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Rose Cheramie


Bill Byas

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As everyone who knows me is aware, I have an adage that I am fond of saying "the devil is in the details.."

So Tom, my response would begin with pointing out, why did the UPI article state that one of the persons

arrested was Barclay Frandsen of Iowa, when there is a very good chance his real name was

James Barclay Frandsen of Louisiana see find a grave entry, and why are GIllis & Frandsen mentioned in Steve Wilson of Interpen's file at Maryferrell.org?

Then I would ask is James Barclay Frandsen connected to the Barclay associated with Jack Ruby mentioned in CD 1193 h 199? - Malcolm James Barclay.

Robert,

Thanks for "connecting the dots" (although in a very rhetorical kind of way).

Fascinating stuff.

Keep up the good work.

--Tommy :sun

Edited by Thomas Graves
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  • 3 weeks later...
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Thanks, Larry!

great information. I had been wondering for a while if maybe the ship was a Lykes Line operation. Some interesting connections there if it had been...

but it isn't.

Any veteran JFK Researcher worth his salt is no doubt aware that a big part of the controversy and enmity that exists between the persons believing there was a conspiracy, and the beloved Lone-Nutters. On the alt.conspiracy.jfk newsgroup, as well as on the internet, Rose Cheramie is always right in the middle of allegations and counter-arguments that her information indicating foreknowledge was either invented after the fact, or, was actually before the assassination, as Fruge indicated.

Irrespective of whether or not that is the truth, [and there is actually good reason to believe that it was before the assassination], there is a significant point that needs to be addressed regarding Cheramie.

Rose Cheramie aka Melba Mercades, she actually had a multitude of aliases, is, in retrospect beyond simply "important."

Why?

Two reasons.

One. if she was and is as insignificant as, certain idiots maintain, why are there at least four documents on her that are postponed in full? See bottom of post

Two. Read the article in Probe Magazine by Jim DiEugenio

Rose Cheramie: How She Predicted The JFK Assassination

Postscript:

The Assassinations: Probe Magazine on JFK, MLK, RFK, and Malcolm X pg 230, by DiEugenio, James and Pease, Lisa, editors (2003)

Amazon Rating:

It should be noted that at this point there exists some confusion about Mac Manuals identification of Santana. Writers like John Davis have said that the man's last name was `Osanto'. This is based on Patricia Orr's summary of the Cheramie episode in Volume 10 of the HSCA volumes. Apparently Orr was working only from Fruge’s April 18, 1978 deposition transcript. There Fruge states that ther second man was, to the best of his memory, Osanto. But this confusion is now cleared up with the declassification by the ARRB of the rest of the HSCA records. For in the summary of Fruge’s deposition, and in the accompanying index, Blackmer notes that Fruge identified the actual photos that Manual picked out. The photos were of Sergio Aracha Smith and Emilio Santana.

In 2006 on a JFK newsgroup, I am told there was a "Jaxie Stewart Fisher," who claimed that her relationship to Rose Cheramie, was intimate enough that she was known to her as "Aunt Pippy."

also

Galveston Daily News January 8, 1954

Frank Ragland, Alvin Resident, Succumbs Here

Services for Frank Ragland, 41 Former Steamship

Marrion Lykes

Other useful idiots and scoffers may want to explain the following.

AGENCY : CUSTOMS

RECORD NUMBER : 196-10001-10049

RECORDS SERIES : FIELD OFFICE FILES

DOCUMENT INFORMATION

ORIGINATOR : CUSTOMS

FROM : SAC NEW ORLEANS

TO : [No To]

TITLE : [No Title]

DATE : 12/18/1963

PAGES : 1

DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

SUBJECTS : CHERAMI, ROSE

CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED

RESTRICTIONS : OPEN IN FULL

CURRENT STATUS : OPEN

DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 12/21/1996

COMMENTS : CASE FILE CARD ON ROSE CHERAMI. CASE FILES TRANSFERRED

TO FRC FT. WORTH AND CONFIRMED DESTROYED. NO FURTHER INFORMATION.

AGENCY : CUSTOMS

RECORD NUMBER : 196-10001-10059

RECORDS SERIES : FIELD OFFICE FILES

DOCUMENT INFORMATION

ORIGINATOR : CUSTOMS

FROM : SAC NEW ORLEANS

TO : [No To]

TITLE : [No Title]

DATE : 12/18/1963

PAGES : 1

DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

SUBJECTS : MARCADES, MELBA

CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED

RESTRICTIONS : OPEN IN FULL

CURRENT STATUS : OPEN

DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 12/21/1996

COMMENTS : CASE FILE CARD ON MELBA MARCADES. CASE FILES

TRANSFERRED TO FRC FT. WORTH AND CONFIRMED DESTROYED.

NO FURTHER INFORMATION.

AGENCY : CUSTOMS

RECORD NUMBER : 196-10001-10059

RECORDS SERIES : FIELD OFFICE FILES

DOCUMENT INFORMATION

ORIGINATOR : CUSTOMS

FROM : SAC NEW ORLEANS

TO : [No To]

TITLE : [No Title]

DATE : 12/18/1963

PAGES : 1

DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

SUBJECTS : MARCADES, MELBA

CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED

RESTRICTIONS : OPEN IN FULL

CURRENT STATUS : OPEN

DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 12/21/1996

COMMENTS : CASE FILE CARD ON MELBA MARCADES. CASE FILES

TRANSFERRED TO FRC FT. WORTH AND CONFIRMED DESTROYED.

NO FURTHER INFORMATION

http://www.nara.gov/cgi-bin/starfinder/6254/jfksnew.txt

22 Documents related to Rose Cheramie

01 180-10105-10328

02 180-10105-10330

03 180-10112-10058 ARRESTS ROSE CHERAMIE

04 180-10112-10057 MELBA MARCADES

05 180-10089-10046

06 124-10185-10123

07 124-10276-10427

08 180-10111-10073 POSTPONED IN FULL

09 180-10111-10074

10 180-10107-10062

11 180-10100-10004 1 page Customs Dept Staff

12 180-10147-10339

13 180-10104-10459 POSTPONED IN FULL

14 180-10105-10003 POSTPONED IN FULL

15 180-10106-10014

16 180-10112-10310

17 124-10373-10139

18 180-10067-10459

19 180-10074-10060 1 page

20 180-10065-10259

21 180-10089-10047 POSTPONED IN FULL

22 180-10095-10160 Rose Cheramie aliases POSTPONED IN FULL

23* 196-10001-10059

.

23* This document was under NARA as Melba Marcades

PS Joan Mellen could offer some significant assistance in this area if she chose to do so.

Any of these docs opened up yet?

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British Company that owned boat shipped to China during British Opium period. Of note said family that controlled said company had contracts (in British Opium Period) with Jardine Shipping which was known China Opium trader.

per above

http://www.ancestry.com/1940-census/usa/Louisiana/James-Frandsen_4dhlgm

Edited by Steven Gaal
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  • 2 months later...

Tommy, I really have no doubt from Rose's record that she worked both as a prostitute, in a number of hustles and scams and as a drug connection in the network that ran from Miami, though

New Orleans, into Texas, and which shuttled drugs up though Texas and Oklahoma into the mid-west. I'm certain the drug deal was just as she described it, as I report in SWHT, the only reason

they didn't bust it and avoided it after the fact was that the DEA guy assigned to shadow the guy off the ship blew his assignment...after that DEA wanted to just drop the whole

embarrassing thing.

The big question, did Rose hear talk about threats against JFK, I suspect she did, that talk was common in a bunch of places she traveled through, including Miami, We have all sorts of reports

of such talk. But was her trip involved in the actual Dallas plot, I don't think so, I think it was all about the drug deal... Larry

Larry,

I think that, at least as far as the drug deal part of it was concerned, the Pete Vallone mentioned in the report you posted points us in the direction of Carlos Marcello (via mafiosos Joe Ianni and Joe Civello of Dallas) for the simple reason that 1) the narcotics deal that Cheramie was involved in was going to go down in Houston, 2) it involved a Houston "Pete Vallone," and 3) the sister of Civello's mafia associate, Joseph Ianni of Dallas, married into the Houston-based Vallone family. Her maiden name was Frances Ianni, and she married Joseph Vincent Vallone whose father, Vincent Vallone, Sr., was murdered "mafia-style" in 1949 a short time after talking with Carlos Marcello on the phone, according to the 1959 Kefauver Report. It has also been reported on the Internet that Vincent Vallone, Sr. made page 9 of the May 26, 1938 New York Times for having had a narcotics indictment against him dropped.

This Vincent Vallone, Sr. is very probably the "Vincenzo Vallone, Houston" listed near the bottom of this 5/09/50 Federal Bureau of Narcotics list of "Mafia Suspects in Texas," as furnished to the FBI:

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=93398&relPageId=4

(Thanks to Robert Howard for posting this link in an above post, this thread.)

Edit:

I just noticed today (4/02/14) that this same document (which is obviously missing its pages 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, and maybe more) on its page "8" says that Joe Civello used the alias "Ciuerillo" in 1955 while flying back to Dallas after meeting with Carmine Pellegrino (son of the notorious narcotics trafficker Rocco Pellegrino) and narcotics king John Ormento in NYC. I googled "Ciuerillo" and came up with only three "hits" and no people, so I think Civello's alias should have been spelled "Cuerello," instead.

So now I'm wondering if Rose Cheramie meant to say "Cuerillo" instead of "Poreurillo" or "Portherillo."

It would make sense, as Civello was a major narcotics trafficker.

In trying to make sense out of the top of page "5" of the Mary Ferrell document, I came across a book that actually talks about it, Manhattan Mafia Guide by Eric Ferrara. On page 26 he writes,

"An August 15, 1947 internal memo from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) field office in New York City claimed that [Alfonso] Attardi admitted to attending a 1937 meeting on the outskirts of Houston, Texas, on the farm of Don Vincenzo [Vincent] Vallone, [sr.]. (To whom he admitted this detail is recorded as "unknown.") In attendance, according to the report, was Dallas mob boss Joseph T. Piriano and underboss Joseph F. Civello. The reason for the meeting is unknown, though we do know that on October 5, 1937, Attardi; his wife Josephine "Jose" Attardi, alias "G. Altroad"; and fourteen others were swept up in a coordinated interstate roundup, suspected of conspiring to import narcotics from Europe and distribute them through New York, Texas, and Louisiana."

http://books.google.com/books?id=Cf7oAVFnn_sC&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&dq=%22vincenzo+vallone%22+houston&source=bl&ots=-jwh5PgvF9&sig=f72yZwr63Ni2s3oWYrPofsRW-50&hl=en&sa=X&ei=kNo8U9WHM6LW2gX47YGQCg#v=onepage&q=%22vincenzo%20vallone%22%20houston&f=false

[emphasis added by T. Graves]

It's interesting to note that phantom page "4" of the Mary Ferrell document, the page that must have mentioned Joe Civello as having attended the 1937 meeting at Vincent Vallone's farm (with Tony Vallone and Joseph Vallone in attendance) on the outskirts of Houston, is missing on the Mary Ferrell website. Is it missing because, according to page 375 of SWHT, Rose Cheramie said she was to receive $29,000 from a Pete Vallone in Houston on November 28, 1963, in the drug deal that she was involved in, and that whoever released the document to Mary Ferrell didn't want us "researchers" to see the connection between Jack Ruby's buddy Joe Civello and the Vallone family? Luckily, we do at least have page "5" of the document, and Eric Ferrara's book to give us the rest of the story.

Or am I just being paranoid?

--Tommy :sun

edited and bumped

Edited by Thomas Graves
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Great work Tommy! First off I suspect you are right and either she just mispronounced the name or Fruge heard it wrong....after all Rose was not in very good shape and getting a name like that pronounced just right could have been a challenge anyway, its not like anybody asked her twice or really tried to straighten it out when she was in better health. Heck, they just dumped her back on the street - mostly because nobody wanted to admit how badly they had handled the whole thing in intercepting the sailor with the drugs.

As to the missing page/pages, based on my experience I'd say its more likely a clerical error. I bet if you did a request for that document now you might well get all the pages. In any event, I've always been

convinced that the drug story was solid and she was indeed naming people who were seriously involved in drug smuggling. Larry

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  • 2 months later...

Robert: I found this on the internet awhile back.....

I guess you could call it Memories from the SS Maturata......

In 1958 I joined the Young Conservatives, a group for the under 30's within the

national party. It was more a social organization, although we did work at

elections and we had great weekend schools. These consisted of getting away

from parental scrutiny and to have a good time in a posh hotel.

A Purity Patrol ensured that the correct males were linked up with the appropriate

females, in theory anyway. In practice since it was 2 of the same sex to a room

so it was virtually impossible to achieve anything other than staying up till dawn

and feeling like hell in the morning. During this period I was introduced to some

people who changed my outlook about life that existed beyond my limited

experience.

In 1959 I became VP of the Redcar branch and I had become romantically

involved with the secretary of the branch. This relationship progressed over a

year and I was really happy and looking forward to it continuing. Then on my 21st

birthday we all went out for a party and she gave me a Parker 51 fountain pen

with a gold top (which I still have). This was the gift that truly marked my coming

of age at the time in 1960. I had managed to buy a car with my increased income

and I was sitting pretty, a good job and a great relationship. I had got a Higher

National Certificate in Mechanical Engineering so my future was looking good

I really didn't want to spend my life as an engineer. After my 21st party I dropped

my girlfriend off at her home and that was the last time I saw or spoke to her from that day to this.

I was able to find out that she had left the area to start training as a nurse and my

efforts to talk to or see her were in vain. This came as a complete surprise to me.

I was devastated to put it mildly. My little world had come tumbling down around

my ears in less than 24 hours.

I was so upset that I had to do something to change my life and take my mind off

my broken heart!

I was working in a drawing office (or drafting, if you prefer) which employed about

120 people, some of whom had done their National Service in the merchant

navy. I had missed having to do my time by three months as the cut off was in

September 1960 and my birthday was in December 1960. I had always been intrigued by

the thought of going to India as I had a relative who had been in the

Army in India and he had told me quite a lot about the country. The jewel in the

crown and all that.

As luck would have it I talked to a fellow worker in my office who had been in the

merchant navy working for a company which traded between India and

continental Europe. I was impressed with what he told me about life in the

merchant navy. This was just what I needed to get away from home and start a

new life. The company was called T&J Brocklebank, part of Cunard Shipping

Co. By coincidence a previous girl friend of mine worked in the Middlesbrough

office of that company. I gave her a phone call and I asked her what I had to do

to obtain a position with them and she arranged for an interview with the local

Engineering Superintendent whose office was across the street from mine. I went

to the interview and was offered a position of junior engineer with a start date

immediately I passed a medical. This was the break I needed to mark a fresh

start and so a couple of week's later......

I had no idea what I was getting into when I joined my first ship, the SS Maturata.

I was the 5th. Engineer and it was my job to assist the 2nd. Engineer on the 4 to 8

watch,twice a day, am/pm. We left port on a very stormy night in January 1961

on a three day trip to Rotterdam. The heat and smell of the engine room was

overpowering and I was seasick for the whole trip. I wanted to die, as anyone

who has been seasick knows only too well so ended the first trip......

END

Robert: This person, whom I do not know, left England a few years later and,

according to his account moved to Canada in 1967......

Edited by Robert Howard
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  • 1 month later...

One of the reasons, I won't walk away from the Rose Marcades aka Cheramie story is I have digged enough to realize she was not really some peripheral person in the assassination of JFK. Remember that when Francis Fruge contacted the Dallas Police regarding her, they "were not interested." (We've got our man on All Counts). When you read the following remember that Lee Oswald had a connection to the same hospital.....

Todd Elliot writes, in A Rose by Many Other Names - page 44.

Rose was arrested on 10-29-63 by the Houston Police Department for "drk & abu lang (drunk and abusive language)." Rose being in Houston at the time is significant because Sergio Aracha-Smith, (the Cuban man and CIA operative identified with Rose at the Silver Slipper) was allegedly living in Houston then.

When he was wanted by District Attorney Jim Garrison in 1967, Aracha-Smith moved to Dallas. His extradition to Louisiana was purposefully blocked by Gov. John Connally himself. Rose was next arrested on 12-28-1963 by the Oklahoma City Police on a charge of "drk & hld" (hold for state charges)," where she paid a $12 fine and was released. Curiously enough, the stay at the Eunice city jail (courtesy of the Eunice Police Department) is not in the FBI records. Nor is there any record of her transfer or commitment to the Jackson East Louisiana Hospital from Eunice.

In fact, there are no arrests listed for Rose during the entire month of November 1963.

Perhaps the FBI would not bother with something as trivial as a transfer to a state hospital from a small town jail?

Yes, it would. The FBI certainly noted it in 1961.

Records reflected already that Rose had been interred in the Jackson East Louisiana State Hospital for being "criminally insane" in 1961 However, her seconds stay in the same hospital, the day before JFK's assassination, is not recorded by the FBI or Louisiana State Police.

According to documentation from the State of Louisiana Department of Public Safety, Division of State Police, Bureau of Investigation in Baton Rouge, Rose had been received by the Jackson East Louisiana State Hospital on 7-13-61. The charge "Criminally Insane," According to Louisiana State Police record #256375 and FBI record #2-347-922.

end of passage.

Robert:

For those keeping track Lee Oswald visited Edwin Lee McGehee in the "late summer" and according to McGehee, Oswald and himself discussed Jackson East Louisiana State Hospital, and

McGehee stated that when he told Oswald about "East Hospital" & that it was a mental hospital, Oswald replied "Oh."

I personally acknowledge the credibility of the "gaps" in Lee Harvey Oswald's "timeline," if you will, especially the period between leaving Jaggar-Chiles Stovall and his being hired to work

at the Texas School Book Depository. For that, and other reasons, I believe McGehee met the real Lee Oswald and not an impostor.

BTW. There is a new book specifically about the TSBD and other Dallas related places see below

http://www.arcadiapublishing.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?

Edited by Robert Howard
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