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Florence Pritchett: The Forgotten Witness


John Simkin

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Forget about Audie Murphy. I've seen his appearance on What's My Line. He and Dorothy don't say anything to each other indicating friendship. He had nothing to do with CIA surveillance of Warren Report critics. He was old news by 1964 in United States. His death in 1971 marked the first time he had been newsworthy in 15 years. If you Britons stayed close with him, then I hope you found him entertaining.

I think there's a lot more to the story than that.

Dorothy covered Audie more than once in gossip type articles in the Washington post on Murphy back in 1954 - one called 'Audie goes a-patchin.' I don't know what occurred on the episode of What's My Line, but if Dorothy didn't figure out who he was - well, that's like 'Quiz Show.'

If there's anything to be said for the book published by Gary Weans, Audie Murphy came into possession of some very significant top secret documents, by way of John Tower, concerning the assassination, in 1964. See Chapter 44 of 'There's a fish in the courthouse.'

Murphy's involvement in trying to spring Jimmy Hoffa is also worth noting, in that friends said he was looking to tap into the Teamster's pension fund [to save his failing businesses] - in the same way Trafficante and others had.

Murphy died in a plane crash which could be deemed suspicious. Wean certainly thought so.

Murphy travelled frequently to Ventura County, was friends with Bill Decker, had some honorary title with the Ventura Police department, and frequented Oxnard - the location of the phone call warning of the impending assassination of JFK, 20 minutes beforehand.

Murphy was on Mae Brussel's 'Mysterious Deaths' list.

Bizarre factoid - Murphy gave the foreward to the film 'War is hell' - which was showing 11/22/63 at the Dallas Theatre, built by Howard Hughes, where Oswald sought to find his contact that fateful afternoon.

Murphy was 'in the music business.'

All that remains is one clue that Murphy may have turned over a mysterious package to Dorothy Kilgallen, and you'd have more than enough motive to exterminate her and anyone even vaguely connected to her.

I keep expecting to find an Audie Murphy / Howard Hughes connection, but haven't yet beyond the fact that Hughes stole Murphy's gal back in 1946.

Hughes meets starlet Jean Peters at a party in Newport Beach, California. He invites the 19-year-old and her date, war hero/actor Audie Murphy, to fly with him to Catalina Island aboard his private plane. According to some accounts, Hughes and Peters immediately embark on an unpublicised romance and are rumoured to have become engaged before splitting in the mid-1950s. There are also persistent rumours that Hughes and Peters had an illegitimate child in 1954.

Maybe Lee Israel knows something about an Audie Murphy / Dorothy Kilgallen connection?

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If there's anything to be said for the book published by Gary Weans, Audie Murphy came into possession of some very significant top secret documents, by way of John Tower, concerning the assassination, in 1964.  See Chapter 44 of 'There's a fish in the courthouse.'

I have recently become interested in exploring the links between the deaths of John Heinz, John Tower and the assassination of JFK. Here is an interesting passage from an article written by Victor Thorn, George Bush & John Kerry: Blood Brothers, World Independent News Group (2004).

http://69.28.73.17/thornarticles/bloodbrothers.html

According to researcher Rodney Stich in Defrauding America, when George Bush Sr. and CIA Director William Casey engineered the October Surprise to bribe Iranian officials into retaining U.S. hostages until after the 1980 elections, two of the passengers on Bush’s BAC 111 flight to Paris were Senator John Heinz, along with Senator John Tower from Texas.

Even more intriguing is the fact that John Heinz chaired a three-man presidential review board that probed the Iran-Contra affair and had in his possession all the damning documents from that sordid affair, while John Tower led the infamous Tower Commission that investigated a variety of different CIA criminal activities and dirty dealings. Coincidentally, both John Heinz and John Tower died in plane wrecks on successive days in 1991 – Tower in Georgia, and Heinz in Montgomery County, Pa. Once again I must ask: what are the odds of such an occurrence, especially when both men had close ties to George Bush Sr., who was a former CIA director in the mid-1970s? Did both of these men uncover information that they refused to keep silent about any longer?

Before you answer, consider that after Senator John Heinz died, his wife married Senator John Kerry, who was chairman of the 1988 Kerry Commission, described in the Senate Committee Report on Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy as “focusing on allegations of illegal gun-running and narcotics trafficking associated with the Contra war against Nicaragua” in relation to the CIA, Department of Justice, the U.S. State Department, and the office of the President and Vice President. The testimony that took place during these trials (both in open and closed door sessions) was quite possibly the most damning ever against our federal government, yet mysteriously, nearly all of it was suppressed and not widely reported in the mainstream media. Why? Senator Kerry as a Democrat, had every opportunity to blast a Republican administration out of the water, yet he inexplicably remained silent and the status quo prevailed. Could it be that someone tapped him on the shoulder and told him that if he played his cards right and kept these sordid matters hush-hush, he would be rewarded sometime in the future?

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Before you answer, consider that after Senator John Heinz died, his wife married Senator John Kerry, who was chairman of the 1988 Kerry Commission, described in the Senate Committee Report on Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy as “focusing on allegations of illegal gun-running and narcotics trafficking associated with the Contra war against Nicaragua” in relation to the CIA, Department of Justice, the U.S. State Department, and the office of the President and Vice President. The testimony that took place during these trials (both in open and closed door sessions) was quite possibly the most damning ever against our federal government, yet mysteriously, nearly all of it was suppressed and not widely reported in the mainstream media. Why? Senator Kerry as a Democrat, had every opportunity to blast a Republican administration out of the water, yet he inexplicably remained silent and the status quo prevailed. Could it be that someone tapped him on the shoulder and told him that if he played his cards right and kept these sordid matters hush-hush, he would be rewarded sometime in the future?

While the scenario described above is certainly possible, one need not imagine so many angles on what could quite possibly be a square.

The reality is that no one who exposes America's dark secrets has a chance in hell of reaching higher office, and Kerry knew that. In Felix Rodriguez's book, he acknowledges that while Kerry put him through hell during the Kerry committee's investigation, he publicly apologized to him when no smoking gun was found connecting Rodriguez (and Bush) to the drug shipments.

In the 70's Senator Church and Congressman Pike tried to use their investigations into the intelligence community as stepping stones to higher office and both fell flat on their face, essentially committing public suicide. There is a faction in America that considers anyone above board a threat to National Security. There is also the sense in the American media that anyone who criticizes this country's institutions is "asking for it," whereby their personal lives are uncovered and they are discredited. It's how the game is played.

If Kerry had pushed his investigation on the media, there would have been a "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," long ago. In Clinton's memoirs, he describes a visit to him by someone representing George HW Bush warning him that if he ran in 92 his various affairs would be splayed all over the media. Political hardball, right? Well, what's creepy about this is that this man visited Clinton before he'd even decided to run. Clinton says he was leaning against it, in fact, but that this visit convinced him he needed to try and get this country out of the hands of such men.

It's great that Bush and Clinton have made nice now and are traveling the world together. Clinton knows where the money is. No one has turned being an ex-President into more of a gold mine than George HW Bush.

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As to Pritchett: I spent years on the Dorothy Kilgallen book, spoke with what I assumed were her closest friends, and never once did the name FP come up.  They doubtless ran in  the same circles and could have appeared together in the Stone Age when radio and TV featured bright New Yorky women giving their arch opinions on everything. That's the only connection I am aware of. And why would DK entrust her secrets - probably Cuba related - to the wife of the ambassador?

The point I was making is that Florence was the source of some of Dorothy’s stories on Cuba. I suspect that these came from her husband, Earl Smith, who at the time was US Ambassador to Cuba.

I suspect that Florence was also the source for some of Dorothy’s stories on JFK. After all Florence had been having an affair with JFK since 1944 (a time when both women were working on the New York Journal American).

I have a few questions for you. (1) Why did you refuse to identify "Out-of-Towner" in your book? (2) Was Ron Pataky the "Out-of-Towner"? (3) Did Dorothy suspect that Pataky was working for the CIA? I say that because of her reference to Clare Booth Luce. (4) Was Pataky involved in killing Dorothy?

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I would like to share some personal knowledge of Florence Pritchett.  I have met her son, who is an underwriter for John Hancock Life Insurance.  I'm starting a new topic because he says his mother's story is a dead end for Oswald researchers.  I'd like to redirect people's attention to Dorothy Kilgallen.  Nobody in her family has said that she is a dead end, and in fact one relative worked with Lee Israel on her research.

Earl Smith III, who works in the well - known John Hancock skyscraper in downtown Boston, was 12 when his mother died.  He has no siblings, and he spent those 12 years in a Manhattan apartment with his parents.  So while he is the only surviving relative, in his childhood he was in a position to know what was going on.

Florence did not end up in a coma as Ms. Israel related in her post (to be fair she said she had read it online), but Florence was bedridden with leukemia for the last two months.  She died at home.  Nobody had invented the hospice in 1965.

Here are Earl's very words:  "My poor mother died of cancer."  His verbiage didn't become more emotional than that, but can you imagine what it's like to lose a mother when you're a 12 - year - old only child ?

Moreover, Earl insists that Dorothy Kilgallen never entrusted the dying Florence Pritchett with any documents.  In addition, Florence was not a hard news reporter.  Her only contribution to Kilgallen's newspaper (the Journal American) was a kitchen recipe in the Sunday edition.  Titled "The Mood And The Food," her column provided the recipe and some local color about the fancy party or restaurant where she had obtained it.  In her final column the theme was picnic lunches.  She participated in a picnic at Richard Avedon's photography studio.

Mr. Simkin has assumed that Pritchett was Kilgallen's source on column items about Fidel Castro and Cuba, but we'll never know that.  Earl says it's possible Florence fed her things in 1959, but he has no way of knowing.  Florence absolutely did not know any secrets about Castro, Cuba or anything else during the last two months of her life.

Earl Smith II (father of the insurance underwriter) and his wife Florence did know the Kennedys, but all we know is that they socialized formally.  The Smiths visited the White House, and both couples hobnobbed in Palm Beach.

A photograph posted by Mr. Simkin proves that the young senator Jack Kennedy knew Florence either before or during her first marriage (Earl was number # 2), but Fidel Castro was a kid then.

One final note to Lee Israel.  In your recent post you state correctly that Penn Jones originated the entire saga of "Mrs. Earl T. Smith" and her connection to the assassination.  Older Dallas - area residents know that Penn made many errors in his 1960s Midlothian Mirror articles and that he suffered from Alzheimers during the last 15 years of his life.  The 1991 Life magazine pictorial about Oliver Stone's revival of JFK ran a huge color photograph of Penn standing in front his a shack where he lived without a telephone.  He lived there with Elaine Kavanaugh Jones, a researcher he married in the 1970s.  She stood by him until he died.  Neither admitted that the old Midlothian Mirror articles were sloppy and erroneous. 

More than three years after Mr. Jones introduced "Mrs. Earl T. Smith" to researchers, he said in the Mirror that Bobby Baker's secretary Carole Tyler once shared an apartment with Mary Jo Kopechne, therefore both of them were murdered.

If Penn Jones was so cut off from New York City news in 1965, how did he even know who Florence Pritchett Smith was or that she worked for Kilgallen's newspaper ?  He could have gotten it from Time and Newsweek.  Each gave her one paragraph in columns titled respectively "Milestones" and "Transitions."  They said she worked for the New York Journal American.

Penn Jones probably knew who Dorothy Kilgallen was when she was alive, but he could not have been familiar with "Mrs. Earl T. Smith" concurrently.  Earl Smith III really would like it if people stopped fantasizing that his mother held dangerous secrets at the time of her "homicide."  As for Kilgallen's family, they never reply to letters about Dorothy.  Son Kerry made an exception shortly after he opened his "Martial Hearts" business in 1991.  He told a phone inquirer that after the Israel book was published he decided to move on with his life and to stop speculating about his mother's career.  He wants to remember her as a mother.

There are several issues raised by the posting about Earl Smith III views of his mother.

(1) “Her only contribution to Kilgallen's newspaper (the Journal American) was a kitchen recipe in the Sunday edition.”

In fact, on 9th November, 1965, the New York Journal American reported: “Mrs. Earl E.T. Smith, wife of the former U.S. Ambassador to Cuba and columnist of The Journal-American, died today in her apartment at 1120 5th Ave. She was 45.” In fact, Florence had been fashion editor of the newspaper during the Second World War.

(2) “Earl insists that Dorothy Kilgallen never entrusted the dying Florence Pritchett with any documents.”

As Earl was only 12 years old at the time it is difficult to know how he can be so sure about this.

(3) “Mr. Simkin has assumed that Pritchett was Kilgallen's source on column items about Fidel Castro and Cuba, but we'll never know that. Earl says it's possible Florence fed her things in 1959, but he has no way of knowing. Florence absolutely did not know any secrets about Castro, Cuba or anything else during the last two months of her life.”

Earl admits that it was possible that Florence might have given information on Castro to Dorothy. He then adds “Florence absolutely did not know any secrets about Castro, Cuba or anything else during the last two months of her life.” How can he be so unsure about 1959 but so positive about 1965.

(4) "Earl Smith II and his wife Florence did know the Kennedys, but all we know is that they socialized formally. The Smiths visited the White House, and both couples hobnobbed in Palm Beach."

Of course they were much more than friends. JFK met Florence in 1944. The couple spent a lot of time together. Betty Spalding said that for Kennedy, "Over a long period of time, it was probably the closest relationship with a woman I know of." However, because Kennedy was a Roman Catholic, marriage was out of the question."

According to several books, JFK had a sexual relationship with Florence for 19 years that was only brought to an end in 1963. See for example:

Ralph G. Martin, A Hero for Our Time: An Intimate Story of the Kennedy Years (1993)

David C. Heymann, A Woman Named Jackie (1989)

Blair, Joan, and Blair, Clay Jr, The Search for J.F.K. (1977)

Nellie Bly, The Kennedy Men: Three Generations of Sex, Scandal and Secrets (1996)

Nigel, Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth (1992)

Stephen Birmingham, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (1969)

(5) “In your recent post you state correctly that Penn Jones originated the entire saga of "Mrs. Earl T. Smith" and her connection to the assassination. Older Dallas - area residents know that Penn made many errors in his 1960s Midlothian Mirror articles and that he suffered from Alzheimers during the last 15 years of his life.”

It is the first I have heard the news that Penn Jones was suffering from Alzheimers during the time he was writing about the JFK assassination. This sounds like a typical CIA disinformation campaign. I would be interested in how you know this.

It is indeed true that Penn Jones was the first person to link the deaths of Dorothy Killgallen. He wrote in Volume II: Forgive My Grief (1967:

“Shortly before her death, Miss Kilgallen told a friend in New York that she was going to New Orleans in 5 days and break the case wide open. Miss Kilgallen 52, died November 8, 1965, under questionable circumstances in her New York home. Eight days after her death, a ruling was made that she died of barbiturates and drink with no quantities of either ingredient being given.

Also strangely, Miss Kilgallen’s close friend, Mrs. Earl E.T. Smith, died two days after Miss Kilgallen. Mrs. Smith’s autopsy read that the cause of death was unknown.

Many skeptical newsmen have asked: “If Miss Kilgallen knew anything, surely as a journalist wouldn’t she have left some notes?” This is a legitimate question. Possibly Mrs. Smith was the trusted friend with the notes. No one will ever know now.”

What is interesting about this is that Penn Jones did not appear to know who Mrs Earl Smith was. If he did, he did not write about it. I am sure he would have been fascinated to know that she was Florence Pritchett, the woman who had been having an affair with JFK for 19 years. Nor did he know that she was married to the ambassador of Cuba (1957-59) who had been involved in the plots to overthrow Fidel Castro.

As far as I am aware, the true identity of Dorothy Kilgallen’s friend "Mrs Earl Smith" was not discovered until an exchange of postings by James Richards, John Johnson and myself on the JFK Research Forum in July 2004.

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The rumours favored the U.S. government as the interested party.  Ron Pataky had no ties to organized crime, but he did graduate from one of the schools for assassins that later became the U.S. Army School of the Americas.  During the year and four months that he was close with Kilgallen he worked as a movie reviewer for a daily newspaper called the Columbus (Ohio) Citizen Journal.  It no longer exists.

Dawnlight Music was incorporated in New York on February 23, 1965 with the following shareholders:  Pataky, Kilgallen, American singer Jerry Vale and Vale's manager Dee Anthony, who later became famous managing Peter Frampton and Joe Cocker.  The purpose of Dawnlight was to promote Pataky's original songs.  They were in the "cocktail" musical genre of Sinatra and Vale, NOT rock & roll.

A short time after Dawnlight was incorporated, the Citizen Journal ran two strange film reviews by Pataky that contained non - sequiturs about American patriotism.  Both appeared in April of 1965 when Kilgallen was hospitalized for a broken shoulder.  She had a little more than six months left to live. 

Pataky's laudatory review of The Sound Of Music had a non sequitur at the end.  He said in effect that Julie Andrews was the most wonderful woman in his life.  "Next to Betsy Ross of course" are his very words. 

Shirley MacLaine was the star of the other film that reminded Pataky of his patriotism:  "John Goldfarb Please Come Home."  Pataky wrote that officials of Notre Dame in Indiana had complained about the silly way their football team was portrayed in the film.  Pataky wrote that they were remiss for saying nothing about the silly way that U.S. intelligence agencies were depicted in the film.  His very words:  "Alma mater, si ?  United States, no ?"

The microfilm copies of Pataky's reportage in the Citizen Journal are available at several libraries in Columbus, Ohio and at Ohio University in the small isolated Ohio town of Athens (far away from Columbus and close to West Virginia).  The microfilm collection at Ohio University evidently never got the attention of Dr. Eric Paddon when he taught history there in the 1990s.  He authored the segment of Dr. John McAdams' web site that tries to debunk the Kilgallen - JFK theory.  He doesn't refer to Pataky at all in it.

Are you saying that Lee Israel’s "Out-of-Towner" is Ron Pataky? This is what David B. Henschel claimed in 1993. As far as I know Lee Israel has always refused to confirm that it was Pataky? She has always ignored my email questions about this. Nor has she been willing to answer this point on the forum. It has always puzzled me why Israel did not name “Out-of-Towner” in her book? It is not as if she accused him of murdering Dorothy Kilgallen.

Do you have your own evidence that "Out-of-Towner" is Ron Pataky? Or are you relying on the research carried out by Henschel?

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The rumours favored the U.S. government as the interested party.  Ron Pataky had no ties to organized crime, but he did graduate from one of the schools for assassins that later became the U.S. Army School of the Americas.  During the year and four months that he was close with Kilgallen he worked as a movie reviewer for a daily newspaper called the Columbus (Ohio) Citizen Journal.  It no longer exists.

Dawnlight Music was incorporated in New York on February 23, 1965 with the following shareholders:  Pataky, Kilgallen, American singer Jerry Vale and Vale's manager Dee Anthony, who later became famous managing Peter Frampton and Joe Cocker.   The purpose of Dawnlight was to promote Pataky's original songs.   They were in the "cocktail" musical genre of Sinatra and Vale, NOT rock & roll.

A short time after Dawnlight was incorporated, the Citizen Journal ran two strange film reviews by Pataky that contained non - sequiturs about American patriotism.   Both appeared in April of 1965 when Kilgallen was hospitalized for a broken shoulder.  She had a little more than six months left to live. 

Pataky's laudatory review of The Sound Of Music had a non sequitur at the end.   He said in effect that Julie Andrews was the most wonderful woman in his life.  "Next to Betsy Ross of course" are his very words. 

Shirley MacLaine was the star of the other film that reminded Pataky of his patriotism:  "John Goldfarb Please Come Home."   Pataky wrote that officials of Notre Dame in Indiana had complained about the silly way their football team was portrayed in the film.  Pataky wrote that they were remiss for saying nothing about the silly way that U.S. intelligence agencies were depicted in the film.  His very words:  "Alma mater, si ?  United States, no ?"

The microfilm copies of Pataky's reportage in the Citizen Journal are available at several libraries in Columbus, Ohio and at Ohio University in the small isolated Ohio town of Athens (far away from Columbus and close to West Virginia).  The microfilm collection at Ohio University evidently never got the attention of Dr. Eric Paddon when he taught history there in the 1990s.   He authored the segment of Dr. John McAdams' web site that tries to debunk the Kilgallen - JFK theory.  He doesn't refer to Pataky at all in it.

Are you saying that Lee Israel’s "Out-of-Towner" is Ron Pataky? This is what David B. Henschel claimed in 1993. As far as I know Lee Israel has always refused to confirm that it was Pataky? She has always ignored my email questions about this. Nor has she been willing to answer this point on the forum.

Maybe because she tried to get people to leave Florence Pritchett alone, and they won't. She clarified for you, Mr. Simkin, why the name "Pritchett" doesn't appear in her book. She said in her message here that she interviewed people who knew Kilgallen at the end of her life, and none of them uttered the name "Florence Pritchett" or "Mrs. Smith." If the regulars here twist stuff about Pritchett, maybe Ms. Israel fears you'll do that with Ron Pataky. And he's still alive.

It has always puzzled me why Israel did not name “Out-of-Towner” in her book? It is not as if she accused him of murdering Dorothy Kilgallen.

But he comes across as suspicious, and lawyers for Ms. Israel's publisher removed his name for that reason. She includes in the "epilogue" the Out - of - Towner's 1976 taped interview in which he claims Kilgallen was in her house talking on the phone long - distance with him immediately before she died.

That contradicts the claims of three people -- Harvey Daniels, Bob Bach and Mike Hall AKA Mitch -- that Kilgallen went from the television studio for What's My Line? (West 54th and Broadway) to P. J. Clarke's (Third Avenue and East 50th Street) to the Regency Hotel (Park Avenue between 61st and 62nd). Her house was on East 68th between Madison and Park. Ms. Israel could not find a driver for Carey Cadillac -- the limo company Kilgallen always used -- to verify that Kilgallen was alive when she voluntarily entered her house.

The three sources cited by Ms. Israel agreed that the only reason Kilgallen would go to the Regency was for a romantic rendezvous or a private conversation with a close friend. The Regency did not have one of those trendy nightclubs in 1965. It had a lounge where a celebrity would go for privacy -- not to show off or be seen. Kilgallen knew the chances of finding an actor showing off there were slim to none. Remember, in that era actors wanted their names in her column.

Then you have something that's not in the Israel book. One of the What's My Line contestants that night was a Kentucky woman who saw Kilgallen with a man at a banquette table in the Regency Hotel lounge. A cocktail party was going on in the lounge. That's why the Kentucky woman was there. Kilgallen and her male companion paid no attention to the cocktail party. They were not affectionate or romantic, either. "They were talking serious business of some kind," said the tourist from Kentucky in 1999.

Do you have your own evidence that "Out-of-Towner" is Ron Pataky? Or are you relying on the research carried out by Henschel?

The word "research" overstates the simple proof that Pataky is the man. You're in the U.K., right ? Let's see how accurate Kilgallen was reporting her own experiences there. Did Heathrow Airport used to be called London Airport ? Was the 20th Century Fox movie "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines" filmed at an old airfield ? (Maybe Richard Branson later replaced it with something else.)

At any rate, consult the passages in the Israel book about that 1964 European press junket for which 20th Century Fox flew more than 100 journalists to the location shooting of three films. Pay attention to the part about Kilgallen and the Out - of - Towner walking on Waterloo Bridge at dawn.

What Ms. Israel does not say is that Kilgallen devoted a few of her columns - each in its entirety -- to the junket. In the last installment she wrote that Ron Pataky, a newspaper critic from Columbus, Ohio, shared a taxi ride with her from "London Airport" -- Gatwick was nothing then, right ? -- to the Savoy Hotel. That's a long ride. Pataky said to the cab driver, "I haven't any pounds with me. Will you take American money?"

The cab driver replied, "Hop in, governor. It's the best money in the world."

New Yorkers can find this on microfilm in the Journal American from Sunday, June 14, 1964. Are you in Maryland, the District of Columbia or Virginia ? If you are, read it in the Washington Post from Wednesday, June 17. The Cincinnati Enquirer printed the Kilgallen / Pataky encounter on Thursday, June 18. Want more opportunities ? As I said, the word "research" is an overstatement. Anyone can find the proof on microfilm at a number of American libraries.

Could the London Evening Standard have printed a photograph or two of the 100 plus journalists at the location shoot of "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines ?" Terry - Thomas was in it, and he was hot stuff in 1964. Maybe Kilgallen stands next to Pataky in one image.

The Evening Standard wasn't the only London paper in 1964 likely to print large photographs of movie shoots, right ? Maybe rolls of microfilm in London could be of interest. The newspapers would have identified Kilgallen in the captions but not Pataky. Nonetheless American libraries do have her column with the proof that the colleague Kilgallen met on the press junket "from a small, out - of - town newspaper" (Israel's words) was the same man who shared a taxi ride with her paid with his American currency.

If nothing else, I hope to persuade people to leave Florence Pritchett alone. She lay bedridden with leukemia for months, and a 12 - year - old is old enough to know that. Have some compassion. :rolleyes:

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  • 3 months later...
David. Thank you for this very interesting post. (John Simkin)

Let's clear up some myths about Dorothy Kilgallen. First, her cameo appearance in a "beach party movie" in 1964 had nothing to do with her digging into the Oswald mystery. The name "Mike Shore" is NOT in the credits of that film. The screenwriter, Louis "Deke" Heyward, told me he gave Kilgallen the part because several years earlier they had had a friendly telephone conversation about a skit he wrote for one of Ernie Kovacs' TV shows broadcast live from New York. The skit made fun of Dorothy and her husband Dick. Dorothy enjoyed it. (David Yarnell)

I did not include this information in the seminar. However, it is good you have cleared this point up. It was suggested that Mike Shore might have been the person who sent the message to Jack Ruby via Dorothy. Do you know if that is the case? (John Simkin)

Mike Shore wasn't the one.  The person whose message Kilgallen relayed to Jack Ruby was a female opera singer based in San Francisco in 1963.  Joe Tonahill says this in the videotaped interview that anyone in the vicinity of Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas can watch. Tonahill says he never knew the woman's name.  Most likely she's dead now. (David Yarnell)

Next, Mr. Simkin has attributed statements to Kilgallen's hairdresser Marc Sinclaire without contacting him. If he got the statements from Lee Israel's book, then he is remiss. Look carefully and you'll see that Mr. Sinclaire refused to cooperate with Ms. Israel. Look online and you'll find Mr. Sinclaire's address listed in Tampa, Florida. (David Yarnell)

I did get this information from Lee Israel’s book. This was pointed out by the use of footnote 32:  Lee Israel, Kilgallen (1979) page 404-05. This was one of the reasons that I have asked contributors to use footnotes.

You say that Sinclaire refused to cooperate with Israel. Is that relevant? Does it now deny he made that statement? (John Simkin)

Not only does he not deny it, but he has lots of other memories that people could learn if they just would look beyond Lee Israel's book.  If you're confined to the U.K., then I understand.  But this group covers the United States. (David Yarnell)

Mr. Sinclaire will tell you of the visit that his boss Dorothy made to New Orleans approximately three weeks before she died. (David Yarnell)

Lee Israel mentions in her book that Dorothy had found a key witness in New Orleans. Do you know who it was? (John Simkin)

No. We'll never know.  Too many people have died. (David Yarnell)

Columbus, Ohio, longtime home of Ron Pataky "the Out of Towner" John Simkin was right when he said Pataky was a newspaper critic trying to become a songwriter. Johnny Mathis did indeed record the Pataky composition "While Stephanie Sleeps," but it never appeared on an album. (David Yarnell)

Thank you for that information. Pataky does not say on his online CV the name of the song. (John Simkin)

The reason he doesn't could be benign.  Record company executives and producers who issued Johnny Mathis albums in 1964 evidently thought "While Stephanie Sleeps" was inferior.  Pataky still has his reel to reel audiotape of Mathis singing it.  Almost certainly Mathis himself has forgotten it. (David Yarnell)

I have emailed him about this but he has not replied. I have told him about my web page on him (it is ranked first with most search-engines). When this happens, the person is usually willing to talk about the contents of the page. Pataky has not done this. I therefore assume that my information on him is correct (I will update my page on the song title). (John Simkin)

Madisonville, Kentucky ? Longtime home of Katherine Stone Stevens. In 1965 Ms. Stevens sold dynamite to coal mines and quarries in Kentucky. She was in New York City the night Kilgallen died to appear as a What's My Line contestant. Kilgallen determined what her line was. After everyone left the studio, Ms. Stevens saw Kilgallen very absorbed in conversation with Pataky at the Regenc Hotel. They were NOT drunk. They were discussing "very serious business" in the words of Ms. Stevens. (David Yarnell)

This seems like a very good witness. Have you interviewed her? (John Simkin)

Yes.  The videotape is in the Super VHS format.  It lasts two hours. (David Yarnell)

Anyone near Scottsdale, Arizona ? That's home to ex - cop John Doyle since 1980. Prior to that he operated a tavern / restaurant called Doyle's Terrace near LaGrangeville, New York. Lee Israel devotes two pages to him in the "epilogue" of her book. Lee told me by telephone that Doyle probably was dishonest during their 1977 interview. Consider that he claimed Kilgallen "was not long for this world, the liver being the way it was." Consider that four months after Kilgallen died, Doyle retired from the NYPD without a pension and opened an expensive restaurant in an expensive suburb near Vassar College. (David Yarnell)

Are you suggesting that John Doyle was involved in her death? (John Simkin)

In a cover up, yes.  I repeat.  Anyone here live near Scottsdale, Arizona? (David Yarnell)

John, you asked David a while ago if Mike Shore might have been the person who sent the message to Jack Ruby via Dorothy. David replied that he was not the one, one reliable source has conflicting views on this and suggest he was, i am going to look inot this further. If you want the link to my source, I will try and find it and get back to you. There is some great info here, keep up the good work John.

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  • 1 year later...

Robert Howard has posted this interesting passage from Thomas G Paterson's book, Contesting Castro - The United States & The Triumph of the Cuban Revolution (1994)

Like many other prominent Americans, the young Democratic U.S. Senators John F. Kennedy and George Smathers partied on the island. In December 1957, Kennedy and Smathers journeyed to Havana. They visited Ambassador Smith, a Kennedy friend from Palm Beach, and his wife and former model, Florence Pritchett Smith with whom the Massachusets politician had had a love affair some years before. The pleasure seeking senators apparently never discussed the rebellion, although Smather's, as he himself put it "had made a career of Cuban problems." Instead golf, sailing, nightclubs, and women occupied their time. Crime boss Meyer Lansky's widow claimed later that during that trip her husband helped locate women to satisfy Kennedy's now-famed sexual athleticism. "Kennedy wasn't a great casino man," remembered Smathers, "but the Tropicana night-club had a floor show you wouldn't believe."

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  • 9 months later...
I would like to share some personal knowledge of Florence Pritchett. I have met her son, who is an underwriter for John Hancock Life Insurance. I'm starting a new topic because he says his mother's story is a dead end for Oswald researchers. I'd like to redirect people's attention to Dorothy Kilgallen. Nobody in her family has said that she is a dead end, and in fact one relative worked with Lee Israel on her research.

Earl Smith III, who works in the well - known John Hancock skyscraper in downtown Boston, was 12 when his mother died. He has no siblings, and he spent those 12 years in a Manhattan apartment with his parents. So while he is the only surviving relative, in his childhood he was in a position to know what was going on.

Florence did not end up in a coma as Ms. Israel related in her post (to be fair she said she had read it online), but Florence was bedridden with leukemia for the last two months. She died at home. Nobody had invented the hospice in 1965.

Here are Earl's very words: "My poor mother died of cancer." His verbiage didn't become more emotional than that, but can you imagine what it's like to lose a mother when you're a 12 - year - old only child ?

Moreover, Earl insists that Dorothy Kilgallen never entrusted the dying Florence Pritchett with any documents. In addition, Florence was not a hard news reporter. Her only contribution to Kilgallen's newspaper (the Journal American) was a kitchen recipe in the Sunday edition. Titled "The Mood And The Food," her column provided the recipe and some local color about the fancy party or restaurant where she had obtained it. In her final column the theme was picnic lunches. She participated in a picnic at Richard Avedon's photography studio.

Mr. Simkin has assumed that Pritchett was Kilgallen's source on column items about Fidel Castro and Cuba, but we'll never know that. Earl says it's possible Florence fed her things in 1959, but he has no way of knowing. Florence absolutely did not know any secrets about Castro, Cuba or anything else during the last two months of her life.

Earl Smith II (father of the insurance underwriter) and his wife Florence did know the Kennedys, but all we know is that they socialized formally. The Smiths visited the White House, and both couples hobnobbed in Palm Beach.

A photograph posted by Mr. Simkin proves that the young senator Jack Kennedy knew Florence either before or during her first marriage (Earl was number # 2), but Fidel Castro was a kid then.

One final note to Lee Israel. In your recent post you state correctly that Penn Jones originated the entire saga of "Mrs. Earl T. Smith" and her connection to the assassination. Older Dallas - area residents know that Penn made many errors in his 1960s Midlothian Mirror articles and that he suffered from Alzheimers during the last 15 years of his life. The 1991 Life magazine pictorial about Oliver Stone's revival of JFK ran a huge color photograph of Penn standing in front his a shack where he lived without a telephone. He lived there with Elaine Kavanaugh Jones, a researcher he married in the 1970s. She stood by him until he died. Neither admitted that the old Midlothian Mirror articles were sloppy and erroneous.

More than three years after Mr. Jones introduced "Mrs. Earl T. Smith" to researchers, he said in the Mirror that Bobby Baker's secretary Carole Tyler once shared an apartment with Mary Jo Kopechne, therefore both of them were murdered.

If Penn Jones was so cut off from New York City news in 1965, how did he even know who Florence Pritchett Smith was or that she worked for Kilgallen's newspaper ? He could have gotten it from Time and Newsweek. Each gave her one paragraph in columns titled respectively "Milestones" and "Transitions." They said she worked for the New York Journal American.

Penn Jones probably knew who Dorothy Kilgallen was when she was alive, but he could not have been familiar with "Mrs. Earl T. Smith" concurrently. Earl Smith III really would like it if people stopped fantasizing that his mother held dangerous secrets at the time of her "homicide." As for Kilgallen's family, they never reply to letters about Dorothy. Son Kerry made an exception shortly after he opened his "Martial Hearts" business in 1991. He told a phone inquirer that after the Israel book was published he decided to move on with his life and to stop speculating about his mother's career. He wants to remember her as a mother.

There are several issues raised by the posting about Earl Smith III views of his mother.

(1) “Her only contribution to Kilgallen's newspaper (the Journal American) was a kitchen recipe in the Sunday edition.”

In fact, on 9th November, 1965, the New York Journal American reported: “Mrs. Earl E.T. Smith, wife of the former U.S. Ambassador to Cuba and columnist of The Journal-American, died today in her apartment at 1120 5th Ave. She was 45.” In fact, Florence had been fashion editor of the newspaper during the Second World War.

(2) “Earl insists that Dorothy Kilgallen never entrusted the dying Florence Pritchett with any documents.”

As Earl was only 12 years old at the time it is difficult to know how he can be so sure about this.

I have found absolute proof that Florence Pritchett was not murdered. It comes from a newspaper columnist named Jack O'Brian. Although he is remembered mainly as a very opinionated television critic, he also took over the "Voice of Broadway" column after Dorothy Kilgallen died.

In his first "Voice of Broadway" column, published in the New York Journal American on Monday, November 22, 1965, O'Brian said the following: "Her friends still marvel at the late Florence Pritchett (Mrs. Earl E. T.) Smith's jaunty courage; knowing she was dying, she calmly planned her own funeral, including the list of honorary pallbearers."

I plan to start a new thread with his item I found in the microfilmed newspaper at the library last week.

(3) “Mr. Simkin has assumed that Pritchett was Kilgallen's source on column items about Fidel Castro and Cuba, but we'll never know that. Earl says it's possible Florence fed her things in 1959, but he has no way of knowing. Florence absolutely did not know any secrets about Castro, Cuba or anything else during the last two months of her life.”

Earl admits that it was possible that Florence might have given information on Castro to Dorothy. He then adds “Florence absolutely did not know any secrets about Castro, Cuba or anything else during the last two months of her life.” How can he be so unsure about 1959 but so positive about 1965.

(4) "Earl Smith II and his wife Florence did know the Kennedys, but all we know is that they socialized formally. The Smiths visited the White House, and both couples hobnobbed in Palm Beach."

Of course they were much more than friends. JFK met Florence in 1944. The couple spent a lot of time together. Betty Spalding said that for Kennedy, "Over a long period of time, it was probably the closest relationship with a woman I know of." However, because Kennedy was a Roman Catholic, marriage was out of the question."

According to several books, JFK had a sexual relationship with Florence for 19 years that was only brought to an end in 1963. See for example:

Ralph G. Martin, A Hero for Our Time: An Intimate Story of the Kennedy Years (1993)

David C. Heymann, A Woman Named Jackie (1989)

Blair, Joan, and Blair, Clay Jr, The Search for J.F.K. (1977)

Nellie Bly, The Kennedy Men: Three Generations of Sex, Scandal and Secrets (1996)

Nigel, Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth (1992)

Stephen Birmingham, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (1969)

(5) “In your recent post you state correctly that Penn Jones originated the entire saga of "Mrs. Earl T. Smith" and her connection to the assassination. Older Dallas - area residents know that Penn made many errors in his 1960s Midlothian Mirror articles and that he suffered from Alzheimers during the last 15 years of his life.”

It is the first I have heard the news that Penn Jones was suffering from Alzheimers during the time he was writing about the JFK assassination. This sounds like a typical CIA disinformation campaign. I would be interested in how you know this.

It is indeed true that Penn Jones was the first person to link the deaths of Dorothy Killgallen. He wrote in Volume II: Forgive My Grief (1967:

“Shortly before her death, Miss Kilgallen told a friend in New York that she was going to New Orleans in 5 days and break the case wide open. Miss Kilgallen 52, died November 8, 1965, under questionable circumstances in her New York home. Eight days after her death, a ruling was made that she died of barbiturates and drink with no quantities of either ingredient being given.

Also strangely, Miss Kilgallen’s close friend, Mrs. Earl E.T. Smith, died two days after Miss Kilgallen. Mrs. Smith’s autopsy read that the cause of death was unknown.

Many skeptical newsmen have asked: “If Miss Kilgallen knew anything, surely as a journalist wouldn’t she have left some notes?” This is a legitimate question. Possibly Mrs. Smith was the trusted friend with the notes. No one will ever know now.”

What is interesting about this is that Penn Jones did not appear to know who Mrs Earl Smith was. If he did, he did not write about it. I am sure he would have been fascinated to know that she was Florence Pritchett, the woman who had been having an affair with JFK for 19 years. Nor did he know that she was married to the ambassador of Cuba (1957-59) who had been involved in the plots to overthrow Fidel Castro.

As far as I am aware, the true identity of Dorothy Kilgallen’s friend "Mrs Earl Smith" was not discovered until an exchange of postings by James Richards, John Johnson and myself on the JFK Research Forum in July 2004.

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Forget about Audie Murphy. I've seen his appearance on What's My Line. He and Dorothy don't say anything to each other indicating friendship. He had nothing to do with CIA surveillance of Warren Report critics. He was old news by 1964 in United States. His death in 1971 marked the first time he had been newsworthy in 15 years. If you Britons stayed close with him, then I hope you found him entertaining.

I think there's a lot more to the story than that.

Dorothy covered Audie more than once in gossip type articles in the Washington post on Murphy back in 1954 - one called 'Audie goes a-patchin.' I don't know what occurred on the episode of What's My Line, but if Dorothy didn't figure out who he was - well, that's like 'Quiz Show.'

If there's anything to be said for the book published by Gary Weans, Audie Murphy came into possession of some very significant top secret documents, by way of John Tower, concerning the assassination, in 1964. See Chapter 44 of 'There's a fish in the courthouse.'

Murphy's involvement in trying to spring Jimmy Hoffa is also worth noting, in that friends said he was looking to tap into the Teamster's pension fund [to save his failing businesses] - in the same way Trafficante and others had.

Murphy died in a plane crash which could be deemed suspicious. Wean certainly thought so.

Murphy travelled frequently to Ventura County, was friends with Bill Decker, had some honorary title with the Ventura Police department, and frequented Oxnard - the location of the phone call warning of the impending assassination of JFK, 20 minutes beforehand.

Murphy was on Mae Brussel's 'Mysterious Deaths' list.

Bizarre factoid - Murphy gave the foreward to the film 'War is hell' - which was showing 11/22/63 at the Dallas Theatre, built by Howard Hughes, where Oswald sought to find his contact that fateful afternoon.

Murphy was 'in the music business.'

All that remains is one clue that Murphy may have turned over a mysterious package to Dorothy Kilgallen, and you'd have more than enough motive to exterminate her and anyone even vaguely connected to her.

I keep expecting to find an Audie Murphy / Howard Hughes connection, but haven't yet beyond the fact that Hughes stole Murphy's gal back in 1946.

Hughes meets starlet Jean Peters at a party in Newport Beach, California. He invites the 19-year-old and her date, war hero/actor Audie Murphy, to fly with him to Catalina Island aboard his private plane. According to some accounts, Hughes and Peters immediately embark on an unpublicised romance and are rumoured to have become engaged before splitting in the mid-1950s. There are also persistent rumours that Hughes and Peters had an illegitimate child in 1954.

Maybe Lee Israel knows something about an Audie Murphy / Dorothy Kilgallen connection?

Here's another weird connection. Karyn Kupcinet was in a film with Audie Murphy, The Wild and the Innocent, 1959. She appeared under the name Tammy Windsor.

Her father was a very classy guy with his own talk show and column in the Chicago Sun-Times: Irv Kupcinet. He was as great as Dorothy Kilgallen and Walter Winchell. When his daughter was murdered 6 days after President Kennedy, Walter Winchell went to Hollywood to find the killer. He didn't and the murder went unsolved. Irv was digging deep into the Chicago angle of the assassination. She might have been killed to shut him up. Such killers will not kill the person, but will kill someone the person loves.

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Forget about Audie Murphy. I've seen his appearance on What's My Line. He and Dorothy don't say anything to each other indicating friendship. He had nothing to do with CIA surveillance of Warren Report critics. He was old news by 1964 in United States. His death in 1971 marked the first time he had been newsworthy in 15 years. If you Britons stayed close with him, then I hope you found him entertaining.

I think there's a lot more to the story than that.

Dorothy covered Audie more than once in gossip type articles in the Washington post on Murphy back in 1954 - one called 'Audie goes a-patchin.' I don't know what occurred on the episode of What's My Line, but if Dorothy didn't figure out who he was - well, that's like 'Quiz Show.'

If there's anything to be said for the book published by Gary Weans, Audie Murphy came into possession of some very significant top secret documents, by way of John Tower, concerning the assassination, in 1964. See Chapter 44 of 'There's a fish in the courthouse.'

Murphy's involvement in trying to spring Jimmy Hoffa is also worth noting, in that friends said he was looking to tap into the Teamster's pension fund [to save his failing businesses] - in the same way Trafficante and others had.

Murphy died in a plane crash which could be deemed suspicious. Wean certainly thought so.

Murphy travelled frequently to Ventura County, was friends with Bill Decker, had some honorary title with the Ventura Police department, and frequented Oxnard - the location of the phone call warning of the impending assassination of JFK, 20 minutes beforehand.

Murphy was on Mae Brussel's 'Mysterious Deaths' list.

Bizarre factoid - Murphy gave the foreward to the film 'War is hell' - which was showing 11/22/63 at the Dallas Theatre, built by Howard Hughes, where Oswald sought to find his contact that fateful afternoon.

Murphy was 'in the music business.'

All that remains is one clue that Murphy may have turned over a mysterious package to Dorothy Kilgallen, and you'd have more than enough motive to exterminate her and anyone even vaguely connected to her.

I keep expecting to find an Audie Murphy / Howard Hughes connection, but haven't yet beyond the fact that Hughes stole Murphy's gal back in 1946.

Hughes meets starlet Jean Peters at a party in Newport Beach, California. He invites the 19-year-old and her date, war hero/actor Audie Murphy, to fly with him to Catalina Island aboard his private plane. According to some accounts, Hughes and Peters immediately embark on an unpublicised romance and are rumoured to have become engaged before splitting in the mid-1950s. There are also persistent rumours that Hughes and Peters had an illegitimate child in 1954.

Maybe Lee Israel knows something about an Audie Murphy / Dorothy Kilgallen connection?

Here's another weird connection. Karyn Kupcinet was in a film with Audie Murphy, The Wild and the Innocent, 1959. She appeared under the name Tammy Windsor.

Her father was a very classy guy with his own talk show and column in the Chicago Sun-Times: Irv Kupcinet. He was as great as Dorothy Kilgallen and Walter Winchell. When his daughter was murdered 6 days after President Kennedy, Walter Winchell went to Hollywood to find the killer. He didn't and the murder went unsolved. Irv was digging deep into the Chicago angle of the assassination. She might have been killed to shut him up. Such killers will not kill the person, but will kill someone the person loves.

:huh:

Karyn Kupcinet was not murdered. Her father, Irv suffered a lot of pain at the hands of conspiracy theorists who made his daughter look like a slut who hobnobbed with criminals. She knew nothing about the assassination, and neither did her father. Irv is dead now, but Karyn's younger brother Jerry still suffers emotionally because of these false allegations. Very recently, somebody worked hard on Karyn's Wikipedia article to debunk the theory. Let's see if I can post a link to it successfully. If it doesn't work, then please visit Wikipedia yourself and find the piece on "karyn kupcinet."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karyn_Kupcinet

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I have found absolute proof that Florence Pritchett was not murdered. It comes from a newspaper columnist named Jack O'Brian. Although he is remembered mainly as a very opinionated television critic, he also took over the "Voice of Broadway" column after Dorothy Kilgallen died.

In his first "Voice of Broadway" column, published in the New York Journal American on Monday, November 22, 1965, O'Brian said the following: "Her friends still marvel at the late Florence Pritchett (Mrs. Earl E. T.) Smith's jaunty courage; knowing she was dying, she calmly planned her own funeral, including the list of honorary pallbearers."

I am sorry I was unable to reply to this posting yesterday as I was working to tight deadlines. It is of course true that Florence Pritchett died of cancer. However, that does not mean she was not murdered.

Research by Dr. Bernice Eddy and Dr. Sarah Stewart at the National Cancer Institute in 1959 showed that it was possible to inject someone with cancer. They discovered this while carrying out research into the Salk polio vaccine that was being given to children all over the world. The vaccine’s manufacturers had grown their polio viruses on the kidney’s of monkeys. They speculated that when they removed the polio virus from the monkeys’ kidneys, they also removed an unknown number of other monkey viruses. If they were right, the world had been inoculating an entire generation of Americans with cancer-causing monkey viruses? This research was suppressed but the Salk vaccine was withdrawn and a second weaker vaccine developed by Albert Sabin was deployed instead. This new vaccine was used all over the world. I, like I suspect most members of this forum, received their injection while at school. In time, polio ceased to be a killer disease.

The research of Eddy and Stewart was backed up by that of Laurella McClelland working in Philadelphia. As McClelland was working for a vaccine manufacturer, this information was covered up at the time. However, on 26th July, 1961, the New York Times reported that two vaccine manufacturers were withdrawing their polio vaccines until they can eliminate a monkey virus. Seven months later another article in the New York Times suggested that there was a possibility of cancer in the polio vaccine. However, no one picked up on this information and the idea of children being vaccinated with cancer never entered the public consciousness.

Recent scientific develops have confirmed that Eddy and Stewart were right about their belief that there was a connection between the polio vaccine and the cancer epidemic. Scientists have discovered that the DNA of SV40 in monkeys is very similar to the DNA of cancer tumors in humans.

As early as 1961 the CIA knew that it was possible to kill someone with a rapid growing cancer virus. Florence Pritchett was not the only one to die this way. This is the way that they got rid of Jack Ruby in 1967.

Is it a coincidence that JFK's two long-term mistresses, Florence Pritchett (November, 1965) and Mary Pinchot Meyer (October 1964) both died within two years of JFK. If you add to this the fact that Dorothy Kilgallen, who was using Pritchett as a source for her investigation into the JFK assassination, also died in November, 1965, one cannot help to get suspicious about these "cancer" deaths.

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I have found absolute proof that Florence Pritchett was not murdered. It comes from a newspaper columnist named Jack O'Brian. Although he is remembered mainly as a very opinionated television critic, he also took over the "Voice of Broadway" column after Dorothy Kilgallen died.

In his first "Voice of Broadway" column, published in the New York Journal American on Monday, November 22, 1965, O'Brian said the following: "Her friends still marvel at the late Florence Pritchett (Mrs. Earl E. T.) Smith's jaunty courage; knowing she was dying, she calmly planned her own funeral, including the list of honorary pallbearers."

I am sorry I was unable to reply to this posting yesterday as I was working to tight deadlines. It is of course true that Florence Pritchett died of cancer. However, that does not mean she was not murdered.

Research by Dr. Bernice Eddy and Dr. Sarah Stewart at the National Cancer Institute in 1959 showed that it was possible to inject someone with cancer. They discovered this while carrying out research into the Salk polio vaccine that was being given to children all over the world. The vaccine’s manufacturers had grown their polio viruses on the kidney’s of monkeys. They speculated that when they removed the polio virus from the monkeys’ kidneys, they also removed an unknown number of other monkey viruses. If they were right, the world had been inoculating an entire generation of Americans with cancer-causing monkey viruses? This research was suppressed but the Salk vaccine was withdrawn and a second weaker vaccine developed by Albert Sabin was deployed instead. This new vaccine was used all over the world. I, like I suspect most members of this forum, received their injection while at school. In time, polio ceased to be a killer disease.

The research of Eddy and Stewart was backed up by that of Laurella McClelland working in Philadelphia. As McClelland was working for a vaccine manufacturer, this information was covered up at the time. However, on 26th July, 1961, the New York Times reported that two vaccine manufacturers were withdrawing their polio vaccines until they can eliminate a monkey virus. Seven months later another article in the New York Times suggested that there was a possibility of cancer in the polio vaccine. However, no one picked up on this information and the idea of children being vaccinated with cancer never entered the public consciousness.

Recent scientific develops have confirmed that Eddy and Stewart were right about their belief that there was a connection between the polio vaccine and the cancer epidemic. Scientists have discovered that the DNA of SV40 in monkeys is very similar to the DNA of cancer tumors in humans.

As early as 1961 the CIA knew that it was possible to kill someone with a rapid growing cancer virus. Florence Pritchett was not the only one to die this way. This is the way that they got rid of Jack Ruby in 1967.

Is it a coincidence that JFK's two long-term mistresses, Florence Pritchett (November, 1965) and Mary Pinchot Meyer (October 1964) both died within two years of JFK. If you add to this the fact that Dorothy Kilgallen, who was using Pritchett as a source for her investigation into the JFK assassination, also died in November, 1965, one cannot help to get suspicious about these "cancer" deaths.

Nobody knows that Kilgallen used Smith as a source on JFK.

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Forget about Audie Murphy. I've seen his appearance on What's My Line. He and Dorothy don't say anything to each other indicating friendship. He had nothing to do with CIA surveillance of Warren Report critics. He was old news by 1964 in United States. His death in 1971 marked the first time he had been newsworthy in 15 years. If you Britons stayed close with him, then I hope you found him entertaining.

I think there's a lot more to the story than that.

Dorothy covered Audie more than once in gossip type articles in the Washington post on Murphy back in 1954 - one called 'Audie goes a-patchin.' I don't know what occurred on the episode of What's My Line, but if Dorothy didn't figure out who he was - well, that's like 'Quiz Show.'

If there's anything to be said for the book published by Gary Weans, Audie Murphy came into possession of some very significant top secret documents, by way of John Tower, concerning the assassination, in 1964. See Chapter 44 of 'There's a fish in the courthouse.'

Murphy's involvement in trying to spring Jimmy Hoffa is also worth noting, in that friends said he was looking to tap into the Teamster's pension fund [to save his failing businesses] - in the same way Trafficante and others had.

Murphy died in a plane crash which could be deemed suspicious. Wean certainly thought so.

Murphy travelled frequently to Ventura County, was friends with Bill Decker, had some honorary title with the Ventura Police department, and frequented Oxnard - the location of the phone call warning of the impending assassination of JFK, 20 minutes beforehand.

Murphy was on Mae Brussel's 'Mysterious Deaths' list.

Bizarre factoid - Murphy gave the foreward to the film 'War is hell' - which was showing 11/22/63 at the Dallas Theatre, built by Howard Hughes, where Oswald sought to find his contact that fateful afternoon.

Murphy was 'in the music business.'

All that remains is one clue that Murphy may have turned over a mysterious package to Dorothy Kilgallen, and you'd have more than enough motive to exterminate her and anyone even vaguely connected to her.

I keep expecting to find an Audie Murphy / Howard Hughes connection, but haven't yet beyond the fact that Hughes stole Murphy's gal back in 1946.

Hughes meets starlet Jean Peters at a party in Newport Beach, California. He invites the 19-year-old and her date, war hero/actor Audie Murphy, to fly with him to Catalina Island aboard his private plane. According to some accounts, Hughes and Peters immediately embark on an unpublicised romance and are rumoured to have become engaged before splitting in the mid-1950s. There are also persistent rumours that Hughes and Peters had an illegitimate child in 1954.

Maybe Lee Israel knows something about an Audie Murphy / Dorothy Kilgallen connection?

Here's another weird connection. Karyn Kupcinet was in a film with Audie Murphy, The Wild and the Innocent, 1959. She appeared under the name Tammy Windsor.

Her father was a very classy guy with his own talk show and column in the Chicago Sun-Times: Irv Kupcinet. He was as great as Dorothy Kilgallen and Walter Winchell. When his daughter was murdered 6 days after President Kennedy, Walter Winchell went to Hollywood to find the killer. He didn't and the murder went unsolved. Irv was digging deep into the Chicago angle of the assassination. She might have been killed to shut him up. Such killers will not kill the person, but will kill someone the person loves.

:rolleyes:

Karyn Kupcinet was not murdered. Her father, Irv suffered a lot of pain at the hands of conspiracy theorists who made his daughter look like a slut who hobnobbed with criminals. She knew nothing about the assassination, and neither did her father. Irv is dead now, but Karyn's younger brother Jerry still suffers emotionally because of these false allegations. Very recently, somebody worked hard on Karyn's Wikipedia article to debunk the theory. Let's see if I can post a link to it successfully. If it doesn't work, then please visit Wikipedia yourself and find the piece on "karyn kupcinet."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karyn_Kupcinet

I have edited some info about Karyn Kupcinet into wikipedia. Firstly, she was murdered. Her father and mother said so. I suspect the Chicago Mob. Secondly, the killer tried to make it look like a robbery, rape killing. Her house was plundered, but nothing was missing but her methamphetamine pills. In her birth canal was a "copious" amount of what may have been semen, but it was decomposed.

Lastly, someone in her circle may have killed her. In no uncertain terms, the Kupcinets believed she was murdered by her new downstairs neighbor, the late David Lange, brother of actress Hope Lange.

Another thing I want to address: Was her door locked or unlocked? I have always read it was unlocked. Now I read that her door was locked -- though this doesn't matter if the killer found it unlocked and committed the deed, then locked it going out. (It was that type of door.) But my understanding was that Mark Goddard turned the knob and the door popped open, making him go downstairs to his wife in the car and asking her to come up. David Lange told another woman living in the apartment complex (Monterey Apartments on N. Sweetzer, West Hollywood) that he was the killer and that actually, he went up to Karyn's apartment on Friday, after Thanksgiving and the door opened, but he didn't go in. However, he did just walk into the woman's apartment, to whom he was now speaking, without knocking or permission. Why wouldn't he go into Karyn's apartment? I have a whole theory about Lange, which I'll save for now.

I just want to get across that there were many inaccuracies on the Wikipedia Karyn Kupcinet matter. I have tried to correct some of them. Better to go to

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Karyn_Kupcinet

Kathy

Edited by Kathleen Collins
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