Billie Sol Estes: A Reliable Witness?

[Douglas Caddy]

Is Billie Sol Estes still alive?

I had a conversation a year ago in Dallas with two women who approached me and who told me they knew and had with visited Billie Sol only a few days before. They described a legal dispute regarding guardianship between Billie Sol and his daughter, Pam, that was in the process of being resolved.

Since I live in Texas and Billie Sol is a legendary character in the Lone Star State, if he were to pass away it would be front page news. I have seen no news about him in the Texas media for the past year.

[John Simkin]

Is Billie Sol Estes still alive?

I had a conversation a year ago in Dallas with two women who approached me and who told me they knew and had with visited Billie Sol only a few days before. They described a legal dispute regarding guardianship between Billie Sol and his daughter, Pam, that was in the process of being resolved.

Since I live in Texas and Billie Sol is a legendary character in the Lone Star State, if he were to pass away it would be front page news. I have seen no news about him in the Texas media for the past year.

When he was your client were you convinced he was telling the truth about LBJ?

[Douglas Caddy]

Is Billie Sol Estes still alive?

I had a conversation a year ago in Dallas with two women who approached me and who told me they knew and had with visited Billie Sol only a few days before. They described a legal dispute regarding guardianship between Billie Sol and his daughter, Pam, that was in the process of being resolved.

Since I live in Texas and Billie Sol is a legendary character in the Lone Star State, if he were to pass away it would be front page news. I have seen no news about him in the Texas media for the past year.

When he was your client were you convinced he was telling the truth about LBJ?

Yes, I do believe that Billie Sol Estes was telling the truth as to what he knew personally when he directed me to write the letters to the U.S. Department of Justice in 1984 in which he sought immunity from prosecution in return for testifying.

Clint Peoples, the U.S. Marshal for the Northern District of Texas, also believed Billie Sol was telling the truth as to the contents of my letters. Peoples had followed the Billie Sol Estes case for over 20 years, beginning when he was a Texas Ranger. It was Billie Sol who introduced me to Marshal Peoples. I met with Marshal Peoples several times in his Dallas courthouse office about Billie Sols desire to tell what he knew and on one occasion Peoples opened up a large file cabinet and showed me various key documents on the case from numerous ones he had collected over the years.

As I have written previously on the Forum, Billie Sols quest for immunity was connected to a proposed grant from the Moody Foundation of Galveston, Texas, which was to be used to underwrite Billie Sols writing of a book about what he knew. Shearn Moody, Jr., a trustee of the Foundation with whom I was professionally associated, directed me to interface with Billie Sol to get the grant approved and the book written. The grant was to be made to the Abilene Christian University, which in turn would fund Billie Sol to write his book.

Edited September 17, 2011 by Douglas Caddy

[Guest Robert Morrow]

I think that Billie Sol Estes is one of the great and important truth tellers in the JFK assassination and about Lyndon Johnson's use of a personal hitman Malcolm Wallace to do murders.

Basically, Billie Sol Estes was an important "cut out" for Lyndon Johnson doing corrupt under the table business; I think Estes was one of LBJ's closest and most important crook business partners.

I highly recommend his book: http://www.amazon.com/Billy-Estes-Texas-Legend-Signed/dp/B002BTZ56W

Also, here is an excellent link: http://home.earthlink.net/~sixthfloor/estes.htm

Edited September 18, 2011 by Robert Morrow

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Is Billie Sol Estes still alive?

Barr McClellan just emailed me today telling me that Billie Sol Estes has passed away at age 88. (January 10, 1925 to May 14, 2013) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Sol_Estes

You can download his extremely rare & very valuable book "Billie Sol Este: A Texas Legend" at this web link https://www.box.com/s/8b408e6999f8799dfd0a

(I was unable to get the link to work today. It should be up later.)

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Billie-Sol-Estes-Texas-Legend/dp/B000ANCGGS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368558001&sr=8-1&keywords=billie+sol+estes+a+texas+legend

Sheriff: Billie Sol Estes found dead in his deCordova home

May 14, 2013

Billie Sol Estes, 88, a Texas wheeler-dealer who made national news after being convicted on federal and state fraud charges, was found dead in his home in deCordova at 8 a.m. this morning (May 14), according to a spokesman for the Hood County Sheriff’s Office. Lieutenant Johnny Rose stated that investigators responded to Santa Elena Court after receiving a report of a deceased person, but no signs of foul play were discovered.

Edited May 14, 2013 by Robert Morrow

[Guest Robert Morrow]

"Flamboyant Texas swindler Billie Sol Estes dies"

web link for a slightly different version of the AP story: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/2013/05/14/flamboyant-texas-swindler-billie-sol-estes-dies/imOJ4S5sMkJdfcRMMVdJaM/story-1.html

By BETSY BLANEY

The Associated Press

LUBBOCK, Texas —

Billie Sol Estes, a flamboyant Texas huckster who became one of the most notorious men in America in 1962 when he was accused of looting a federal crop subsidy program, has died. He was 88.

Estes, whose name became synonymous with Texas-sized schemes, greed and corruption, was found dead by a caretaker early Tuesday in his home in DeCordova Bend, a city about 60 miles southwest of Dallas, said Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds. A local funeral home confirmed it would be handling the services.

Estes reigned in the state as the king of con men for nearly 50 years. He was best known for the scandal that broke out during President John F. Kennedy's administration involving phony financial statements and non-existent fertilizer tanks. Several lower-level agriculture officials resigned, and he wound up spending several years in prison.

At the height of his infamy, Estes was immortalized in songs by Allan Sherman (in "Schticks of One and Half a Dozen of the Other") and the Chad Mitchell Trio (in "The Ides of Texas"). Time magazine put him on its cover, calling him "a welfare-state Ponzi ... a bundle of contradictions and paradoxes who makes Dr. Jekyll seem almost wholesome."

"He considered dancing immoral, often delivered sermons as a Church of Christ lay preacher," the magazine wrote. "But he ruthlessly ruined business competitors, practiced fraud and deceit on a massive scale, and even victimized Church of Christ schools that he was supposed to be helping as a fund raiser or financial adviser."

Estes' name was often linked with that of fellow Texan Lyndon Johnson, but the late president's associates said their relationship was never as close or as sinister as the wheeler-dealer implied.

Johnson, then the vice president, and Agriculture Secretary Orville Freeman came under fire during the scandal, though the scheme had its roots in the waning years of President Dwight Eisenhower's administration, when Estes had edged into national politics from his West Texas power base in Pecos.

Estes was convicted in 1965 of mail fraud and conspiracy to defraud. An earlier conviction had been thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court over the use of cameras in the courtroom. Sentenced to 15 years in prison, Estes was freed in 1971 after serving six years.

But new charges were brought against him in 1979, and later that year he was convicted of mail fraud and conspiracy to conceal assets from the Internal Revenue Service. He was sentenced to 10 more years but was freed a second time in 1983.

A go-getter since he was a boy, Estes was one of the Junior Chamber of Commerce's 10 most outstanding men of 1953 and became a millionaire before he was 30. Many of his deals involved agriculture products and services, including irrigation and the fertilizer products that later led to his downfall.

Before his release from federal prison for a second time in 1983, Estes claimed he'd uncovered the root of his problems: compulsiveness. "If I smoke another cigarette, I'll be hooked on nicotine," he said. "I'm just one drink away from being an alcoholic and just one deal away from being back in prison."

One of the strangest episodes in his life involved the death of a U.S. Department of Agriculture official who was investigating Estes just before he was accused in the fertilizer tank case.

Henry Marshall's 1961 death was initially ruled a suicide even though he had five bullet wounds. But in 1984, Estes told a grand jury that Johnson had ordered the official killed to prevent him from exposing Estes' fraudulent business dealings and ties with the vice president. The prosecutor who conducted the grand jury investigation said there was no corroboration of Estes' allegations, though a judge ruled that it was "clear and convincing" that the death was not self-inflicted.

In 2003, he co-wrote a book published in France that linked Johnson to John F. Kennedy's assassination, an allegation rejected by prominent historians, Johnson aides and family members.

A 2007 search for correspondence between Johnson and Estes found a 1953 form letter and only sporadic correspondence during Johnson's Senate years, said Claudia Anderson, supervisory archivist at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin. In a 1962 memo prepared by longtime Johnson aide Walter Jenkins, Johnson recalled meeting Estes once and said he had never talked to him on the phone.

While he admitted to being a swindler, Estes also portrayed himself as a "kind of Robin Hood" and hoped to be remembered for using his money to feed and educate the poor. He was an advocate of school integration in Texas long before it was fashionable.

Estes' wife Patsy died in 2000. He later moved to Granbury, a picture-postcard town southwest of Fort Worth, and remarried.

Copyright The Associated Press

And here are some of my emails to Betsy Blaney, AP reporter, from today.

Subject heading: Have you ever read Clint People's oral history and his investigation of the

Henry Marshall murder as well as the Mac Wallace (LBJ's personal hit man) murder of Doug Kinser in 1951 in Austin?

My expertise is the JFK assassination and I know several people who knew Estes well and consider his allegations of planning murders with Lyndon Johnson to be extremely credible. Estes was fronted $500,000 to LBJ to act as a business cut-out, in return Estes funneled over $10,000,000 to make to Johnson who of course was insanely corrupt.

You should interview Estes' lawyer Doug Caddy of Houston who is still alive and whose contact information I have.

http://home.earthlink.net/~sixthfloor/estes.htm

Then I email attached Clint Peoples' oral history.

Next email to Blaney: Subj. heading: Here is the Billie Sol Estes book in PDF form

I should remind you that the LBJ Library is not exactly a credible source of information when it comes to the LBJ-Billie Sol Estes relationship. They are in the LBJ legacy business, not the truth telling business.

When the Bobby Baker affair busted wide open in fall, 1963, Lyndon Johnson said he did not even know the guy. Bobby Baker was one of LBJ's closest associates and Baker had moved to live close to LBJ in Washington DC when he was Majority Leader and Baker had in fact named two of his children after Lyndon Johnson.

Doug Caddy, the lawyer for Estes, told me that LBJ used to send Mac Wallace on military planes around the country to execute assassinations so there would be no record of flights.

Doug Caddy's contact is ____________ .

Then I email attached "Billie Sol Estes: a Texas Legend."

Edited May 15, 2013 by Robert Morrow

[John Simkin]

There is a good obituary in the Guardian on Billie Sol Estes in the Guardian today by Michael Carlson.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/17/billie-sol-estes

It is very different from those that have appeared in American newspapers. Although they have mentioned that their was a link between Estes and the JFK assassination. None of them went into any detail. Most of their reports were based on what appeared in Wikipedia. Carlson does go into detail and uses material that appears on my webpage on Estes.

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

I am pleased that Carlson picked up on the fact missed by Wikipedia and the American press, that John Cofer defended Estes in court in October 1962. Cofer was LBJ's lawyer who represented him in the 1948 ballot-rigging case. Mac Wallace, on the advice of LBJ, employed Cofer when he was convicted of the murder of John Kinser. Cofer's main role was to represent the interests of LBJ than those of his client. One of his most important functions was to keep Estes from testifying. LBJ promised Estes that he would make sure that he would make sure he did not go to prison. (In the same way as he stopped Wallace from going to prison when he was found guilty of murdering Kinser - now that is power). However, in the case of Estes, he was unable to keep his promise and that is why Estes made his statement in 1984.

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

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

[Guest Robert Morrow]

All excellent points, John Simkin. I am going to include the text of the Guardian article so we will have it for the record.

The American press sure did not want to talk about or emphasize all the murders that Estes relates LBJ was involved in or the JFK assassination. American media & academia just can not come to grips with the depravity of Lyndon Johnson. By the way, Robert Caro has absolutely no mention of Billie Sol Estes, Madeleine Brown or Barr McClellan or E. Howard Hunt in any of his books.

Web link:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/17/billie-sol-estes

Billie Sol Estes obituary

Spectacularly successful Texas fraudster who figured in conspiracy theories about the death of John F Kennedy

Billie Sol Estes in 1983. The following year he testified under immunity that Lyndon Johnson, with whom he had business links, had ordered the killing of a federal official. Photograph: Don Blakley/AP

In Texan tall tales, the cowboy Pecos Bill could shoot all but one "lone star" out of the sky, and lasso the moon using a rattlesnake for his rope. Judge Roy Bean said "there is no law west of the Pecos", so it is fitting that the town of Pecos, in Texas, was where the spectacular fraudster Billie Sol Estes, who has died aged 88, chose to base himself.

A lay preacher in the Church of Christ who found dancing immoral, Estes took advantage of needy farmers, lax government regulation and lavishly bought political influence, to make a fortune and turn Pecos into his virtual fiefdom. When his empire began to crumble, the shock waves went all the way up to the then vice-president, Lyndon Johnson, and have been the basis of myriad conspiracy theories, including some putting Johnson behind the assassination of President John F Kennedy.

Born on a farm near Clyde, Texas, Estes was 13 when his parents gave him a lamb. He sold the wool, bought another lamb, and began raising sheep. Two years later, he wrote to President Franklin Roosevelt for advice, and was steered towards government surplus grain. He sold his sheep, talked a bank into lending him $3,500, and bought wheat. By the time he entered the US merchant marine during the second world war, he had $38,000.

After his discharge, he married Patsy Howe, and dealt in war surplus, including barracks converted to housing. In 1951, he moved to Pecos, set up his family in a converted prefabricated hut and began selling irrigation pumps and buying cotton-growing land. By manipulating federal subsidies, which were transferable when land was acquired through government compulsory purchase schemes, he could finance his own leasing of the land. Within two years, he had bought virtually every viable business in Pecos, and was named one of the 10 outstanding young men in America by the US Junior Chamber of Commerce.

Estes made millions leasing grain silos to the government, with the support of Johnson, then a powerful US senator. He branched out into anhydrous ammonia, used in fertiliser, cornering the Texas market, but more cleverly devising a scheme whereby he mortgaged storage tanks to farmers and leased them back – the trick being that the tanks did not actually exist.

In 1960, the first cracks appeared when Henry Marshall, head of the Texas office of the federal agency controlling farm subsidies, began to investigate Estes' cotton deals. Marshall persisted, despite lack of support and the offer of a promotion to Washington in return for stopping. In June 1961, Marshall was found dead at home, shot five times in the stomach. The death was immediately ruled a suicide. Estes was eventually fined a small amount, but shortly afterwards was appointed to the National Cotton Advisory Board.

In early 1962, Oscar Griffin Jr, editor of the semi-weekly Pecos Independent and Enterprise, began a series of articles detailing the ammonia tank scam, for which he won a Pulitzer prize in 1963. Estes, who owned Pecos's daily paper, tried to drive him out of business but, on 6 April 1962, Estes and three colleagues were indicted by a federal grand jury. The day before the indictments came down, Estes' accountant, George Krutilek, was found dead. Despite bruising on his head, his death, too, was ruled a suicide – as were the deaths of two others involved in the case. At the indictment, Estes' lawyer was John Cofer, who had represented Johnson in the vote-rigging scandals associated with his 1948 election to the Senate.

The Johnson connection and Estes' larger than life personality helped turn the scandal into a major national story. Johnson was already implicated in scandals featuring his former aide in the Senate, Bobby Baker. Though the Kennedys supported Johnson publicly, there was speculation that this might be the pretext to drop Johnson from their ticket in the 1964 elections.

In 1964, Estes was convicted and sentenced to 24 years in prison, though the following year the US Supreme Court, in the landmark Estes v Texas case, threw out some of his state convictions, based on unfair publicity related to television cameras being present in court. He was paroled in 1971, but in 1979 served four more years for tax fraud.

In 1984, Estes testified under immunity before a Texas grand jury. He claimed that Johnson had ordered Marshall's killing, which was done by an aide named Mac Wallace. Wallace matched the description of a man who had asked directions to Marshall's house that day. Estes claimed Wallace had killed Krutilek and others, and done Johnson's dirty work since 1950, when he shot John Kinser, who had been having an affair with Johnson's sister Josefa. Wallace had been convicted of murder then, but given a six-month suspended sentence.

Most shockingly, Estes alleged that Wallace had been a shooter in the Texas School Book Depository outside which Kennedy was assassinated. When Johnson succeeded as president, investigations into his ties with Estes and Baker were dropped, including a cover story Life magazine had scheduled for the week after the assassination. Wallace has since been linked to a fingerprint found in the "sniper's loft" at the depository, but the identification of the print has been called into question. Though many of his other allegations have been supported by evidence, the link to the JFK killing remains unproven.

In 1983, Estes' daughter Pam wrote a portrait of her father, Billie Sol: King of Texas Wheeler-Dealers. Estes reiterated his charges in a 2003 book, co-written with William Reymond and published in France under the title JFK: Le Dernier Temoin (JFK: The Last Witness), and in 2004 published a memoir, Billie Sol Estes: A Texas Legend. In his own mind, at least, he had ascended to Pecos Bill status.

Patsy predeceased him in 2000. He is survived by his second wife, Dorris, and a son and four daughters from his first marriage.

• Billie Sol Estes, fraudster, born 10 January 1925; died 14 May 2013

[John Simkin]

All excellent points, John Simkin. I am going to include the text of the Guardian article so we will have it for the record.

The American press sure did not want to talk about or emphasize all the murders that Estes relates LBJ was involved in or the JFK assassination. American media & academia just can not come to grips with the depravity of Lyndon Johnson. By the way, Robert Caro has absolutely no mention of Billie Sol Estes, Madeleine Brown or Barr McClellan or E. Howard Hunt in any of his books.

There is no excuse at all for leaving out the Billie Sol Estes story.

[Douglas Caddy]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2333618/TOM-LEONARD-The-death-outrageous-American-fraudster-raises-tantalising-question--Was-LBJ-Kennedys-assassination.html

[John Simkin]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2333618/TOM-LEONARD-The-death-outrageous-American-fraudster-raises-tantalising-question--Was-LBJ-Kennedys-assassination.html

It is very important to get JFK assassination news into the Daily Mail online. Globally it is the most visited newspaper website, according to ComScore, whose methodology gave the site 50.1 million unique visitors for October 2012, ahead of the previous leader, The New York Times' site, which received 48.7 million visitors in the same month.

Of course, one of the reasons that it is read by so many people is that it includes so many political conspiracy stories. It is one of the ways that the internet has undermined Operation Mockingbird.

[Dawn Meredith]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2333618/TOM-LEONARD-The-death-outrageous-American-fraudster-raises-tantalising-question--Was-LBJ-Kennedys-assassination.html

It is very important to get JFK assassination news into the Daily Mail online. Globally it is the most visited newspaper website, according to ComScore, whose methodology gave the site 50.1 million unique visitors for October 2012, ahead of the previous leader, The New York Times' site, which received 48.7 million visitors in the same month.

Of course, one of the reasons that it is read by so many people is that it includes so many political conspiracy stories. It is one of the ways that the internet has undermined Operation Mockingbird.

I always wondered why Barr McClellan included the nonsense of Mac and LHO together on the sixth floor. Now I see why:

"Estes claimed that Wallace had persuaded nightclub owner Jack Ruby to recruit the killer Lee Harvey Oswald. Wallace had even joined Oswald in his sniper’s nest up in the Texas School Book Depository overlooking the motorcade route in Dallas — and had fired one of the shots that hit the President.

Oswald, of course, was later shot by Ruby just two days after Kennedy’s death.

Reliable? Hardly. At least on this point. Regarding Mac Wallace killing for LBJ, I do believe that.. Up to a point.

Still waiting for Billie's secret tapes to emerge. Won't hold my breath.

Dawn

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2333618/TOM-LEONARD-The-death-outrageous-American-fraudster-raises-tantalising-question--Was-LBJ-Kennedys-assassination.html#ixzz2V4QSgu4X

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[Michael Hogan]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2333618/TOM-LEONARD-The-death-outrageous-American-fraudster-raises-tantalising-question--Was-LBJ-Kennedys-assassination.html

It is very important to get JFK assassination news into the Daily Mail online. Globally it is the most visited newspaper website, according to ComScore, whose methodology gave the site 50.1 million unique visitors for October 2012, ahead of the previous leader, The New York Times' site, which received 48.7 million visitors in the same month.

Of course, one of the reasons that it is read by so many people is that it includes so many political conspiracy stories. It is one of the ways that the internet has undermined Operation Mockingbird.

An interesting adjunct to these articles is the Comments section. By and large, the readers' comments seem discouraging. Like many online papers, the Daily Mail enforces a time limit for new comments.

It's possible the inheritors of Operation Mockingbird are still on top of the game.

[Douglas Caddy]

It is important to place on the record that Billie Sol Estes maintained in no uncertain terms that LBJ arranged for "stone killer" Mac Wallace to be transported by U.S. military planes to the venues where he murdered the designated targets. Of course the pilot and co-pilot of the military planes had no idea of the purpose of their passenger's trip. They merely followed orders that came from on-high in transporting him to and from the venues.

I discussed this matter with U.S. Marshal Clint Peoples in his office in the Federal Courthouse in Dallas at one of the meetings we had in 1984 and he said that this was the same information he had obtained although he did not tell me who his source was.

[Dawn Meredith]

Doug: Do you believe Wallace died in 1971? (I have a reason for asking that I am not at liberty to disclose at the moment).

Thanks,

Dawn