Evidence of a CIA Motive to Assassinate JFK?

Even though federal law required all papers related to the JFK assassination be released in 2017, the CIA is still holding back thousands of pages of documents. (See the two videos below from Tucker Carlson--the first is his opening monologue and the second is an interview that immediately follows--which discuss why the CIA is afraid to release the documents).

VIDEO: "Tucker Carlson: We were shocked to learn this"

Fox News (7 min.)

VIDEO: "Tucker: What could the government be hiding about the JFK assassination?"

Fox News (5 min.)

    Nevertheless, what has been released has not been without useful information. Geoff Cruickshank has a post that puts some pieces together and found that the CIA's then-chief of counter-intelligence, James Angleton, was running a covert program to supply Israel with nuclear weapons behind President Kennedy's back. He writes:

    The testimony of James Jesus Angleton during the Church Committee hearings in 1975 in the recently released tranche of records also gives some insight into why the C.I.A. needed a rapid change in Administration in 1963.

    On page 6, they establish that Angleton had two separate responsibilities within his role at C.I.A.; one as Counterintelligence Chief, whilst the other role is redacted.

    Fortunately for us, on page 13, they missed a redaction when asking Angleton what his responsibilities were in the role:

He then posts a couple pages that mention another role, and then continues:

    So, Angleton was in control of the “Israeli Account”.

    We also find out in this document on page 86 that Angleton’s close friend, William Harvey, who ran the C.I.A.’s assassination program, ZR/RIFLE, also used the intelligence components of the “Israeli Account” during the Bay of Pigs invasion:

After another copy of a document:

    This revelation is interesting because journalist Tad Szulc wrote an article for Penthouse magazine in August 1975 that stated the CIA was running a program to deliver nuclear weapons to Israel, and that Angleton was in charge of the program. In his testimony to the Church Committee in 1975, Szulc describes how his source (someone in Angleton’s CI division) claimed the CIA was supplying technical knowledge AND fissile material to the Israelis, and Szulc approached Angleton to check his source's veracity. Szulc recounts Angleton’s confirmation of the main thrust of the story but denies the fissile material supply:

    https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2018/157-10005-10255.pdf

    It has long been suspected that the source of the fissile material was the NUMEC plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania, where noted Zionist Dr. Zalman Mordecai Shapiro was the plant manager. It was found that between 1957 – 1978, over 300 kilograms of highly enriched Uranium 235 went missing from the Apollo plant. The plant was producing HEU for the NERVA / Project Rover nuclear propulsion rocket engines, which was a joint NASA-AEC project. This provided an ideal source of fissile material to "launder" to Israel - normally, the only way to dispose of HEU is to detonate it - having a rocket engine that uses fissile HEU as a fuel source means it is easy to siphon off a portion of the supply chain and redirect. It also helped when the Director of the Atomic Energy Commission was "in" on it - between 1958 and 1961, the D-AEC was Mr. John McCone - the guy who replaced Allen Dulles as the CIA Director when President Kennedy sacked him in November 1961. The "Old Boy's Club" was alive and well back then...

    https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2016-11-02/numec-affair-did-highly-enriched-uranium-us-aid-israels-nuclear-weapons-program

    After investigating Shapiro and the missing fissile material, the FBI and AEC mysteriously dropped further inquiries in 1966. After Szulc’s article was published in 1975, however, the Justice Department did not concur with the FBI’s assessment and believed a U.S. Government Officer had committed a long list of crimes including espionage and felonies against the Atomic Energy Act. The last three crimes listed were accessory after the fact, misprision of a felony (concealing knowledge, usually by a government official, of a felony committed by another person), and conspiracy. When read in context, these possible crimes appear to refer to someone in the federal government. That person was most likely James Jesus Angleton, comptroller of the “Israeli Account” for the CIA.

    https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/22156-21-dr-zalman-mordecai-shapiro-atomic-energy-act page 3

    It is helpful to understand the situation that Israel faced in 1963. In his book, Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations, Ronen Bergman describes how in the 1962 - 1964 time frame Israel faced a serious security conundrum: Egypt successfully tested two new types of surface-to-surface missiles in July 1962 (the Al-Zafer and Al-Qaher models) which Egyptian President Nasser claimed could strike any point "south of Beirut"--i.e., anywhere in Israel. 

    Bergman describes the development of the missiles as having caught the Israelis completely off-guard. The Mossad launched an emergency effort to gather intelligence, including breaking into Egyptian embassies in several European countries and intercepting Egyptian intelligence mail bags being transported by EgyptAir out of Zurich. The Israelis discovered that Egypt had hired a team of German scientists and engineers that had worked on the German missile programs during World War II to develop and manufacture the missiles. Then in August 1962, Israeli intelligence learned that Egypt was planning on manufacturing 900 of the missiles and they feared that Egypt would arm the missiles with radioactive or chemical weapons.

    The Israeli response described by Bergman was similar to its response to most any other security threat: initiate a campaign of assassination and letter bombs focused on the scientists and engineers working on the missile program--specifically those working on the guidance system which development lagged behind other portions of the program. This terrorist campaign continued through 1963. But due to its lack of success (they seemed unconcerned about the innocents injured by the bombs), Israel became so desperate that in 1964 it wound up engaging the assistance of Otto Skorzeny--Hitler's special-operations commander who among other things led the mission which rescued Mussolini from his mountain-top prison--in exchange for granting him amnesty from Israeli anti-Nazi kill teams or prosecution. Long story short, Skorzeny was successful in convincing the German scientists to quit the Egyptian program and that essentially wound up Bergman's account.

    But that was not all that Israel was doing to counter real and perceived threats from its Arab neighbors. We know from many sources that Israel was deeply involved at the time in its own program to develop nuclear weapons. From what Cruickshank discovered, it appears that James Angleton had been tasked, ostensibly with the blessings of President Eisenhower, to assist Israel with its nuclear weapons program. 

    That this had the blessings of Eisenhower may or may not be true. In his book, Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy, Michael Collins Piper has a lot to say about Angleton, but one thing that sticks out is that Angleton had de facto control and final say over everything related to Israel at the CIA. Given that he had zero oversight in regard to Israel, Angleton could do about anything he wanted to assist Israel. And, in fact, Piper claims in his book that Angleton had set up extensive ties with the Mossad as well as Jewish-American gangster Meyer Lansky, creating a vast intelligence/organize crime network. It is no wonder that Angleton is considered a hero by the Mossad. 

    After going over more testimony concerning Angleton's role in providing technical assistance to Israel for its nuclear weapons program, Cruickshank then goes on to discuss JFK's well documented opposition to Israel's nuclear weapons program. He quotes extensively from a Wikipedia entry summarizing a 2019 Haaretz article revealing the acrimony between the Kennedy Administration and Israel over Israel's weapons program, including the U.S. demanding bi-annual inspections of Israel's Dimona reactor which could be used to produce fissile materials. This matches up with Piper's discussion of the conflict between Israel and the U.S. over Israel's nuclear weapons program. 

    Cruickshank continues:

    Having already supplied the technical know-how (and possible fissile material) for assembly of one or [more] nuclear weapons at the cut-out site in Germany – Angleton and the C.I.A. find themselves in May of 1963 in quite a dilemma. Having continued the Israeli nuclear weapons program, started by Allen Dulles during the Eisenhower Administration and continued behind President Kennedy’s back, Angleton believes there can only be one solution and turns to his old friend William Harvey for a ZR/RIFLE Executive Action. Harvey in turn assembles the team of E. Howard Hunt, David Morales, Frank Sturgis, Bernard “Macho” Barker, Lucien Conein (who recruits Corsican thug Lucien Sarti as backup shooter), and of course, Lee Harvey Oswald. George H.W. Bush is on the periphery too, though it is never proven he is on the C.I.A. payroll during that time.

    With President Kennedy’s assassination, Angleton’s problem is now solved.

    Cruickshank obviously believes that it was an entirely CIA operation, but that is not necessarily true. Even at the early date of 1963, Israeli intelligence had carried out more assassinations than the CIA ever would because it was one of their primary methods of dealing with foreign security threats, as documented in Bergman's book, Rise And Kill First. Thus, it would have been natural for Israeli intelligence to at least consider assassination to resolve its problems and either pursue such plan itself (with Angleton's blessings) or provide assistance to Angleton.

    Moreover, as noted above, the CIA had close ties with Lansky's mob organization. It should be no surprise that Jack Ruby, who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, was reputed to be a mobster who worked for one of Lansky's associates. 

    A final bit mentioned by Cruickshank is that JFK had stated his intent to dismantle the CIA: “I want to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the wind” JFK reportedly said.