support. AMLASH considered the assassination of
Castro a necessary part of this “inside job.” Shortly after this meeting
with AMLASH, Castro issued a public warning reported prominently
in the U.S. press about the United States’ meeting with terrorists who
wished to eliminate Cuban leaders. He threatened that Cuba would
answer in kind.
Five days after Castro issued this threat, the Coordinating Committee for Cuban affairs, an interagency planning committee subordinate to the National Security Council’s Special Group, met to
endorse or modify then existing contingency plans for possible retaliation by the Cuban Government. Representatives of the CIA, and
of the State, Defense and Justice Departments were on this Committee. The CIA representatives on this Committee were from its
Special Affairs Staff (SAS), the staff responsible for Cuban matters generally and the AMLASH operation. Those attending the meeting on September 12 agreed unanimously that there was a strong
likelihood Castro would retaliate in some way against the rash of
covert activity in Cuba.
At this September 12 meeting this Committee concluded Castro
would not risk major confrontation with the United States. It therefore rejected the possibility that Cuba would retaliate ‘by attacking
American officials within the United States; it assigned no agency the
responsibility for consideration of this contingency.
Within weeks of this meeting the CIA escalated the level of its
covert operations, informing AMLASH the United States supported
his coup. Despite warnings from certain CIA staffers that the operation was poorly conceived and insecure, the head of SAS, Desmond
Fitzgerald, met AMLA:SH on October 29, 1963, told him he was the

”personal representative” of Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and
stated the United States would support a coup. On November 22, at
a pre-arranged meeting, a CIA Case Officer told AMLASH he would
be provided rifles with telescopic sights, and explosives with which
to carry out his plan. He was also offered a poison pen device.
Following the President’s death, searches of FBI and CIA files
revealed that Lee Harvey Oswald was not unknown to the intelligence
agencies. In late 1959, the FBI opened a “security file” on Oswald
after his defection to the Soviet Union. After Oswald’s return to this
country in June 1962, he was interviewed twice by FBI agents; on
each occasion he repeatedly lied. He also refused to be polygraphed
about his negative answers to questions of ties with Soviet intelligence.
Yet the FBI closed the Oswald security case immediately after the
second interview. The case was reopened in March 1963, but Oswald
was not interviewed by the FBI until August 10, 1963, when he requested an interview after his arrest in New Orleans for disturbing
the peace. On the occasion of this third interview, he again repeatedly
lied to FBI agents. A month later Oswald visited Mexico City, where
he visited both the Cuban and Soviet diplomatic establishments, and
contacted a vice consul at the latter who was in fact a KGB agent.
Despite receiving this information on Oswald’s Mexico City activity,
the FBI failed to intensify its investigative efforts. It failed to interview him before the assassination despite receiving a note from him
warning the FBI to leave his wife alone.
Immediately after the assassination, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
ordered a complete review of the FBI’s handling of the Oswald security case. Within six days he was given a report which detailed
serious investigative deficiencies. As a result of these deficiencies
seventeen FBI personnel, including one Assistant Director, were disciplined. The fact that the FBI felt there were investigative deficiencies and the disciplinary actions it took were never publicly disclosed
by the Bureau or communicated to the Warren Commission.
The evidence suggests that during the Warren Commission investigation top FBI officials were continually concerned with protecting
the Bureau’s reputation and avoiding any criticism for not fulfilling
investigative responsibilities. Within weeks after the assassination, the
FBI, at the urging of senior Government officials, issued a report concluding that Oswald was the assassin and that he had acted alone.
The Bureau issued its report on the basis of a narrow investigation
focused on Oswald, without conducting a broad investigation of the
assassination which would have revealed any conspiracy, foreign or
domestic.
Despite knowledge of Oswald’s apparent interest in pro-Castro and
anti-Castro activities and top level awareness of certain CIA assassination plots, the FBI, according to all agents and supervisory personnel. who testified before the Committee, made no special investigative effort into questions of possible Cuban government or Cuban exile
involvement in the assassination independent of the Oswald investigation. There is no indication that the FBI or the CIA directed the
interviewing of Cuban sources or of sources within the Cuban exile
community. The division of the FBI responsible for investigating
criminal aspects of the assassination, and not the division responsible
for investigating subversive activities (including those of Cuban

groups), was primarily responsible for the investigation and served
as liaison to the Warren Commission.
Director Hoover himself perceived the Warren Commission as an
adversary. He repeatedly remarked that the Commission, particularly the Chief Justice, was “seeking to criticize” the FBI and
merely attempting to “find gaps” in the FBFs investigation. On two
separate occasions, the latter immediately upon release of the Commission’s Report, Director Hoover asked for all derogatory material
on Warren Commission members and staff contained in the FBI files.
Neither the CIA nor the FBI told the Warren Commission about
the CIA attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro. Allen Dulles, former
Director of Central Intelligence, was a member of the Warren Commission and presumably knew about CIA plots during his tenure with
the Agency, although he probably was unaware of the AMLASH
operation. FBI Director Hoover and senior FBI officials also knew
about these earlier plots. In July 1964, two months before the Warren
Commission issued its 26-volume report of its investigation and findings, FBI officials learned that a Cuban official (not known to the
Bureau as “AMLASH”) was plotting with the CIA to assassinate
Castro. However, there is no evidence this knowledge affected the FBI
investigation of the President’s assassination in any way. The Attorney General and other government officials knew there had been previous assassination plots with the underworld. None of the testimony
or documents received by the Warren Commission mentioned the CIA
assassination plots. The subordinate officers at the FBI and the CIA
who acted as liaisons with the Warren Commission did not know of
the CIA assassination attempts.
The AMLASH plot was more relevant to the Warren Commission’s work than the early CIA assassination plots with the underworld. Unlike those earlier plots, the AMLASH operation was in
progress at the time of the assassination; unlike -the earlier plots, the
AMLASH operation could clearly be traced to the CIA; and unlike
the earlier plots, the CIA had endorsed AMLASH’s proposal for a
coup, the first step to him being Castro’s assassination, despite
Castro’s threat to retaliate for such plotting. No one directly involved
in either agency’s investigation was told of the AMLASH operation.
No one investigated a connection between the AMLASH operation
and President Kennedy’s assassination. Although Oswald had been
in contact with pro-Castro and anti-Castro groups for many months
before the assassination, the CIA did not conduct a thorough investigation of questions of Cuban Government or Cuban exile involvement
in the assassination.
CIA officials knowledgeable of the AMLASH plot testified they
did not relate it to the President’s assassination; however, those at CIA
and FBI responsible for their agency’s investigation testified that, had
they been aware of the plot, they would have considered it relevant to
their investigation. The individual who directed the CIA investigation
for the first month after the assassination, testified that he felt knowledge of the AMLASH operation would have been a “vital factor” in
shaping his investigation. His successor at the CIA also stated that
knowledge of the AMLASH plot would have made a difference in his
investigation. Individuals on the Warren Commission staff have expressed similar opinions as to all plots against Castro. There is also

evidence that CIA investigators requested name traces which should
have made them aware of the AMLASH operation, but for some ‘reason, they did not learn of that operation.
Although the Warren Commission concluded its work in September
1964, the investigation of the assassination was not to end. Both FBI
Director Hoover and CIA Deputy Director for Plans Richard Helms
pledged to keep the matter as an open case.
In 1965, the FBI and the CIA received information ‘about the AMLASH operation, which indicated the entire operation was insecure,
and caused the CIA to terminate it. Despite the fact that the information then received might have raised doubts about the investigation of
the President’s assassination, neither agency re-examined the assassination.
The assassination of President Kennedy again came to the attention
of the intelligence agencies in 1967. President Johnson took a personal
interest in allegations that Castro had retaliated. Although the FBI
received such allegations, no investigation was conducted.
On the very day President Johnson received the FBI reports of
these allegations, he met with CIA Director Richard Helms. The next
day, Helms ordered the CIA Inspector General to prepare a report
on Agency sponsored assassination plots. Although this report raised
the question of a possible connection between the CIA plots against
Castro and the assassinaton of President Kennedy, it was not furnished to CIA investigators who were to review the Kennedy assassination investigation. Once again, although these CIA investigators
requested information that should have led them to discover the
AMLASH operation, they apparently did not receive that information.

C. Findings
The Committee emphasizes that it has not uncovered any evidence
sufficient to justify a conclusion that there was a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy.
The Committee has, however, developed evidence which impeaches
the process by which the intelligence agencies arrived at their own
conclusions about the assassination, and by which they provided information to the Warren Commission. This evidence indicates that
the investigation of the assassination was deficient and that facts
which might have substantially affected the course of the investigation were not provided the Warren Commission or those individuals
within the FBI and the CIA, as well as other agencies of Government,
who were charged with investigating the assassination.
The Committee has found that the FBI, the agency with primary
responsibility in the matter, was ordered by Director Hoover and
pressured by higher government officials, to conclude its investigation
quickly. The FBI conducted its investigation in an atmosphere of concern among senior Bureau officials that it would be criticized and its
reputation tarnished. Rather than addressing its investigation to all
significant circumstances, including all possibilities of conspiracy, the
FBI investigation focused narrowly on I Harvey Oswald.
The Committee has found that even with this narrow focus, the FBI
investigation, as well as the CIA inquiry, was deficient on the specific
question of the significance of Oswald’s contacts with pro-Castro and
anti-Castro groups for the many months before the assassination.

Those individuals directly responsible for the investigations were not
fully conversant with the fluctuations in American policy toward
those who opposed Castro, and they lacked a working knowledge of
pro-Castro and anti-Castro activity. They did not know the full extent
of U.S. operations against Cuba including the CIA efforts to assassinate Castro. The Committee further found that these investigative
deficiencies are probably the reason that significant leads received by
intelligence agencies were not pursued.
Senior Bureau officials should have realized the FBI efforts were
focused too narrowly to allow for a full investigation. They should
have realized the significance of Oswald’s Cuban contacts could not be
fully analyzed without the direct involvement of FBI personnel who
had expertise in such matters. Yet these senior officials permitted the
investigation to take this course and viewed the Warren Commission
investigation in an adversarial light.
Senior CIA officials also should have realized that their agency was
not utilizing its full capability to investigate Oswald’s pro-Castro and
anti-Castro connections. They should ‘have realized that CIA operations against Cuba, particularly operations involving the assassination
of Castro, needed to be considered in the investigation. Yet, they
directed their subordinates to conduct an investigation without telling
them of these vital facts. These officials, whom the Warren Commission relied upon for expertise, advised the Warren Commission
that the CIA had no evidence of foreign conspiracy.
Why senior officials of the FBI and the CIA permitted the investigation to g6 forward, in light of these deficiencies, and why they permitted the Warren Commission to reach its conclusion without all
relevant information is still unclear. Certainly, concern with public
reputation, problems of coordination between agencies, possible
bureaucratic failure and embarrassment, and the extreme compartmentation of knowledge of sensitive operations may have contributed
to these shortcomings. But the possibility exists that senior officials in
both agencies made conscious decisions not to disclose potentially
important information.
Because the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations
With Respect to Intelligence Activities ended on May 31, 1976, a
final resolution of these questions was impossible. Nevertheless, the
Commimittee decided to ma.ke its findings public, because the people have
a right to know how these special agencies of the Government fulfill
their responsibilities.
The Committee recommends that its successor, the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence, the permanent Senate Committee overseeing intelligence operations, continue the investigation in an attempt to
resolve these questions. To assist its successor, this Committee has forwarded all files pertaining to this investigation.
This phase of the Committee’s work will undoubtedly stir controversy. Few events -in recent memory have so aroused the emotions of
this Nation and the world, as those in Dallas, in November 1963.
Conspiracy theories and theorists abound, and the public remains unsatisfied. Regrettably, this Report will not put the matter to rest. Even
after additional investigative work, no additional evidence may come
to light on the ultimate question of why President Kennedy was
assassinated.

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