Abort Team or Abort Tease?

[ThomZajac]

steve manning wrote:I was just wondering why or how James Files was not included as part of the "Abort Team?" Obviously there must have been an element of reality to it because Rosselli was apparently scared to "go against the orders." Files was certainly in touch with the CIA that week, David Phillips. Was the Abort Team real or phony? If it was phony, why did Rosselli back off? Just curious what the answer would be for that question...SteveAll good questions, Steve. As I've mentioned before, the abort story doesn't add up for me. The two sources for the abort story (of which I am aware) are Tosh Plumlee and James Files. They may be being truthful (or not), but they may have been fed a story. In other words, even though Plumlee and Files may be telling the truth about what they were told, they may have been told untruths. But for what purpose? Hard to say. For Plumlee, it could be that he wasn't flying in a abort team but rather a support team and the higher ups did not feel Plumlee needed to know that since he was just the pilot and so they told him the abort team tale- and their actions certainly don't indicate they did a single thing to abort the assassination attempt (and they arrived comically late).As for Roselli, I don't think he was ever intended to be a shooter, and according to Files Roselli did his job as spotter, so the 'abort order,' if there was one,' didn't seem to change his actions.So the abort story is odd at the very least. My guess; there was no real abort order, though an abort order story may have been told to a few players to help shield some of the other participants.

[tom jeffers]

my thoughts are as follows:i think the "abort team" was a cia "cya" event in case things went wrong. i think roselli was told to stand down by the cia for whatever reason and that nicolletti was involved through giancana and since he never heard from him to stand down then he was going to do his job. i think it is entirely possible that nicolleti had a spotter other than roselli that met him there and jimmy did not know about it. roselli may have been a spotter or may not have done anything. just because they were at the car doesn't mean they were at the same location during the shooting. every individual was on a need to know and jimmy was low man on the totem pole so he was only told what he needed to do his job. one other thing i want to bring out here is that jimmy was driving nicolleti's car so nicolleti probably had his own set of keys for the car and used them to stash the weapons or in case something happened to jimmy, they could drive away.Col. Prouty even recognized lansdale as being there from a picture taken of the 3 tramps.

[steve manning]

tom jeffers wrote:my thoughts are as follows:i think the "abort team" was a cia "cya" event in case things went wrong. i think roselli was told to stand down by the cia for whatever reason and that nicolletti was involved through giancana and since he never heard from him to stand down then he was going to do his job. i think it is entirely possible that nicolleti had a spotter other than roselli that met him there and jimmy did not know about it. roselli may have been a spotter or may not have done anything. just because they were at the car doesn't mean they were at the same location during the shooting. every individual was on a need to know and jimmy was low man on the totem pole so he was only told what he needed to do his job. one other thing i want to bring out here is that jimmy was driving nicolleti's car so nicolleti probably had his own set of keys for the car and used them to stash the weapons or in case something happened to jimmy, they could drive away.Col. Prouty even recognized lansdale as being there from a picture taken of the 3 tramps.Thanks so much for such a specific correspondance to my question...not that the other responses were weak, but yours is very specific. Had you already thought of this specific question before? Am I correct to interpret your response of cia "cya" to mean you believe it was a phony, last minute effort to make it look like they had no part in it? Tempting to adopt this position until you realize, practically everyone in the Plaza was cia. The other critical question this brings up is "Who would the cia have been trying to convince they were not involved? Anyone that would even care would surely know how much cia was in the plaza? So again, who would they have been fooling that wouldn't have known it was all bs to start with? In other words, who would have thought such a contingency plan of sending in an "abort team" to stop everything was even worth making up.ThanksSteve

[tom jeffers]

good thoughts and questions. as it turned out it appears than plan A worked. oswald was indeed the perfect patsy and whatever didn't go right, those involved in the investigation did their job to make evidence disappear or changed to fit the story line. those at the top of the chain were aware of the variousgroups in place. the cia had their guys there, the mob had their guys and who knows maybe the sicilians (french assassins) and the cubans were there. there were probably people in the cia that did not want kennedy killed and since there were other shooters in place, someone at the cia decided to do this abort team knowing that it would not stop the shooting but would give them clean hands and plausible deniability in the assassination. if there was dissent in the cia and someone wanted it stopped, then others could say that we tried to stop it, we pulled our shooter (roselli) and we sent him and others to dealey that day to stop any other shooters but couldn't find them or didn't get there in time etc. it was no more than a cover story in case things did not go right and there was some kind of congressional hearing then somebody could appear before congress with the guys in the abort team and testify that they were there to stop any attempt. As i stated earlier, Plan A was pulled off and the rest is my opinion.Roselli worked more for the cia than the other contractors. that is why i do not think it is unreasonable for me to state that he may not have been chuck's spotter. if roselli was originally going to be a shooter, chuck would have already had a spotter designated. if roselli was just a bystander, he could pass a polygraph test or appear before congress and not purjer himself in any way. Namaste'

[JDThomas]

This subject got me thinking. James Files says he met Roselli at around 07:00 am, yet Roselli only flew in that morning - was there enough time for these facts to match up?According to Plumlee, they flew into Garland airfield, not Red Bird due to the weather, leaving Huston International between 04:30 and 05:00. The Twin Beech was a small aircraft with the standard model accomodation 8 passengers as a maximum - the 'abort team' must have been small.***********************************************************************************************EDIT 03 September 2009:Sorry, I made a mistake here. They swapped the Twin Beech for a DC-3 at Tampa according to Tosh. The DC3 actually had a slower cruising speed than the Twin Beech, but had a higher maximum top speed if needed. Still, this could have meant a later landing time at Garland.The DC3 was a much bigger aircraft and so the 'Abort Team' was probably larger than I imagined.***********************************************************************************************If we take 05:00 as the latest time to give us the lowest margin of error and assuming that the D-18 Twin Beach aircraft averaged 183 knots (its normal cruising speed), the flight would have got into Garland at around 06:05 (http://www.convertunits.com/distance/fr ... arland,+TX). This is assuming there was no delay in getting clearance to land at Garland.From this point we must either assume that Roselli's contacts were forewarned that he'd land at a different airport (unlikely) or else someone was contacted after the landing - Plumlee mentions nothing about this - either someone had to get off the plane to inform Roselli's contact or else a message was relayed by radio (unlikely). Either way, Roselli stayed on-board for a further 30 minutes after landing, before he was collected by car, hence 06:35. This leaves him 25 minutes to get to the Cabana Motel - is this enough time? I don't know the roadtime distance between Garland and the motel.What do you think?

[steve manning]

[quote="JDThomas"]This subject got me thinking. James Files says he met Roselli at around 07:00 am, yet Roselli only flew in that morning - was there enough time for these facts to match up?What exact facts are you referring to? What exactly are you suggesting there might not have been enough time to do? Do you mean, whether or not Roselli's story is true at all? Perhaps he had arrived the day before? If so, what would that suggest. I can see the gist of the details here, but what else could it otherwise explain? I have not thought it through to the degree you have...

[steve manning]

The more I think about the question of whether this was just a cover story or not and whether, two more questions have become clear to me:1. If the CIA was serious about stopping the assassanation, why wouldn't they have got the "orders" to at least a few of the more accessible agents already in the plaza? Namely, James Files? Seems much easier than flying a team in from Florida?2. This also makes me wonder what was really going through David Phillips mind. Would he have known the truth about the matter? He could've surely told Files to walk away, etc.Does this mean it for sure had to be a phony story? Does it suggest then that as one guy said, if there was a real "abort team" they were men who really didn't want JFK to die. Again, what about Roselli? He was with the Abort Team? It all seems to pivot on his wherever his personal loyalties really lied?

[ThomZajac]

Steve, I think it was pretty clear that the CIA was serious having the president killed, NOT stopping the assassination, and that you are putting way too much credibility in the notion that a true abort order may have been given. Again, as far as I know, there are only two sources for the abort order story; Tosh Plumlee and James Files. I think it very likely that Plumlee was given disinformation so that he wouldn't know that he had ferried in agents to SUPPORT the assassination. Files is more difficult for me to understand, but I think Tom is right on the money in the Cover Your Ass explanation; i.e. CIA agents weren't at Dealy Plaza to KILL the president, they were there to PROTECT him. I case things got hot, the players needed deniability.

[steve manning]

touche'

[ThomZajac]

(Sorry for all the typos...)