{"id":81534,"date":"2026-09-24T08:52:43","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T12:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=81534"},"modified":"2026-09-24T08:54:40","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T12:54:40","slug":"c-i-a-pilot-flew-plane-into-dallas-on-day-of-jfk-murder-as-part-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=81534","title":{"rendered":"

C.I.A. Pilot Flew Plane into Dallas on Day of JFK murder as part of…..<\/b>

"},"content":{"rendered":"

…an \u201cAbort Mission\u201d<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\n

CIA Pilot Claims to Have Flown Plane Into Dallas on Day of JFK Assassination as Part of \u201cAbort Mission\u201d<\/h1>\n

By Jeremy Kuzmarov<\/p>\n

\"\"
CIA pilot Robert \u201cTosh\u201d Plumlee. [Source: texashistory.unt.edu<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a February 1985 episode<\/a> of the hit NBC television series Miami Vice<\/em>, Eagles singer Glenn Frey played a swashbuckling CIA pilot, Jimmy Cole, who flies ace detective Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) and Rafael Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) to Colombia to conduct a drug deal.<\/p>\n

Crockett and Tubbs had been recruited by the DEA to work undercover as drug smugglers to help bust cartel operatives.[1]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\"Flashback:
Sonny Crockett with Jimmy Cole, who is modeled after \u201cTosh Plumlee,\u201d in a 1985 episode of the hit NBC series Miami Vice<\/em> titled \u201cSmugglers Blues.\u201d [Source: rollingstone.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\"Amazon.com:
[Source: amazon.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Frey\u2019s character was loosely modeled after Robert \u201cTosh\u201d Plumlee, a CIA pilot whose exploits over a 40-year career are detailed in a new memoir, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, with Ralph Pezzullo.<\/p>\n

Contrary to the depiction on Miami Vice<\/em>, Plumlee\u2019s memoir shows that the CIA often worked hand-in-glove with organized crime and was the one at times smuggling drugs into the U.S.<\/p>\n

Plumlee claims that, on the morning John F. Kennedy was killed, he flew Johnny Roselli, a CIA-Mafia liaison, and other CIA linked people into Dallas. He later learned that they were part of an \u201cabort team\u201d that was designed to prevent Kennedy\u2019s assassination after the CIA had been alerted by the Pentagon about a plot against the president\u2019s life, which was reported by an army private named Eugene V. Denkin.<\/p>\n

From Juvenile Delinquent to Covert Agent<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Plumlee starts his story by noting that he was paid as a CIA pilot for years through cut-out companies like Riddle and Dodge Corporation and Atlantic Richfield, which had secret government contracts, or through fake \u201cshell companies\u201d like Intermountain Aviation and Mountain State Airlines.<\/p>\n

That Plumlee and his colleagues did not know the overall mission was by design, since the world that he worked in was \u201cdeeply compartmentalized,\u201d with no \u201cHR\u201d or \u201cdiscernible structure.\u201d Its hallmarks were \u201cillusion, deception and sleight of hand.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Plumlee was recruited into this clandestine world at age 16, when he became part of an experimental army unit for juvenile delinquents attached to military intelligence at Fort Bliss, Texas, designated as Triple \u201cA\u201d Recon Training Command, Dog & 8 Company (AAA RTC D-8).<\/p>\n

A product of a broken home who would routinely skip school, Plumlee\u2019s father worked for Lockheed Aircraft at Dallas Love Field, a top secret military base where the B-17 bomber (known as the Flying Fortress) and P-38 Lightining were built.<\/p>\n

\"No
Aerial view of Dallas Love Field in the 1960s. [Source: facebook.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a kid, Plumlee and his friends would stand at the edge of the runways and inch as close to the flight paths as possible without getting hit.[3]<\/a><\/sup> After he was caught sneaking into a plane, an Air Force pilot named Pat McDonald agreed to teach him to fly. Plumlee then forged his birth certificate and joined the Texas National Guard.[4]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
[Source: en.wikipedia.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Plumlee claims that his group was modeled after a World War II demolition unit called the Filthy Thirteen\u2014a hodgepodge of outcasts trained to infiltrate behind enemy lines who became the inspiration for the 1967 Hollywood film The Dirty Dozen<\/em> starring Ernest Borgnine, Jim Brown and Charles Bronson.[5]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Plumlee says that, in 1957 at age 19, he was recruited to fly to central Cuba for the purpose of supplying ammunition and weapons to Fidel Castro\u2019s rebels, who were fighting against dictator Fulgencio Batista, who was also being supplied by the CIA.[6]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Plumlee claims that the plane he was piloting ran out of fuel and crash-landed in a swamp where he was rescued by Vilma Espin (code-named Deborah), who later became Ra\u00fal Castro\u2019s wife.[7]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Ms. Espin took Plumlee to the Castros\u2019 secret headquarters in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, where he met Fidel and was given the nickname Zapata (shoe in Spanish) because he lost his shoes in the swamp.[8]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\"\"
Vilma Espin, Fidel Castro, Ra\u00fal Castro and Celia Sanchez during the guerrilla war against Batista. Plumlee claims to have supplied the revolutionaries with arms in the 1950s while working as a CIA pilot. [Source: capiremov.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\"\"
William Morgan [Source: latinamericanstudies.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Later on, Plumlee came to recognize that some of the CIA operatives working with Castro, like William Morgan, were there to spy on Castro; Morgan was arrested for counter-revolutionary crimes and shot by a firing squad in March 1961 with the Castros in attendance.[9]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

That Plumlee was not spinning tall tales was apparent in the fact that a photo depicting him walking behind Morgan in the Sierra Maestra Mountains was printed in the July 21,1958, issue of Life <\/em>magazine.[10]<\/a><\/sup> Another photo printed in a subsequent issue of the magazine showed Plumlee behind a tank near Che Guevara as it rolled through Havana in a celebration of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.<\/p>\n

Nags Head, Oswald and JM\/WAVE<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In 1958, Plumlee says, he was sent to the Nags Head School of Illusionary Warfare Training<\/a> Center where he met a young Lee Harvey Oswald.[11]<\/a><\/sup> The two were together, put through a series of tests, and trained in intelligence techniques and black ops.[12]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\"Lee
Lee Harvey Oswald [Source: washingtonpost.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Plumlee asked one of the instructors if he and his colleagues were being trained as intelligence agents, the instructor responded: \u201cYou\u2019re not intelligent enough to be agents, or you wouldn\u2019t be in this unit. You\u2019re nothing but cannon fodder.\u201d[13]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

In 1961, after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, Plumlee says that he started flying guns and ammunition to anti-Castro rebels in the Florida Keys, Nicaragua and Cuba as part of a CIA effort known as the Cuban Project, which operated out of the CIA\u2019s famous JM\/WAVE center off the University of Miami campus.[14]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\"JMWAVE:
CIA JM\/WAVE headquarters in Miami in 1961. [Source: spotterup.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Plumlee says that he worked at JM\/WAVE under the operational name of William \u201cBuck\u201d Pearson with legendary CIA operatives, such as William K. Harvey, David Atlee Phillips, Tracy Barnes and E. Howard Hunt.<\/p>\n

\n
\"William
William K. Harvey [Source: spartacus-educational.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"David
David Atlee Phillips [Source: tpaak.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Tracy
Tracy Barnes [Source: spartacus-educational.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

Plumlee could not tell his wife Joan that he was working in intelligence for the U.S. government, instead telling her that he was a cargo pilot for Riddle Airlines, Regina Air Cargo and Intermountain Aviation, which technically was true. Eventually, Joan became upset by Plumlee\u2019s prolonged absences from home and divorced him.[15]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Colonel Rawlston and the Kennedy Assassination<\/strong><\/h2>\n

One of Plumlee\u2019s frequent passengers was \u201cColonel Rawlston\u201d whom he knew to be Johnny Roselli, whose mob ties went back to the late 1920s when he was recruited into the Al Capone organization at the 1927 Jack Dempsey-Gene Tunney fight.[16]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\n
\"Johnny
Johnny Roselli [Source: themobmuseum.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Plumlee said that he would fly Roselli from his home in Tampa to California where the CIA set him up in an office in downtown Los Angeles owned by the Los Angeles Stamp and Stationery Company, where he operated a clandestine shop with fellow CIA operative Chauncey Holt that turned out fake IDs and forged documents and badges.[17]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Once, Plumlee says, after Roselli met with Chauncey in LA, he picked them up at Burbank Airport and flew them to meet Charles Nicoletti at Grace Ranch\u2014owned by Detroit mob boss Peter Licavoli\u2014outside of Tucson, Arizona. Nicoletti was a mob associate of Roselli and a hit man for mob underboss Sam Giancana.[18]<\/a><\/sup> All of the above figures went on to play a role in the JFK assassination, including as part of a CIA \u201cabort team\u201d mission in which Plumlee also played an unwitting role.[19]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\"A
Chauncey Holt [Source: timesofsandiego.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On November 21, 1963, Plumlee was instructed to pick up Roselli in Tampa and escort him to Dallas where President Kennedy was visiting.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Charles
Charles Nicoletti [Source: findagrave.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Peter
Peter Licavoli [Source: spartacus-educational.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

Plumlee also picked up E. Howard Hunt and a Cuban exile named Sergio Apabicia in West Palm Beach, and Gerard Droller (aka Frank Bender), a German-born CIA officer, Frank Sturgis, another CIA operative, and a Frenchman and some other Cubans in New Orleans. They were all part of what Plumlee calls \u201can abort\u201d team whose aim was to try and foil a plot to kill Kennedy that had been reported to the CIA through the Pentagon.[20]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\"Who
E. Howard Hunt [Source: rollingstone.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\"Gerry
Gerard Droller [Source: spartacus-educational.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
Frank Sturgis [Source: en.wikipedia.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

Plumlee says that he and his group landed at William P. Hobby Airport in Houston at 8:30 p.m. on November 21 and then, after a night at the Shamrock Hilton, set off in the morning to Garland Airport in northeast Dallas.[21]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

After landing, Roselli, Hunt and Sturgis drove off in a car that was waiting for them.[22]<\/a><\/sup> Plumlee went to a CIA safehouse and then with Sergio to see Kennedy\u2019s motorcade. At one point, Sergio whispered to him that someone was supposed to \u201chit\u201d the president that day.[23]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

When they reached Dealey Plaza, Sergio took out a radio and started communicating with other operatives in the plaza. Plumlee said he recognized Rip Robertson from Miami JM\/WAVE and saw E. Howard Hunt crossing the street in the plaza and several men who looked like railroad workers in the grassy knoll.[24]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Plumlee says that, as the presidential motorcade passed by, he heard a loud pop that sounded like a firecracker. Two of the shots emanated from the trees behind him in the grassy knoll and one flew right over his head.[25]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Plumlee claims that he saw JFK die, and that the story that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone wolf assassin was \u201cbullshit.\u201d [26]<\/a><\/sup> The U.S. on November 22, 1963, experienced a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat similar to those the CIA had engineered in countries like Iran and Guatemala, and three weeks earlier in South Vietnam, where a one-time U.S. proxy, Ngo Dinh Diem, was murdered.<\/p>\n

Target in Mop-Up Operation and Classified Church Committee Testimony<\/strong><\/h2>\n

After the Kennedy assassination, Plumlee feared he would be targeted in the mop-up operation in which cut-outs who knew too much\u2014like himself, Sergio, Chauncey Holt and others\u2014would be silenced or eliminated. Plumlee felt especially vulnerable because of his knowledge that Lee Harvey Oswald was an intelligence operative.[27]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Soon after the assassination, Plumlee was charged with writing bad checks and locked up in the Denver County Jail. The charge was fictitious, as no checks with his signature were ever produced; only one, for $50, was signed by his ex-wife.<\/p>\n

Plumlee\u2019s cellmate Jerry Stilley, who was convicted of killing a Denver police detective, later admitted to him that he had been instructed to kill him in exchange for being given a new trial and released on parole. But after hearing stories of his exploits flying for the CIA, Stilley told Plumlee that he grew to like him and decided to spare his life.[28]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

In 1975, Plumlee was interviewed by investigators working for the Church Committee, which investigated CIA crimes during the Cold War.<\/p>\n

Plumlee says that he answered questions about the CIA\u2019s heart-attack gun and his gun-running operations to Castro and his activities aiding anti-Castro rebels during the Bay of Pigs. Plumlee says that his testimony was classified top secret and has never been released.[29]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\"Jan.
Church Committee members. [Source: zinnproject.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More Arms and Drug Running <\/strong><\/h2>\n

During the 1970s, Plumlee says, he started a plumbing business in Tucson but that it was shut down by the IRS and that he faced physical intimidation and death threats. One night when he went out to a casino in July 1980, a car pulled up next to him and fired shots into his window. Another time he was beaten up badly in a bar by a stranger and his house was burned down.[30]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

An opportunity for Plumlee arose with the dramatic uptick in cocaine arriving from Colombia, which prompted the need for pilots who could infiltrate the Medell\u00edn and Cali drug cartels\u2019 transportation system and identify the routes traffickers were taking. Plumlee said the pay was good so he volunteered using one of his old CIA aliases, \u201cWilliam H. Pearson.\u201d[31]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Plumlee\u2019s job as an undercover pilot was to rendezvous with cartel flights that landed in Deer Valley, Arizona, near Phoenix and then fly the cocaine to drop-off points throughout the southwest where DEA agents would be waiting to seize it and collect information about the cartel pilots that would lead to their arrests.[32]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\n
\"Bruce
Bruce Babbitt [Source: azmemory.azlibrary.gov<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Soon after he began flying, Plumlee found that the whole system was corrupt. Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt (1978-1987), who ran as a candidate for president in the 1988 Democratic Party primary and served as Secretary of the Interior under Bill Clinton (1993-2001), was among the government officials making money from the drug flights, which found its way into his and other politicians\u2019 campaign coffers.[33]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

When Don Bolles, a journalist with The Arizona Republic<\/em> began looking into corruption related to Arizona\u2019s efforts to combat drug trafficking and tips that people close to Senator Barry Goldwater were receiving money from drug trafficking from Colombia, he was assassinated. Babbitt helped arrange a favorable plea deal for Bolles\u2019 assassin, John Harvey Adamson, and helped secure his early release from prison.[34]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\"Arizona
Don Bolles and the wreckage of his car after he was killed in a car bomb attack. [Source: kawc.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\"John
John Hull [Source: spartacus-educational.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Plumlee was caught up in the Iran-Contra scandal when he was instructed to fly to an 8,000-acre ranch on the Costa Rica-Nicaragua border owned by an Indiana man named John Hull, who worked with Lt. Col. Oliver North to transport weapons to Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries the CIA was supporting in an attempt to unseat the left-wing Sandinistas.[35]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

In the summer of 1981, Plumlee says, he began flying weapons that he picked up from the Ilopango Airport in San Salvador to small groups of Miskito Indians as part of the Contra operation. The arms drops would occur at night to small patches in the jungle.[36]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\"Oliver
Lt. Col. Oliver North testifying before Congress. [Source: britannica.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On his return, Plumlee said that his DC-3 would be loaded back up at Ipolongo with shrimp packed in ice from the Gulf of Nicoya. Hidden under the ice were packets of cocaine from the Medell\u00edn cartel.[37]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\"Costa
Secret airstrip on Nicaragua-Costa Rica border where Plumlee and other smuggling flights landed. [Source: ticotimes.net<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Plumlee was left to wonder whether President Ronald Reagan or Vice President George H. W. Bush had sanctioned the arms- and drug-smuggling operations that made a mockery of the so-called War on Drugs.<\/p>\n

In 1982, Congress enacted a bill barring all aid to the Contras because of their involvement in terrorist activities. Four years later, a congressional investigation was initiated when CIA pilot Eugene Hasenfus had his plane shot down.<\/p>\n

\"Oct.
Sandinista soldiers with Eugene Hasenfus after his plane was shot down in Nicaragua while on a CIA-funded supply drop for Contra guerrillas. [Source: zinnedproject.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\"Lawsuit
Barry Seal [Source: theadvocate.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Plumlee\u2019s most famous contemporary was Barry Seal, subject of the 2017 movie American Made<\/em> starring Tom Cruise. In 1982, Seal established his base in Mena, Arkansas, where he flew guns to the Contras and then brought back drugs under the protection of Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, whose ties to the CIA went back to the late 1960s.[38]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Plumlee said that he knew Seal and that he cut deals on the side which netted him millions of dollars but ultimately led to his being assassinated.<\/p>\n

Attempt at Whistleblowing and Yet Another Cover-up<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In the spring of 1983, Plumlee says that he reached out to Senator Gary Hart (D-CO) who had served on the Church Committee, with information about government involvement in drug-running in Central America.[39]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\"Gary
Gary Hart [Source: denverpost.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Plumlee presented to Hart and his staffer Bill Holden a detailed file replete with copies of a map of Central America he had marked with notes, aircraft IDs, staging areas, weapons drops, and Contra crossover points from Honduras into Nicaragua.<\/p>\n

Several of the names that he revealed\u2014Robert Owen, Felix Rodriguez, Richard Secord and John Poindexter\u2014were later revealed to be principal players in the Iran-Contra scandal.[40]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\"South
Felix Rodriguez, with a photo of Che Guevara whom he bragged about assassinating. [Source: english.elpais.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Richard
Richard Secord while testifying during Iran-Contra hearings. [Source: bostonglobe.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\"\"
John Poindexter [Source: en.wikipedia.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Plumlee says that Hart and Holden said the information he provided would be investigated by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which Hart was on and was being forwarded to Senator John Kerry (D-MA), who was heading a subcommittee on Terrorism and Narcotics.[41]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

However, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee never carried out any investigation or shared sensitive information with federal agencies. Years later, the FBI reported that Senator Hart admitted to the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) that the information Plumlee provided was forwarded to the Senate Armed Services and Senate Intelligence Committees but \u201cfrom there went nowhere.\u201d[42]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Plumlee testified five times before the Kerry subcommittee, however, the testimony was classified top secret and never released.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Kerry
John Kerry [Source: politico.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Though the Kerry subcommittee concluded<\/a> that the War on Drugs was at times \u201csidetracked, disrupted and undercut\u201d by \u201cother foreign policy interests,\u201d it did not find that Contra and U.S. government leaders were \u201cpersonally involved in drug trafficking.\u201d[43]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Plumlee knew this conclusion to be another lie, and compares the Kerry subcommittee to the Warren Commission in its functioning to cover up the truth.<\/p>\n

Two More Whistleblowers Are Taken Out <\/strong><\/h2>\n

When an army colonel named James Sabow tried to bring to public light the illegal transport of drugs into the U.S. from Central America on unmarked C-130 aircraft to a Marine Corps air station in El Toro, California, Sabow was found dead. The official investigation said Sabow had shot himself; however, an investigation published in the Journal of Forensic Research<\/em> concluded he had been murdered.[44]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Journalist Gary Webb was also murdered for breaking the story of the CIA-Contra drug-smuggling network. Plumlee says that he was one of Webb\u2019s key insider sources, providing him with information about what he knew about drug flights, routes, drop-off points and clearances.[45]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\n
\"No
Colonel James Sabow [Source: facebook.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Reporter's
Gary Webb [Source: capitolweekly.net<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

At the end of his memoir, Plumlee emphasizes the horrendous betrayal he felt, realizing that elements in the U.S. government murdered a popular president and sold the American people a cover-up story, and then later flew drugs into the U.S. without concern for the people who would be harmed, and murdered whistleblowers who tried to expose what they were doing.<\/p>\n

In his 88 years, Plumlee said that one major lesson he has learned is that the world is divided between those who seek and embrace the truth and those who live with lies and deception, and that he has chosen to be on the side of truth.<\/p>\n

Independent Verification by CIA Expert<\/strong><\/h2>\n

While some people might question Plumlee\u2019s authenticity, many of the events he describes in his book are already known. The level of detail he provides and knowledge he displays of historical events is further impressive.<\/p>\n

In the foreword, CIA expert Dick Russell wrote that he is \u201cconvinced that Plumlee\u2019s saga is for real,\u201d with verification having surfaced over the years with various federal investigative bodies.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Dick
Dick Russell [Source: spartacus-educational.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Russell says, for example, that Plumlee\u2019s specific claims regarding the \u201cabort\u201d operation in Dallas were recorded under oath by the FBI on April 6, 1964, as the Warren Commission was nearing completion of its probe (the Warren Commission never called Plumlee as a witness or even mentioned him in the ensuing 26 volumes of testimony).<\/p>\n

Russell says that Plumlee\u2019s narrative was formally documented again a decade later during the Senate Intelligence Committee\u2019s investigation into illegal CIA domestic activities.<\/p>\n

Declassified FBI and CIA files from the 1990s, and as recently as 2023, confirm Plumlee\u2019s role as a pilot with ties to several federal agencies, sometimes under the pseudonym of William H. \u201cBuck\u201d Pearson. Plumlee also testified multiple times under oath before congressional committees, including the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late 1970s and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (1990-1991).<\/p>\n

This testimony, Russell says, much of it originally classified as top secret, reveals not only Plumlee\u2019s proximity to the CIA\u2019s JM\/WAVE station in Miami in the early 1960s but his involvement in clandestine aviation activities during the 1980s \u201cdrug war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Released documents in 2023 and 2025 provide further strong evidence supporting Plumlee\u2019s having operated as a deep cover \u201casset,\u201d challenging the FBI\u2019s characterization of him as an \u201cunreliable chronic complainant\u201d who \u201cgave confusing, illogical\u201d accounts concerning the abort mission in Dallas. Senator Hart stated publicly that Plumlee\u2019s information about the Kennedy assassination and CIA-mob connections was significant enough that he sought to follow up on it, only to be stymied by the powers that be.[46]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
    \n
  1. The episode was called \u201cSmuggler\u2019s Blues\u201d after one of Frey\u2019s hit songs. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Robert \u201cTosh\u201d Plumlee, with Ralph Pezzullo, foreword by Dick Russell, afterword by Saint John Hunt, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, (Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2026), 1, 2. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 1, 2, 34, 36, 53. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 1, 2, 44, 48. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 6. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  6. Idem. The Eisenhower administration was hedging its bets on both sides of the conflict at the time. Factions in the CIA supported Castro as a potential anti-communist alternative to the corrupt, rightist Batista who appeared to be politically vulnerable. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  7. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 6. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  8. Idem. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  9. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 60. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  10. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 78. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  11. Plumlee also claims to have subsequently encountered Oswald in Honolulu at a jungle warfare course and that he was told that Oswald was being sent to a CIA base in Atsugi, Japan. The hope, according to Victor Marchetti, was that Oswald would go to the USSR and be recruited into the KGB as a CIA penetration agent. However, the Soviets viewed Oswald suspiciously, and he was sent to Minsk in Belarus where he met Marina Oswald. Plumlee claims that he met Oswald again in Dallas in 1963 before the JFK assassination and that Oswald had some sort of relationship with anti-Castro Cubans. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 97. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  12. Plumlee claims that some of his fellow recruits at Nags Head acted strangely and sometimes violently and may have been subjected to Operation MK-ULTRA. Some, he believes, became assassins and were \u201cdispatched to places like Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco and Vietnam.\u201d Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 97. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  13. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 6. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  14. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 7. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  15. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 7, 8. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  16. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 123, 124, 128. In the run-up to World War II, Johnny enlisted in the U.S. Army but was dishonorably discharged after being convicted of a scheme to extort money from Hollywood bigwigs. Due to his close relationship with Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana, he became the behind-the-scenes boss of Las Vegas, running his talent booking company from poolside tables at the Tropicana and Desert Inn and enjoying the Rat Pack nightlife with pals Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. In the early 1960s he was a central figure in the Castro assassination plots carried out under Operation Mongoose. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  17. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 127, 128. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  18. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 129. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  19. On the day of JFK\u2019s assassination, Holt was stationed near the switching yard behind the grassy knoll where his job was to deliver forged Secret Service credentials. As soon as he heard the shots, he ran into a boxcar as per instructions from his handler, CIA officer Philip Twombly. He was joined in the boxcar by Charles Harrelson, a well-known criminal and father of the famous Hollywood actor Woody Harrelson, and CIA cut-out Charles Rogers (also known as Richard Montoya). When Dallas police searched the boxcar an hour and a half later, Chauncey, Harrelson and Rogers were arrested and escorted across Dealey Plaza to the Dallas Sherriff\u2019s Department headquarters while being photographed by reporters. Because Chauncey was dressed as a railway worker, he and the others became known as the \u201cthree tramps.\u201d The three men were questioned by police and released. A photo showed them walking away from Dealey Plaza with a man who resembled CIA operative Edward Lansdale near them. Lansdale was identified subsequently by three people who knew him intimately, including his second wife. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 129. Plumlee says that, after the JFK assassination, Holt resumed work for the CIA in Brazil, Chile and Laos. When the CIA started to purge itself of cut-outs in the mid-1970s, Holt was convicted of mail fraud and sent to federal prison for a period. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  20. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 16, 19, 20. Plumlee claims to have first met Sturgis in March 1958 at a guerrilla headquarters in the Sierra Maestra Mountains where he was giving the Castro brothers and Che Guevara guerrilla training. Plumlee says that Sturgis described himself as a \u201cCIA whore\u201d who would \u201cdo anything for his country\u2014regardless of what it was.\u201d \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  21. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 20, 21. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  22. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 21. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  23. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 25. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  24. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 27, 28. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  25. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 31. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  26. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 140. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  27. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 142, 143, 150. Plumlee notes that he later found out that all members of three assassination teams that were present in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963 were dead within 24 hours of the assassination. The clean-up was so thorough, Plumlee writes, that \u201canyone closely associated with the killing was also done away with, including the assigned patsy, Lee Harvey Oswald. Cut-outs like myself and Chauncey Holt who were peripherally involved were either killed, arrested or character assassinated.\u201d \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  28. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 144. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  29. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 177. Johnny Roselli\u2019s remains were found in a steel fuel drum beneath Dumbfoundling Bay near Miami before his scheduled testimony before the Church Committee. Mob boss Sam Giancana was also murdered at this time to prevent him from testifying. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  30. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 180, 181, 183. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  31. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 183. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  32. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 184. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  33. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 185. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  34. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 189. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  35. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 187. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  36. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 192. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  37. Idem. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  38. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 200. See also Jeremy Kuzmarov, Warmonger: How Clinton\u2019s Malign Foreign Policy Launched the U.S. Trajectory From Bush II to Biden<\/em> (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2024). \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  39. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 210. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  40. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 211. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  41. Idem. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  42. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 212. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  43. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 217. A summary of the Kerry subcommitte findings can be found here<\/a>. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  44. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 218, 219. Sabow was a decorated Vietnam War veteran. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  45. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, 220. The coroner declared Webb\u2019s death a suicide but he was shot twice in the head with a .38 caliber pistol which had to be re-cocked between shots. The coroner, Plumlee says, never explained, if Gary shot himself and the first bullet to his head was not fatal, how he had the strength to cock the .38 a second time. Plumlee said that an expert dismissed the suicide verdict as \u201cimplausible and fabricated.\u201d Prior to his death, Webb had told \u201cFreeway\u201d Ricky Ross, a drug liaison to the Contras, that he was regularly being followed. He also mentioned that he was working on a new story concerning the CIA and drug trafficking. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  46. Plumlee, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves<\/em>, vii, viii. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    ____<\/p>\n

    CIA Pilot Claims to Have Flown Plane Into Dallas on Day of JFK Assassination as Part of “Abort Mission”<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n