The man who planned this assassination of JFK was Seymour Bolten (SB). He was a career CIA officer who had the right skills, the right clout, the right experience, the right intelligence and the right connections to do so. He was the smartest guy in the CIA hands down. He was there. Mind you, this is what I believe. I have no memos or CIA documents that directly or indirectly indicate such, but that’s okay. The JFK Assassination was deliberately planned off the books. There will never be found any CIA memos or documents that in any way implicate the CIA or Seymour Bolten.
The forbidden fruit of remaining CIA documents which might implicate the CIA is false. It’s for suckers. The CIA is not that stupid. Neither is the media which is controlled by the fascist regime that now rules our country.
Who Was Seymour Bolten?
He was a key CIA officer who you do not hear much from, and the CIA would prefer that you never do. He was a highly intelligent, behind the scenes worker who was the CIA’s most prized possession precisely because he preferred to operate quietly. Those are the best operatives, not noisy people who are looking for the limelight. He was very good at what he did.
Overview
I’ll make this short and sweet because what I tell you is conjecture. I can not go back in time and see what happened in Dallas in 1963. There are no video cameras on every corner, nor does everyone carry a smart phone.
Clearly there are a paucity of clues. This can work for us and against us. The lack of clues prevents us from confirming any killers with precision; the same lack of clues give us license to accuse everyone.
As such many have been accused.
The number of potential killers claimed to have been in Dealey Plaza that Friday afternoon in November is staggering.
Who can know with certainty whether they were there or not? But even if they were perchance there, what precisely would that mean?
Not much.
What makes one more likely than another to have killed the President is whether that potential killer had the skills, training and resources to accomplish the task at hand.
What we have learned form decades of studying the Kennedy Assassination is that the event was an affair that was well planned and well practiced involving multiple people in a highly compartmentalized manner that would leave the impression that collusion was near impossible.
Agreeing to such helps eliminate certain individuals as suspects.
With that stated, let’s cut to the chase.
The man who planned the assassination of JFK was Seymour Bolten.
SB was a career CIA officer who entered the employ of the CIA in 1949.
He was born in New York City in 1922. He graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School, then matriculated to NYU where he graduated with a BA in 1942. From there he entered WWII. He was captured by the Germans in Northern Africa and placed in an officers detention camp in Szubin, Poland where he remained for the next two to three years.
At the camp in Szubin were Larry Allen, a war correspondent, and Amon Carter, Jr. of Fort Worth, Texas. Another notable was Frank Diggs who previously worked at the Washington Post. Subsequent to the war, Diggs worked at US News and World Report.
After the war SB worked for General Lucius Clay in postwar Germany. He earned a degree in International Relations from Harvard in 1949.
SB was a highly intelligent individual with the connections and skills to plan an assassination. Personally, he was a meticulous individual who worked long hours at the tasks that were presented to him. As an officer in the military, he was familiar with rifles and pistols and their capabilities.
SB was fluent in Russian. Most likely he had gained proficiency in German while imprisoned in Germany. Given his CIA assignments, there is every reason to believe he would have become proficient in Spanish as well.
Of particular note, SB was responsible for intelligence operations dealing with Latin America affairs from 1962 to 1965. There is no reason to believe these operations would not involve sensitive information. SB was an extremely intelligent man with degrees from NYU and Harvard. He was not educated to do menial tasks.
As a CIA officer, SB would have access to sensitive information regarding the Soviet Union and our agents placed there. He would also have contact with other intelligence agencies particularly those of Great Britain and Israel.
As a Jew, SB would be invaluable in dealing with the Israelis.
Such skills would also be invaluable in dealing with the White Russian and Jewish communities in Dallas, Texas in 1962, 63.
More than any other CIA officer, SB had the training, smarts and skills to plan an assassination.
After the assassination, SB advanced up the CIA ladder and worked on a one-on-one basis with George Herbert Walker Bush and Richard Helms.
Evidently a bond was forged with GHWB. Their respective sons became professional associates.
SB’s son, Joshua, became Chief of Staff to GWB.
Why Was Seymour Bolten the Right Man for the Job?
He was the right age, with the right smarts, the right experience, and the right contacts. He was old to enough to have wisdom, clout and experience. He could go uptown and downtown. He would not stick out like a sore thumb like the patrician George Bush. Moreover he was meticulous.
Although there is no video of SB, we can get an insight into his personality by looking at his second son, Joshua Bolten. It is usually the second son who takes after the father. The first son usually takes after the mother. I know this as an observer of human nature and as a pediatrician. Joshua Bolten is careful, reserved, meticulous, quiet, intelligent, competent, not flashy, soft-spoken and effective. He learned and inherited these characteristics from his father before the age of five. Just as GHWB turned to SB, GWB turned to Joshua.
Seymour Bolten’s Personality
What can we conclude about SB’s personality? These are my conclusions based upon my readings of him.
He was quiet, not one to adopt a loud, flashy style.
He participated in activities but not excessively. He can hardly be called a socializer.
He prefers to stand in the background, the man behind the man.
His strengths were in diligence, hard work and being meticulous.
He is visible, yet invisible.
His background allows him to integrate easily with regular people; his smarts allow him to integrate with elites. In short, he can go uptown and downtown.
Men who come from a non-patrician background – but who have the smarts of the patrician – find themselves in a strange nether world often to themselves. They don’t fit anywhere, yet they can integrate everywhere.
We don’t know much else about SB’s personal background. What we can glean from his years in Szubin, Poland is that he prefers to keep himself somewhat at a distance. He participates but does not participate.
One can say the same about his years at NYU.
He’s there but not there. Maybe this is the ideal personality for a CIA officer.
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His family name was changed sometime in 1942. He was born Seymour Bolotovsky.
This is an odd time to change the family name, but possibly this was a family effort to protect SB should he be caught by the Germans – which eventually did occur.
See below where I have amplified upon this point. I should add here that many Jews changed their names particularly around WWII in an attempt to integrate more fully in American society.
At any rate, SB seems not to be a “true believer” when it comes to Judaism or Israel. See Sam Ballen at the end of this discussion.
During his time at NYU. He did not join the Jewish fraternity. When he sat on the Holocaust Memorial years later, he seems to have taken the position that the memorial should represent non-Jews as well.
His introspective nature would lead him to conclude that his religion was a product of his upbringing, not something that was imbued in his genes.
SB was an independent thinker.
He had no problem being the wet blanket in the room. He was an individualist. He had strong opinions. And why not? He knew he was smart, and he also knew that he had put in the hard thinking well before his colleagues had even begun to think.
SB did not feel the need to show off his intelligence or prove that he was smart. He already knew that he was smart.
SB was not a lazy thinker. He obsessed over details. Getting things right was important to him.
Such people must find their own place within the CIA. Independent thinkers are not customarily advanced to the highest level positions within the CIA where group think is valued over independent thought.
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We can learn much about SB by watching his son, Joshua Bolten. It is the second born son who takes after the dad. What we see in Joshua Bolten is a calm, organized, unflappable professional who prepares. If he meets an obstacle he calmly deliberates the problem before him. Like his dad, he doesn’t boast or puff out his chest. He remembers his roots. Whereas others may scream and yell, SB, like his son, is almost incapable of raising his voice. SB is a steady evenhanded performer which is why his job does not exhaust him. JB enjoyed his job working for GWB; he didn’t get stressed to the degree of others. SB bequeathed to his son those traits.
Seymour Bolten Description
How can we describe SB?
This is speculation. I am using much of my own personality because I obviously feel I know this man. I am also grounding these observations on what kind of man would be required to plan this assassination.
He is conservative. He likes tradition. His favorite sport is baseball. He appears to have lived in the Bronx or nearby. It’s difficult to believe that he wouldn’t have been a Yankees fan. If he were a Yankees fan, he would have admired Yogi Berra – hard worker, always first to the ballpark.
Now, if perchance he was a Dodgers fan, which he may have been, he would view the Dodgers move to LA as the worst form of betrayal. Loyalty is important to him.
He drives an old car. Bling means little to him. A car is to get from here to there.
Clothes: He can go uptown and downtown. He feels most comfortable in kick-around clothes.
He is an insatiable reader. He wants to know about everything, even things he has never done. He wants to know why things work and why people are successful.
He’s likely to read a book on How to Play the Violin, or How to Act even though he may participate in neither. Actually, I believe he did do some acting, but that is beside the point.
He has read books on Houdini, biology, cooking, you name it. He reads what he wants to read, not what society tells him to read. Fads and faddists bother him.
For every book in his library, he has given away five books.
He asks questions obsessively. You better not make a casual comment about some event in your life unless you’re prepared to answer a barrage of questions about the event. He wants to know everything. People sometimes get put off by his excessive questioning.
He appreciates discipline and regularity. You better be punctual with him. Unpunctuality drives him crazy.
He needs his quiet time to think. He loves thinking. Thinking is fun for him.
Documented likes: Gardening and wine.
Documented Intelligence: One only needs to review his article, Military Government and the German Political Parties, published in 1950. He wrote this when he was 28. Most people are walking around in their pajamas at age 28.
What SB Figured Out
What SB figured out very early on in planning this assassination was that he had to think how other people, specifically Lee Oswald, would think. How was he going to get Lee Oswald to own a Carcano yet place one in the TSBD without getting suspicious that he, Lee Oswald, was being set up? How was he going to get Lee Oswald to leave the TSBD knowing full well that he, Lee Oswald, was the one who set up the decoy nest? Wouldn’t it be logical, SB thought, that Lee would ask, “Where will I go? Where will I live? Clearly I will be a suspect.”
SB also realized that he had to run three simultaneous operations:
- Setting up LO as the hotheaded, loutish, commie.
- Assassinating JFK.
- Linking LO, the commie, to the assassination. This was accomplished in Ruth Paine’s garage. This is where LO the commie meets LO the assassin.
He reasoned correctly that Will Fritz and Henry Wade would be all to willing to rush to convict and look the other way when the gift package of LO was presented to them. He had researched the DPD and knew all about how things were done in Dallas. SB was well aware of Tommy Lee Walker.
Motivations are so key in planning an operation. You have to be able to think how the other guy thinks. It’s not just a matter of telling someone to go somewhere. You have to think ahead and ask the questions that they would ask.
SB had plenty of experience of this when he was a POW. These POWs sat around all day and plotted to escape. SB did this for three years. He was good at it.
The point is this: killing a president and framing someone is not just a matter of showing up with a gun and then pointing a finger at someone else. The event has to be thoughtfully planned.
SB was the most qualified CIA officer to do so.
SB’s Morality
What can we say about SB’s morality?
This is difficult to assess given the paucity of information. As a Jew he would have learned that actions have to be in line with God, a lesson clearly lost on Israel’s current right-wing, nut-job leadership.
If SB conducted a seemingly immoral act, he would have to make it right with God. Fortunately for him, the CIA culture set a very low standard of what God disapproves of. Undoubtedly this influenced him.
When asked to “manage” the JFK situation – that is to say plan the assassination, SB would have anguished over the morality of this mission – as he did over the Holocaust Memorial. He would have spent considerable time debating the consequences of assassinating the President.
Unable to resign from the mission and knowing full well the fundamental immorality of the mission despite his attempts to rationalize it, he would seek a compromise.
As an individualist he placed high priority on his own personal salvation with God. He had to make things right with God. He would have been able to see into the future more than others and see the consequences of a Presidential assassination.
What was the compromise he chose: This is speculation, but I believe he chose to insert clues within the mission to lead back to himself and the CIA. He was too smart to not cover his tracks.
SB’s Psychological Makeup
What is SB’s psychological makeup and background?
Can anyone be trained or acclimated to work alongside people they plan to later kill? Or are you “born” into it? Do there have to be events in your life that change your brain so that you can conduct such a task?
At first I attempted a psychological analysis of SB based upon myself and fantasy bullshit constructed out of thin air; but then I realized that psychological insight is tough even when you know the person. Plus, we tend to see ourselves in others; but we are not other people.
On the surface, SB appears to be a well-adjusted personality. He has a girlfriend; he collaborates with others; he seems to function quite well in college, the military and in civilian life. He does not appear to be a moody loner plotting in the basement of his house. His one written paper that I can find is first rate, hardly the work of a sociopath.
Perhaps this is the right personality to plan an assassination – a rational, clear thinker who has no emotional issues.
What precisely was his psychological makeup? This is difficult to know as CIA officers almost never write autobiographies. Win Scott tried only to have Angleton run down there to Mexico City and confiscate the book.
“Nobody’s talking to anyone,” one can imagine Angleton saying
Maybe we can get an insight into his personality through his choice to join the military. He was second in command. His rank was Cadet Major in the Infantry at NYU.
Why did he join the military? His upbringing does not seem to have been austere. The family had a maid, so it seems unlikely his family needed the money. Were there even student programs for military enlistees at the time? Did he join the military out of defiance towards his father? What was his relationship with his father? When he writes back from Szubin, one letter is addressed to his mother only, yet his father, Samuel Bolotovsky, was still alive. His father died in 1961.
SB’s meticulous behavior and extreme diligence is a reflection of perfectionism. Why is he a perfectionist? Perfectionism in myself stems from an insecure personality. I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m always waiting to get fired. I’m always expecting the pink slip. The only way I know how to avoid that is to be on time and on task as much as I possibly can.
Is SB a perfectionist because his father demanded too much of him?
Both his mother and father worked in retail with Ford according to the 1940 US census. The entire family is listed as Bolotovsky. I will assume that Ford refers to a Ford dealership. I will further assume his parents sold cars? His father is listed as an employer. So can we assume that his dad owned a concern that sold Ford automobiles?
Why didn’t SB follow his dad’s footsteps for a career choice. There must have been money in it. Why would he gravitate toward a career in international relations? Was his mother a Zionist? Did he hear stories growing up about persecution of Jews in Russia (sounds reasonable)? SB has a strong sense of justice. Perhaps he desired to “fix the world”.
One thing we can focus on is his name change. Jews have always been disparaged in the United States, but there was a definite uptick around WWII. Here is an excerpt from an article entitled: “What’s Uncle Sam’s Last Name?” Jews and Name Changing in New York City during the World War II Era. Kirsten Fermaglic, author.
“An upsurge in anti-Semitic rhetoric and violence toward Jews in the late 1930s and the tortured debate over America’s entry into the war intensified perceptions of Jews as a dangerous race. In his popular radio speeches, Father Charles Coughlin used Nazi propaganda to blame Jews for the Great Depression and the New Deal. Hate groups such as Coughlin’s Christian Front picketed Jewish-owned stores, vandalized synagogues, and attacked Jews on streets in Boston and New York City. Members of the isolationist America First Committee, founded in June 1940, consistently suggested that Jews were pushing America to enter the war on the side of the Allies, and the group blamed Jews for the war once the United States became a combatant. And images of desperate Jewish refugees from Europe seeking haven in the United States unleashed a groundswell of xenophobic and anti-Semitic rhetoric from members of Congress and their constituents.”
Undoubtedly, SB and his family felt pressure to assimilate so as to suffer less discrimination. It’s reasonable to conclude that SB suffered at some point in his life discrimination and humiliation as a Jew. It’s possible he suffered an event in his life that transformed his mind, that gave him the ability to plan calmly knowing full well that certain people would be sacrificed.
From the same article:
Even individuals whose names reflected the nationality of allies of the United States during wartime sought to change their “foreign-sounding” names to something more “American.” The five members of the Russian-sounding Bolotovsky family testified that their “present name is of foreign extraction and connotation,” and that they were “very desirous of having a more American surname,” Bolten. And Herbert Sakowitz, whose name seems to have reflected Polish roots, requested permission to change his name because it was “foreign.” These petitions reflect the war’s impact on Americans’ understandings of their nationality and their desire to portray themselves as American during the war years, even when their names identified them as allies, not enemies. That names such as Bolotovsky and Sakowitz also sounded Jewish—and that Jews were among the staunchest supporters of the war in the United States—only highlights how American identity was being narrowly configured during the war. The fact that petitioners with Jewish-sounding names continued to identify their names as “alien” and “foreign-sounding” even after hostilities had ended suggests that such a narrow definition of American identity lasted beyond the immediate years of the war.
Samuel, Eda, Seymour Robert, Philip, and Jerome Bolotovsky, Petition N239-1942, Name Change Petitions Collection. Herbert Sakowitz, Petition N293-1942, ibid. For Polish petitioners with non-Jewish names who similarly referred to their names as “foreign,” see Edward, Florence, and Edward Jr. Dydynski, Petition N146-1942, ibid. On American identity being narrowly configured during the war, see, for example, Lou and Eleanor Friedman, Petition N136-1942, ibid.; Jacob Julius, Isabel Teresa, and William Irwin Rosenberg, Petition N181-1942, ibid.; and Oscar Levy, Petition N410-1942, ibid. On the lasting narrowed definition of American identity, see, for example, Sandra Dylis Lieberman, Petition N54-1946, ibid.; George Goldberg, Petition N78-1946, ibid.; Maurice and Phyllis Fiedelbaum, Petition N333-1946, ibid.; Bernard Nachimowsky, Petition N18-1946, ibid.; and Bernard Robert Hamburger, Petition N208-1947, ibid.
There was significant discrimination against and humiliation of Jews in the US military. So it might just be that SB and his family had had enough and decided to accept reality – to give themselves a chance.
Having gone through a name change myself, I know this to be a valid point. You’re forced to change your name because people won’t grow up.
What this does reflect is that the Bolten family are very real-world, practical thinkers and people. They accept reality.
Still discrimination alone doesn’t necessarily make you a stone-cold killer.
Perhaps it is the CIA culture itself that slowly indoctrinates you into this mindset. People do become their job. Many years ago, when doctors were getting sued for outrageous sums, doctors began attending law school. Theoretically these doctors were going to defend the rest of us doctors from malicious lawsuits. I am sure this was their noble intention; but as one older doctor explained to me: What happens is that these doctors stop being doctors and become lawyers. Mouths must be fed.
These are images of Seymour Bolten as a young man. The far left picture was probably taken while he was a student at NYU. The remaining pictures come from his service in the military between 1942 and 1945. There are very few images of him on the internet. His daughter has placed a copyright on a few of these images which I am somewhat reluctant to publish here even though they most likely fall under fair use.
Fix the Bus 