Final_Judgment

166 Thick as Thieves [105]
drug trade. In Chapter 12 , Chapter 15 and Chapter 16, we will also examine
the role of French Corsican gangsters and French intelligence operatives in
the JFK assassination—linking Angleton further to the events in Dallas on
November 22, 1963.
Here, now, we see that it was Israeli Mossad ally James J. Angleton
who was, in fact, the prime mover behind the CIA operations utilizing the
Corsican and Sicilian organized crime elements in Angleton's "anticommunist"
ventures. That all of this was run through the Angleton's
Israeli desk at the CIA is quite interesting, to say the least. This, of course,
ties Angleton and the CIA and their collaborators in the Mossad even further
into the Lansky network—and into the nexus revolving around the
conspiracy that led to the murder of John F. Kennedy.
ANGLETON, THE CIA & THE FRENCH CONNECTION
However, Angleton's French intrigue went beyond his connections with
the Corsican crime syndicate. He and the CIA were also dabbling in internal
French politics, interfering with the political aims of French leader Charles
DeGaulle and his political alliance. The CIA, in fact, was backing the
Socialist Party.
Historian Alfred McCoy notes that: "On the surface it may have seemed
a bit out of character for the CIA to be backing so far left [a party] as a
Socialist Party. However, there were only three major political parties in
France—Socialist, Communist and Gaullist—and by a simple process of
elimination the CIA wound up allying itself with the Socialists.
"While General DeGaulle was too independent for American tastes,
Socialist leaders were rapidly losing political ground to the Communists and
thus were willing to collaborate with the CIA." 291
That Angleton and the CIA would be actively working against
DeGaulle is intriguing, particularly in light of further evidence we shall
examine in Chapter 12, Chapter 15 and Chapter 16 which ties the CIA and
its allies in Israel to joint operations against DeGaulle. It was from this
same sphere of intrigue, as we shall see, that the JFK assassination evolved.
MANIPULATING THE WARREN COMMISSION
After John F. Kennedy was killed, it was Angleton who emerged as the
CIA's "overseer" of the Warren Commission investigation into the
assassination of Kennedy. In fact, as we shall see, Angleton maneuvered
himself into this position. JFK assassination researcher Peter Dale Scott
has written of what he called "the recurring presence of Angleton in the
background of the Warren Commission investigation." 292
In 1996 new information about Angleton's peculiar role emerged when
the government's JFK Assassination Records Review Board released 192
pages of heretofore-classified testimony given to the House Assassinations
Committee in 1978 by a witness who was "chief of a CIA branch
responsible for operations in Mexico and Central America." 293 The actual