Bill Simpich

Paul and Jean, I do have an update on LITAMIL-3. New releases show that LITAMIL-3 is 201-290894, and that 201-290894 is Ricardo Vidal Dominguez. We have created a pseudonym page for him at MFF. He was an informant within the Cuban diplomatic corps. Jean, I am moving more towards the belief that Oswald was at least trying to get himself in the FBI's orbit in the last three months of his life. I can't get over the .way he sought out FBI agent John Quigley after his New Orleans arrest of 8/9/63 and put himself out there as a source of information. Oswald then seemed to pick up on Jim Hosty's 9/10/63 report about Oswald's long-distance mail relationship with the CPUSA and the FPCC, and then the Oswald figure shows up in the Cuban consulate later that month brandishing membership cards in both the CPUSA and the FPCC. I believe that Oswald himself wrote the Nov. 9 letter to the Soviet embassy complaining about the FBI (and knowing the FBI would intercept it!) and appeared at the Dallas FBI office in mid-November with a note complaining about Jim Hosty "bothering his wife". Matt, I agree that Fedora and Golitsyn are very important personages - Mary Ferrell created a decent index on Fedora and we created a good page on Golitsyn based on his cryptonyms DS-2137 and AELADLE - but I haven't seen any indication that Fedora or Golitsyn were involved in the Mexico City events of Sept-Oct. 1963.

Following up on my previous post...Here's my take on why Oswald was taken off the security watch list the day before the 10/10/63 memos went out. From Chapter 5 of State Secret: The day before the 10/10 twin memos were created, Gheesling took Oswald off the security watch list after talking with Lambert Anderson. Both Gheesling and Anderson had signed off on a watch list document placed in Oswald’s file on August 13 after Oswald was arrested in New Orleans for breach of the peace while leafleting for the FPCC. Gheesling wrote that once he learned that Oswald was arrested, he told Anderson that Oswald should be taken off the security watch list because he had inadvertently forgot to remove his name after Oswald’s return from the Soviet Union.[ 38 ] Anderson confirmed that someone had told him that the security flash had been removed because it was no longer necessary once Oswald had returned to the United States. One immediate problem with both of their stories is that their boss Bill Branigan wrote on 11/22/63 that the very reason Oswald was put on the watch list was to ensure that “any subsequent arrest in the U.S. was brought to our attention”. So why take him off the list after he was arrested? An even more intriguing problem, with Gheesling’s story in particular, is that he wrote that he removed Oswald’s name from the security watch list on October 9 right after he learned about Oswald’s arrest. Gheesling’s explanation flies in the face of the aforementioned watch list document showing that both Gheesling and Anderson knew about Oswald’s arrest around August 13. Gheesling’s name and initials “wmg” are also on other memos discussing Oswald and his arrest dated August 21 and August 23. The probable solution is that Anderson got wind of a tip. On October 8 Anderson received a Sept. 24 report of Oswald’s arrest, which revealed Oswald’s request to speak with an FBI agent and share quite a bit of information while in jail.[ 39 ] My conclusion is that on the 9th the two men came to some kind of mutual understanding that Oswald was helpful to the FBI, and saw no reason to keep him on the security watch list. “Anderson” of “Nat. Int.” is written on the watch list file, underneath the date of October 10. As a result, no alarms went off at the FBI when the 10/8/63 memo about Oswald being in Mexico City and trying to contact Kostikov arrived on the 10th. Any alarm that might have sounded about Oswald being a security risk appears to have been deliberately turned off by Gheesling and Anderson. The intriguing question is whether Gheesling and Anderson took Oswald off the security watch list based solely on the report about Oswald's cooperation with the FBI, or whether they had also been tipped off that a molehunt was about to begin with Oswald's file. It's not impossible that both factors may have been in play - but my current thinking is that FBI men Gheesling and Anderson didn't know about the CIA's molehunt.

Jean and Gerry, take a look at what happened when the security flash was still on in September, 1963... Hosty’s observations about Oswald in Dallas turned into membership cards in Mexico City "Keep in mind that (FBI agent Jim Hosty, in charge of Oswald's file) told (Lambert Anderson of the FBI's Nationalities Intelligence division) on September 13 that Oswald had a subscription to the newspaper of the Communist Party, USA, and that he had a background of leafleting on behalf of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. We see the follow-up three days later, on September 16, when John Tilton of the CIA’s Cuban operations at JMWAVE in Miami asked Anderson to put together a joint agency operation designed to “plant deceptive information which might embarrass the (FPCC) in areas where it does have some support”.[ 3 ] We will see that Oswald planted some deceptive information in Mexico City - he showed both his authentic FPCC membership card and his fake Communist Party card to Cuban consulate secretary Silvia Duran. On the 16th, FBI records indicate that Oswald’s security flash file with the FBI's Identification Division was reviewed, with Anderson’s name written alongside.[ 4 ] On the 16th, Anderson’s name is written on Oswald’s security flash – although no document entered the file, it appears to be related to Tilton’s request for help that same day. Tilton had been involved with the DRE just days earlier and may have heard from Anderson about Oswald’s arrest. On the 26th, Anderson confirmed that the anti-FPCC project was going forward, with plans to distribute “propaganda in the name of the committee”. This joint agency operation was launched right during the Cuba division’s project to recruit Cuban consul Azcue in Mexico City. As Azcue seemed sympathetic to Cuban exiles, he seemed like he might be ripe for recruitment. The problem was that Azcue was due to return to Cuba in a matter of days." What happened the next day, on Sept. 27, is that the "Oswald figure" appeared before Azcue and tried to get him to bend the rules to give him an "instant visa" to Cuba, similar to his successful attempt at getting an "instant visa" from consul Richard Snyder at the American embassy in Moscow back in 1959. I believe that the "Oswald figure" showed his FPCC credentials to Azcue in an effort to provoke Azcue to see how he would respond - keep in mind that LITAMIL-3, an American agent, had just tried days earlier to convince Azcue to defect to the Americans. I believe one objective was to get the Cubans to talk over their phone lines and in their offices that were bugged by the Americans. The bigger objective may have been to assist Tilton and Anderson in their "joint agency operation designed to “plant deceptive information which might embarrass the (FPCC) in areas where it does have some support”. Or maybe someone got wind of the anti-FPCC operation and piggy-backed a new operation on top of it that included the impersonation of Oswald. What "areas" did the FPCC have "some support"? Here, among the Cubans in Mexico. The Oswald figure's provocative behavior with Azcue, which got him thrown out of the office, had to give the FPCC a black eye in the eyes of the employees at the Cuban consulate. The Oswald figure was an attractive prospect – he represented a very rare re-defector, hoping to go to Cuba and then return once again to the Soviet Union. His activities and contacts were a counterintelligence bonanza. So Tilton and Anderson have got a deceptive anti-FPCC operation going, which appears to have been piggy-backed on top of the events that brought the Oswald figure down to Mexico. Doesn't it make sense that if Tilton and Anderson wanted to keep their deceptive anti-FPCC operation going, they may have wanted to dim the attention on Oswald? Gheesling was a major supervisor, one of a handful that answered directly to Hoover. Gheesling had the power to turn off the flash, which he OK'd with Anderson on October 9. Gheesling was suspended by Hoover after 11/22 for turning off the flash. But why did he do it? I will offer my thinking in the next post.

Matt, I appreciate you engaging me on the topic, but I have to ask - have you read my book State Secret? Chapter 5 centers on what I call the Mexico City molehunt of 1963, chapters 3 and 4 set the context, and the last two chapters touch on the aftermath. I would ask you to at least read Chapters 3-5. I do want feedback! If you've read it, great, but I don't think there's anything "oblique" about what I wrote. Also, I'm very sensitive to not taking over other people's threads. Jean and Sandy's instincts are good about setting up a new thread on the setting up and removal of the FBI flash, which arguably is related to the molehunt but deserves its own analysis. McCord also deserves his own thread. John Newman has not finished his analysis of McCord, has written almost nothing on the subject, and I think it's best not to speculate on his views until he weighs in on the topic.

I should add that the molehunt was conducted after Oswald was impersonated on 9/28 and 10/1. Silvia Duran was also impersonated on 9/28 in the same taped phone conversation as "Oswald", which supposedly happened at the Cuban consulate, which was closed on Saturday, 9/28. Duran made it clear that she never saw Oswald after 9/27. There would naturally be a big reaction after the impersonation of Oswald and Duran. Note the absence of any notes about Oswald until October 8 and then the twin messages of 10/10, both filled with different descriptions of Oswald guaranteed to get people talking. What happened in the interim between 9/28 and 10/8? Once the station found out that the man who made the 9/28 call and the 10/1 calls identified himself as Lee Oswald, Phillips needed to know about it. The station would not want to leave a paper trail regarding this sensitive penetration matter that might be read by a CIA penetrator. On the night of October 1, a pouch was sent to Phillips at Headquarters. The CIA procedure at the time was that these pouched transmittals left no paper trail, other than to say that the items had been sent from point A to point B. The pouch probably contained a transcript of the October 1 calls from the man calling himself Oswald. You have to wonder if it also contained a copy of the tape. Many years later, Phillips told a very elaborate lie, claiming that he was in Mexico City working with the Soviet desk in preparing the draft of a response to the October 1 phone calls. He also claimed that the Soviet desk officer was lazy. That didn’t happen – even Goodpasture said Phillips’ story was not true. It is well-documented that Phillips was away from the Mexico City station at CIA HQ in Washington and then JMWAVE station in Miami between September 30 to October 9. On October 7, Phillips consulted with key people from the CIA's forward base on Cuba office like John Tilton, who triggered this whole situation as the architect of a joint agency anti-FPCC operation aimed at Mexico in September 1963. The molehunt was a direct result of the impersonation of Oswald and Duran. The CIA needed to see if it could smoke out how these fake phone calls were set up. When this documentation was brought to light, Phillips was forced to backtrack and fall back to a weak excuse that his memory was mistaken, and that he had not played any role in preparing this draft memo that was issued on October 8. The October 8 memo set the stage for the October 10 twin memos.

The whole point was to create a paper trail entangling CIA, FBI, ONI, and State Dept with a lot of knowledge about Oswald shortly before 11/22. Then, after the assassination, the employees of these agencies would go into a reflexive cover-up to protect their agencies, their careers, and the paycheck that takes care of their families. How much of the actual Mexico City documents made it to the Warren Commission? Very few of them. What they got were paraphrases. The actual documents were not made public until after the JFK Records Act forced them out in the 90s - and the JFK Records Act would never have passed without Oliver Stone's movie JFK!

Greg Doudna wrote: "In that interpretation that Givens was a real witness to a 6th floor shooter at the time of the shots, at 12:30 pm, how and when in that interpretation does Givens make his exit from the TSBD without anyone seeing him? At the point the building was sealed by officers minutes later Givens is not in the building." Greg, look at TSBD employee Edward Shields' testimony to the Warren Commission: "Did you see the motorcade?" "I sure did." "Where were you when you saw it?" "I was just standing right around there at Mullendorf's Cafe." "At what address?" "At Record and Main." "Who was with you?" "Givens". "Did you hear the shots?" "Yes, I heard the shots." Shields said that Givens had been there with him since about noon time that day. Givens' story matched with Shields.

Richard, Thayer Waldo is an extremely strong case about a journalist who was driven out of the USA - you ignored his case because you wanted to tout your case about Eddie Piper and the girl on the stairs, an important story that belongs on another thread. Even though you wrote that you agreed with me about Charles Givens, you used this thread to make your case about Eddie Piper. I was reluctant to join this thread because I wanted to avoid hijacking this thread. William is protective of his thread and I understand that. I suggest that we treat each other with respect and agree to disagree.

William, My apologies if I came across the wrong way, let alone giving Pat the plaudits instead of you. No one has ever accused me of being sagacious, and I don't like anyone who acts like a big shot. I didn't want to hijack your thread, and almost started my own. I am a big fan of Belzer, and I was avoiding being critical of his book or your thread. My thinking is that it is best to lead with 5-10 strong and illustrative cases. Most of us cannot track more than 10 stories. I agree with what Pat said at the beginning of this thread - citing a few strong cases is far better than stringing together a lot of uncertain ones. I would put George deM's "suicide" in the uncertain category as well as many of the cases in Belzer's book even though most of them appeal to me emotionally. I think the manner of the journalist deaths between 1963-1965 offers strong evidence. Similarly, I think the Giancana and Rosselli deaths are strong evidence because of the manner of their deaths and the events surrounding it. My two cents: If we analyzed the other 40 cases in Belzer's book on this thread, we would sink into a sea of uncertainty simply because of the weight of the details. Each of these cases has to be analyzed on its own merits, and that takes a long time. Reasonable people disagree on the weight of evidence. I suggest a path that reduces the number of ambiguities. If you want to convince someone, lead with your strongest approach.

I think the journalists like Koethe, Hunter, Waldo, Kilgallen and Smith who were effectively "taken out" of this case deserve the highest level of scrutiny. Disagreeing about the importance of witnesses is inevitable, and this is where Belzer's book "Hit LIst" encounters the greatest difficulty - in achieving even a rough consensus about the important witnesses that were taken out of the JFK case. Besides the focus on journalists, Belzer's list offers a second valuable thread when it focuses on witnesses who were violently killed when they were about to testify - as Pat Speer pointed out at the beginning of this thread, people like Sam Giancana and Johnny Rosselli. I would add Gary Underhill and Bill Sullivan to this list - I don't think anyone ever looked at the killing of Sullivan hard enough - it would be interesting to interview the young boy who shot Sullivan at this late date if he is still alive. Pat mentioned that he heard Senator Gary Hart "speak on the assassination.... he stressed the point that the members of the Church Committee were on the fence as to whether JFK's death was a conspiracy until their witnesses started dying. And then they knew. So, in short, a mysterious deaths list is interesting, and potentially valuable, but only to the extent it's been edited." These two threads - journalists that have been "taken out" of the JFK case, and witnesses who die violent deaths at the verge of providing testimony - appear to be the most valuable paths to make a major priority.

Richard - all the African American witnesses such as Charles Givens and Eddie Piper were treated brutally by the authorities and leaned on to change their stories. And, yes, Waldo's story does refer to a "Negro janitor", a minor nit in a sea of disinformation thrust upon him by Mike and Pat Howard. But there's no question that the story told to Thayer Waldo was designed to incriminate Givens, who had a history of gambling and problems with the law - so much os that there was an APB out for Givens an hour after the assassination. Other than the words "Negro janitor", what did Piper have to do with the story? Nothing. Piper never claimed that Oswald was on the sixth floor during the lunch hour. Only Givens did. Go back and read the history. The entire saga of Thayer Waldo and the Howard brothers revolved around Charles Givens. Not Piper. Givens' November aiibi for Oswald had to be reversed. After the February story broke, Givens buckled and changed his story. And the Warren Commission adopted it as key evidence incriminating Oswald. Givens wasn't even allowed to testify before the Warren Commission. And rest assured that the Howard brothers never did, even though the Warren Commission knew all about their story and knew that Waldo was furious at them. Don't rely on a tiny item like "Negro janitor" in a made-up story that ruined Waldo's career. Look at the rich detail provided by Don Thomas in the previous post.

Richard, Yes, but the focus was on a particular "Negro" who had been picked up previously for gambling - Charles Givens, the only man alleged to have seen Oswald on the sixth floor during lunch hour. Let Don Thomas set the stage, and a long look at Roy Truly, Charles Givens and Mike Howard in particular. I have highlighted in bold below the most important phrases for the busy reader: To place this incident in proper perspective it is necessary to understand that there were two lunchrooms in the Book Depository. Texas was a part of the deep south and even the Mayor of Dallas acknowledged that the city had a reputation as the “Hate capitol of Dixie.” (WR41) The building superintendent, Roy Truly, told writer William Manchester (Manchester, pp. 132-133), "Except for my niggers the boys are conservative, like me -- like most Texans." The domino room. (Click to enlarge) Truly further stated that he disliked John F. Kennedy because he was a “race-mixer” (Manchester, pp. 49, 132-133). The main lunch room on the second floor had soft drink and snack machines. The first floor lunch room was used by the minority employees: blacks, Mexican-Americans, a mentally handicapped man, and the depository’s one Marxist, Lee Harvey Oswald. Along with unionization, the civil rights movement was a major issue for the American Communist Party in the 1960’s. Because he ate there regularly and because there were only a handful of minority employees in the Book Depository, it would have been easy for Oswald to guess who had eaten lunch there. But on the other hand it would also have been easy for the Warren Commission to determine who actually had or had not eaten their lunch in the Domino room that day and by the process of elimination test Oswald’s alibi. But the Warren Commission knew that such a test was problematic for the official version. That is because another black employee, Charles L. Givens, had seen Oswald eating his lunch there. In a statement given to the FBI a few hours after the assassination, Givens recounted that he had seen Oswald eating his lunch by himself, reading a newspaper, in the first floor lunchroom (CD 5, p. 329 - see also Meagher [1971] for discussion). Among the false claims made by Bugliosi in his effort to convince us that Oswald shot Kennedy is that he was the only employee to “flee” the Texas School Book Depository following the shooting. The truth is that several employees left the building (affidavits in CE 1381), including the aforementioned Charles Givens. In fact, the Dallas police put out an APB to have Givens picked up for questioning about the shooting. Givens was the Warren Commission’s star witness. He alone, among all of the witnesses, is supposed to have seen Oswald on the sixth floor of the Book Depository during the lunch hour. But the truth is, contrary to Bugliosi’s account, Givens never testified to the Warren Commission. The Warren Commission flew ninety-four Dallas witnesses to Washington D.C. to testify before them. Yet, Givens, the only witness who could positively identify Oswald and place him at the scene of the crime at or near the time of the shooting, was not among them. Givens was deposed in private in Dallas by a single Warren Commission lawyer. The problem with Givens’ deposition was spelled out in an article published in the Texas Observer by researcher Sylvia Meagher (Meagher in Texas Observer, 13 August 1971. The issue also contains a rebuttal of sorts by David Belin). Givens did indeed state in April 1964 that he had seen Oswald on the sixth floor at lunchtime on the day of the assassination. Hence, Givens gave two accounts of Oswald’s whereabouts, one in November that tended to corroborate Oswald’s alibi, and a second in April that tended to incriminate him. Yet his statement in November contained no mention of Oswald on the sixth floor, while the statement in April contains a denial that he had seen Oswald elsewhere. It is in that light that the special handling of Givens by the Warren Commission staff is seen as manipulative; that and the fact that the Warren Report contains no mention of Givens’ statement to the FBI. Meagher thus concluded that Givens’ April deposition was false, to which Bugliosi retorts, “But why would Givens make up such a story? What would be in it for him? The conspiracy theorists don’t expressly say.” But of course they do expressly say. Meagher pointed out that because of his troubles with the law, reportedly charges of gambling and drug use, Givens, an ex-convict, a black man in a southern town, was vulnerable to pressure from the authorities to support, or at least not contradict, the official line. Moreover, police Lieutenant Jack Revill told the FBI that Givens would change his story for money (CD 735, pp. 296-297). (Note: See Mike Howard's story about the unknown African American man, who had been picked up for gambling.) Bugliosi (Reclaiming History, pp. 822-823) dismisses the account in the FBI report as one that Givens “supposedly” told, implying that the FBI agents report was false. But why would the FBI make up such a story? What could be in it for them? Bugliosi doesn’t expressly say, only arguing that their account must have been “garbled.” But it is Bugliosi’s account of events that is garbled. To contradict the FBI report Bugliosi states, “Indeed, we can virtually be certain that he [Givens] did not tell the FBI that he saw Oswald around 11:50 a.m. in the domino room on the first floor, or if he did he was incorrect. His testimony to the Warren Commission that he saw Oswald on the fifth floor around that very time is supported by three other witnesses, -- Arce, Lovelady and Williams.” Aside from the fact that Givens never gave any testimony to the Warren Commission is the fact that Givens stated in his deposition that the encounter with Oswald on the fifth floor took place around 11:30 (CD 5 p. 329), not 11:50. Thus, there is no time contradiction among the accounts, only to Bugliosi’s version of events. Bugliosi exploits the differing time estimates to garble the accounts when it is the sequence of events that is important. In Givens’ accounts, he saw Oswald three separate times over a span of about 25 minutes. Junior Jarman, Oswald’s direct supervisor, told the FBI that he saw Oswald leave the first floor, boarding one of the freight elevators with his order pad in hand, presumably to fill an order for books, at approximately 11:30 (CD 5, p. 334). Charles Givens was part of a four (not six) man work crew that was laying plywood flooring on the sixth floor that morning. The crew broke for lunch early because the President’s motorcade was expected to pass the building during the noon hour. Although the four varied widely in their guesstimates as to the actual time that they broke for lunch, all four men recounted seeing Oswald on the fifth floor on their way down in the freight elevators, some recalling that Oswald had shouted to them to send one of the elevators back up. This was the last undisputed sighting of Oswald prior to the assassination. The estimated time of this event differed among the work crew from close to 11:30 to close to 12:00, but all agreed that it was before noon. Junior Jarman recalled that the four man crew arrived on the first floor for lunch at 11:45 (police report reprinted in Bonner, p. 286). Bugliosi estimates 11:50. The front entrance of the Book Depository where Carolyn Arnold reported seeing Oswald minutes before the assassination. (Click for larger view) The obvious question is, did Oswald then go up to the sixth floor in accordance with the official mythology, or did he go down to the first floor to eat lunch in accordance with his alibi. Givens was only one of four witnesses who stated that they saw Oswald on the first floor during lunchtime. William Shelley, the supervisor of the floor laying crew testified "I do remember seeing him when I came down to eat lunch about 10 to 12." (6WH328), as did the building's janitor Eddie Piper who said he saw Oswald "just at 12 o'clock." Bugliosi dismisses their accounts by saying that they may have seen Oswald on the first floor but it was probably earlier in the day, ignoring Piper’s statement that he had actually spoken to Oswald about eating lunch (6WH383)! Another important witness was Carolyn Arnold who told the FBI on November 26 that she left the building around 12:15 to go out to lunch with some of the other secretaries. Arriving on the sidewalk in front of the building they found a crowd gathering to await the President. The secretaries decided to join the crowd. While awaiting the President’s passage, Arnold recounted that she looked back through the glass door of the building and saw Oswald. This would have been around five or ten minutes before the assassination. When asked if she was absolutely certain that it was Oswald, she could only respond that she felt it was (CD 5, p. 41) [2]. Subsequently however, Arnold would claim that the FBI had misquoted her and that she had actually seen Oswald on the second floor, not the first (Summers, p.60). It seems more likely that time had eroded her memory and it was she not the FBI agents who had mis-remembered. Psychological studies on eyewitness accounts demonstrate that they become less reliable over time and that witnesses will often revise their accounts to bring them in accord with the accounts of others as if it were their own memories [3]. Hence, the accounts closest to the event before a witness can compare their memories to others that are the most reliable.... ... The Warren Commission could not allow Williams to admit that he was in the snipers nest and still use Givens' deposition to place Oswald at the scene of the crime, and there is a further problem. How did Williams and Givens fail to run into one another, and to the assassin whoever he was, during their time on the sixth floor if the Warren Commission’s version is true - and when exactly was Givens on the sixth floor? Central to this issue is Givens' concept of time. In the interview with FBI agents Griffen and Odum on the late afternoon of the assassination Givens maintained that the work crew left the sixth floor at about 11:30 to go to lunch (CD 5, p. 329). The other work crew members estimated the time as much later: Lovelady said 11:50; (CD 5, p. 332) Arce thought "5 to twelve;" (6WH364). Williams testified that the crew normally knocked off for lunch about five minutes before noon but on this day because of the motorcade they left about 5 to 10 minutes earlier than usual (3WH167). What is at issue is the time of Givens' return to the sixth floor. Givens' testified, "Well, I would say it was about 5 minutes to 12, then because it was --" (6WH351) Commission counsel David Belin cut Given's off before he could explain why he thought it was 5 minutes to 12. Givens claimed that he ate his lunch on the sidewalk out in front of the Book Depository along with Junior Jarman and the other work crew members. Givens said, "When did I eat lunch? I ate lunch after. Let's see, no; I ate lunch before I went up there, because I stood outside and ate my sandwich standing out there...standing in front of the building." (6WH351) Furthermore, Givens also testified that before lunch he visited the restroom. If Givens ate his lunch out front before he went up to the sixth floor, then it would seem to have been much later than 11:55 when he went back up into the building. This reconstruction receives corroboration in the statements made to the police by Junior Jarman. "At about 11:45 a.m. all of the employees who were working on the 6th floor came downstairs and we were all out on the street at about 12:00 o'clock noon. These employees were: Bill Shelley, Charles Givens, Billy Lovelady, Bonnie Ray (last name not known) and a Spanish boy (his name I cannot remember)." (Jarman police report reprinted in Bonner, p. 286) The Spanish boy was Danny Arce and he also testified that Givens was with them on the sidewalk out front at noontime. (6WH365) It is further significant that the other black employees, Jarman and Norman, on finishing their lunches decided that they would have a better view of the motorcade from the upper floors of the building and went up to the fifth floor. Was this when Givens also went upstairs, going to the sixth floor to retrieve his cigarettes? In any event, the weight of the evidence is that it was some time after noon that Givens went up to the sixth floor. It is in this context that one must consider the APB for Givens and the resulting questioning by the police and FBI. The Dallas Police had learned within about an hour of the shooting that Charles Givens had seen the assassin. Inspector Herbert Sawyer put out the APB and is heard to say over the police radio at 1:46 PM, "We have a man that we would like to have you pass this on to CID to see if we can pick this man up. Charles Douglas Givens, G-I-V-E-N-S. He is a colored male, 37, 6'3", 165 pounds, I.D. # Sheriff Department 37954. He is a porter that worked on this floor up here. He has a police record and he left." (CE 1974, pp. 83-84) In his testimony, Inspector Sawyer explained the reason for the APB thusly, "He is the one that had a previous record in the narcotics, and he was supposed to have been a witness to the man being on that floor. He was supposed to have been a witness to Oswald being there...somebody told me that. Somebody came to me with the information. And, again, that particular party, whoever it was, I don't know. I remember that a deputy sheriff came up to me who had been over taking affidavits, that I sent them over there, and he came over from the sheriff's office with a picture and a description of this colored boy and he said that he was supposed to have worked at the Texas Book Depository, and he was the one employee who was missing, or that he was missing from the building. He wasn't accounted for, and that he was suppose to have some information about the man that did the shooting." (6WH321-322) The "sniper's nest" in the southeast corner of the sixth floor. (Click to enlarge) Sawyer’s testimony contains a glaring contradiction. Did the mystery witness really tell Sawyer that Givens had seen Oswald on the floor, or did the witness only say that Givens had seen the assassin? Sawyer's testimony that someone had told him that Givens had seen "Oswald" on the floor is an anachronism if it is supposed to refer to Givens seeing Oswald puttering around on the sixth floor at noon or any other time. Oswald’s job required him to fetch books from the storage on the sixth floor and thus his presence there around noon would not be a cause for suspicion – certainly not justification for Givens to infer that Oswald was the shooter. At the time of Sawyer's broadcast Oswald was not yet connected to the shooting and therefore the fact that someone had seen him on the sixth floor was not yet of significance, as far as anyone knew. Sawyer's inclusion of Oswald's name in his statement renders his testimony as totally inconsistent with the time frame of the radio call. Because of this inconsistency, respected researcher Sylvia Meagher concluded that Sawyer was just plain lying. Oswald became a suspect in the assassination when he was captured at the Texas Movie Theatre at 1:50 p.m. and subsequently identified as an employee of the Book Depository. None of this was established until considerably after Sawyer's radio call, and of course, Sawyer must have been told about Givens some time considerably before he made the APB. But the contradiction disappears if one simply assumes that by the time Sawyer gave his testimony in 1964 he undoubtedly believed that Oswald and the assassin were one and the same, and therefore was speaking the truth as he knew it. But the question remains – did Givens see the assassin, as the mystery witness reported, and if so was it Oswald? When Givens was subsequently questioned by the police he apparently told them that he did see the assassin. According to the testimony of Lt. Jack Revill, "I asked him if he had been on the sixth floor...he said, yes, that he had observed Mr. Lee, over by this window...so I turned this Givens individual over to one of our Negro detectives and told him to take him to Captain Fritz for interrogation." (5WH35-36) Did Givens actually say it was "Mr. Lee" at the window, or like Sawyer, did Revill confound Givens' statement? What exactly did Givens say to the police? A witness to Given’s statement was a secret service agent named Mike Howard. Howard related his account to Fort Worth Star Telegram reporter, Thayer Waldo, on 9 February 1964, apparently unaware that Waldo was a newsman. According to Waldo, "Mike Howard then explained that the negro witness had been arrested in the past by the Special Services office of the Dallas Police for gambling; and, since he was familiar with that branch of the Dallas Police, he immediately gave himself up to that branch. Mr. Howard alleged that he had visited the negro witness while he was in custody of the Special Services in the Dallas Jail." Waldo quotes Agent Howard as saying, "Wait till that old black boy gets up in front of the Warren Commission and tells his story. That will settle everything. Yes, sir. He was right there on the same floor, looking out the next window; and, after the first shot, he looked and saw Oswald, and then he ran. I saw him in the Dallas Police station. He was still the scaredest n I ever seen. I heard him tell the officer, "Man you don't know how fast fast is, because you didn't see me run that day." He said he ran and hid behind the boxes because he was afraid that Oswald would shoot him." (CE 2516) None of this may be a problem for Mr. Bugliosi, but for those of us who insist on a reliable account of the events that day, the implications are horrendous. If Charles Givens saw Lee Harvey Oswald shoot the president, then why on earth would he not tell the FBI and the Warren Commission? Or if he did not see Lee Harvey Oswald shoot the President why did he claim that he did? Was Givens a pathological liar? If so, then none of his statements should be used as evidence. Alternatively, were Inspector Sawyer, Lt. Revill and Agent Howard lying? In May 1964 the FBI interviewed Agent Howard (CE 2578) who adamantly denied that he had ever told Waldo that Givens had seen the assassin. The FBI then interviewed Waldo (CE 2579) who was equally adamant that Howard had said exactly that. Mark Lane, on retainer with the Oswald family, complained in a letter to the Secret Service that Howard had made up the story and planted it with the press in order to falsely incriminate his client’s son. The larger concern is not that any of these officers were lying – but that they might have been telling the truth. The problem is that Waldo’s version of Howard’s story meshes with the accounts by Revill and Sawyer. Givens’ deposition is full of holes. He states that after retrieving his jacket he left the building and walked to a parking lot at the corner of Main and Record and was there when the President went by. He further states that he was walking in front of the Record Building when he heard gunfire [6 WCH 351]. At some point he decided to return to work and tried to reenter the book depository but was refused entry by the DPD who by this time had locked down the building. Meanwhile, inside the building the occupants were lined up and questioned by police until, according to Junior Jarman, "somewhere between two and two-thirty when they turned us loose and told us to go home," (3WH208) If Givens’ account as given in the deposition is true, then who among the buildings occupants knew that Givens had witnessed anything - and informed Inspector Sawyer of such before 1:46 p.m., the time of the APB? Inspector Sawyer’s testimony that he was told that Givens had seen the assassin is supported by the physical evidence – the radio tapes. The account by Police Lt. Revill further strongly suggests that Givens did claim to have seen the assassin. One does not have to assume, as did Sylvia Meagher, that Sawyer, Howard and Revill were outright lying. In their minds Oswald and the assassin were one and the same. Thus, when Givens told the FBI that he had seen Oswald in the first floor lunch room and not on the sixth floor, there was no contradiction. Did Givens also tell the FBI that he saw the assassin shooting at the President, but that it wasn’t Oswald – and did the FBI then leave the latter assertion out of their report – just as they left Rowland’s assertion about the black man in the window out of those reports? Or if it was in their report, it would not have been the only instance where the Warren Commission redacted an FBI report before publishing it in their exhibits. The manner in which the Warren Commission’s staff handled the issue is troubling. Givens was deposed in private in an apparent effort to control the record. No effort was made to identify the mystery witness who reported to Sawyer even though it was almost certainly one of the book depository employees and most probably one of Givens’ friends (Bonnie Ray ?). Secret Service Agent Mike Howard was never called to testify. Thayer Waldo did testify to the commission but was not asked about his conversation with Howard. Police detective Marvin Johnson leaving the TSBD carrying the cigarette package, Dr. Pepper bottle and sack with remains of Bonnie Ray Williams' lunch. (Click to enlarge) One further important evidentiary detail is noteworthy. Charles Givens testified that his reason for returning to the sixth floor was to retrieve his cigarettes. Reporters recall that Captain Fritz announced to the press on the night of the assassination that along with the chicken bones and soda bottle, there was a cigarette package next to the sniper's nest window (Sauvage, p. 35; Meagher, p. 39). The report is corroborated by photographs of police Detective Marvin Johnson leaving the Book Depository carrying the lunch bag, the Dr. Pepper Bottle and, a cigarette package [5]. Lee Harvey Oswald did not smoke (9WH244) [6].

Technically, you are right. But they described a "Negro" that clearly appeared to be Givens. And Givens changed his story after Waldo's story came out.

Let me address the journalist death cases that are not as strong as Koethe-Hunter-Kilgallen but had a big impact on journalists and many other people. (I may follow up with a separate thread on journalists and their impact on the JFK case - I believe that at least one journalist was in on the cover-up and a possible perpetrator) Florence Pritchett Smith, mentioned earlier as the journalist who aided Dorothy Kilgallen as the safekeeper of her JFK notes after meeting her on What's My Line: Even back in the early 40s, Pritchett Smith was the fashion editor of New York Journal American, a journal owned by William Randolph Hearst and one of the biggest papers in New York City. On Pritchett Smith's cause of death at age 45 allegedly due to leukemia complications, one writer offers an analysis that deserves further research: It is alleged that Smith died of a cerebellar hemorrhage a few weeks after suffering from leukemia. This is highly unlikely, since it is quite rare (0.5%) of cases of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). If Smith had another type of leukemia other than that of AML, then the chances of her dying from a cerebral hemorrhage would have even been less than 0.5% chance. Yet another questionable death of a journalist is the fate of Gary Underhill, who died on 5/8/64, found in bed with a bullet wound behind his left ear. Jim D. stated in Destiny Betrayed that Underhill was right-handed. Nonetheless, sources have always quarreled about whether it was suicide or murder. Wikipedia: "For five years he was a military correspondent for Life magazine and helped to make their Foreign News Department one of the most knowledgeable centers of military intelligence in the world." The CIA always said: "He's not our guy." John Simkin provides this quote: Underhill told his friend, Charlene Fitsimmons, that he was convinced that he had been killed by members of the CIA. He also said: "Oswald is a patsy. They set him up. It's too much. The bastards have done something outrageous. They've killed the President! I've been listening and hearing things. I couldn't believe they'd get away with it, but they did!" Underhill believed there was a connection between Executive Action, Fidel Castro and the death of Kennedy: "They tried it in Cuba and they couldn't get away with it. Right after the Bay of Pigs. But Kennedy wouldn't let them do it. And now he'd gotten wind of this and he was really going to blow the whistle on them. And they killed him!" Underhill told friends that he feared for his life: "I know who they are. That's the problem. They know I know. That's why I'm here. I can't stay in New York." Ron, I'm with you - I can't ignore Karyn Kupcinet was killed on 11/30/63. I generally don't like speculative theories, especially about such a gruesome death, but Karyn's immediate family is now deceased. She was strangled while naked and defenseless. The Dallas journalist Jim Koethe died in the same fashion a few months later when stepping out of the shower - some say he was strangled as well. One message emerges from a strangulation death: Don't talk. And there was a very simple second message to Karyn's father Irv, who had the biggest audience in Chicago with his decades-long Sun-Times column packed with celebrities, nightlife, and gossip. As the man with the megaphone - I'm sure he got the very simple message loud and clear by the timing of Karyn's death and the inevitable rumors that it was tied to the death of JFK - don't talk about Jack Ruby and his pals in Chicago. Irv did know Ruby from his time in Chicago in the 40s.

Matt, Here's one analysis of the Soviets' concern of a right-wing takeover, from none other than Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as recently as 2017: While the FBI was investigating possible involvement of the Soviet Union in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Soviet authorities were voicing suspicions that U.S. right-wing groups -- and even Kennedy's own vice president -- were behind the killing, newly released documents show. The Soviet KGB claimed it had information tying Lyndon B. Johnson, who became president as a result of the assassination, to the killing, according to a 1966 letter to a presidential assistant from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover that was released for the first time late on October 26. The letter is among 2,800 previously classified Kennedy assassination documents that were released this week following an order by U.S. President Donald Trump. According to White House officials, Trump said in a memorandum that he had "no choice" but to keep some files secret because of national security concerns raised by the FBI and CIA. The documents capture the frantic days after the November 22, 1963, assassination, during which federal agents madly chased after tips and sifted through leads worldwide. But Kennedy scholars say the thousands of documents do not appear to contain any bombshell revelations about the killing that shocked the world. The claim was contained in instructions from Moscow to the KGB residency in New York "to develop information" on Johnson, Hoover said in the letter, which cited an "FBI source" that had "furnished reliable information in the past." Johnson has long been a focus of some conspiracy theorists, but no credible information has ever linked him to the assassination. The documents show that the FBI's own chief suspect right after the assassination was the Soviet Union, with much attention given to assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's contact with "a member of the Soviet KGB Assassination Department" at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico, documents showed. But Moscow believed Oswald was a "neurotic maniac" whose goal was to further a right-wing conspiracy trying to poison U.S.-Soviet relations, according to a just-released U.S. intelligence report issued days after the assassination. Later, in May 1964, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev met influential Washington newspaper columnist Drew Pearson in Cairo, Egypt, and told him that he thought a right-wing conspiracy was behind the killing, according to another intelligence report. Khrushchev told Pearson he could not believe the conclusion investigators had reached at that time: that both Oswald and Jack Ruby, the nightclub owner who fatally shot Oswald, had acted alone. "He did not believe that the American security services were this inept," according to a CIA report of the discussion. Pearson "got the impression that Chairman Khrushchev had some dark thoughts about the American right-wing being behind this conspiracy" and rejected all arguments to the contrary, the report said.