David Morales

[Thomas Graves]

Dark-complected and athletically-built (a football and track star in high school according to his buddy Ruben Carbajal) David Sanchez Morales is not visible in the Zapruder film to my knowledge.

I do believe, however, that Morales was monitoring Oswald's leafleting activity in New Orleans on August 9, 1963, and was "captured" on film by 14-year-old Jim Doyle during the arrest-of-Oswald-incident. I think Morales is the guy who walks into the scene from the left, scratching his neck (to sneakily point out Oswald to a confederate, to try to hide the fact that he has a camera's strap around his neck?), and watches Oswald walk past him at 3:55  at 3:56 in this Black Op Radio video:

 

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Interestingly, a Garrison investigator, Richard Billings, wrote about a coat-and-tie-wearing "Spanish (read: Hispanic-looking) Trace / Shepherd" whom Bringuier and his buddies noticed was monitoring and taking photos of Oswald that day. http://www.jfk-online.com/billings4.html

I'm presently trying to determine if the historical David Sanchez Morales had an inch-long scar on or above his left eyebrow like Garrison told Billings the photo-taking "Shepherd" had. Edit: Yes he did. See the 45-degree scar above Morales' left eyebrow in the photo below.

--Tommy

Edit: Upon further close "freeze frame" viewing of "Neck Scratcher" in the Jim Doyle color film clip (around 3:55), I've come to realize that "Neck Scratcher" has a thin, brown, shiny leather camera strap (barely-visible) around his neck. Just like David Sanchez Morales did in this 1966 photo! ------

Bear in mind that according to Richard Billings, Garrison was told by witnesses Carlos Bringuier and Miguel Cruz that the "Shepherd" or "Spanish Trace" was taking photos of Oswald on Canal Street that day.

Edited March 24, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Thomas Graves]

I was hoping Bill Simpich would notice the guy I'm talking about.  He looked at the clip a year or so ago, but was looking at the other guy in a suit who walks in front of the camera instead of "Neck Scratcher" who comes in a little later.

[Sandy Larsen]

Note how Morales's camera strap rests on top of his jacket collar.

While the right side of the strap can be seen in the Black Op Radio video Thomas posted above, the left part is difficult to make out because the sun reflects off of it.

I took a screenshot of one frame of the video and adjusted the brightness and contrast so the strap can be more easily seen. (I also sharpened the screenshot a bit.) Note that it is also resting on the top of his jacket collar.

 

 
There is no reason to believe that the top of his collar would appear darker than the rest of his collar, especially in bright sunlight. It's definitely a strap.

Note how the weight of the presumed camera pulls the strap down on his shirt collar, and this causes the top of the shirt collar to flare out. I don't think the weight of the jacket itself, spread out over the surface area of its collar, would do that. (The strap is basically putting a dent in the guy's neck flesh/fat.)

(Tommy, you should keep a copy of this photo if you like it.)

[Paul Brancato]

If David Morales is watching Oswald in New Orleans, what conclusions can we draw? My personal one is that when LHO established his fpcc branch in NO he did so as part of CIA and possibly also FBI operation to smear fpcc by linking it firmly to the Marxist Oswald. At this point in time I find it unlikely that anyone was sheepdipping Oswald in order to link the later JFK assassination to Castro. But I see David Phillips as part of both anti fpcc and the later assassination. 

[Thomas Graves]

2 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

If David Morales is watching Oswald in New Orleans, what conclusions can we draw? My personal one is that when LHO established his fpcc branch in NO he did so as part of CIA and possibly also FBI operation to smear fpcc by linking it firmly to the Marxist Oswald. At this point in time I find it unlikely that anyone was sheepdipping Oswald in order to link the later JFK assassination to Castro. But I see David Phillips as part of both anti fpcc and the later assassination. 

Paul,

Thanks for the feedback.

First of all, do you think that's Morales scratching his neck in the Jim Doyle film?

Or that that's impossible because they couldn't have been sheep-dipping Oswald at that point (August 9, 1963) ?  (lol)

--  Tommy

 

Edited March 23, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Paul Brancato]

Tommy - I meant to say that if it was Morales, and I really don't know if it is but wouldn't be surprised, it might have been as part of an attempt to smear FPCC and not (yet) as an attempt to sheep dip Oswald. I think we do know for sure that there was a covert action against FPCC, and that Phillips was part of it. So it's not impossible that it was Morales, and if it is Morales, it's not conclusive of sheep dipping. Morales clearly worked for Phillips, though I don't think exclusively. It's pretty well established that after the assassination Phillips tried to pin the crime on Castro, providing witnesses that were later debunked (only to be revived recently by Philip Shenon). Heck, I don't know what Morales was up to. As you no doubt recall, I started a thread about Morales being seen in Ruby's club. I think he is a prime suspect, within the chain of command (not, as Trejo believes, as a rogue). Now, his presence in the carousel club would be more suggestive of involvement in the assassination and of sheep dipping LHO.

[Thomas Graves]

20 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Tommy - I meant to say that if it was Morales, and I really don't know if it is but wouldn't be surprised, it might have been as part of an attempt to smear FPCC and not (yet) as an attempt to sheep dip Oswald. I think we do know for sure that there was a covert action against FPCC, and that Phillips was part of it. So it's not impossible that it was Morales, and if it is Morales, it's not conclusive of sheep dipping. Morales clearly worked for Phillips, though I don't think exclusively. It's pretty well established that after the assassination Phillips tried to pin the crime on Castro, providing witnesses that were later debunked (only to be revived recently by Philip Shenon). Heck, I don't know what Morales was up to. As you no doubt recall, I started a thread about Morales being seen in Ruby's club. I think he is a prime suspect, within the chain of command (not, as Trejo believes, as a rogue). Now, his presence in the carousel club would be more suggestive of involvement in the assassination and of sheep dipping LHO.

Paul,

Excellent points, all.  And I've only read your first sentence so far!

(lol)

--  Tommy

PS  What makes you think that Morales was working within the chain of command?  Because he might have been monitoring / guiding Oswald in the anti-FPCC op?

 

 

Edited March 23, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Paul Brancato]

Why would anyone (Trejo) think that Morales was rogue? 

[Michael Walton]

"Sneakily..."

I don't think the neck scratcher is Morales.  He's holding a package in his left hand.  Look at the 4:00 mark and you can see the exact same guy at 3:55.  The 4:00 version is balding at the top of his head and he looks gangly.  Gangly 3:55 and 4:00 guy is one and the same and it can't be Morales.  Morales looks much stockier and older photos show him with a thick wad of hair, unlike gangly guy.

Plus, Banister, Morales, and so on were pros.  Do you really think they'd be lurking around taking a chance on having themselves filmed or photographed while Ruskie Oswald was stirring up the XXXX and making hay to have himself identified as the "crazy Commie" in Dallas months later?

[Thomas Graves]

1 hour ago, Michael Walton said:

"Sneakily..."

I don't think the neck scratcher is Morales.  He's holding a package in his left hand.  Look at the 4:00 mark and you can see the exact same guy at 3:55.  The 4:00 version is balding at the top of his head and he looks gangly.  Gangly 3:55 and 4:00 guy is one and the same and it can't be Morales.  Morales looks much stockier and older photos show him with a thick wad of hair, unlike gangly guy.

Plus, Banister, Morales, and so on were pros.  Do you really think they'd be lurking around taking a chance on having themselves filmed or photographed while Ruskie Oswald was stirring up the XXXX and making hay to have himself identified as the "crazy Commie" in Dallas months later?

Dear Michael,

You've made the same mistake that Bill Simpich did (so at least you're in good company!) --  you're looking at the wrong guy at 4:00.  It's true that the guy with the bald spot and white package at 4:00 can also be seen at 3:55, but he isn't the "Neck Scratcher" who quickly comes in from the left at 3:55.  The guy with the bald spot and the now-invisible white package is standing directly in front of "Neck Scratcher's" raised right elbow, and to the left of the guy wearing the light-colored hat and the white, short-sleeve shirt at 3:55.

In other words, the photographer, Jim Doyle, changes his own position between 3:55 and 4:00.

--  Tommy

Edited March 24, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Thomas Graves]

On 3/23/2017 at 8:18 AM, Paul Brancato said:

If David Morales is watching Oswald in New Orleans, what conclusions can we draw? My personal one is that when LHO established his fpcc branch in NO he did so as part of CIA and possibly also FBI operation to smear fpcc by linking it firmly to the Marxist Oswald. At this point in time I find it unlikely that anyone was sheepdipping Oswald in order to link the later JFK assassination to Castro. But I see David Phillips as part of both anti fpcc and the later assassination. 

Bill Simpich believes that FBI agent John Tilton and CIA's Lambert Anderson incorporated Oswald into their joint FBI-CIA anti-FPCC project immediately after Anderson was tipped off by Hosty's memo on September, 1963 (the first one he'd sent in quite a while), which said Oswald had subscribed to The Worker in Dallas and had distributed FPCC literature in New Orleans.  Said memo also made it's way to CIA, where it first went to Jane Roman.

Simpich writes,

"The Hosty memo was received by the CIA’s Jane Roman on the 23rd. As the liaison to CIA counterintelligence, it was Roman’s job to pass it on to the person who needed to know about it. She gave it to [Bill] Harvey’s man CI/OPS Will Potocki  on the 25th, the very day that Oswald left for Mexico City. Potocki in turn passed it on to Cal Tenney at the CI/International Communism desk – unfortunately, it’s not dated, so we don’t know when Tenney actually received it.  John Newman suggests that the Tilton/Anderson anti-FPCC operation was “CI/OPS-inspired”. [ 6 ] Whether or not Potocki was working with Tilton is not the end of it for me. I think that someone got wind of the anti-FPCC operation and piggy-backed a new operation on top of it that included the impersonation of Oswald. The piggy-backers could have obtained access to the Oswald information from Potocki, Roman, Egerter, Anderson, or anyone else who could provide access to the file, or knew about the plans to fabricate documents to make the FPCC lose credibility. This kind of deception was known as a counter-intelligence program or “COINTELPRO”. Richard Cotter at the FBI, a Cuban specialist, knew about the Tilton/Anderson operation.[ 7 ] Cotter said that they had successfully run a COINTELPRO operation against the FPCC in the past. The Hosty memo did not go into Oswald’s 201 file. Instead, it went into file 100-300-011, the CIA’s FPCC file. As the custodian of the 201 file, Egerter probably removed it based on her own volition or the request of her bosses Angleton and CI-SIG chief Birch O’Neal. But, in any case, Potocki had access to it."  

 

Note: Interestingly, Will Potocki had worked with Bill Bright in CIA's Soviet Russia Division in 1960, and shows up working at CIA Mexico City during the period of time that the real Oswald was (or was not) there.

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/State_Secret_Chapter5.html

--  Tommy

 

Edited April 9, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Michael Walton]

I don't think so, Tom.  Look here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7Hr9Lrku-CxSG0zZkMwUVJZUk0/view?usp=sharing

Gangly guy is holding that slim clothing box in both photos.  Look, too, at the one on the left - he has glasses on.  Sunglasses? Maybe.

But look at the BW of Morales.  There's no way anyone would convince me that gangly guy is Morales, who was short and stocky. And his head has a full wad of hair unlike Gangly, who has thin greased back hair.

The smart ones like DM and GB worked behind the scenes.  Remember how GB scolded LHO when he discovered that LHO was writing the Camp Street address on the cards he was handing out?

Edited March 24, 2017 by Michael Walton

[Thomas Graves]

3 minutes ago, Michael Walton said:

I don't think so, Tom.  Look here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7Hr9Lrku-CxSG0zZkMwUVJZUk0/view?usp=sharing

Gangly guy is holding that slim clothing box in both photos.  Look, too, at the one on the left - he has glasses on.  Sunglasses? Maybe.

But look at the BW of Morales.  There's no way anyone would convince me that gangly guy is Morales, who was short and stocky. And his head has a full wad of hair unlike Gangly, who has thin greased back hair.

Dear Michael,

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

My bad, I'm sure.

(lol)

--  Tommy

In other words, you simply don't understand what I'm saying.

The photographer stopped filming for a few seconds and changed his own position between 3:55 and 4:00, and that's throwing you off on keeping "Gangly Guy" (with the white package and the bald spot) and the other guy ... "Neck Scratcher"  ...  straight in your mind.

Edited March 24, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Michael Walton]

Can you post a freeze frame with an arrow? It'd help to see what you're seeing because things go by quickly in the clip.

[James DiEugenio]

This is why I have sworn off these kinds of comparisons.  They go nowhere.  IMO, this comparison is even worse than the Ambassador Hotel one.

These are, at best, parlor games.  

IMO, parlor games are for parlors.