C.A.A. Savastano's Blog, page 12

The Ochelli Effect JFK Myths Part 14

Your host Chuck Ochelli, researcher Rob Clark, and C.A.A. Savastano the author of "Two Prince's And A King" reunite to discuss public and official myths in the assassination case of President John F. Kennedy.

The Ochelli Effect presents Project CAUTERY

The Ochelli Effect returns with your host Chuck Ochelli and C.A.A. Savastano to discuss a cryptonym (codename) related to the JFK case and one notable 1950s CIA Project seeking to recruit defectors from Soviet controlled East Germany. #CIA #1950s #history #evidence

Note the Chain

All humans are pattern-seeking creatures because the recognition of valid patterns is an evolutionary mechanism in the human brain. While indeed overreliance on seeking just self-gratifying patterns can lead to false connections and incorrect speculations, patterns based on verifiable evidence do not often suffer from these pitfalls. When a chain of events occurs with a pattern established in evidence, it feasibly leads to reasonable questions and new facts. The chain of historical events if studied closely might reveal the yet unseen connections and present that what once is dismissed with scorn can still be true.

Depending on whom you consult, Lee Harvey Oswald is a figure concealed in the historical misnomers of "convicted assassin" and "innocent proven spy". He was part of a significant chain of historical events that reaches back much farther than November 22, 1963. During the course of events Oswald prior encounters three notable people a world away in Moscow, Patricia Johnson McMillan, Richard Snyder, and John McVickar. Oswald ventures to the United States Embassy on October 31, 1959 and his life was set upon a fateful path where each of these people would play a role in Oswald's journey within Russia and even years after his death.

        Priscilla J. McMillan

Evidence prior revealed that reporter Priscilla McMillan had direct connections to the CIA while serving as one of its many contacts in Moscow and one of her links in the Domestic Contacts Division was employee Gary Coit. Agency officials were previously concerned that McMillan could be asked to discuss her official contacts with the House Select Committee on Assassinations because if the "CIA relationship is presented, Gary Coit (retired, DCD) may be subpoenaed."i  However, officials had no need to worry because despite HSCA officials securing the release of secrecy agreements with connected witnesses, McMillan still denied her Agency connections that evidence would firmly establish decades later. This is notable because despite the opportunity to be honest with investigators without legal repercussion she chose to deceive them. She was just one of many associated with the CIA to do so. While Coit told investigators privately that his associations with McMillan in the early 1960s did not have espionage related dimensions, this does not explain her prior work that began in the late 1950s years before she encountered Oswald.

The first Agency connected person Oswald encountered in Moscow was the Second Secretary of the US Embassy Richard Snyder, the embassy official that dealt with Oswald's attempt to renounce his American citizenship. Snyder is a confirmed former Agency employee that also had contacts with Oswald directly and he is among those whose actions enable Lee Harvey Oswald's return to the United States. As each additional person connected to the CIA emerges, it constructs a pattern within this chain of events and perhaps McMillan and Snyder might not be the only Agency connected people engaging Oswald at the time. A CIA draft working paper that presented questions and issues offered by the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB) in 1997 regards the "doctoring" of personnel files and 201 files in the record. Separate investigations note this practice multiple times by studying other related documents to verify changes and conflicting accounts. An example question ARRB Counsel T. Jeremy Gunn posed regarding the issue was "i.e., could John McVickar ever have been an employee?"ii

John Anthony McVickar was born in Manhattan, New York on May 22, 1924; he was educated at St Mark's High School, Georgetown University, and served during WWII in the United States Navy. Subsequently, McVickar attended the US Foreign Service School in 1948, and both he and Richard Snyder were on the same waiting list for employment with the US State Department's Foreign Service. The CIA later recruits Snyder in the Foreign Service using State Department cover and McVickar later testified he too gained State Department employment but without any intelligence connections.iii Yet repeated evidence challenges this assertion by linking him to multiple intelligence matters.  

A file dated November 8, 1949 states that McVickar was the longtime friend of a CIA affiliated person code-named UNMOVED. This person suggests the Agency employ McVickar because of his several European official friendships and officials state the "subject appears to be the type of individual which might be ideally suited to fulfill certain valuable operational assignments...such as spotter for other high-level potential agents, high level contacts, cut-outs, etc. All who know him agree that subject is capable of 'doing anything and getting to know anyone' if he so chooses." The sterling appraisal continues offering that McVickar is "...a serious minded, intelligent and patriotic individual who has had much experience along lines which could be of use to this organization". Strikingly the assessment reveals, "It is our thought that perhaps subject's unusual personality and in the cover job he now occupies could be exploited to advantage by this Station and the organization as a whole."iv A personal assessment of McVickar by Agency officials queries the "type of information furnished and what type is he expected to furnish in the future". These details would support that McVickar was a longtime friend and perhaps a source of intelligence for UNMOVED and the value of his future possible intelligence production was being assessed for direct employment.v

Provisional Operational Clearance and the chance to approach McVickar for Agency employment were requested December 11, 1949.vi Agency officials were still attempting to court McVickar early the next year for employment but financial demands weighed against his relative inexperience concerning spycraft caused officials to deny the request during that period. Yet John McVickar soon gains a position with the State Department's Foreign Service branch, the same cover utilized by Richard Snyder during his time at the CIA. McVickar utilized his extensive contacts for the US State Department in Western Europe to secure American foreign policy goals during the following years in Russia, Bolivia, India, and British ruled Hong Kong. The Agency assigns him to Moscow Embassy in 1959 and this placed him among those who encounter Lee Harvey Oswald.

             Richard E. Snyder

John A. McVickar was Richard Snyder's embassy subordinate, he was present but largely only listened to Snyder and Oswald's interaction. McVickar soon discussed the interaction between Oswald and Snyder with reporter Priscilla Johnson McMillan and suggested that she conduct an interview out of asserted concern. The next day McMillan joins McVickar for dinner to discuss Oswald and in early November of the same year McVickar reportedly attempted to deliver a message to Oswald from his brother John Pic but states there was no answer from Oswald's hotel door and this prompted McVickar to resend the message by certified mail. A Chronology of Oswald's life crafted by the President's Commission states McVickar notified Oswald about the correct procedure for obtaining his Russian wife a visa. A later immigrant visa application filed on behalf of Marina Oswald by Lee Oswald on July 11, 1961 and was "subscribed and sworn...before John A. McVickar, Consul of the US Embassy in Moscow."vii By the year's end, McVickar replaces Richard Snyder as Second Secretary of the US Moscow Embassy.

A document of interest regarding McVickar offers the Agency learned that Russian intelligence services attempted to catch McVickar in a "honey trap". This method is utilized by intelligence organizations to orchestrate a planned sexual encounter for compromising a target and subjecting them to blackmail. Should the encounter be recorded or witnessed it provides the threat of exposure and creating dire personal or professional consequences. Based on the allegations of KGB defector Yuriy Nosenko using the pseudonym "Sammy" the woman approaching McVickar was referred to as "Svetlana", McVickar was noted to resist consummating the relationship and this attempt reportedly failed. Perhaps most interesting is that Nosenko mentions that the multiple officials in the KGB were interested in McVickar due to a suspicion that "he was connected, an agent or a trusted person" concerning United States intelligence groups.viii The circumstances of Nosenko's claims are supported by later conversations Richard Snyder had with McVickar and discussed with House Select Committee investigators. This allegation displays enemy intelligence suspected McVickar being a cover agent, asset, or contact of American intelligence and is worth expending intelligence resources to entrap.

             John A. McVickar

During 1966, the CIA's Chief of Employee Activity Branch approves Top Secret security approval for John A. McVickar to serve as a liaison contact for the Agency.ix June 20, 1968 the Agency learns the "East German list of Who's Who in the CIA" contained multiple people with intelligence associations reportedly dating into the 1950s. Among those exposed was Richard Snyder and John Anthony McVickar, both men have the status of State Department employee and no denial accompanies these statements usually observed in other internal documents regarding unrelated baseless employment accusations directed at officials.x xi xii  The House Select Committee questioned McVickar if he had worked in any capacity with the Central Intelligence Agency. Despite all the evidence of his affiliations with the CIA, that he was granted liaison status, and his years long affiliation being a feasible source of information for one agent serving the CIA, he told officials he never served the Agency in any capacity.   

The people Oswald encountered on his first day in Moscow are likely no mere coincidence; but it does not infer a wide-ranging assassination plot setting up its patsy years prior. It does support the reasonable consideration that Oswald could have been an unwitting cutout, contact, or minor agent in the crossfire of large counterintelligence operations before he returned to the United States. The later consideration of one Agency Soviet Russia Division officer interested with gathering intelligence via Oswald adds clarity to the proposition. Consider now Oswald's later interactions with Cuban exiles and those associated with official groups and the weight of what some consider flimsy becomes significantly more substantial. While the events in Moscow have no definite connection to the events in Dallas, it does further establish an enduring interest and the repeated interaction with Oswald by those in the service or with demonstrable connections to CIA agents, contacts, and assets. His first days in Russia were just as notable as his last days in Texas because of the intelligence net that seems to entangle him. 

The embassy staff noted Richard Snyder's initial questionable treatment and possibly goading Oswald to complete his defection to Russia, Snyder too is among those who later meet with Oswald to secure his return to America. Priscilla Johnson McMillan interviewed Oswald at the prompting of McVickar and spent years in the press attempting to mold him into the angry man officials had decreed. John McVickar was assertedly concerned for Oswald suggested a local hotel that Priscilla McMillan resides at while later advising McMillan to interview him. Additionally, McVickar meets with her the next evening to discuss it over dinner, and later assists the Oswald family's immigration. He now too is among those with Agency connections who encountered Oswald multiple times. Meeting three people further set Lee Harvey Oswald toward his path of eventual infamy, the chain begun in Moscow would forever change his life and world history.
Sincerely,
C.A.A. Savastano

References:
i. House Select Committee on Assassinations, Segregated Central Intelligence Agency Collection, Box 35, Memo: HSCA - A Projection, National Archives and Records Administration Identification Number: 104-10096-10160
ii. Central Intelligence Agency, Draft Working Paper: Talking Points for Files Briefing/ARRB, February 7, 1997, NARA ID:104-10333-10017, p. 1  
iii. HSCA, Segregated CIA file, Staff Notes, (n.d.), NARA ID: 180-10141-10488, p. 17
iv. Central Intelligence Agency, CIA File on McVickar, John A., NARA ID: 104-10177-10221, p. 2
v. Ibid, Personal Record of (redacted), p. 11
vi. Ibid, Message to Special Operations, p. 1
vii. President's Commission Document 818, CIA Helm Memorandum of 21 Apr 1964 re: Revisions Oswald Chronology, p. 
viii. HSCA, Seg. CIA file, John A. McVickar: OS/SAG Files provided to the HSCA, Follow-up with Sammy on John A. McVickar, August 1964, NARA ID: 1993.07.21.11:12:59:810620
ix. HSCA, Seg. CIA file, Request for Approval of Liaison for John A. McVickar, NARA ID: 104-10121-10042
x. HSCA, Seg. CIA file, J.A. McVickar..., Subject: McVickar, John Anthony, June 20, 1968
xi. HSCA, Miscellaneous CIA Series, Miscellaneous documents from AARC CIA Collection, Box 113, June 20, 1968
xii. HSCA, Seg. CIA file, John A. McVickar..., Page from East German "Who's Who in the CIA", (n.d.)

Consolidated CIA Files update

Presenting the latest update to the Consolidated CIA Files that includes new evidence and summaries regarding Mexico City Station officer Charles E. Flick, Costa Rican Chief of Station Earl J. Williamson, and Grayston Lynch. Additionally inspect new photographs of some prior mentioned in addition to Robert Zambernardi, Guy Vitale, Sylvia Hyde Hoke, Lee Wigren, Calvin Hicks, and Daniel Flores. Over fifty summaries in total are offered with verifiable evidence and biographic information for your review.   

JFK 101 part 13: The HSCA episode 2

Historian Larry Hancock, author C.A.A. Savastano, and your host Chuck Ochelli present a continuing review of the JFK case. In this episode, they discuss the House Select Committee on Assassinations and a portion of their later JFK case inquiry

Primary Evidence Collections Update: RFK Section

Presented for your inspection is a summary and review of several possible candidates that may explain various official and witness claims and speculations regarding the identity of a mystery woman alleged to be at the scene of Senator Robert F. Kennedy's assassination. #RFK50 #assassination #evidence

A Discussion of WIROGUE-1

Join your host Chuck Ochelli and author C.A.A. Savastano to discuss the life, crimes, and Central Intelligence Agency sabotage and potential assassination operation using David Tzitzichvili aka WIROGUE-1.

 

Who was WIROGUE-1? part II

           David Tzitzichvili aka WIROGUE-1

Most human beings are but a mass of contradictions, no more so than some participating in clandestine operations where both legal skills and illicit ones are often required. Seldom are those practicing tradecraft what they appear to be and in rare cases they are far more than even their handlers expect. One noted Central Intelligence Agency foreign contract agent was an inventor, bank robber, photographer, forger, researcher, and potential assassin. Most knew him merely under the shadowy moniker WIROGUE-1 for decades.

David Tzitzichvili aka WIROGUE-1 was reportedly born in Gori, Georgia, a later Soviet Union holding on July 12, 1918. His parents fled with him and a substantial amount of money prior to the Bolshevik invasion of Georgia. While his family lived excessively for a time, eventually they fell upon poverty and this hardened Tzitzichvili's desire for revenge against the Soviets. "He is a person who cannot tolerate being beaten in competition." He was educated in Paris and studied at several institutions as his family repeatedly moved within France. Several cases of educational rebellion, insubordination, and expulsions from multiple schools are the first signs of his eternal problem with authority.i His family later fell apart following his father and sister's return to Soviet controlled Georgia and his mother's resulting suicide from despair.

Tzitzichvili left his final college attempt with the outbreak of World War II during November of 1939 and joined the French Foreign Legion to serve in its 1st Calvary Regiment. During 1940 while attending a military training course, he withdrew and asked for reassignment to a unit comprised of all Georgians. That same year he was assigned to his requested unit and was discharged when France lost significant territory to German annexation.That same year Tzitzichvili was assigned to his requested unit and was discharged when France lost significant territory to German annexation. During 1942, he was self-employed managing a photo shop in Paris and began training himself in document forgery using personal identification papers and practicing additional photographic techniques.

               A panorama view of Porte CLIGnanCOURT within Paris France CIRCa the 1930s

Tzitzichvili then went to Berlin and found production line work where he received a commendation for developing a cartridge case adjustment device. Privately he began to alter past German official stamps and travel forms and formed a small resistance cell to repatriate and liberate war prisoners. Within two years he was creating several travel documents and learned photographic skills that allowed him to develop more impressive forgery techniques and the recycling of old forged documents. David later provided these augmented materials to people who sought to travel across Germany territory. His illegal activities further expanded into the counterfeiting of German financial vouchers in time. It was during this period he lost his left index finger and thumb in an explosion after attempting to salvage a bomb. Tzitzichvili subsequently worked as a translator for German police having already become proficient in Georgian, French, and German and had a fair grasp of English.

The WIROGUE-1 Project Outline reveals the "subject was arrested by the German police for forgery. He was not unduly held by the criminal investigation branch of the police but passed on to the Gestapo. Subject was brought to Berlin where he was interrogated for several months at Gestapo headquarters." Eventually Nazi officials sentenced Tzitzichvili to death but he convinced officials of his inventive skills it was possible to develop a motor that could run without gasoline. Using the false motor claim, he was able to postpone his sentence and moved from camp to camp until Allied forces later freed him.

Following WWII Tzitzichvili returned to Paris and was employed by a company to perform electrical installation planning and the construction of proto-type model builder. He committed two successful jewelry store robberies on behalf of a friend but a successive bank robbery attempt led to his arrest in 1950 when his co-conspirator informed on him. While serving his prison sentence David Tzitzichvili developed and sold a pocket automatic transit indicator and received a cash settlement for his latest invention in the early 1950s. In 1953, he gave his prison administrator an invention for making cardboard boxes the official constructed and later used. During 1955 Tzitzichvili gains employment as an X-ray machine technician and operator and less than two years later he invented, patented, and sold a calendar device to the French commercial market. While his aggressiveness and criminal intent are often noted, his technical skill and intelligence were largely unknown. He is not a mere criminal patsy but an intelligent operative that a year later in 1958 invented and patented a commercial photomechanical advertising device.

The Central Intelligence Agency first contacted Tzitzichvili in 1958 after they received a lead regarding him. The Agency Station in Frankfurt, Germany recruited him for the Soviet Russia Division in 1959 for use in their REDSOX program targeting the Soviet Union with illegal operations. Officials were concerned after his initial recruitment if he could actually work reasonably with another agent in the proposed operation. Following his psychological assessment and polygraph testing officials decided he would be utilized and one summary reports "Another aspect of his system of ideals proceeds from the life concept of chivalry...This involves the defense and the protection of the oppressed and the weak. It is sort of a Robin Hood concept which he attributes to himself...In other words he is motivated to helping others to obtain love and affection." Despite the very destructive and criminal nature of his repeated actions, he seemed to still be partially motivated by a warped sense of nobility. Yet a motivation to "succeed out of a spirit of revenge" taints his declared "nobility".ii

The first cryptonym he was assigned is AEASPIC and was trained in April 1959 to serve in another CIA project.iii His training at a "covert site ops base formerly in the District of Columbia" included clandestine field operations, small arms, Soviet interrogation techniques, the Russian language, the AESENTINEL operations plan, and air infiltration and exfiltration techniques and the related aircraft that best served these attempts to enter and exit restricted areas.iv However, Tzitzichvili's use in AESENTINEL was postponed and he was assigned to the CIA Technical Services Division to perform cataloging and developmental roles.

Officials cancel Project AESENTINEL as Tzitzichvili was living in Washington D.C. on June 17, 1960, and he was reassigned to the African Division after it "expressed interest and agreed to utilize him." Eventually officials would replace his cryptonym with its more notorious incarnation WIROGUE-1. One of multiple pseudonyms he would further assume for operational use is Georg Franz Heiner. Despite the extensive use of WIROGUE-1, he reportedly was not aware what specific intelligence group was using him. "He knows he is connected with some intelligence organization...He does not know anything about KUBARK (CIA) organization nor its modus operandi."v The Agency considers resettling him in Mexico during August of 1960.vi

David Tzitzichvili is later a foreign contract agent deployed to the Congo under the cover of a photographic business owner. To prevent his discovery by prior associates and enemy agencies he undergoes plastic surgery, wears a wig, and his false documents claim he is Austrian. His mission's initial purpose is to "provide a long term deep cover asset...in the Republic of Congo and adjacent areas in order to build a covert net in support of operation activities and to provide an asset utility support for KUBARK personnel under official cover."vii The Eisenhower Administration had prior decided that Congolese Prime Minster Patrice Lumumba was a threat to national security due to his countries extensive uranium holdings. Lumumba's decision to undertake diplomacy with the Soviets and others who might threaten US access to these uranium stores inspired the discussion and planning of his potential assassination.viii 

Leopoldville Station within the Congo sent a message after reviewing the project to CIA Director Allen Dulles that offered, "WIROGUE One appears to be just what the doctor ordered."ix Agency officer William Harvey consequently uses him for spotting and recruiting potential sabotage agents and assassins under Project ZRRIFLE. Tzitzichvili and even more notorious sabotage agent and potential assassin QJWIN stay in the same hotel during December 1960. The CIA's Leopoldville Station would eventually regret using Tzitzichvili for his "freewheeling... lack of security...inability to handle finances, and unwillingness to follow instructions." It seems WIROGUE is ever a classic example of personality beset with contradictions.

    Patrice Lumumba Speaks at A Press Conference During the Congo Crisis

Some details make Tzitzichvili a perfect candidate for political assassinations and illegal projects such as his dependency on the CIA. Officials in there project assessment confide to each other "The more important built in control is the fact that he will be under false documents, and being stateless, he is completely dependent on KUBARK to perpetuate his quasi legal existence to eventually legalize his status. Added to this is the control which stems from the prospect of resettlement in another country. This would give him status as a citizen. Realizing these points, subject is more than willing to play ball with us." Added to this advantage is Tzitzichvili's chronic need to commit escalating crimes and challenge his intellect without consideration to the law. He is skilled in multiple languages, covert operations, well versed in deception, and had extremely valuable technical insights.

Yet he also presents the same unpredictable streak we can observe in various intelligence related individuals and Tzitzichvili further has a severe issue with authority he believed was undeserving or unfair. While evidence does not support that he was utilized to kill Patrice Lumumba and had distinct problems with following orders, he still proves to be a useful mold for a potential assassin officials would utilize in the right circumstances. In 1964, Tzitzichvili was turned over to another official group for resettlement and the Agency believed he could not cause potential controversy because he knew little of the CIA. Officials did not anticipate the later notoriety his assigned cryptonym would gain and its attachment to programs historically related to the Kennedy administration later files declassified would reveal.
Sincerely,
C.A.A. Savastano

References:
i. Central Intelligence Agency, 201 File on WIROGUE, Volume III, Subject: David, January 8-10, 1959, National Archives and Records Administration Identification Number: 104-10182-10057, pp. 1, 2
ii. Ibid, pp. 2-3
iii. CIA, 201 File on WIROGUE, Volume III, Project Outline, November 16, 1960, 104-10182-10069, pp. 1-4, 8
iv. CIA, File on WIROGUE, Subject: Informal Character Assessment of WIROGUE, October 9, 1964
v. CIA, WIROGUE, Volume III, Project Outline, pp. 5-7
vi. Ibid, Mexican Resettlement Arrangements for AESENTINEL agent AEASPIC, August 19, 1960
vii. Ibid, Financial Annex, Project WIROGUE-Loan, November 16, 1960
viii. House Select Committee on Assassinations, CIA Segregated File, Memo on QJWIN, Box 36, NARA ID: 104-10103-10291, pp. 1, 7
ix. CIA, 201 File on WIROGUE, Volume III, Cable from Leopoldville to Director, WIROGUE, November 2, 1960

Related Articles:
Who was WIROGUE-1?
Related Collections:
Project ZRRIFLE
 

The State of JFK Research Panel and New Cryptonyms

Join the founder of History Matters and President of the Mary Ferrell Foundation Rex Bradford, researcher and advocate William Kelly, researcher and author Carmine Savastano, and attorney and researcher Bill Simpich for the State of JFK Research Panel. Your host and researcher Chuck Ochelli and his guests discuss the JFK case history, the new documents releases, how to get involved, and how to possibly secure the remaining files still beyond the public's reach. #JFK55 #documents #MFF #AARC 

Review newly added CIA cryptonyms (code names) that decode nations, people, and operations that include AMSMILE-1, KMULCER, AMRAZOR-1, and PDDONOR.

The Ochelli Effect with Hancock and Savastano on MLK's Assassination

Join researchers Larry Hancock, Carmine Savastano, and your host Chuck Ochelli to discuss the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the significant problems in the official narrative, and the challenges that lay ahead. #MLK50 #assassination #evidence