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Deaths of Witnesses


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Some writers who have investigated the assassination of John F. Kennedy have claimed that a large number of witnesses to the event have died in mysterious circumstances. The Sunday Times reported that "the odds against these witnesses being dead by February, 1967, were one hundred thousand trillion to one." When the Select Committee on Assassinations questioned the newspaper reporter who wrote the article, he admitted he had made a "careless journalistic mistake".

In his book Crossfire, the author Jim Marrs, provided a list of 103 people who he claims died in mysterious circumstances between 1963 and 1976. In reality, most of these people died of natural causes. Some of these people did die in accidents. Others were murdered or committed suicide. However, these people rarely had information that would have been important in helping investigators discover if there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy.

After the assassination of President Kennedy, Gary 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 John F. 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!"

Gary 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." Underhill was found dead on 8th May 1964. He had been shot in the head and it was officially ruled that he had committed suicide. However, in his book, Destiny Betrayed, James DiEugenio claimed that the bullet entered the right-handed Underhill's head behind the left ear.

There has been a significant number of people who have died who did appear to have important information about the case. This includes several journalists investigating the murder. On 24th November, 1963, Bill Hunter of the Long Beach Press Telegram and Jim Koethe of the Dallas Times Herald interviewed George Senator. Also there was the attorney Tom Howard. Earlier that day Senator and Howard had both visited Jack Ruby in jail.

It is not known what was said at this meeting but on 23rd April 1964, Hunter was shot dead by Creighton Wiggins, a policeman in the pressroom of a Long Beach police station. Wiggins initially claimed that his gun fired when he dropped it and tried to pick it up. In court this was discovered that this was impossible and it was decided that Hunter had been murdered. Wiggins finally admitted he was playing a game of quick draw with his fellow officer. The other officer, Errol F. Greenleaf, testified he had his back turned when the shooting took place. In January 1965, both were convicted and sentenced to three years probation.

Jim Koethe decided to write a book about the assassination of Kennedy. However, he died on 21st September, 1964. It seems that a man broke into his Dallas apartment and killed him by a karate chop to the throat. Tom Howard died of a heart-attack, aged 48, in March, 1965.

On 21st July, 1964, Dr. Mary Sherman was murdered in New Orleans. She had been stabbed in the heart, arm, leg and stomach. Her laboratory was also set on fire. The crime has never been sold. Later Edward T. Haslam published Mary, Ferrie & the Monkey Virus : The Story of an Underground Medical Laboratory. In the book he argued that Sherman was working with David Ferrie. Haslam believed that this Central Intelligence Agency backed research involved disease intelligence gathering and cancer research using laboratory-made biological weapons. Haslam claimed this biological weapon was to be used against Cuba’s Fidel Castro.

Judyth Baker later began giving interviews aboout involvement in an anti-Castro conspiracy. She claims that in 1963 she was recruited by Dr. Canute Michaelson to work with Dr. Alton Ochsner and Dr. Mary Sherman in a CIA secret project. This involved creating the means to insure Fidel Castro developed cancer.

In 1963 Judyth moved to New Orleans where she worked closely with others involved in this plot. This included Lee Harvey Oswald, David Ferrie, Clay Shaw and Guy Bannister. Later she claimed she began an affair with Oswald. The research into this biological weapon was carried out in the homes of Ferrie and Sherman. Oswald role in this conspiracy was to work as a courier. However, the project was abandoned in September, 1963, and Oswald was ordered to Dallas.

Oswald kept in touch with Baker and in November, 1963, he had been forced to join a plot to kill John F. Kennedy. Oswald believed that the conspiracy was being organized by Mafia leader, Carlos Marcello and a CIA agent, David Atlee Phillips. Oswald told her he would do what he could to ensure that Kennedy was not killed. After the assassination of Kennedy and the arrest of Oswald, Baker received a phone-call from David Ferrie warning her that she would be killed if she told anyone about her knowledge of these events.

Dorothy Kilgallen, a crime reporter of the New York Journal, obtained a private interview with Jack Ruby. She told friends that she had information that would "break the case wide open". Aware of what had happened to Bill Hunter and Jim Koethe, she handed her interview notes to her friend Margaret Smith. On 8th November, 1965, Kilgallen, was found dead. It was reported she had committed suicide. Her friend, Margaret Smith, died two days later.

Two of the men that Jim Garrison believed were involved in the conspiracy to kill Kennedy, Guy Bannister (June, 1964) and David Ferrie ( February, 1967) died before they could be brought to court.

Roger D. Craig was on duty in Dallas on 22nd November, 1963. After hearing the firing at President John F. Kennedy he ran towards the Grassy Knoll where he interviewed witnesses to the shooting. About 15 minutes later he saw a man running from the back door of the Texas Book Depository down the slope to Elm Street. He then got into a Nash station wagon.

Craig saw the man again in the office of Captain Will Fitz. It was the recently arrested Lee Harvey Oswald. When Craig told his story about the man being picked up by the station wagon, Oswald replied: "That station wagon belongs to Mrs. Paine... Don't try to tie her into this. She had nothing to do with it."

Craig was also with Seymour Weitzman when the rifle was found on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository. He insisted that the rifle was a 7.65 Mauser and not a Mannlicher-Carcano.

Craig became unpopular with senior police officers in Dallas when he testified before the Warren Commission. He insisted he had seen Lee Harvey Oswald get into the station wagon 15 minutes after the shooting. This was ignored by Earl Warren and his team because it showed that at least two people were involved in the assassination. Craig, unlike Seymour Weitzman, refused to change his mind about finding a Mauser rather than a Mannlicher-Carcano in the Texas Book Depository. Craig was fired from the police department in 1967 after he was found to have discussed his evidence with a journalist.

In 1967 Roger D. Craig went to New Orleans and was a prosecution witness at the trial of Clay Shaw. Later that year he was shot at while walking to a car park. The bullet only grazed his head. In 1973 a car forced Craig's car off a mountain road. He was badly injured but he survived the accident. In 1974 he surviving another shooting in Waxahachie, Texas. The following year he was seriously wounded when his car engine exploded. Craig told friends that the Mafia had decided to kill him. Craig was found dead from on 15th May, 1975. It was later decided he had died as a result of self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

When the Select Committee on Intelligence Activities and Select Committee on Assassinations began investigating Kennedy's death in the 1970s the deaths of potential witnesses increased dramatically. This included several criminals with links to the secret Executive Action plan to kill foreign political leaders. Those who died violent deaths during this period included Lucien Sarti (1972), Thomas Davis (1973), Dave Yarras (1974), Sam Giancana (1975), Jimmy Hoffa (1975), Johnny Roselli (1976), George De Mohrenschildt (1977), Charlie Nicoletti (1977) and Carlos Prio (1977).

William Sullivan was the main figure in the FBI involved in the Executive Action project. He was shot dead near his home in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, on 9th November, 1977. Sullivan had been scheduled to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

Sullivan was one of six top FBI officials who died in a six month period in 1977. Others who were due to appear before the committee who died included Louis Nicholas, special assistant to J. Edgar Hoover and his liaison with the Warren Commission; Alan H. Belmont, special assistant to Hoover; James Cadigan, document expert with access to documents that related to death of John F. Kennedy; J. M. English, former head of FBI Forensic Sciences Laboratory where Oswald's rifle and pistol were tested and Donald Kaylor, FBI fingerprint chemist who examined prints found at the assassination scene.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKdeaths.htm

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Good piece! Even some new bits for me. Maybe you could edit it to include Rose Cheramie. Very significant mysterious death.

I like to add this:

David Ferrie died a mysterious death, which was ruled a suicide, only two days before he was scheduled to testify in the famous trial of District Attorney Jim Garrison, who accused him of being part of a conspiracy in the murder of JFK. David Ferrie had denied knowing Oswald. Jim Garrison later said he would have loved to have this picture at the time of his trial. David Ferrie died of a brain heamorrhage. James Files says the brain heamorrhage was inflicted with a nail file through the roof of the mouth, but he refuses to reveal his source. Note: Jim Garrison, David Ferrie and Guy Banister are played by Kevin Costner, Joe Pesci and Loe Asner in Oliver Stone's movie "JFK".

Wim

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Good piece! Even some new bits for me. Maybe you could edit it to include Rose Cheramie. Very significant mysterious death.

Rose Cheramie was found unconsciousness by the side of the road at Eunice, Louisiana, on 20th November, 1963. Lieutenant Francis Frudge of the Louisiana State Police took her to the state hospital. On the journey Cheramie said that she had been thrown out of a car by two gangsters who worked for Jack Ruby. She claimed that the men were involved in a plot to kill John F. Kennedy. Cheramie added that Kennedy would be killed in Dallas within a few days. Later she told the same story to doctors and nurses who treated her. As she appeared to be under the influence of drugs her story was ignored.

Following the assassination, Cheramie was interviewed by the police. She claimed that Lee Harvey Oswald had visited Ruby's night club. In fact, she believed the two men were having a homosexual relationship.

Rose Cheramie was found dead on 4th September, 1965. At first it appeared she had been involved in a road accident. Later it was argued that she had been shot in the head before being run over by by a car in order to disguise the original wound. However, the Louisiana State Police Memo reported: "Cheramie died of injuries received from an automobile accident on a strip of highway near Big Sandy, Texas, in the early morning of September 4, 1965. The driver stated Cheramie had been lying in the roadway and although he attempted to avoid hitting her, he ran over the top of her skull, causing fatal injuries. An investigation into the accident and the possibility of a relationship between the victim and the driver produced no evidence of foul play. The case was closed"

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKcheramie.htm

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On 22nd November, 1963, Bowers was working in a high tower overlooking the Dealey Plaza in Dallas. He had a good view of the presidential motorcade and was able to tell the Warren Commission about the three cars that entered the forbidden area just before the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Bowers also reported seeing two men standing near the picket fence on the Grassy Knoll. He added: "These men were the only two strangers in the area. The others were workers whom I knew." Bowers said the two men were there while the shots were fired.

Mark Lane interviewed Bowers for his book Rush to Judgment (1966): "At the time of the shooting, in the vicinity of where the two men I have described were, there was a flash of light or, as far as I am concerned, something I could not identify, but there was something which occurred which caught my eye in this immediate area on the embankment. Now, what this was, I could not state at that time and at this time I could not identify it, other than there was some unusual occurrence - a flash of light or smoke or something which caused me to feel like something out of the ordinary had occurred there."

According to Penn Jones, the editor of the Texas Midlothian Mirror, Bowers received death threats after giving evidence to the Warren Commission and Mark Lane.

On 9th August, 1966, Lee Bowers was killed when his car left the road and crashed into a concrete abutment in Midlothian, Texas. Robert J. Groden later reported "Lee Bowers was heading west here on highway sixty-seven heading from Midlothian down to Cleburne and according to an eyewitness he was driven off the road by a black car. Drove him into this bridge abutment. He didn't die immediately, he held on for four hours and during that time he was talking to the ambulance people and told them that he felt he had been drugged when he stopped for coffee back there a few miles in Midlothian."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbowers.htm

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Another example includes the death of William Pitzer.

Pitzer was Chief of the Educational Television Division of the Naval Medical School. Promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander, he was given a senior position at Bethesda Naval Hospital, Maryland.

On 22nd November, 1963, an autopsy was carried out by Dr Joseph Humes on the body of John F. Kennedy. A few days after the assassination, a colleague, Dennis D. David, found Pitzer working on a 16-mm film, slides and black and white photos of the Kennedy autopsy. David noted that those materials showed what appeared to be an entry wound in the right frontal area with a corresponding exit wound in the lower rear of the skull.

Jerrol F. Custer, an X-ray technician at the hospital, later stated that Pitzer had photographed the proceedings, including the military men who attended the Kennedy autopsy. It was also rumoured that Pitzer had copies of Kennedy's autopsy photographs.

According to Dr. Joseph Humes, Pitzer was not present at the autopsy. However, he admitted that the Bethesda Naval Hospital was equipped with closed-circuit television. This was the responsibility of Pitzer and over the years had used these facilities to make instructional movies. It is therefore possible that Pitzer had secretly made a 16-mm movie film of the autopsy on President Kennedy’s body, without being present in the autopsy room when it was carried out.

After 28 years in the US Navy Pitzer decided to retire. He told friends he had been offered a good job working for a network television station. It is believed that he intended to make a programme about the Kennedy assassination.

On 29th October 1966, Lieutenant Commander William B. Pitzer was found dead at the Naval Medical School, Bethesda. Investigations by the Naval Investigative Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation later concluded that a gunshot wound to the head had been self-inflicted.

During the weekend on which Pitzer died, the Kennedy family transferred formal possession of the materials relating to the late president’s autopsy to the National Archives. An investigation carried out by Dr. Cyril H. Wecht in 1993 revealed that some items were missing. This included Kennedy's brain that had been stored in a stainless-steel container.

FBI files on the investigation, released in 1997 under the Freedom of Information Act, revealed that there was a strong possibility that Pitzer had been murdered. The paraffin tests of Pitzer’s right palm and back of hand were negative, indicating the absence of nitrate, therefore no exposure to gunpowder. FBI tests indicated "that the revolver must have been held at a distance of more than 3 ft when discharged".

Although there were links between Pitzer and the revolver found near the body, the FBI could find no record of Pitzer acquiring live ammunition. The autopsy showed both an entry and exit wound to the head. It also revealed a third wound that was not related to the gunshot to the head.

Pitzer had been busy writing notes to people in the time just before he was killed. However, he did not leave a suicide note. One of these notes was found on the floor near Pitzer's body. It bore a partial heel print that was not from the shoes Pitzer was wearing.

In May 1995, ex-Special Forces Colonel Daniel Marvin claimed to have been solicited by an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency to "terminate" William Pitzer. An interview with Mavin later appeared in the sixth episode of the television series The Men Who Killed Kennedy (November, 1995).

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKpitzerW.htm

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Eladio del Valle was active in the Free Cuba Committee. He also worked for Santos Trafficante and with his friend, David Ferrie he was involved in fire-bombing sugar fields in Cuba.

During his investigation of the Kennedy case, Jim Garrison wanted to interview Eladio del Valle to obtain information against Clay Shaw. However, he was unable to find him.

Eladio del Valle was murdered on 22nd February, 1967. He had been shot in the heart. He died only hours after his friend, David Ferrie. Diego Gonzales Gonzales Tendera, a close friend, later claimed de Valle was murdered because of his involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

In 1975 Harry Dean claimed he had been an undercover agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In 1962 he infiltrated the John Birch Society. He later reported that General Edwin Walker and John Rousselot had hired two gunman, Eladio del Valle and Loran Hall, to kill President John F. Kennedy. However, Dean was unable to provide any evidence to back up his claim.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKeladio.htm

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Several witnesses linked to Billie Sol Estes have been murdered. In 1984 they were linked to the assassination of JFK.

After marrying in 1946 Estes moved to the small town of Pecos. As a result of high irrigation costs, local farmers found it difficult to make profits from their cotton crops. Estes started up a company providing irrigation pumps that used cheap natural gas. Farmers had previously used irrigation pumps powered by electricity. Estes also sold anhydrous ammonia as a fertilizer. This was a great success and Estes soon became a wealthy businessman.

Estes's business encountered problems when the Department of Agriculture began to control the production of cotton. Allotments were issued telling the cotton farmers how much they could and could not plant. In 1958 Estes made contact with Lyndon B. Johnson. Over the next couple of years Estes ran a vast scam getting federal agricultural subsidies. According to Estes he obtained $21 million a year for "growing" and "storing" non-existent crops of cotton.

Henry Marshall, a Department of Agriculture official in Bryan, Texas, was found dead on 3rd June 1961. Marshall was the official who originally approved Billie Sol Estes' cotton allotments. Officially he had committed suicide but rumours began to circulate that Marshall had been killed because he had become aware of Estes' scam.

On 4th April, 1962, George Krutilek, Estes chief accountant, was found dead. Despite a severe bruise on Krutilek's head, the coroner decided that he had also committed suicide. The next day, Estes, and three business associates, were indicted by a federal grand jury on 57 counts of fraud. Two of these men, Harold Orr and Coleman Wade, died before the case came to court. At the time it was said they committed suicide but later Estes was to claim that both men were murdered by Mac Wallace in order to protect the political career of Lyndon B. Johnson.

On 24th June, 1962, Senator John McClellan of Arkansas announced that his Permanent Investigations Committee would be looking into the activities of Estes. On 27th July one witness testified that Lyndon B. Johnson was getting a rake-off from the federal agricultural subsidies that Estes had been obtaining.

Estes trial began in October 1962. John Cofer, who was also Lyndon Johnson's lawyer, refused to put Estes on the witness stand. Estes was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to eight years in prison. Federal proceedings against Estes began in March 1963. He was eventually charged with fraud regarding mortgages of more that $24 million. Estes was found guilty and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

The Permanent Investigations Committee continued to look into the case of Estes. President John F. Kennedy now began considering dropping Lyndon B. Johnson as his running-mate in the next presidential election. According to Barr McClellan it was now decided by Edward Clark that this investigation had to be brought to an end. McClellan claims that Clark recruited Mac Wallace to organize the assassination of Kennedy. When Johnson became president he managed to bring the Senate investigations into Estes and Bobby Baker to an end.

In 1964 J. Evetts Haley published A Texan Looks at Lyndon. In the book Haley attempted to expose Johnson's corrupt political activities. This included a detailed look at the relationship between Estes and Johnson. Haley pointed out that three men who could have provided evidence in court against Estes, George Krutilek, Harold Orr and Howard Pratt, all died of carbon monoxide poisoning from car engines.

The case was taken up by the journalist Joachim Joesten. In his books, The Dark Side of Lyndon Baines Johnson (1968) and How Kennedy was Killed: The Full Appalling Story (1968), Joesten argues that Lyndon B. Johnson was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and was as a direct result of the scandals involving Estes and Bobby Baker.

Clint Peoples, a Texas Ranger based in Austin, began to investigate the case of Estes. Peoples convinced Estes to give evidence before the Robertson County Grand Jury. Estes testified that Lyndon B. Johnson, Mac Wallace, Cliff Carter and himself met several time to discuss the investigation being carried out by Henry Marshall. According to Estes, Johnson eventually said: "Get rid of him," and Wallace was given the assignment. In 1984 the Grand Jury changed the verdict on the death of Henry Marshall from suicide to death by gunshot.

On 9th August, 1984, Estes' lawyer, Douglas Caddy, wrote to Stephen S. Trott at the U.S. Department of Justice. In the letter Caddy claimed that Estes, Lyndon B. Johnson, Mac Wallace and Cliff Carter had been involved in the murders of Henry Marshall, George Krutilek, Harold Orr, Ike Rogers, Coleman Wade, Josefa Johnson, John Kinser and John F. Kennedy. Caddy added: "Mr. Estes is willing to testify that LBJ ordered these killings, and that he transmitted his orders through Cliff Carter to Mac Wallace, who executed the murders."

In 2003 Estes published JFK, the Last Standing Man (co-written with William Reymond) in France (Le Dernier Temoin). In the book Estes claims that Lyndon B. Johnson was involved in assassination of President John F. Kennedy. When interviewed by the American journalist, Pete Kendall, Estes said: “He (Johnson) told me if I wouldn’t talk, I would not go to jail.” Estes has had no contact with LBJ’s other long-ago associates, he said, since the book’s publication. “About all of them are dead, really. I think I’m about the last one standing.” That’s partly why, he said, he wasn’t interested in doing a book sooner. “I’ve been accused of being dumb,” he said, “but I’m not stupid.”

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKestes.htm

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When the Select Committee on Intelligence Activities and Select Committee on Assassinations began investigating Kennedy's death in the 1970s the deaths of potential witnesses increased dramatically. This included several criminals with links to the secret Executive Action plan to kill foreign political leaders. Those who died violent deaths during this period included Lucien Sarti (1972), Thomas Davis (1973), Dave Yarras (1974), Sam Giancana (1975), Jimmy Hoffa (1975), Johnny Roselli (1976), George De Mohrenschildt (1977), Charlie Nicoletti (1977) and Carlos Prio (1977).

Excellent stuff, John.

You can also add David Morales to that list of people who passed away in that 1970's period. He didn't die violently but from a heart attack which was quite convenient for those who may have been implicated in JFK's assassination.

Cheers,

James

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You can also add David Morales to that list of people who passed away in that 1970's period. He didn't die violently but from a heart attack which was quite convenient for those who may have been implicated in JFK's assassination.

I am afraid I do not know about David Morales. Could you give me some more information.

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William Pawley was another who died before he could appear before the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

During the Second World War Pawley founded the Flying Tigers (American Volunteer Group) unit in China.

After the war Pawley held several diplomatic posts in Latin America, including being the United States Ambassador in Brazil. Pawley developed right-wing political views and was active in the Republican Party. A close friend of CIA director Allen Dulles, he took part in a policy that later become known as Executive Action (a plan to remove unfriendly foreign leaders from power). Pawley played a role in the a coup d'état that overthrew the Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 after he introduced land reforms and nationalized the United Fruit Company.

In the 1950s Pawley owned an airline and a bus company in Cuba. He helped keep Fulgencio Batista in power after he lost the support of the people. After Batista was overthrown by Fidel Castro, Pawley pressurized President Dwight Eisenhower to provide military and financial help to anti-Castro Cubans based in the United States. He also closely worked with two other anti-Castro agents, Johnny Roselli and John Martino.

William Pawley died of gunshot wounds in January, 1977. Officially it was suicide but some researchers believe it was connected to the investigations being carried out by the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKpawley.htm

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I am afraid I do not know about David Morales. Could you give me some more information.

Hi John,

If CIA had a Boogieman, David Sanchez Morales was it.

In a nutshell, David Morales aka Dr. Gonzalez AKA Stanley Zamka aka El Indio aka Didi aka the Big Indian aka Moralma was second in charge at JM/WAVE and in fact signed off on the Bayo/Pawley mission. He was in Guatemala in 1954, Venezuala 1955-58, in Havana with the State Department in 1960, Peru 1965-66, Laos in 1966 as Base Chief at Pakse, Bolivia 1967 and Chile in 1973.

Morales was held with some esteem by David Phillips and John Martino. He was also very close with John Roselli and was the man identified as the individual who spoke with Rolando Cubela in Paris during September of 1963.

I personally hold the belief that Morales was the one behind the planning for Dealey Plaza by using cutouts to employ various operational cells.

A note of interest, it was reported that during a drinking session, Morales was asked about JFK. He went into a tirade finishing with, "Well, we took care of that son-of-a-bitch."

Morales died on May the 8th, 1978.

FWIW.

James

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Would you suggest any other books on the subject?

Hi John,

I would recommend to you and to any other forum member that reading Larry Hancock's 'Someone Would have Talked' will be valuable indeed.

I believe this book can be purchased through Amazon.

Cheers,

James

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http://cuban-exile.com/menu2/2fonzi.html

Shackley's second man in command of JM/Wave is David Sanchez Morales, who is also working close with David Atlee Phillips and develops a reputation as "best CIA assassin for Latin America". Cuban State security officials speculate that Morales was the "dark complexed man" as seen by several witnesses in the 6th floor window of the Texas School Book Depository. Just after telling friends he was afraid of his "own people", and just before he was scheduled to testify for the House Select Committee of Assassinations, Morales died in 1977 a sudden heart attack under mysterious circumstances. Under influence of alcohol, he had hinted to close friends that he had been involved in the Kennedy assassination (We took care of that bastard, didn't we?"). Morales was a big muscular man of very dark complexion, nicknamed "el Indio". Several witnesses on Dealey Plaza, most of whom were not called to testify before the Warren Commission, described a man fitting Morales. These witnesses saw such a man in the windows of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book depository shortly before Kennedy's motorcade passed by, as well as minutes after the shooting, fleeing from the back of the building with two other men in a station wagon.

4. Espionage

The CIA broke with its traditions and even with the federal laws of the United States when it set up a station in Miami to direct its work against Cuba. JM/Wave has an immense payroll, with a large number of military and explosives instructors (for training in terrorist actions) and case officers who recruit agents from among the Cubans in Miami and their contacts in Cuba.

The most picturesque and dangerous of those CIA men may well have been David Sánchez Morales ("El Indio"), who was an important figure at the Havana station between 1958 and 1960, working under the cover of an advertising agency headed by another CIA officer, David A. Phillips. "El Indio" took part in the preparations for the Bay of Pigs invasion and in the creation of JM/Wave, in which he was of key importance in the area of "operations" - a vague term which covers all kinds of illegal undercover actions which generally take the lives of innocent people. In the late 1970s, Morales was linked with an operative in the Southern Cone whose

code name was "Condor." Before that, he took part in Operation Phoenix, in Laos and Vietnam.

The U.S. espionage activities against Cuba were dealt a hard blow in 1987, when Cuban Security publicly revealed the activities of the CIA station in Havana, based on information given by 27 double agents whom the CIA had recruited in the United States but who, in fact, worked for the Cubans.

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I was interested to read that Lucien Sarti died in 1972, which I have heard elsewhere. I'm almost sure I saw him, or one of the other shooters breing interviewed in 'THe Killing of Kennedy'. I remeber it because he said he was in jail at the time.

Does anyone else remember?

Lucien Sarti was killed by Mexican police in Mexico City on 27th April, 1972. The man you probably saw was Christian David, a fellow member of the Marseilles mob. He was interviewed by the journalist Stephen Rivele. His material was used in the 1988 television documentary, The Men Who Killed Kennedy. As well as Lucien Sarti he also named Sauveur Pironti and Roger Bocognani as being involved in the killing. However, Pironti and Bocognani both had alibis and Rivele was forced to withdraw the allegation.

Recently Rivele commented that: "I believe that Sarti was involved, but apparently I was wrong on the other two. If I were working on the case today, I'd look at Paul Mondoloni of Montreal... Two points I would add: I saw a documentary TV show last year about the KGB's investigation of the assassination, and was amazed to learn that they came to the same conclusion as me. Second, I was contacted two years ago by a former CIA agent (who worked in the mind control program among others), who told me that I was right about the assassination. Small comfort but better than nothing."

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