Matthew Smith

Matthew Smith

Matthew Smith is a scriptwriter, television producer and writer. He is a leading authority on the assassination of John F. Kennedy and worked as a consultant on Central Television's The Men Who Killed Kennedy.

In JFK: The Second Plot, published in 1992, Smith argues that Lee Harvey Oswald was a CIA agent. Smith quotes James Wilcott, a former CIA man, who claimed that Oswald had been "recruited from the military for the express purpose of becoming a double agent assignment to the USSR." The Soviets were suspicious of Oswald and he was allowed so little freedom it was decided by the CIA to bring him home.

On his arrival back in the United States Oswald continued to pose as a left-wing activist. Smith argues Oswald was "taken over and run by renegade CIA agents who were dedicated to assassinating President Kennedy." Smith claims that J. D. Tippit and Roscoe White were also involved in this plot although he suggests that Oswald was not aware of what was going on and was being set up as a patsy. Tippit was supposed to take Oswald to Redbird Airport where he was to be flown to Cuba in order to implicate Fidel Castro in the assassination.

Other books by Smith include Vendetta: The Kennedys, (1993), Say Goodbye to America: New Perspectives on the JFK Assassination (2002), Victim: The Secret Tapes of Marilyn Monroe (2003) and The Kennedys: The Conspiracy to Destroy a Dynasty (2005).

Primary Sources

(1) Matthew Smith, JFK: The Second Plot (1992)

Any analysis of the works of the Warren Report critics shows that the cry common to them all is that by the means described above - the distortion of testimony, the ignoring of witnesses, the acceptance of unreliable testimony and the biased interpretation of evidence - the Commission had gone out of its way to give credence to testimony and evidence which supported the theory that Lee Harvey Oswald had, alone and unaided, shot and killed the President of the United States, and that they sought to conceal or discredit that which would have opposed it.

The arguments over the assassination of President Kennedy began almost before the sound of the gunfire had died away. How many shots had been fired? Some said two, some said three, four, five and six. From which direction had the shots come? Some said they all came from behind, some said from the front, some said from the front and right of the President. When were the shots fired? Some said when the President's car was in Houston Street, others said when it was in Elm Street. How did Lee Harvey Oswald get away from the Book Depository building? Some said by the front door and by taking a bus and a taxi, while another reliable witness said by the back door, running down Elm Street where he was smartly picked up in a getaway car. The various editions of the Dallas newspapers that day added to the confusion. On the subject of where the President's car was when the shooting occurred, the second edition contradicted the first and the third edition contradicted the second.

(2) Matthew Smith, JFK: The Second Plot (1992)

One of the outstanding examples of a witness being frustrated in his attempt to speak out when he had something important to say is to be found in the story of Abraham Bolden. Abraham Bolden was a member of theWhite House detail of the Secret Service, and was the first negro to be appointed to that body. Bolden had heard of a Chicago plot to kill the President and was anxious to tell what he knew. He was also critical of the personnel appointed to guard the President, claiming they were lax in their duties. It was believed that an attempt on Kennedy's life had been foiled on 1st November in Chicago, but three weeks before he was killed in Dallas, and it would have been extremely embarrassing to the Warren Commission, heavily involved in establishing their 'lone killer - no conspiracy' theory, to have had Bolden telling of a Chicago plot. Bolden's superior officers blocked his request. A few months later Abraham Bolden was charged with soliciting a huge bribe for disclosing secret information on a counterfeiter, Joseph Spagnoli, and he was jailed for six years. Spagnoli later confessed he had lied about Bolden, at the request of Prosecutor Richard Sikes, he claimed. In spite of this Bolden was made to serve his full sentence.

(3) Matthew Smith, JFK: The Second Plot (1992)

When they (Lee Harvey Oswald and Marina Oswald) arrived at Dallas, again, agents of the government were conspicuous by their absence. Eventually Oswald would be interviewed by the FBI in a meeting which was both superficial and undramatic. Lee Harvey Oswald had just come quietly home. No threats, no grillings, no arrest, no imprisonment, no unpleasant scenes. Exactly the kind of homecoming one would expect a CIA agent to have when returning from a mission in Russia.

(4) Matthew Smith, JFK: The Second Plot (1992)

It was during the month of March 1963 that Oswald obtained a rifle and a handgun, if we can rely on Marina's testimony. Not that it is greatly to be relied upon, as we saw earlier in discussion relating to an incriminating photograph in which both weapons were flaunted. Curiously, the weapons were bought, separately, under the name of A. J. Hidell, an alias which counted for little with Oswald other than in connection with the orders for the firearms. There was no reason whatever why Oswald should not have simply walked into a shop and bought what he wanted, obtaining the advantage and satisfaction of seeing what he was buying. Texas law imposed no control over the purchase of such weapons. There would have been very little - in fact virtually no - chance of Oswald being identified as the purchaser of the firearms had he bought them over the counter. So why did he buy them by mail order under this assumed name? There is strong evidence that the name was meaningful to those involved in intelligence. Army Intelligence, for instance, was known to have had a file on A. J. Hidell, the contents of which, significantly, were destroyed before it could be acquired by investigators. A. J. Hidell may not have been the only name on intelligence files which stood for Lee Harvey Oswald, either. Harvey Lee Oswald as Oswald Lee Harvey are but two other possibilities which would have allowed the CIA and FBI, when asked, to say they had no such person as Lee Harvey Oswald working for them. If Oswald bought the rifle and handgun, there is every reason to believe he would buy them at the behest of his CIA masters and was told to buy those specific weapons, told to buy them by mail order, and told to buy them under the name A. J. Hidell.

(5) J. Gary Shaw, review of JFK: The Second Plot (1992)

In Smith's book JFK: The Second Plot the reader is given a comprehensive and concise overview of the assassination and its subsequent non-investigations. It presents an analysis of some of the more pertinent aspects of the case - including some of the photographic evidence as well as the controversial acoustics study.

The background of the accused assassin's killer, the real Jack Ruby, not the Warren Commission's 'Lone Avenger', is examined and exposed. As mobster, policeman's buddy and FBI informant, the life and times of the man the Warren Commission did not want us to know are laid bare for all to see.