50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: `Newsweek''s 1993 Coverage

In a 1993 "special investigation report," Newsweek magazine (11/22/93) asserted that "Kennedy was almost certainly killed by Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone" and "When Tippit stopped him, Oswald shot him." Yet Double Cross by Sam and Chuck Giancana stated the following in 1992:

"Mooney said that the `alleged lone gunman,' Lee Harvey Oswald, like Ruby, had ties to both the CIA and the Outfit...The short of it, Mooney said, was that Lee Harvey Oswald was a CIA agent.

"Oswald had been a spy for the U.S. government in the Soviet Union, and had been trained to speak fluent Russian...In truth, Mooney said `Lee Harvey Oswald was a right-wing supporter of the `Kill Castro, Bay of Pigs camp'...`CIA all the way.'...

"Mooney now confided that..each man involved in the assassination plot received fifty thousand dollars...from wealthy right-wing Texas oilmen. Precisely who these financiers were, however, Mooney never disclosed.

"In the early spring of 1963, when the decision was reached by Mooney and his CIA associates to finalize plans for their elimination of the President [JFK], Oswald was the natural choice as a fall guy. `They'd already laid the groundwork to make him look like a Commie nut...so they figured it would be no problem to convince people he was a Commie.'...

"Mooney said the entire conspiracy went `right up to the top of the CIA'...

"Mooney said both `Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson knew about the whole damned thing,' having met with him several times in Dallas immediately prior to the assassination...

"To eliminate Oswald, Mooney said the CIA had selected White and Tippiet...on the Dallas police force...They were to murder the `lone gunman.' However, Tippit had wavered, Mooney said, allowing Oswald to escape. Thus, White had been forced to kill his partner. `Probably the only real screwup in the whole goddamned deal.'

"`And the rest is history,' Mooney said grinning. `...There was a line into the CIA. If somebody knew too much, the CIA found out about it and took care of the problem'..."

(Downtown 12/8/93)