Paul Trejo

Steve, a former FBI agent and member of this Forum, William Turner (Power on the Right, 1971) said that in the early 1960's, a man could not become an officer of the DPD (Dallas Police Department) unless that man was a member of the KKK, the JBS or the Minutemen, or preferably all three. Regards, --Paul Trejo

Steve, I agree with your viewpoint that Lee Harvey Oswald was actually a fake-Communist. What we might still debate is the level at which Oswald was employed by the Agencies. IMHO, Oswald was "on probation" and received very little money from the Agencies. He probably did get a stipend from the FBI to supply information about the political underground to them. This is why the FBI would claim that Oswald was "all right" when he was making a nuisance of himself at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall. Oswald wanted to be a double-agent -- but he also wanted to be a super-star. He failed to get the idea of laying low and undercover. He wavered between saying too little and acting out. For these defects, young Lee Harvey Oswald remained a *potential* employee of the Agencies, or even a temporary, part-time or intern of the Agencies, but he was never a full-fledged employee. It was probably his ambition to become a full-fledged employee of the Agencies that led him into becoming the patsy for the JFK murder. This is how he was fooled into being the patsy; he thought he was working for these guys on a different project, although since Easter Sunday, 1963, they were playing him for a sap. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

John, I actually think I understood your point. As an Australian, on the other side of the world from the USA, you have an advantage that lets you see USA history from a distance -- taking a step back, so to speak, and offering a pair of fresh eyes. Yet this very same distance also gives the disadvantage in which a more finely turned political nuance can be missed. For one thing, you lump the Right-wing together with the Conservative Establishment. For you, the radical position of the John Birch Society is completely harmonious with J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI. But that's inaccurate. For you, also John, Hoover's incessant and unfair attacks on Martin Luther King were NO DIFFERENT from the demand of the Deep South to crush the Civil Rights movement. It's easy to make that equivocation -- and from the other side of the planet, I can understand the perspective. However, when one is up close, one sees the vast differences. The right-wing of the USA, in 1961-1962 represented very well by Ex-General Edwin Walker (whose face was printed on the cover of Newsweek at the end of 1961, as the poster-boy of the USA right-wing) was light-years away from J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. For one thing, Edwin Walker was motivated almost 100% by the John Birch Society. One can see this clearly by reading Walker's personal papers. Walker treats the pronouncements of Robert Welch as holy writ. By contrast, J. Edgar Hoover FORBADE any FBI Agents from being members of the John Birch Society. This was Un-American to Hoover, who recognized that calling any US President a Communist was not an act of loyalty, but the very opposite of loyalty. This is only the tip of the iceberg, John. The rift between the right-wing and the FBI is as great as the Grand Canyon, when seen up close. The FBI represented the Moderates in the USA. Edwin Walker represented the radicals. Edwin Walker is reported to have spoken of a coming Race-war between Black and White in the USA, in which he and other US Generals would take the lead in the slaughter, and at the end of that war, the Generals would cancel the US Constitution and the rule of Civilians. There is utterly no way to pin that sort of radical thinking onto J. Edgar Hoover. So, John, when you say, "there is no difference between right wing and the agencies," we disagree. From a viewpoint further to the left of center, it's often claimed that the Moderates in the USA are on the side of the Right-wing. Yet from a viewpoint further to the right of center, it's often claimed that the Moderates in the USA are on the side of the left-wing. That's American politics. As for the working class in the USA, their standard of living (while declining in comparison with the billionaires) remains among the highest in the world. It isn't the working class that Hoover oppressed, it was the radicals who wanted to take over the private property of the leaders, by violence. That is Communism, and that was Hoover's stated enemy. Hoover's mistake was in believing the Southern propaganda that tried to make Martin Luther King appear to be a Communist. That was the greatest effort of the Southern press in the early 1960's -- and it was very effective. Even Harry Dean believed that during the early 1960's. As for JFK, he was more liberal than former US Presidents, but he himself was not a champion of the working class as such -- because actually JFK was incredibly rich himself, and so was Jackie Kennedy before they were married. They represented the status quo in the USA -- not too much to the left, and not too much to the right. JFK did lean slightly more to the left than Nixon -- and for the radical right-wing -- e.g. the John Birch Society and Edwin Walker in Dallas -- that was the same as JFK being a Communist. That was why, IMHO, JFK was targeted for murder. Now -- I realize that I must accept that some members of the US Government were involved in the JFK murder plot. I admit that General Lansdale was involved. David Morales admitted to being involved. E. Howard Hunt admitted to being involved. That cannot be denied -- and I'm not defending the US Government wholesale. However, nobody has provided PROOF of anybody else other than those three. (I don't count Frank Sturgis, David Ferrie, Clay Shaw, Loran Hall, Gerry Patrick Hemming, Ed Butler, Guy Banister or Carlos Bringuier because they were street-level "assets" and not full-fledged employees of the CIA.) So, to blame the Agencies wholesale is a losing theory, IMHO. Again, IMHO the blaming of the Agencies is a cheap-shot, a quick-fix, and just hopes to be done with the whole problem of actually working out in detail the ground-crew, and then those who controlled the ground-crew. Regards, --Paul Trejo

Speaking of fanatic mercenaries who had gone into Cuba before and after the Bay of Pigs, we can name Larry Howard and Loran Hall. As for "non-Agency Anglos who were associated with those exiles" we can name Gerry Patrick Hemming, who confessed to A.J. Weberman that he paid off Lee Harvey Oswald to bring his rifle to the TSBD building on 11/22/1963. Hemming was also an on-and-off pal with Larry Howard and Loran Hall. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

Larry, I've not yet moved on to NEXUS. Also, I'm not yet convinced that a focus on the high-level view is warranted yet. For example, you're saying in this post (and Paul B. and Gene seem to agree with you) that CIA Agents James Jesus Angleton and William Harvey -- and probably Allen Dulles -- saw JFK as a genuine USA Security Risk. It would have been their duty, then, to remove that risk. Y'all are therefore blaming the official CIA for the murder of JFK. There seems to be no other conclusion to your reasoning. In your view, the ground-crew were (probably) led to believe that "Cuba was in play." This actually fits the scenario of Lee Harvey Oswald -- his focus was Cuba for the entire summer of 1963, as he pretended to be an officer of the FPCC in New Orleans -- a fake FPCC chapter where he was the only member. With the help of CIA gophers Ed Butler (INCA) and Carlos Bringuier (DRE) we observe that Guy Banister (ex-FBI fanatic) and David Ferrie (mercenary fanatic) framed Lee Harvey Oswald as a Communist -- mainly by convincing Oswald that "Cuba was in play." Butler and Bringuier also believed that "Cuba was in play," most likely. It is difficult to know whether Guy Banister and David Ferrie truly knew about the JFK assassination, however, an average guy like Ron Lewis (FLASHBACK, 1993) says that a broken Lee Harvey Oswald confided to Ron after Lee's failed Mexico City trip that Banister and Ferrie told Lee about the upcoming JFK assassination. Yet you haven't connected all the dots, Larry. You're concluding that the CIA wanted JFK gone -- and they lied to (most of) their ground-crew about the plans. In your opinion, the reason that Cuba was never invaded was because the CIA never truly included Cuba in their high-level plans -- so the ground-crew was lied to -- betrayed -- by the CIA plotters. It's plausible, Larry -- I admit that. Yet it's incomplete. It still reaches and it still presumes quite a lot. Your theory seems to imply that the CIA was also supported by the Joint Chiefs, the NSC, the FBI and LBJ. This is too broad a brush, IMHO, which answers everything with speculation. Your argument must be (much like Steven's) that the CIA would never admit the Truth, or write it down, so we are left to speculate. Given that, we can speculate more safely if we use a broad brush and paint everybody from David Morales on up to the NSC as JFK murder plotters. Sorry -- I need more evidence. There is a mismatch between the COMMUNIST Lee Harvey Oswald of the plotters and the LONE NUT Lee Harvey Oswald of the cover-up. This mismatch has not been satisfactorily explained. Your proposed solution is promising -- that the CIA used the COMMUNIST Lee Harvey Oswald to motivate the ground-crew, when actually they had always planned to cover-up their plot using the LONE NUT theory, and betray the ground-crew (yet again, for the second time after the Bay of Pigs). Perhaps. I can't deny that your theory is plausible. Yet it still asks for a leap of faith. Are we to believe that the CIA plotters had such foresight that they conceived of fooling the ground-crew with a COMMUNIST framing of Lee Harvey Oswald, while all the while plotting to use a LONE NUT theory of Oswald to end the tragedy? If so, then we must also believe that J. Edgar Hoover was in on the plot from the very start, since the LONE NUT theory was his idea on 11/22/1963. Yet here again we are faced with Gene's sober objection -- how can so many hundreds of plotters keep a secret so perfectly for 50 years? No -- it's too facile. I can agree that General Lansdale is guilty based on Fletcher Prouty's proofs and by photographs at Dealey Plaza. I can agree that David Morales, Frank Sturgis and Gerry Patrick Hemming are guilty, based on their own, separate confessions. That's the truly hard evidence -- we have one CIA-connected General (Lansdale) and one CIA Agent (David Morales), and two fanatical mercenaries (Sturgis and Hemming). That's what we actually have so far -- as far as I can see. That doesn't prove Allen Dulles was guilty; not by a long shot. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

Good call, John. Gene, this is a correct response to your argument, which was convincing up to this point. Also, Gene, I was unclear if I gave the impression that I believe that GHW Bush is implicated in the JFK murder -- I hold the opposite view. GHW Bush told the FBI about a Houston death-threat to JFK in 1963. While our eventual President, GHW Bush lived in Texas in 1963, I don't see his fingerprints on the JFK murder. Your most interesting argument, Gene, was that the US Government hiding of JFK assassination documents might be related to protecting the legacy of JFK from the true facts -- that the Joint Chiefs stand on JFK was that he was "legitimately viewed as dangerous to the country." This could be construed to be a viable reason for hiding the truth about JFK. Then you reversed your own point by noting that this would not explain the circumstances surrounding the murder of RFK. At this point you say, "Now it relegates to a political civil war." At this point, John Dolva stepped in with some relevant historical facts. You wonder if the plotters were able to "blackmail" the FBI, CIA and Secret Service -- but I must counter with a question -- who has the power to blackmail the CIA? Here is where John's theory must also falter -- the USA Right-wing simply doesn't have the power to blackmail the FBI, CIA and Secret Service. On John's side, the ultra-hatred of the USA Right-wing followed JFK closely during the Civil Rights period. Ex-General Edwin Walker played a central role in this, precisely with his targeting of the James Meredith case at Ole Miss in September 1962, and causing a racial riot at Ole Miss during the same period as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Historians fail to see the importance of the Ole Miss riot during the JFK years. This was arguably the climax of the Civil Rights period; hundreds were wounded and two were killed. (By contrast, the 1968 photographs of the shooting at Kent State are world famous -- while the deaths at Ole Miss are almost entirely hushed up). So -- John correctly looks to the Right-wing for prime suspects regarding the JFK murder. Ex-General Edwin Walker is one such suspect, and Harry Dean has named Edwin Walker as his own prime suspect -- even though Harry Dean himself supported the Right-wing during 1963. Yet I must break with John's theory if he suggests that the USA Right-wing somehow controlled the FBI, CIA and Secret Service. The Right-wing had the power to kill JFK -- I have no doubt about that. However, the Right-wing had absolutely no power to cover it up. This means, Gene, that I also disagree with your premise that the plotters somehow blackmailed the FBI, CIA and Secret Service to conceal their identities. My proposed solution (in concert with Harry Dean) is that the Right-wing murdered JFK, while the CIA, FBI, and Secret Service covered it up. The reason for covering up the truth about the JFK murder was not (as most JFK researchers have presumed for 50 years) to protect the plotters, but solely and only to prevent Civil War in the USA. The people who murdered JFK were not the same people as those who covered up the plot. I think this is the missing clue to resolving the JFK murder. We keep on suspecting those who covered it up -- LBJ, the FBI, Hoover, Dulles, Warren, and so on. But their motives were different. Whoever framed Lee Harvey Oswald as a Red intended to blame the Reds for the murder of JFK. Those who covered it up (starting with J. Edgar Hoover) defused this angle, and portrayed this same Lee Harvey Oswald as a "Lone Nut." The cover-up people were trying to prevent Civil War (and by extension, World War Three). Best regards, --Paul Trejo

Gene, two comments here. (1) You identified "three distinct parts: the planning, the execution, and the cover-up." I think you're right about that. Yet I'd suggest that those who planned and executed the JFK murder were not in cooperation with those who covered it up. Presuming that the cover-up was part of the original plan seems to confuse the issue quite a bit. I don't presume that. I do admit that framing Lee Harvey Oswald was planned many months beforehand. (I date the initialization of his framing with Easter Sunday, April 14, 1963.) Yet the purpose of framing Oswald was not to make him into the Lone-Assassin (as the cover-up has always insisted) but to blame Fidel Castro for the JFK murder. So I see a major mismatch between the JFK plotters and the cover-up. I think most literature about the JFK assassination over the past 50 years has missed that point. (2) You ask an intriguing question about why post-JFK Democratic Presidents failed to re-open the case. I don't think it's a matter of corruption, or of protecting the CIA image. In my opinion -- and I think most Americans may feel this way -- high-level officials of the US Government know very well what is contained in the withheld CIA documents about the JFK assassination, and they see no value in releasing the data. There is no threat, and there is no pressing public interest, either. The timetable for releasing the documents was set by Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren -- and that's a high authority, even for a sitting US President. It's been a question of National Security up through 1990. After the USSR fell, and during the final year of the GHW Bush Administration (interestingly) the JFK Records Act did accelerate the time-table of Earl Warren, bringing the date forward from 2038 to 2017. So, that's something. One worry I still have is that Government officers close to the records have the ability to destroy them if they choose -- because they're only human. We've already seen some of them destroyed. Best regards, --Paul Trejo <edit typos>

I tend to agree with you here, Paul B., that is, at a high level. Gaeton Fonzi once said that we do know the identity of the JFK conspirators -- at a high level. Some of the more suspicious people are well known to us from photographs at Dealey Plaza -- General Edward Lansdale comes to mind. We have positive testimony from Special Operations agent, Colonel Fletcher Prouty, who has sung like a nightingale. Yet at a lower level we still have differences. I still harbor a doubt that the guilty parties are being protected by the Government, and that this explains why the Government still withholds documents about the JFK assassination from 50 years ago. I admit that you might be right. However, I harbor a doubt -- I suggest that bureaucratic inertia is the real reason that the records are still kept secret. I believe that the reason the plotters were hidden (though known) by the US Government is that the Cold War was raging -- and it was too hot to handle. This was true in 1964 with the Warren Commission, and in 1979 with the HSCA. Now that the USSR has fallen (1990) there is no real excuse anymore -- except that the Truth has taken such a beating for so long that we don't have Government officials who know the whole story anymore -- and they are just following orders by keeping the records secret. I don't in the slightest -- personally -- blame LBJ for the death of JFK (although he led the cover-up, no doubt). I don't blame the Bush family, either, although I've read the claims that George Bush, Sr. was deeply involved. Those are fairly random suspicions, IMHO. I think we'll find -- whenever the whole truth finally comes out -- that the culprits were political extremists, and that Civil War was the real National Security worry of the US Government in 1964 and 1979. It's too bad that 1979 was, as Gaeton Fonzi called it, "The Last Investigation." The HSCA took two full years and cost millions of dollars -- and still failed to solve the JFK murder. Well, the CIA and the FBI refused to fully cooperate, they said. National Security was still their valid excuse. In my opinion -- until we can name the ground crew, we are left with speculations about the real plotters. It's time to move away from speculations, and dig into the empirical evidence. Regards, --Paul Trejo

Thanks for the update, Ernie. We're all watching your progress in this interesting aspect of FBI research as it pertains to JFK research. Regards, --Paul Trejo

Let's see if I can meet you at least half-way, Gene. By attempting to blame Alan Dulles (the highest ranking CIA officer, or formerly so) in the scenario, and a member of the Warren Commission) of the murder of JFK, you believe you have support from an identification of a ground-crew. This ground-crew, as I take it would consist largely of Bay of Pigs survivors, Cuban Exiles, who had worked closely with the CIA and had been foiled at the Bay of Pigs. Is this correct? Are you also including Gerry Patrick Hemming, Interpen members like Loran Hall, Larry Howard and William Seymour? That is -- what ground-crew members are YOU willing to proffer in a theory? Furthermore -- if the Bay of Pigs turned out to be the key-motivation, then why didn't the plot FULLY succeed -- that is, why didn't the USA then go after Fidel Castro, who was the ORIGINAL target of this CIA-Cuban Exile conspiracy? In other words -- why would Alan Dulles back the Cuban Exiles to murder JFK, but then support the Lone Nut theory that Oswald acted alone -- knowing that this depoliticized Oswald and the JFK murder itself? It seems like a mismatch. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

Gene, this is a scientific contribution - so thanks very much. I'll remark on a number of your observations: You ask, "How can a list of 250+ people involved not leave a better trail of anecdotes and incriminating testimony?" It's a great question. The best guess I have today is that the organization of the JFK plot was extraordinary -- far beyond the official Pentagon, official CIA, official FBI, official Cuban Exile groups or even the 'official' Mafia. The easiest way to explain the extraordinary secrecy, IMHO, is to propose that the JFK plot was organized entirely by fanatics. Fanaticism best explains the uncanny efficiency with which those who might speak any clue about the assassination (e.g. Ferrie, Roselli, Del Valle, Giancana, De Mohrenschildt, Nicoletti and many more) were speedily killed. Also, Gene, you ask: "Can the ground crew lead to the larger connections?" It's my humble opinion that the ground-crew is the only way to be certain of the larger connections of plotter, financier and organizer. There are so many plausible suspects that our problem is to narrow them down, and the ground-crew is the surest method to do that. But the ground-crew has totally died off, you object. Still, we have ample empirical evidence in photographs and film of Dealey Plaza in the hours before, during and after the JFK murder. Much work has been done on this, but more and better work will be done as digital analysis continues to improve. I'm looking to digital analysis for the next new wave of certainties in JFK research. Also, Gene, you say that "we cannot easily test our models and theories...the principals are all dead today." True -- we are left with the poverty of secondary sources -- that is, eye-witnesses one step removed from the action (e.g. Harry Dean, Don Adams and Wesley Swearingen). Yet without these secondary sources, we have only tertiary sources -- and so I recommend that we take a step backward and that we embrace our secondary sources as our most valuable anecdotal evidence. FBI records are extremely valuable, and with recent FOIA revelations, we have more data today than any researchers ever had in the 20th century. However, the JFK-Information Act which promises to release everything in the year 2017 still holds back a condition -- that if the government believes that National Security is threatened by the release of any JFK documents -- they will continue to be kept Top Secret. IMHO such documents do exist, and the year 2017 will result in a tremendous disappointment for thousands of JFK researchers. A question will be raised with anger -- will even the 75 year deadline (i.e. the year 2038) offered by Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren be sufficient to grant the American People access to these secret records? As Bertrand Russell once argued in 1964 -- if Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone shooter, then where is the question of National Security now that he's dead? Here -- with the question of National Security -- we have the most urgent clue of all with regard to the JFK murder. In 1979 the US Government (HSCA) admitted that Lee Harvey Oswald wasn't the lone shooter -- but that his accomplices must remain unrevealed down to this day. This is the clue. Who is being protected, and why? IMHO, only two viable answers present themselves. Those protected were either: (1) members of the Government in some way; or (2) members of political organizations of such public influence that an attack on them would lead to a Civil War. In 1979, when the HSCA completed its investigation into the JFK murder, the USSR was still powerful, and a Civil War in the USA would have tempted the USSR to interfere, and thus risked the outbreak of World War Three. So, to claim secrecy on the basis of National Security in 1979 was still a reasonable calculation. But since 1990, the USSR has fallen. The threat of World War Three erupting by the political ramifications of revealing the accomplices of Lee Harvey Oswald are today nil. At this point I wish to call up all the theories of the JFK assassination -- and combine them all together in a unified field theory to seek an answer to this riddle. Clearly the solution cannot be solved by one individual anymore -- it must be entail a summation of tomes of work done by writers over the past half century. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

Larry, I have your 480-page Someone Would Have Talked (SWHT/2010) in my hands tonight, and I'm still struggling to find the three names of the three people whom you named as having gone to Dallas to murder JFK. Please direct me to the chapter you have in mind. Larry, I respectfully question this premise -- I suspect that naming the ground-crew is actually critical to understanding the conspiracy. Without it, the vast universe of potential plotters at the levels of high finance, politics, bureaucracy and so on, just spin on and on. My evidence is that one of the most popular CT's today is that LBJ was behind the JFK murder -- mainly based on speculation and a little circumstantial evidence. Others think the Secret Service confessions are ample to close the case. Others are content to blame J. Edgar Hoover. Others are content to say, CIA-Mafia and close the book. Others want to say, Joseph Milteer, and close the book. This chaos can be resolved in only one way, IMHO, and that's by naming the ground crew. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

Actually, Steven, I find this very plausible. Lee Harvey Oswald was surely part of the JFK murder plot -- but not in full knowledge of his role -- that should be obvious to every CT. This means that Lee Harvey Oswald knew his sheep-dippers very well -- but not well enough to know they were sheep-dippers. The most likely scenario is that Oswald believed he was participating in one of the many CIA-Mafia-JBS plots to kill Fidel Castro. This makes the most sense of his New Orleans period -- his fighting with Marina about hi-jacking an airplane to Havana; his worrying about his Mexico trip; his taking all his FPCC "street credentials" to Mexico City, and his naïve hope that as an "official" FPCC officer he would get the standard green-light for easy passage into Cuba just by showing up at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City. But his fellow plotters knew better. They were probably laughing their asses off, knowing that Oswald would be turned down flat in the Cuban Embassy. By then it was too late for Oswald -- he had been framed to a "T", not only in police records and newspapers but also on the radio and TV -- as an FPCC officer, and a self-proclaimed "Marxist-Leninist." It would be impossible for Lee Harvey Oswald to shake this label. Even after NOLA DA Jim Garrison proved to reasonable people that Lee Harvey Oswald was faking his entire "Communist" period -- to this very day the framing of Lee Harvey Oswald remains common sense to historians and the public. It was a professional job. (Ed Butler and Carlos Bringuier did a brilliant job, actually, in concert with Clay Shaw, David Ferrie and Guy Banister.) So -- I can agree with you solidly on this point, Steven. As for the rest of your understanding of the JFK murder -- may I ask you to please encapsulate your entire theory in one paragraph? I feel certain that many other readers would like to see that, as well. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

Harry, when I navigate to www.archives.gov and I enter in "Wesley G. Grapp, Harry Dean" as the search string, this is the result I receive: ...........No results were found for your search. If somebody else gets a different result, won't you please explain how you did that? Best regards, --Paul Trejo

Ernie, that memo is now famous -- and it played a role in the 1965 book by Warren Commission member and 1974 US President, Gerald Ford, enitled, Portrait of an Assassin. Congressman Ford agreed with the Warren Report -- however he began his book with this controversy, as it had been pivotal in early 1964, and admittedly upset the Warren Commission. As that memo you shared dimly conceals, the source of the rumor that Lee Harvey Oswald was an informer for the FBI came from no hidden source or sensationalist newspaper -- rather, it came from two high-ranking Texas officials, namely: (1) Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade; and (2) Attorney General of Texas, Waggoner Carr. Information had circulated in Dallas since December 1963, and eventually was published in the Houston Post on January 1, 1964, saying that Lee Harvey Oswald was an FBI informant operating under the code number S172, earning $200 a month. Whatever the details of that news article, the details held by Wade and Carr were more official -- so that Rankin and Dulles invited them to Washington DC to discuss the matter. Naturally it would be an embarrassment for the FBI if this turned out to have any smidgen of truth to it. Yet remember that Wesley Swearingen, former FBI Agent and now a whistle-blower, in his 2008 book, To Kill a President, said that local FBI offices might retain low-paid informers (under $300 monthly) without notifying FBI Headquarters! So -- at least it remains plausible. In any case, considerable pressure was put on DA Henry Wade and Attorney General Waggoner Carr -- and the decision was finally made that they would pull back their evidence if only J. Edgar Hoover would himself testify before the Warren Commission! It was decided -- Hoover would submit a sworn affidavit to the Warren Commission that Lee Oswald never had anything to do with the FBI -- and that would settle the matter. (That affidavit is now a part of the Warren Report and US history.) Well -- it silenced the matter for a year or so, but then Congressman Gerald Ford revived the issue in the first pages of his book, released a few months after the Warren Report was released! There's lots of researech about this controversy. Henry Wade came under scrutiny during the 50th anniversary of the JFK murder. Here's one of many blurbs: http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/news/how-henry-wade-da-of-dallas-ran-afoul-of-j-edgar-hoover/ Also, in this context, here is a long-supressed yet now-famous conversation between members of the Warren Commission (Rankin, Dulles, Boggs) about various controveries involving the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover. http://jfklancer.com/Investigations.html Regards, --Paul Trejo <edit typos>

Ernie, it's a fair question: why don't we have more non-participants who were told about the plot (before or after the fact) by their inner or outer circle contacts? One plausible answer is the case of PFC Eugene Dinkin, a crypto-analyst in the US military, who, only weeks before the JFK murder, reported officially that he obtained information that there was a plot to kill JFK in the works, that involved people in the military and people on the ultra-right. Nine days before JFK was murdered, PFC Eugene Dinkin was arrested and placed in an insane asylum. He was threatened with electro-shock unless he changed his story. He eventually changed his story -- but the CIA records of his original story were more recently released -- and revealed by Dick Russell in his 2003 book, The Man Who Knew Too Much. Loran Hall chose to speak to the FBI about his connections with Silvia Odio (who swore she saw Lee Harvey Oswald with two Latinos at her home), and admitted he was one of the Latinos. Shortly afterward, Loran Hall endured two attempts on his life -- and he changed his story. Former FBI agent Wesley Swearingen tells of a man named, "Ramon," who gave him all the details about the JFK murder before it happened -- but "Ramon" refused to be identified after JFK was murdered. Former FBI agent Don Adams tells of a man named, Joe Milteer, who was secretly recorded shortly before the JFK murder that JFK was to be murdered from a high building with a high-powered rifle, and that a patsy would be picked up within hours to throw the public off. When the FBI questioned him, he claimed it was only gossip. Don Adams was unconvinced. Well-known JFK researcher Bud Fensterwald learned from one Gilbert Le Cavelier that around April-May of 1963 Ex-General Edwin Walker met with famed OAS sniper (who allegedly tried to kill Charles de Gaulle) Jean Souetre, who at that time was in the USA advising and coordinating Alpha 66, whose leader, Cuban Exile Antonio Veciana, claims on film to have had lunch with Lee Harvey Oswald and a CIA agent that summer. So -- my point is that people have come forward -- and they are generally ignored. One was locked up in an insane asylum. The number of people who have died suddenly after claiming to have had eye-witness evidence of a JFK plot is a staggering number (cf. early works by Penn Jones). Now -- one might think that JFK conspiracy people are simply fringe element types. That is the popular notion -- but actually many are Historians that teach in Universities (e.g. David Lifton, to name only one). Further, although NARA is rather expensive, they do provide some information for free -- including the 1979 report of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. This was an official US government body that published the following in 1979: "C. The Committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The Committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy." A fuller reading of this startling and official viewpoint can be read freely at NARA from this URL: http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-1c.html In my own Unified Field Theory of the JFK Assassination, I propose that all of the witnesses listed above were telling the TRUTH. There are others, too. Like Harry Dean, each one of these witnesses saw one small part of the Plot to Murder JFK. (To this day, Wes Swearingen and Don Adams are each convinced that his own experiences are the most important of the lot -- and trump all the other stories.) After working with Harry Dean for nearly two years, I'm convinced that the only way to arrive at the TRUTH is to combine all these stories -- all the stories of all those with actual eye-witness testimony -- into one "Unified Field" theory of the murder of JFK. Regards, --Paul Trejo

Larry, I'm finally returning to your points from last week. Your focus on the ground-crew is interesting. Regarding the Dallas ground-crew, you wish to focus on Jack Ruby -- because he is the one member of the ground-crew about whom we can have no doubts whatsoever -- Jack Ruby was involved up to his neck. Regarding the Dallas ground-crew you'd cite assassination plots that were similar to the Dallas plot -- specifically Veciana's Alpha 66 plot against Fidel Castro; which was nearly identical to the Dallas plot that murdered JFK. (That plot included Cuban Exiles working with local Private Detective Agency firms; like the one run by Guy Banister in New Orleans -- but in Havana. Private Detectives have contacts with the local police and could get data about locations where Castro would be and his security there.) However, for Dallas, instead of a Private Detective Agency, you substitute Jack Ruby. His Mafia ties, and his ability to blackmail DPD officers with his vice operations at the Carousel Club made him useful. Hearing gripes by simple proximity, talking to Newsmen (the way Ruby did) would be sufficient to get the Plotters the data they needed -- according to this theory. I do agree with you that Ruby was able to get good information about the DPD moving Oswald -- so that he could kill Oswald. That cannot be denied. Whether that same source was enough to get high-level information about the Mayor moving JFK -- I have strong doubts. Besides all that, Larry, you claim that "Ruby could provide more," e.g. where to buy weapons underground (as if they would come to Dallas without enough weapons), or which cops were dirty enough to help when off duty (presumably, e.g. Roscoe White). Ruby was supposed to know plenty about Dallas buildings, their employees, their work hours and their parking habits -- and what he didn't know he could find out -- according to this theory. A key support for your elevation of Jack Ruby to this source of ground-crew information is the fact that he had a "very low profile." Also, Jack Ruby would also supply information to the DPD and perhaps other officials -- so this might also make him a candidate. Yet I can't help thinking, Larry, that this gives Jack Ruby a lot of responsibility. We've all read his testimony before Earl Warren -- and his sentence structure fails, IMHO, to reflect a particularly responsible person. I think that Jack Ruby could be relied upon, for example, to perform a Mafia hit on somebody -- like Lee Harvey Oswald. I also think that Jack Ruby could be relied upon to transport bags and people from place to place. I don't get the idea that he could be trusted too far beyond that. I'd like to raise one more issue with regard to the Dallas ground-crew and Jack Ruby, namely, Jack Ruby's direct testimony to Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren on 7 June 1964, when he said the following: --------- BEGIN JACK RUBY TESTIMONY --------------- JACK RUBY: ...At this moment, Lee Harvey Oswald isn't guilty of committing the crime of assassinating President Kennedy. Jack Ruby is. How can I fight that, Chief Justice Warren? CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN: Well now, I want to say, Mr. Ruby, that as far as this Commission is concerned, there is no implication of that in what we are doing. JACK RUBY: All right, there is a certain organization here -- CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN: That I can assure you. JACK RUBY: There is an organization here, Chief Justice Warren, if it takes my life at this moment to say it, and Bill Decker said be a man and say it, there is a John Birch Society right now in activity, and Edwin Walker is one of the top men of this organization -- take it for what it is worth, Chief Justice Warren...Don't register with you, does it? CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN: No; I don't understand that. ------------- END JACK RUBY TESTIMONY ---------------- Best regards, --Paul Trejo

Larry, If this seems like it could go on forever -- the blame rests with those Federal agencies that have refused to release all the official documents about the JFK murder for a half-century. Until the Feds finally release all the records (hopefully in 2017) there will always be a doubt for any conclusion made without reference to these documents. We are speculating -- and I appreciate all speculation and debate made in the past half-century. There is a chance that the Federal government will refuse to release all the records in 2017 as promised (or claim that they were destroyed). I think that continuing diligence and vigilance will be rewarded in the long run. (1) You say that in SWHT/2010 that you named "at least three people" as present inside Dallas for the JFK murder, along with proofs. I will review SWHT/2010 with that in mind, and will post those names on this thread. (2) Your discussion of CIA leaders: James Jesus Angleton, William Harvey, David Morales and Rip Robertson, was insightful. The hatred expressed by Harvey and Morales for RFK and JFK is well-documented. (3) I will also review SWHT/2010 to name the two DPD officers that you allege are connected with Ruby. (4) I will also review SWHT/2010 to name the few Cuban Exiles with JM/WAVE that you think are suspicious, including Bernardo de Torres. (5) Where we differ, IMHO, Larry, is that you you suggest that "to boil this down to a set of exact names" is "not really critical to understanding the conspiracy." The tendency in JFK research literature to focus on the "big picture" merely leads to a plethora of theories at the "big picture" level. (The "big picture" remains high-level and abstract; it is not the Whole Picture.) To narrow down the most plausible theories, we must have recourse to the ground-crew. Only naming the ground-crew will clearly identify the nature of the plot -- was it CIA Rogues who killed JFK, or CIA official business? This can't be answered until we can name the ground-crew. (6) I also believe that the preponderance of evidence pointing to Ex-General Edwin Walker -- evidence which caused the Warren Commission volumes to mention Walker by name more than 500 times during its investigations -- is seriously underestimated by the vast majority of JFK researchers. For example, Harold Weisberg and Gary Schoener once obtained a home movie from young Minuteman, John Martin, Jr. who filmed his trip to the Dallas home of Edwin Walker, to show the bullet holes in his home; and then his trip to New Orleans to film Lee Harvey Oswald in the act of handing out FPCC leaflets. Weisberg and Schoener spent weeks analyzing the film -- trying to identify the people on the street with Lee Harvey Oswald. It never occurred to them to question how a young follower of Edwin Walker in August 1963 would fly to Dallas to meet Walker, film his bullet holes, and then immediately fly to New Orleans to film Oswald posing as an FPCC radical. Today Gary Schoener wishes he had pursued his relationship with John Martin, Jr. Today, Gary Schoener wonders how this material film can connect Edwin Walker with Lee Harvey Oswald in sixty seconds. When they obtained this film in 1968 -- and for the 44 years since then, Edwin Walker wasn't on their radar. Today Gary Schoener wishes that he and Weisberg had connected these dots. Nor was Edwin Walker on the radar of the HSCA. Here was a witness of great interest to the Warren Commission, yet the HSCA had no interest in him. They should have noted well Walker's connection with George De Mohrenschildt, who wrote of his hatred (and fomenting Oswald's hatred) for Edwin Walker in his booklet, "I'm A Patsy, I'm A Patsy," before George (allegedly) committed suicide. They should have noted well Walker's connection to Loran Hall, Larry Howard, Gerry Patrick Hemming and Carlos Bringuier -- all of whom they interviewed. But they missed the opportunity. (7) In SWHT/2010 you do explain that Oswald's involvement in the FPCC was an Anti-FPCC scenario. Many had an interest in this -- including Guy Banister and the FBI, and later the CIA and David Atlee Phillips. Your careful research of that detail for the sake of history is duly noted and appreciated. (8) You're very careful, Larry, to accept only the facts with a high-level of authorization, e.g. Nagell's story and Martino's story. These are both CIA-linked eye witnesses at a street level. Yet the troubles with Nagell (I think you might agree) are that he bowed out of the story in early September, and also he was a double-agent, making his story ambiguous on many levels. The trouble with Martino, IMHO, is that his connections with the CIA are mainly official, so his knowledge about ROGUE players was arguably limited. In my view, Nagel and Martino (like Swearingen's "Ramon" and Adams' "Milteer") provide eye-witness information at the level of the blind men touching the elephant. Each one saw one small part of the JFK murder plot, but not one of them saw the Whole Picture. That is why I have little trouble including Harry Dean in their number. Harry Dean, like one of the blind men, also saw one small part of the JFK murder plot. Even Harry Dean didn't see the whole picture. Yet it is only human nature to try to draw conclusions on our incomplete evidence. What is needed, IMHO, is a Unified Field theory of JFK research, that attempts to harmonize as many JFK theories as possible. (9) I'm going to review SWHT/2010 once again, Larry. It remains one of the very best books on the JFK murder available to the 21st century reader. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

Larry, I agree with most of what you say here. Walker was open to blackmail, but so were Clay Shaw and David Ferrie. To deal with this, however, you seem to divorce the Dallas plotters from the New Orleans plotters. I'm a bit perplexed about your divorce of the New Orleans plotters from the Dallas plotters. Are you suggesting that the enormous project of sheep-dipping Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans, from July 1963 through September 1963, was completely unrelated to the Dallas plot to murder JFK? Jim Garrison found many connections, e.g. Gerry Patrick Hemming, Loran Hall and Larry Howard, to name a few. Also, the connections of Jack Ruby in New Orleans resonate with Carlos Marcello, G, Wray Gill, David Ferrie and Guy Banister. Is it possible that your hypothetical Dallas hit squad remains abstract, and remains to be re-connected to the actual street-work in which Lee Harvey Oswald operated, both in New Orleans and in Dallas? Yet I do agree with the possibility within your theory that Ex-General Edwin Walker may have only heard gossip about a JFK murder. That remains plausible. It also remains plausible that Walker heard only gossip about using Lee Harvey Oswald as a patsy in the JFK murder. (In which case, this might suggest that Harry Dean only heard gossip about it from the JBS circles in Southern California). I cannot argue with the plausibility that gossip would have been widespread among the ultra-right. This could also explain the fears of former FBI Agent Don Adams, who directly confronted Joseph Milteer (ultra-rightist) about his claim that JFK would be shot from a high building with a high-powered rifle, and having a patsy on hand to be picked up almost immediately after the murder. In other words, Milteer might have simply been relaying gossip. This could also explain the concerns of former FBI Agent Wesley Swearingen, who heard from a "reliable" Cuban Exile named "Ramon" that the CIA, Cuban Exiles and the Mafia would murder JFK in Dallas. In other words, "Ramon" might have simply been relaying gossip. Harry Dean, Don Adams and Wes Swearingen, by the way, all claim that they reported this gossip to the FBI before the JFK murder. Nor can I argue with Gerry Patrick Hemming's observation that since so many Cuban Exiles and mercenaries offered to kill JFK for cash (like Loran Hall, Larry Howard and others inside Interpen, Alpha 66, DRE and so on), and since so many rich ultra-rightists gave so many of them lots of money -- that after JFK was really murdered, none of these donors could be certain which Team actually made the hit! That is why Gerry Patrick Hemming never wanted to be known as the man who would talk to the Press -- because even if his friends in Interpen would not kill him, he had no guarantee that some petty Mafioso in New Jersey wouldn't panic and have Hemming killed, for fear of being exposed (because of his false belief that his chosen Hit Team made the hit). Speaking of gossip, it is likely that more people have taken credit for the murder of JFK in the past 20 years than did the deed. This makes it more difficult to get at the Truth, because we must wade through the stories of James Files, for example, and Ricky White, son of Roscoe White, and so on. At the same time, each of these people might also have a piece of the Truth (like the blind men touching one part of an elephant). Roscoe White was part of the ultra-right. James Files was a part of the Mafia. There were evidently both in Dallas on the day that JFK was murdered. I won't belabor the point any further. My question to you is about your rationale (as I read it) for divorcing the New Orleans plot from the Dallas plot. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

Well, Tommy, you've finally reached the point where your posts are merely useless. I'm justified in setting my FORUM filter to "Ignore" all your posts. It's clearly no loss at all. Warmest regards, --Paul Trejo

You've got a lot of interesting points to share, Steven, I'll grant you that. For one thing, you've identified Tom Karamessines at a very high level in the Pentagon, who seems to be connected with David Ferrie, an acknowledged JFK plotter. I'll need to research his involvement more carefully. So I thank you for that. Many of the other points you made, Steven, were circumstantial -- the sort of evidence used to convict Lee Harvey Oswald. You've shown loose connections -- and even a plethora of loose connections -- but still no smoking gun. I admit that the ranking of Tom Karamessines is important, however, and I put him on my To-Do list. To illustrate what I mean by circumstantial evidence, I want to return to your citation from Schotz and Salandria (History Will Not Absolve Us, 1996). IMHO, the mistake they make is the same as Joan Mellen's mistake in her book on Jim Garrison (Farewell to Justice, 2005), namely, they concluded that they saw CIA "foreknowledge" by using only fragmentary evidence. According to Joan Mellen, the quasi-CIA processing of grammar-school dropout, Thomas Edward Beckham at the request of Fred Crisman at an US military base was CIA foreknowledge of the JFK murder, and direct complicity, since she concluded that the CIA attempted to make a standby patsy out of young Beckham. Despite the wealth of historical facts that Mellen delivers, she was obviously reaching with her conclusion about CIA foreknowledge just because Beckham received special attention. In the same way, Schotz and Salandria claim that "federal officials in Washington were marrying the government to the cover-up of Oswald as the lone assassin virtually instantaneously," and this fact to them was proof of a federal foreknowledge of the JFK murder plot. IMHO this is too hasty -- there are other plausible explanations. I can easily suppose, for example, that these federal officials recognized almost immediately who the plotters were, and what they were trying to accomplish (i.e. invasion of Cuba and revenge on Fidel Castro), and so they quickly acted to foil that movement on a moment's notice. Schotz and Salandria conclude: "An innocent government could not have reacted in such a fashion internally.” They are mistaken; like Joan Mellen, they rush to judgment. Rather, it remains possible for an innocent government to react quickly IF AND ONLY IF THE REAL CRIMINALS WERE DETECTED INSTANTLY. If I'm correct, the question immediately arises -- "then why not just prosecute the criminals directly?" The response is the same as the response given by LBJ, Allen Dulles, Earl Warren and J. Edgar Hoover, namely: NATIONAL SECURITY. This was the Cold War. It's difficult for us today to appreciate the dualism in which Americans lived in 1963. Civil Rights marches in the streets were condemned as Communist plots by most citizens in the South, by many in the North, and by many Congressmen and Senators. America was divided. A sharp attack on the right-wing (which wanted to invade Cuba) in revenge for the JFK murder could have easily resulted in a Civil War. During the Cold War, a Civil War would have quickly turned into a new World War. So, I agree with LBJ, Dulles, Warren and Hoover -- NATIONAL SECURITY was a legitimate reason to cover-up the truth about the JFK murder. In this sense, Lee Harvey Oswald was not only the scape-goat of the JFK murder, but also the Savior of the World vis-à-vis World War III -- because Oswald took all the sins of the world on his shoulders. Schotz and Salandria don't see that logic -- and neither does Joan Mellen. Yet I think it should be recognized and answered plainly. The result of my logic is that high-placed ROGUES murdered JFK, and the US government foiled the second phase of the ROGUES' plot -- to murder Fidel Castro as well. This explanation fits all the evidence that I've seen so far. However, I'm always looking for the person highest up the Pentagon ladder, Steven. Up until today I thought that General Lansdale was the highest level ROGUE on our radar. I will now research Tom Karamessines, with special thanks to you. Best regards, --Paul Trejo <edit typos>

Thanks, Larry, for the clarification. Of course, the problem with following Harry's remarks from the earliest days is that it became almost impossible to distinguish Harry's orignal story from the version spread so widely by W.R. Morris. To illustrate this problem, our own sister site, the SPARTACUS Education site, still spreads the W.R. Morris revisions of Harry's original story about the JBS, Loran Hall, Edwin Walker and Larry Howard. To this very day! When wading through the bizarre fabrications of W.R. Morris (who was a professional fiction writer), no wonder we can encouter the "inscrutible." Furthermore, it's been a half-century, and commentors had continually confronted Harry Dean with the misconceptions they obtained from W.R. Morris,and this wore Harry down, decade after decade. One requires a lot of patience -- and a lot of background -- to interview Harry Dean. Harry's views about the Canadians does harmonize with those who suspect the British version of the Masons -- but of course that's void of evidence here. Also, Harry did most recently renounce his former suspicions of the LDS, and that was promising, IMHO. As for your works on Walker, Larry, I do appreciate them -- very much. I'm surprised that you consider him to be virtually untouchable by a JFK murder team -- because of his homosexuality -- when actually this did not prevent that same murder team from using such assets as Clay Shaw or David Ferrie (among others) in New Orleans. I will say this -- I've always learned a lot from your works. I strongly recommend your books, Someone Would Have Talked (2020) and Shadow Warfare (2014), because I've learned so much from them. Still, I haven't obtained any information from them that makes me discount a central role for Ex-General Edwin Walker in the plot to murder JFK. Now, Larry, you say that your book, The Awful Grace of God (2013) can possibly disclose "a real rifle team trained and willing to go after JFK," then of course I must obtain a copy as soon as possible. I realize that you haven't ignored the ultra-right in your research, Larry -- yet the fact that Edwin Walker was obsessed with Lee Harvey Oswald since April 1963 is information that is extremely new (and based on Walker's personal papers). Best regards, --Paul Trejo <BUMPED>

Well, Tommy, two or three months amounts to 60 or 90 "days". So there. --Paul Trejo

<BUMP>

Well, Tommy, my first response is that I'm nothing like a True Believer with regard to Harry Dean. One should recollect that before his connection with me, Harry Dean was still accusing the Mormon Church of complicity in the JFK murder. I convinced Harry to drop that speculative detour, and to focus entirely on his eye-witness account. It's not a matter of being a True Believer, but of objectively evaluating which eye-witnesses to believe and which to doubt. Nothing that anybody has written in the past fifty years has caused me to find any cracks in Harry Dean's eye-witness account. There have been plenty of insults -- but none with any staying power. Good evidence stands on its own merit. My second response, Tommy, is that the time and energy we spend on the JFK assassination is always based on our personal commitment and free will. If the evidence is good, accept it. If not, move on. There's a ton of other evidence out there -- and you know that as well as anybody. I'm pleased that despite the hostile attacks of Ernie Lazar against the claims of Harry Dean, that somebody as renowned as Larry Hancock will still watch this thread from time to time. Sincerely, --Paul Trejo