Eli Crane To Author: 'Do You Believe That Oswald Was Recruited & Being Handled As A Source For The CIA?'

2 days ago

At Tuesday's House Oversight Committee hearing, Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) questioned witness Jefferson Morley about the JFK Assassination.

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Transcript

00:00I'd like to now recognize Mr. Crane for five minutes.

00:03Thank you, Ms. Chairwoman.

00:06Thank you guys for coming out today.

00:08You guys have probably forgot more about the JFK assassination than I'll ever know, so

00:13I'm still going to ask you some questions, and I appreciate your, you know, just how

00:17dogged you guys have been on this for decades.

00:21Mr. Morley, I want to start with you.

00:23What is the most interesting information you found in this newest release of documents

00:26on the assassination of President Kennedy?

00:29The nine memos about James Angleton that were fully declassified on March 18th is the

00:34most important collection that I've seen so far.

00:36There is a lot of information that has come out.

00:39Jim mentioned the Arthur Schlesinger memo.

00:42That really sets the stage for the alienation between the Kennedy White House and the CIA

00:47that lasted for the rest of Kennedy's presidency.

00:50So I would say that the Angleton memos and the Schlesinger memo are the most important

00:54things I've seen so far.

00:58Mr. Morley, do you believe that Oswald was recruited and being handled as a source for

01:01the CIA?

01:04I believe Oswald was an agent of influence who was manipulated by the CIA.

01:08Okay.

01:10And as I was going through some research, one of the things that I found interesting,

01:15and please correct me if I'm mistaken here, any of you guys on the panel, but Mr. Underhill,

01:21who was a CIA agent himself who apparently left D.C. the days after the assassination

01:26in a hurry, Gary Underhill then confided in a friend that a clique within the CIA had

01:31assassinated Kennedy.

01:32He also told his friends that he may need to leave the country and that he feared for

01:36his life.

01:37Mr. Underhill was then found dead six months later.

01:40I'm going to start with you, Mr. Morley.

01:42Do you find those types of stories surrounding Mr. Underhill to be credible?

01:47Mr. Underhill was hardly alone in suspecting CIA involvement of the assassination.

01:52President Harry Truman suspected it.

01:54President Johnson suspected it.

01:56And President Richard Nixon suspected it.

01:58So I think that Gary Underhill was a man who worked in the intelligence community and was

02:03in a position to know something.

02:05His story's not confirmed, but it's consistent with what lots of other people thought.

02:10What was his title?

02:11Do you remember, Mr. Morley?

02:13He was not a CIA employee.

02:15He was an arms dealer who assisted CIA in acquiring weapons and shipping them.

02:20Do you know how he died, Mr. Morley?

02:23I don't know anything more than was reported in the documents.

02:26Mr. D'Eugenio, do you know how he died?

02:30D'Eugenio.

02:31Sorry about that.

02:32You're not the first one.

02:35Do you know how he died, sir?

02:39Mr. Underhill?

02:40Gary Underhill.

02:41Do you know how he died?

02:46Gary Underhill?

02:47Yeah.

02:48Do you know how he died?

02:53Gary Underhill, his body was discovered by his friend, Asher Burns, who was a magazine

02:59writer at the time.

03:02And the door was open ajar a little, and Burns entered the room, and he thought Underhill

03:09was sleeping.

03:10But as he approached the body, he saw that there was a hole, a bullet hole, in his head.

03:18All right?

03:19Asher Burns was so disgusted by the investigation that came after that he didn't even want to

03:26talk about what had happened.

03:28But one of the things about the Underhill death is that for him to have taken his own

03:34life, the gun was in the wrong hand.

03:37Okay?

03:38All right?

03:40That was one of the most puzzling things about that particular case.

03:46Underhill has been, I believe, very much ignored by a lot of people, and I'm glad that this

03:52memo finally got out there.

03:54Thank you, sir.

03:56Mr. Morley, are you familiar with Michael Francesi, who was a capo for the Colombo family?

04:02I've appeared with him twice on the Piers Morgan Show.

04:05That's all I know.

04:06Okay.

04:08He claims that the mob was involved in this hit since the deal between the Kennedys and

04:13the mob was broken after the election.

04:16Do you find that to be credible?

04:19I think Mr. Franzine's contention that the organized crime role in President Kennedy's

04:24assassination is very clear, and he said that it was common knowledge among the crime bosses

04:30who he had dealt with that their role in the assassination was to eliminate the chief witness,

04:37Lee Harvey Oswald.

04:39I think Mr. Franzine said that both times when I was on Piers Morgan with him, and I

04:43believe him.

04:49This question is more based on the future, or I should say the present day.

04:54After two assassination attempts of President Trump within the last year, and the little

04:58that we now know about Thomas Crooks and Ryan Ruth, do any of you guys on the panel believe

05:03that we're seeing history repeat itself?

05:07No.

05:09Mr. Stone?

05:14I express my own surprise that so little do we still know about Mr. Crooks and the other

05:25assassination attempt.

05:27So I would see similarities here.

05:32I'm out of time.

05:33I yield back.

05:34Thank you very much.

05:35I'd like to now recognize Mr. Gill for five minutes.

Eli Crane To Author: 'Do You Believe That Oswald Was Recruited & Being Handled As A Source For The CIA?'

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