[Ben Holmes]

Quote:A HSCA investigator looked into the Maurice Bishop story and found they couldn't verify it. 

Here's his conclusion:

== quote ==
204) No definitive conclusion could be reached about the credibility of Antonio Veciana's allegations regarding his relationship with a Maurice Bishop. Additionally, no definitive conclusions could be drawn as to the identity or affiliations of Bishop, if such an individual existed. While no evidence was found to discredit Veciana's testimony, there was some evidence to support it, although none of it was conclusive. The available documentary record was sufficient to indicate that the U.S. Government's intelligence community had a keen interest in Antonio Veciana during the early 1960's and that he was willing to receive the financial support he needed for the military operations of his anti-Castro groups from those sources. From the files of these agencies, it thus appears reasonable that an association similar to the alleged Maurice Bishop story actually existed. But whether Veciana's contact was really named Maurice Bishop, or if he was, whether he did all of the things Veciana claims, and if so, with which U.S. intelligence agency he was associated, could not be determined. No corroboration was found for Veciana's alleged meeting with Lee Harvey Oswald. 

Submitted by:
GAETON J. FONZI,
Investigator. 

But let's look at what Gaeton Fonzi later wrote:

Quote:The CIA never informed the committee that Joannides was more than a clerkish Agency expert in "facilitating" document requests. When Kennedy was assassinated he was chief of Miami station JM/WAVE's "psychological warfare" branch. He worked with the agency's legendary psych war guru, David Atlee Phillips, who concocted many of the Oswald-as-pro-Castro misinformation rumors planted immediately after the assassination. Phillips, who got the CIA's equivalent of the Medal of Honor, was later promoted to Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division, the agency's highest staff level. However, as a young covert operative in the early '60s, he went by the name of Maurice Bishop and planned at least two Castro assassination plots with another militant Miami group, Alpha 66, headed by Antonio Veciana, a former bank accountant. It was Veciana who saw "Bishop" meeting with Oswald in Dallas weeks before Kennedy's murder.

Phillips had also been instrumental in helping members of the Student Directorate regroup in Miami after they were forced to flee Havana. Once reorganized and strengthened with zealous exiles anxious to take the fight against Castro to its most effective level, the DRE was deemed by the Agency to be worthy of a high degree of both advisory and monetary support. The control agent the CIA assigned to the DRE soon began handing DRE’s leaders a monthly contribution that would reach, in current dollars, $1.5 million a year.

More than 20 years later we finally learned the name of the CIA’s control agent assigned to the DRE. It was George Joannides. The man he said he could not locate in CIA files was himself.

Many of the revelations about Joannides and the CIA’s sabotaging the Assassination Committee's investigation were uncovered by former Washington Post reporter Jeff Morley, who discovered Joannides' personnel file in newly released National Archives documents. The Post never ran his story, the Kennedy assassination being history and the details too esoteric.

Chief Counsel Blakey, now a professor at Notre Dame Law, no longer believes he was right in trusting the CIA. In fact, he now accuses the agency of "obstruction of justice."

Several years ago there was a petition circulated asking that still-classified CIA documents in the National Archives pertaining to the assassination be released. Among those who signed was Robert Blakey. The man who trusted the Agency had lived to rue the day.

Henry quite desperately wants to impugn Veciana's story - but the evidence is all still classified - so how can one honestly disagree with someone who has seen the evidence? It's clear that Gaeton Fonzi himself does believe Veciana...

Clearly, Henry would prefer to believe the CIA denials...