11/26/2025
James Angleton: JFK Assassination Architect?
Newly declassified files show President John F. Kennedy’s alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was monitored for years by James Angleton, the CIA’s infamous veteran counterintelligence chief, right up until the President’s death.
In this context, freshly released FBI documents indicating Oswald was removed from Bureau watchlists six weeks before Kennedy’s assassination, despite being judged a high security risk, at the express direction of Angleton’s staff, take on a distinctly disquieting character.
Was Oswald a target of or participant in Angleton’s illegal domestic spying operations?
The file trail begins in June 1953, when a memo was circulated among senior FBI officials, its subject line: “Central Intelligence Agency—information received from James Angleton.” It documents how the CIA’s counterintelligence chief had over the past year “been very cooperative and…volunteered voluminous information of interest to Bureau.”
Such was the vast and sensitive intelligence yield that it was considered necessary to establish dedicated, strict internal protocols for handling and storing material provided by Angleton to the FBI.
This was “particularly” vital with respect to information Angleton received and passed on to the Bureau from Mossad, his “primary source” of intelligence among “numerous foreign sources and channels” he maintained worldwide. The memo went on to outline how Angleton handled “special cases of a various nature,” and was “usually given considerable freedom and leeway in directing the operations of his unit.” Angleton was “responsible only” to the CIA Director, and his staff were “responsible only to him.”
The memo noted approvingly how “much of the information” provided by Angleton “consists of the actual reports” he received from his sources. This was of significant advantage to the FBI, as the agency was able to “better evaluate the information instead of waiting for the delay and processing through normal channels in the CIA.”
Angleton also “frequently” kept the Bureau apprised of Agency activities overseas, “which the CIA sometimes camouflages with some of its cloak and dagger techniques.” [...]
James Angleton: JFK Assassination Architect?
Newly declassified files show President John F. Kennedy’s alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was monitored for years by James Angleton, the CIA’s infamous veteran counterintelligence chief, right up until the President’s death.
In this context, freshly released FBI documents indicating Oswald was removed from Bureau watchlists six weeks before Kennedy’s assassination, despite being judged a high security risk, at the express direction of Angleton’s staff, take on a distinctly disquieting character.
Was Oswald a target of or participant in Angleton’s illegal domestic spying operations?
The file trail begins in June 1953, when a memo was circulated among senior FBI officials, its subject line: “Central Intelligence Agency—information received from James Angleton.” It documents how the CIA’s counterintelligence chief had over the past year “been very cooperative and…volunteered voluminous information of interest to Bureau.”
Such was the vast and sensitive intelligence yield that it was considered necessary to establish dedicated, strict internal protocols for handling and storing material provided by Angleton to the FBI.
This was “particularly” vital with respect to information Angleton received and passed on to the Bureau from Mossad, his “primary source” of intelligence among “numerous foreign sources and channels” he maintained worldwide. The memo went on to outline how Angleton handled “special cases of a various nature,” and was “usually given considerable freedom and leeway in directing the operations of his unit.” Angleton was “responsible only” to the CIA Director, and his staff were “responsible only to him.”
The memo noted approvingly how “much of the information” provided by Angleton “consists of the actual reports” he received from his sources. This was of significant advantage to the FBI, as the agency was able to “better evaluate the information instead of waiting for the delay and processing through normal channels in the CIA.”
Angleton also “frequently” kept the Bureau apprised of Agency activities overseas, “which the CIA sometimes camouflages with some of its cloak and dagger techniques.” [...]
Newly declassified files show President John F. Kennedy’s alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was monitored for years by James Angleton, the CIA’s infamous veteran counterintelligence chief, right up until the President’s death. In this context, freshly released FBI documents indicating Oswald ...
