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John David Hurt


Ron Ecker

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In a previous thread Jim Root has proposed the possibility that the Japanese linguist John Hurt may have been the John Hurt that Oswald wanted to contact by phone while in the Dallas jail. While the linguist Hurt is certainly a lead worth pursuing, I think that the background of the John Hurt who Oswald tried to reach in Raleigh strongly suggests that the Raleigh Hurt was indeed the person whom Oswald wanted to talk with. The reason I believe this is that the John Hurt in Raleigh appears to have been a good candidate himself for being a patsy in the JFK assassination.

It’s hard to believe that the status and activity of John David Hurt from Raleigh in 1963, and the fact that Oswald tried to contact him, can be chalked up to coincidence. According to the biographical outline on Grover Proctor’s website (an outline that was provided by an investigator to attorney Bernard Fensterwald in 1968), Hurt was a former Army counterintelligence agent (1942-1945) and state traffic accident evaluator, allowed to resign in 1955 for “conduct not becoming to a state official,” who was on disability for arthritis and paresis, and diagnosed at a state hospital as a manic depressive paranoid “very dangerous to society.”

According to his wife, in 1963 this troubled fellow worked as a private investigator in “Southern Florida.” Then his wife briefly committed him to a mental hospital. “He was released around the last of October 1963 and immediately took a trip.” (Hmm. Reminds me of Ed Lansdale, who retired from the AF around the last of October and immediately took a trip too.) Hurt told his wife that he went to Missouri and Louisiana to visit his parents, but she believed that he had no relatives in either place. She thought he was gone “about ten days.”

Now a former Army counterintelligence officer just released from a mental hospital and considered dangerous to society might make a good candidate to go to Dallas and get potentially set up in a presidential assassination. He reminds me of Tom Vallee, the former Marine with a history of mental illness who was arrested in Chicago in November 1963, and may have been the reason JFK’s trip to Chicago was cancelled.

Is it possible that Oswald and Hurt came into contact in Dallas and/or New Orleans as potential unwitting patsies, that Oswald knew Hurt was from Raleigh, and that Oswald thought that Hurt may have headed back to Raleigh after the assassination if not before?

No way to prove this, of course, as there's no evidence that I know of that Oswald came into contact with anyone fitting Hurt's description leading up to the assassination. But John David Hurt certainly fits the profile, it seems to me, of a potential framed “lone nut,” he goes on a mysterious trip in November 1963, and the “lone nut” Oswald tries to contact him on November 23.

Coincidence, anyone?

Here’s the link to the report on Hurt at Proctor’s website:

http://www.groverproctor.us/jfk/jfk-hurtbio.html

Ron

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Ron

Thanks for providing this information and keeping these threads alive.

I understand that John David Hurt died recently and was said to have made a "death bed confession" that he had attempted to call Oswald while he was in custody after the assassination. The story asserted that Hurt was drunk at the time he made this call and never admitted it until just before his death. My problem with this is that all the information seems to support the "Raleigh Call" as an outgoing call from Oswald and not an incomming call to Oswald.

Are you familiar with this "death bed confession?"

Jim Root

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Are you familiar with this "death bed confession?"

No, not at all. Where did you see or hear this?

Ron

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Ron

I have been seeking that piece of information but was actually hoping that you were familiar with this "confession."

I believe it was reported in some JFK 40 years later story that I read.

Will continue looking,

Jim Root

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Jim,

I would be kind of surprised if Hurt died only recently. He didn't seem to be in the best of health in 1963, and if alive today he would be 96 years old (born in 1909).

If he lived into his 90s despite mental illness, drinking, and dangerous living, maybe I should stop worrying too.

Ron

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Ron

I believe you are right and that he died around 1981.  I still believe the story was a 2003 piece about a confession.

Sorry for the lack of information

Jim Root

Ron & Jim:

Hurt died in 1981.  The story of the "deathbed confession" may be a tad overwrought, but according to "Reasonable Doubt" [pages 244-245] by Henry Hurt [no relation], Hurt told his wife before dying that he'd been drunk on 11/22/63 and on an intoxicated whim phoned the Dallas jail to speak with Oswald.  Thereafter, he was too ashamed to admit what he'd done.

That ties it up with a nice neat bow. 

However, it makes zero sense to my mind.  Had Hurt called Oswald and left a number at which he could be called back, there would have been no second phone number on the switchboard operator's sheet for a second John [W.] Hurt, about whom we've learned precisely nothing in the intervening years.

My hunch is that with her husband dead, the widow Hurt simply wished to dispense with the matter, and did so.

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John D. Hurt was an early player in the game described so well

in James Bamford's PUZZLE PALACE.

As an international counter-intelligence linguist with military intelligence

connections, it is no wonder he went insane.

I don't think anyone was setting him up as a patsy, because a

patsy from the Signals Intelligence corps was not a misdirection, but

a hot lead into the joint paramilitary activity possibly behind 11/22/63.

Again, I believe that Oswald was reaching out to a trusted core contact

in US intelligence, probably the "civilian" who had recruited him into counter-

intelligence at Atsugi in 1959. Oswald probably thought he could trust the

man who first brought him into counter-intelligence, and was seeking help,

guidance and re-assurance from the trusted individual he had worked with

before Minsk, before DeMorenschildt, before Hunt, and before Hosty.

"I called him" is quite a preposterous confession by the older and disturbed Hurt, since the memos show the attempted outgoing call and the testimony shows the call was not put through. All together it points to joint civilian military

counter-intelligence program involving Oswald and John D. Hurt.

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Robert

Thanks for saving me with that piece of information, I knew I had read it somewhere. Back to the positives of this whole forum concept.

All the indicators seem to point to an outgoing call from Oswald rather than an incomming call to the Dallas jail. I personally belive that Oswald was first "used" by intelligence in 1959 so I am looking to connect a John (:ph34r: Hurt to a hometown or permanent residence in or around a "Raleigh" about that time if it is even possible. As I implied before, this had always been on a back burner for me until a loose connection to Edwin Walker was followed years later by a much stronger possible connection to Maxwell Taylor and Japanese linguist John B. Hurt.

Shanet......John D. Hurt (counter intel) or John B. Hurt (the linguist)? I have a researcher trying to track more backround on a possible John B. Hurt lead and hope to have some additional information soon.

Jim Root

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After recently reading "The Man Who Knew Too Much" by Dick Russell I think John Hurt has some similarities also with Richard Case Nagell. Intelligence agent in Japan, a few stints in mental institutions, followed by "trips". Hello again to all it has been a long time.

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Robert

Thanks for saving me with that piece of information, I knew I had read it somewhere.  Back to the positives of this whole forum concept.

All the indicators seem to point to an outgoing call from Oswald rather than an incomming call to the Dallas jail.  I personally belive that Oswald was first "used" by intelligence in 1959 so I am looking to connect a John (:blink: Hurt to a hometown or permanent residence in or around a "Raleigh" about that time if it is even possible.  As I implied before, this had always been on a back burner for me until a loose connection to Edwin Walker was followed years later by a much stronger possible connection to Maxwell Taylor and Japanese linguist John B. Hurt.

Shanet......John D. Hurt (counter intel) or John B. Hurt (the linguist)?  I have a researcher trying to track more backround on a possible John B. Hurt lead and hope to have some additional information soon.

Hi Jim:

Shot-in-the-dark department. 

The second Raleigh resident named John Hurt sported the middle initial "W."  The man you're seeking had the middle initial "B." 

One wonders: if "W" stood for "William," and the abbreviation of that is "Bill," is it remotely possible that John "B" Hurt and John "W" Hurt would be the same man, with just that one variant [perhaps even concocted to give one man the appearance of being two men]?  If he served the 'middle-man' role we assume was played by Oswald's "Hurt," there may have been cause to give such a false appearance.

I find it puzzling that neither HSCA staff nor Grover Proctor's own investigator could come up with anything on this second John Hurt.  This fact becomes even more stark when compared to the massive amount of information Proctor's investigator seems to have uncovered about John D. Hurt.

FWIW...

Jim Root

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THE THREE JOHN HURTS

John B. Hurt was a japan based WWII cryptolinguist

from an early joint military civilian signals and cryptographic cell

the proto NSA - and may have had contact with Oswald at MK/ULTRA

and SIGINT base Atsugi Japan 1958 or 1959.

John D. Hurt is another counter intelligence figure with army intel background.

John W. Hurt was a small business tradesman in Raleigh, whose # got memoed 11/23/63.

{{....also, the Mississippi John Hurt, a Delta blues songwriter

and John Hurt, film actor "the elephant man"}}

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Justin, Robert, Ron and Shanet

Since we are speculating: How about ploting Raliegh, NC on a map? About 70 miles South and slightly East is Fort Bragg, NC (the home of the Special Forces, both pre WWII and the new types that began during the Cold War period). More than once we find both Walker and Taylor associated with this base and the special troops that it has historically produced.

A Case:

In 1963 the "Magic" program was still classified. I think that Shanet provides alot of backround on the governments ability to do "legal things" that would surprize the average American and to cover-up a person who was involved with this program is plausible.

The real John B. Hurt has not received his due as far as recognition from the intelligence community that the others involved in the "Magic" program have received. Is this because the Japanese linguist was not as important a part of the "team" or is there another reason?

General Maxwell Taylor, another Japanese linguist, worked within the "Old Munitions Building" at the same time as this John B. Hurt and both had access to George C. Marshall in their official capacities.

Edwin Walker was, I believe, involved, in a counter-intelligence capacity, with Army Signals Intelligence beginning about 1934 (where I first found a possible association with John B. Hurt and Walker). This coincides with the joint Army-Navy program to break the Japanese Code and the insitution of a vail of security to surround this program. Walker's return from Pearl Harbor 32 days before Pearl Harbor was attacked (within days of the Magic intercepts that made it apparent that Japan was expected to attack somewhere within the month) is another bit of unusual timming in the life of Maj. Gen. Walker.

Jim Root

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Jim,

With John B. Hurt and John D. Hurt, it looks like we have a coincidence either way you look at it. So one way to approach it is to ask, which is the more unlikely coincidence.

I think it's much more unlikely that Oswald would want to talk to the Japanese linguist John Hurt and mistakenly try to contact another John Hurt in Raleigh who not only had an intelligence background too but also fit the profile of a potential patsy (mentally unstable, taking a mysterious trip in November 1963) just as well as Oswald or Tom Vallee in Chicago. Add to that the fact that Oswald actually had the Raleigh John Hurt's phone number on the night of November 23, and I tend to believe that Oswald was trying to contact the right Hurt, and that Oswald was trying to do so because this Hurt had been involved someway on the fringe of the conspiracy.

There is a problem with that too, mainly why John D. Hurt, if he had been used in the conspiracy at least enough to have Oswald trying to call him, was not among the people eliminated before the HSCA had a chance to talk to them, if not long before then. I have no answer for that. Maybe they lost track of who all they needed to kill. I'm more willing to buy that, anyway, than another unlikely coincidence in the JFK case.

Ron

Edited by Ron Ecker
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