OSWALD - FROM OUT OF THE COSMOS

[William Kelly]

JFKcountercoup: OSWALD - FROM OUT OF THE COSMOS

OSWALD - FROM OUT OF THE COSMOS

By William Kelly

“The conventional wisdom and that of the Warren Commission (Warren Report, p. 165) is that Tippit pulled his squad car over to talk to Oswald because Tippit must have heard the description of the suspected killer of the president, which was sent out over Dallas police radio at 12:45, 12:48 and 12:55 p.m., that he was a ‘white male, approximately thirty, slender build, height five foot ten inches, weight 165 pounds,’ and Oswald’s description was similar to the suspect.” - Vincent Bugliosi “Reclaiming History” (W.W. Norton, 2007 p. 78)

In the above quote, Mr. Bugliosi fails to include the entire description of the suspect - as he was also believed to be dangerous and armed with a 30.06 rifle.

Former prosecutor and Congressional investigator Robert K. Tanenbaun, in his address to the 40th Anniversary 2003 Conference at Cyril Wecht Institute of Forensic Pathology, gave a talk on “Limitations of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA): Reflections of a Former Counsel,” in which he touched on the issue of how and why the Dallas Police so quickly focused on Lee Harvey Oswald as a suspect, and explained its significance.

[For a complete transcript: JFKcountercoup: ROBERT K. TANENBAUM - Wecht Conference ]

Robert K. Tanenbaum: …What I am saying is that from the evidence we produced, there were substantial questions about the assassination.…What I’d like to do very briefly is to explain some of the reasons why, from a prosecutorial point of view, from what our investigation revealed, there was, in my judgment, no case to convict Lee Harvey Oswald of murdering the President….

When you hear from the experts, and there are disputes among (the doctors)…they know the details about the medical evidence, ballistics evidence, etc., but it is an overview that I think one has to have to appreciate why there really is no case.

That is to say, how is it that the police, the cornerstone of truth in every case, how is it that the police, out of the cosmos, focused on the defendant? What led them to that? What was the trail? That’s the credibility of the truth of your case. In our case, the Kennedy assassination, the first question was - how was it that Oswald was stopped by Tippit during the course and flow of the investigation that was happening so rapidly?

….How is it, in the course of this investigation, that within an hour…, a couple miles away, a police officer was able to stop Oswald, according to the Warren Commission, because he fit the description that was sent out on the radio to the police at 12:48 PM?

The assassination was at approximately 12:30 - at 12:48 a description of a suspect was sent out [-“‘white male, approximately thirty, slender build, height five foot ten inches, weight 165 pounds.” Where did that description come from?]

And the answer the Warren Commission gives is that this fellow[Howard] Brennan was… looking up at the Depository window. And he allegedly see this person - the shooter - Oswald the Warren Commission maintains, and was able to give a description, a miraculous feat … because if he stood up in the window you would only see a partial of his body [his knees] because the first few feet was opaque. [the window was close to the floor]

Whoever the shooter was…in that window - in that Sniper’s Nest, he was crouched down looking out that window which was raised about 12 inches. At best, if anybody saw anybody in that window, they would have seen a partial of their face, at best.

Brennan claims that he gave this description up, but the question is who did he give it up to? One naturally thinks he gave it to the Dallas Police, because they’re the ones who sent the wire out at 12:48 that justifies the Tippit stop.

In fact what happened was, he gave it to the Secret Service, to Forrest Sorrells, who came… back from Parkland Hospital, because all of the Secret Service people that were in Dallas were in the motorcade [or at the Trade Mart] and they went to Parkland. Now again,…is this the kind of story that someone would forget? Brennan reportedly said: “I don’t know. I may have given it to a police officer or the Secret Service!”

How many people have met a Secret Service agent the day the President was assassinated and you gave a description of someone who might have been the killer. Is that an individual you would forget?

But Sorrells corroborates what Brennan says! So we know… a description of a suspect went out that wasn’t given from the person that the Warren Commission alleges, and we are confronted with the problem of who gave this description? That is, who gave the description who was at the crime scene - as opposed to someone who gave the description sometime prior to that.

At 12:48 p.m., when the Dallas Police dispatcher gave out a description of a possible suspect in the assassination, Oswald was outside the bus station about to get into a cab, when a women appeared and asked the cab driver to call another cab for her. Oswald offers her the cab - not the behavior of a murderer fleeing the crime scene, but she declines and Oswald takes the cab across the Trinity River viaduct to Oak Cliff and five blocks beyond his rooming house on Beckley Avenue and walks back to it, apparently to case it out to see if it was safe to return there.

Dallas Secret Service Chief Forrest Sorrells, who went to ParklandHospital with the motorcade, returned immediately to DealeyPlaza where he first inspected the back loading dock of the Texas School Book Depository and was surprised that there were no police officers there. Sorrells asked an employee on the loading dock if he saw anyone leave through the back door, then walked around to the front door where he identified himself and asked if there were any witnesses.

There were two, Brennan and Amos Eunis, both of whom described the Sixth Floor Sniper as about 30 years old, with a white shirt - Oswald wore a brown one. But Eunis said that the gunman did have a very distinguishing bald spot on the top of his head, another specific detail that eliminates Oswald as a suspect.

Both Brennan and Eunis said they would probably recognize the Sixth Floor Sniper if they saw him again, but while they were both kept standing at the curb in front of the building, Oswald must have exited the building by that front door, and neither man recognized Oswald as the shooter as he waltzed right by them.

Because they couldn’t possibly have determined the height of the sniper in the window, and didn’t give Sorrells their description until after 12:48, neither Brennan nor Eunis could possibly be the source for the 12:48 description broadcast by the Dallas Police dispatcher.

Sorrells then met TSBD supervisor Roy Truly, who he asked to draw up a list of employees so they could be questioned, and Sorrells requested a stenographer to record their statements.

Shortly thereafter, Dallas Police Homicide Captain Will Fritz arrived at the scene with Dallas Sheriff Bill Decker, and they were called from the Sniper’s window by a Dallas Deputy Sheriff Luke Mooney, who found the spent shells lying together in a straight line under the window sill. Fritz then went up to the Sixth Floor and arrived there around the same time that they found the rifle.

[The testimony of Roy S. Truly was taken at 2:30 p.m., on May 14, 1964, in the office of the U.S. attorney, 301 PostOfficeBuilding, Bryan and Ervay Streets, Dallas, Tex.,….]

Mr. BALL. Now, you recall that in your testimony before the Commission you told them that at some time after the shooting, you advised Captain Fritz of the name of Lee Oswald and his address in Irving?
Mr. TRULY. Yes, I did.
Mr. BALL. And in order to place the time of it, was it before or after the rifle had been found on the sixth floor?
Mr. TRULY. I wouldn't know. I think it must have been around the (time the) rifle was found, because I was not on the sixth floor at that time, but when told - let's go back a few minutes - pardon me - I told Chief Lumpkin a good many minutes after we came down from the roof and he went ahead and gave some orders to two or three policemen surrounding him and then said, "Let's go up and tell Captain Fritz."
Mr. BALL. Now, what did you tell Chief Lumpkin when you came down from the roof of the building?
Mr. TRULY. When I noticed this boy was missing, I told Chief Lumpkin that "We have a man here that's missing." I said, "It my not mean anything, but he isn't here." I first called down to the other warehouse and had Mr. Akin pull the application of the boy so I could get - quickly get his address in Irving and his general description, so I could be more accurate than I would be.
Mr. BALL. Was he the only man missing?
Mr. TRULY. The only one I noticed at that time.

Mr. BALL. Did you make a check of your employees afterwards?
Mr. TRULY. No, no; not complete. No, I just saw the group of the employees over there on the floor and I noticed this boy wasn't with them. With no thought in my mind except that I had seen him a short time before in the building, I noticed he wasn't there.
Mr. BALL. What do you mean "a short time before"?
Mr. TRULY. I would say 10 or 12 minutes.
Mr. BALL. You mean that's when you saw him in the lunchroom?
Mr. TRULY. In the lunchroom.
Mr. BALL. And you noticed he wasn't over there?
Mr. TRULY. Well, I asked Bill Shelley if he had seen him around and he said "No."
Mr. BALL. Now, you told Chief Lumpkin that there was a man missing?
Mr. TRULY. Yes; and he said, "Let's go tell Captain Fritz." Well, I didn't know where Captain Fritz was.
Mr. BALL. Now, did you tell Chief Lumpkin the man was missing before or after you called to the warehouse and got the name?
Mr. TRULY. No, I called the warehouse beforehand.
Mr. BALL. You didn't talk to any police officer before you called the warehouse and got the address?
Mr. TRULY. Not that I remember.
Mr. BALL. You did that on your own without instructions?
Mr. TRULY. That's right.
Mr. BALL. So, when you talked to Chief Lumpkin, you at that time had in your possession there the address of Lee Oswald in Irving?
Mr. TRULY. That's right, I had scribbled it down on a piece of map or something so I would remember it.
Mr. BALL. That is the address that he had put on his application form for employment?
Mr. TRULY. That's right.
Mr. BALL. And did you know of any other address
Mr. TRULY. I didn't know of any other address at all.

Mr. BALL. In other words, you went with Chief Lumpkin to the sixth floor, didn't you?
Mr. TRULY. Yes.
Mr. BALL. And what was your purpose of going there?
Mr. TRULY. My purpose in going there was to inform Captain Fritz that this boy was missing and give him his telephone number, and his Irving address, at the suggestion of Chief Lumpkin, who accompanied me.
Mr. BALL. Did you give Captain Fritz this name and address?
Mr. TRULY. Yes, I did.

Mr. TRULY. I told - well, when Chief Lumpkin and I went to the sixth floor, Captain Fritz was standing in, the area where I later learned they had found the gun, and Chief Lumpkin told Captain Fritz that Mr. Truly had something to tell him, which I would like to tell him, so he stepped over 4 or 5 feet to where I was, away from the other men -officers and reporters, I would say, that were on the floor, and I repeated the words to Captain Fritz.
Mr. BALL. What did you tell him?
Mr. TRULY. I told him that we had a man missing - I told him what his name was and his Irving address and he said, "All right, thank you, Mr. Truly. We will get right on it," or words to that effect, and so I left the sixth floor shortly. While I was up there, just as I left Captain Fritz, a reporter walked over and said, "What about this fellow Oswald?" And I said, "Where did you learn the name 'Oswald'?" Because I had talked rather low to Captain Fritz and I said, "He's just an employee here," and I left.

Mr. BALL. Tell me about how many minutes you think it was from the time you obtained the address of Lee Oswald until you told Captain Fritz the name and address?
Mr. TRULY. I think it was immediately.
Mr. BALL. Immediately?
Mr. TRULY. Immediately, after I called to the warehouse and got his name and address in Irving, I turned around and walked over and told Captain Fritz at that time.
Mr. BALL. Chief Lumpkin?
Mr. TRULY. Yes; Chief Lumpkin.
Mr. BALL. Yes; Chief Lumpkin.
Mr. TRULY. And I remember Chief Lumpkin talking to two or three officers and I stepped back and he went ahead and told them a few things - it could have been 2 or 3 or 4 minutes.
Mr. BALL. Not over that?
Mr. TRULY. I don't believe so, and then he came to me and said, "All right, Mr. Truly, let's go up and see Captain Fritz and tell him this."

END TRANSCRIPT OF TESTIMONY

So TSBD Supervisor Roy Truly, despite having seen Oswald in the Second Floor Lunchroom within a minute and a half after the last shot was fired, for some reason, shortly thereafter (12 minutes), became suspicious after he didn’t see Oswald with a group of employees, and on his own, called the employment office in another nearby building and obtained from a “Mr. Aiken a description of Oswald and the Irving address of Ruth Paine from his employment application, which he wrote down.

Roy Truly then met Dallas Deputy Police Chief Lumpkin and told him of his suspicions about Oswald, the missing employee who wasn’t the only employee missing.

After Chief Lumpkin talked privately with two or three other police officers he accompanied Truly to the Sixth Floor where Lumpkin interrupted Fritz while they were inspecting the newly discovered rifle, and Lumpkin told Fritz that Truly had something to tell him - “We have a man missing,” - an employee name Lee Harvey Oswald - who lived on Fifth Street in Irving, and he then gave Fritz Oswald’s description, Irving address and Mrs. Paine’s phone number.

A reporter who apparently overheard Truly tell either Limpkin or Fritz about Oswald, then asked Truly who “Oswald” was, and Truly asked him, “Where did you get that name?” But before getting a response, Truly answered the reporter’s question - Oswald was an employee, a missing one.

In the meantime, Dallas Sheriff Bill Decker had countermanded Secret Service agent Forrest Sorrell’s request for a stenographer, and had his deputies and officers escort witnesses to the Sheriff’s Office across Houston Street, where Captain Fritz visited and talked briefly with Decker before returning to the homicide office at Police HQ, a few blocks away. It would be interesting to know what Fritz and Decker talked about at this brief meeting in Decker’s office at a critical time in the unfolding investigation.

Back at his office, Captain Fritz gave Oswald’s name, Irving address and Mrs. Paine’s phone number to one of his officers and ordered him to go out to Irving and bring Oswald in for questioning, but Fritz was then told that Oswald was right there - sitting a few feet away in his office, having been arrested at the Texas Theater in Oak Cliff as a suspect in the murder of Tippit.

At 3:46 p.m. (CST) the first UPI wire service report to mention Oswald was sent out. It also portrayed Oswald as JFK’s assassin and linked him to the FPCC, a report that also quotes Dallas Police Captain Pat Gannaway.

“Dallas, Nov. 22 (UPI) - Police today seized Lee H. Oswald, identified as chairman of a ‘Fair Play for Cuba Committee,’ as the prime suspect in the assassination of President Kennedy…Police said Oswald, 24, was accused in the slaying of a Dallas policeman shortly after the shooting of the President. Police Capt. Pat Gannaway said the suspect was an employee in the building where a rifle was found. Gannaway said the suspect had visited Russia and was married to a Russian. This was not immediately confirmed.”

Both Dallas Deputy Police Chief George Lumpkin and Captain Pat Gannaway deserve closer scrutiny because they not only played significant roles in the identification of Oswald as a suspect, but because both also played significant roles in the motorcade and the investigation of those who were considered a threat to the president before the assassination.

Gannaway was assigned to the Special Services Unit, which operated out of offices at the Dallas Fairgrounds, near the Civil Defense Emergency bunker, and was personally responsible for assisting the Secret Service in the investigation of those who had threatened the President or had previously been involved in the attack on UN Ambassador Adli Stevenson.

Both Gannaway and Lumpkin were also officers in the (488th) Texas Army Intelligence Reserve unit headed by Jack Chrichton, an acquaintance of Oswald who arranged for Russian speakers to serve as translators for investigators who interviewed Oswald’s Russian wife Marina.

In addition, it was Lumpkin who personally informed the Sixth Floor Sniper, whoever he was, that the motorcade was approaching, only a few minutes away.

Lumpkin was in the front seat of the Pilot Car, the first car in the motorcade that drove about a half mile ahead of the rest of the caravan and maintained radio contact with it, ostensibly to ensure that there was no danger ahead.

After driving through the city of Dallas, Lumpkin’s pilot car turned right on Houston and then pulled to the curb at the corner of Houston and Elm to inform one of the three traffic patrolman standing there, that the motorcade was approaching. Sixty feet above them, the Sixth Floor Sniper crouched in the window, and could hear both Lumpkin say the motorcade was approaching and the crackle of the car’s radio, giving the position of the president’s car at the time. But according to those who observed the man in the window as the motorcade was approaching, he was looking straight in the direction of the Grassy Knoll.

The Pilot Car then pulled out and went in that direction and under the Triple Underpass, its occupants apparently not noticing any signs of danger as the motorcade approached DealeyPlaza.

Sitting in the back seat of Lumipkin’s Pilot car was Lt. General George Whitmeyer, commander of all Army Reserve Units in East Texas, including the 488th Military Intelligence Detachment, the same unit headed by Crichton. More than half of the unit were Dallas policeman, including both Gannaway and Lumpkin.

General Whitmeyer however, was not named on the officially list of those who were approved to ride in the motorcade, and he was only included at the last minute when Chief Lumpkin apparently invited him to go along for the ride.

Gen. Whitmeyer was the military commander in overall charge of Army Reserve officers, including Deputy Chief Lumpkin, who told the Sixth Floor Sniper of the impending arrival of the Target Car, as well as Captain Gannaway, who investigated potential suspects before the assassination and gave Oswald’s name and background to the media.

Also under Whitmeyer’s command was Jack Crichton, who provided the Russian translators who helped question Oswald’s wife Marina, and Col. Frank M. Brandstetter, the Dallas resident who managed the Havana Hilton when Castro took over, employed Manuel Ray as hotel engineer, and was a personal friend of David Atlee Phillips and Philippe de Vosjoli, the head of French Intelligence in Cuba and Haiti.

While nominally under the command of Gen. Whitmeyer and Crichton, according to Brandstetter, when in WashingtonD.C. he personally reported to Lieutenant Colonel William B. Rose, chief of the Army Intelligence Reserve Branch Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence (ACSI) at the Pentagon. It was Lt. Col. Rose who had Brandy contact Col. Sam Kail, the U.S. Army military attaché at the US Embassy in Havana, who both Antonio Veciana and George deMohrenschildt also reported to.

According to the book, Our Man In Acapulco:The Life and Times of Col. Frank M. Brandstetter by Rodney P. Carlisle and Dominic J. Monetta (University of North Texas Press, 1999 p. 129) [published in Europe as Portrait of An Intelligence Officer]:

“Brandy served the 1959 session of his annual active duty at the Pentagon in the Office of the Army Chief of Staff, Intelligence (ACSI), working under…Colonel Bob Roth, in the Collection Division….This duty marked his change from Mobilization Reserve to a career over the next eighteen years of working directly for ACSI, sometimes on active duty, and at other times, after retirement, on a strictly unpaid and voluntary basis. Over that time, the officer to whom he reported at ACSI would change almost every two years. In the ACSI office, continuity was provided by Mrs. Dorothe K. Matlack, a long-time civil servant and chief of the Exploitation Section of the Assistant Chief of Staff-Intelligence (ACSI-CX). Dorothe…personally knew Brandy and other officers who worked to supply a continuing stream of good quality ‘humanit,’ or human intelligence.”

What is most significant about Brandstetter’s post Havana 1959 associations with ACSI and Colonels William B. Rose, Robert Ross, Sam Kail and Dorothe Matlack, is the fact that these are all the same people George de Mohrenschildt dealt with in April 1963 when he left Dallas after suspecting Oswald had taken a pot shot at Walker, and visited New York and Washington D.C. before moving to Haiti.

In other words, Oswald’s best friend, who knew Oswald had a rifle and suspected he took a shot at General Walker, was at the same time reporting directly to the same Army Reserve intelligence officers as Col. Brandy and the Dallas 488th Intel unit, which included Oswald’s associate Jack Crichton, Deputy Chief Lumpkin and General Whitmeyer in the Pilot car, and Capt. Gannaway. They were all part of the relatively small and obscure US Army Reserve Intelligence unit known as ACSI.

These are the same people - Truly, Lumpkin and Gannaway - who first fingered Oswald as a suspect, who gave Capt. Fritz Oswald’s Irving address and phone number at Mrs. Paine’s home, and who first passed the information on Oswald to the media.

If Truly gave them Mrs. Paine’s Irving address, the question then arose - how did the Dallas police, the FBI and official investigators learn of the address of Oswald’s rooming house on Beckley Street in Oak Cliff, where he was known by the alias of Mr. O. H. Lee? Was that address in the Oswald/Hidell military intelligence file?

Mrs. Paine knew the phone number, but not the location. Oswald had the cab driver take him five blocks past the rooming house, and then walked back, an intelligence tradecraft to ensure not only that the cab driver didn’t know the exact location of his destination, but to enable Oswald to visually check out the premises before he went there.

How did the investigators learn the address of Oswald’s rooming house?

Shortly after Oswald’s name was publicized by the 3:46 p.m. UPI report, a Colonel Jones at the 112th US Army Intelligence center at FortHood, near San Antonio, Texas pulled Oswald’s military file and reviewed it quickly - first noticing that it was cross index referenced to another file A. J. Hidell - indicating a possible alias.

Together these files related to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee - and New Orleans. Both would have included records on Oswald’s military service in the USMC, news clippings of Oswald’s defection, his USMC reserve status, news clippings of his arrest in New Orleans, reference to his radio debate and FPCC leaflets from the USS Wasp ONI security, which included the 544 Camp Street Address in New Orleans. It also should have included the most recent reports of Oswald’s visit to Mexico City and the CIA’s request to the ONI for a photo of Oswald.

With this information in his hands, Colonel Jones called the San Antonio FBI office and gave them the basic facts from the military’s Oswald/Hidell files.

This could also be Gannaway’s source for the UPI 3:46 p.m. report, unless the 488th Army Reserves Intelligence unit in Dallas had the same files with even more up to date and relevant information, like the address of Oswald’s rooming house.

Gen. Whitmeyer was in the middle of the back seat of the Pilot Car, Dallas Police Chief Lumpkin was in the front seat (either driving or riding in the passenger seat), Jack Crichton was arranging for the Marina’s translator, Col. Jones was rifling Oswald’s military files in San Antonio, but where were Colonels Brandsetter, Rose, Ross, Kael and Dorothe Matlock?

If they were in Dallas they most certainly were at the Civil Defense Emergency Command Post at the Dallas Fairgrounds, near by or possibly at the same location as the Dallas Police Special Services bureau - which included the files on those who were considered a threat to the President, especially those who had earlier attacked UN Secretary Adli Stevenson.

As noted by Russ Baker (Family of Secrets, p. 121), “On April 1, 1962, Dallas Civil Defense, with Crichton heading its intelligence component, opened an elaborate underground command post under the patio of the Dallas Health and Science Museum. Because it was intended for ‘continuity-of-government’ operations during an attack, it was fully equipped with communications equipment. With this shelter in operation on November 22, 1963, it was possible for someone based there to communicate with police and other emergency services. There is no indication that the Warren Commission or any other investigative body or even JFK assassination researchers looked into this facility or the police and Army Intelligence figures associated with it.”

If the assassination of the President was considered an emergency, and the Dallas Civil Defense bunker at the Fairgrounds was activated, it would have had the capability to listen simultaneously to all of the emergency and security radio channels being used and to record them, and coordinate any actions that had to be taken immediately in the course of the crisis.

As also noted by Russ Baker, “In the hours following Kennedy’s assassination, the Dallas Police Department passed along information purportedly gleaned from Marina Oswald that suggested the possible ties between her husband and the government of Cuba. Though the information would turn out to be wrong, it was quickly passed to Army Intelligence, and then passed along to the U.S. Strike Command at McDill Air Force Base in Florida, the unit that would have directed an attack on the island had someone ordered it in those chaotic first hours after Kennedy’s death. That this sequence of events took place is confirmed by the original Army cable from military intelligence in Texas, declassified a decade later. What is not clear is how close matters ever got to zero hour. A key element in this tangled tale is the little-appreciated overlap between the Dallas Police Department and Army Intelligence…”

Indeed, the name on the document - Don Stringfellow was an intelligence officer in the 488th and the Assistant Chief, Intelligence Section, Dallas Police Department. He “notified 112th INTC [intelligence] Group, this Headquarters, that information obtained from Oswald revealed he had defected to Cuba in 1959 and is a card-carrying member of Communist Party,” thus attempting to parlay the assassination, as others tried to do, into an invasion of Cuba.

Peter Dale Scott: “A more ominous provocation in 1963 was that of Army Intelligence, one unit of which in Dallas did not simply withhold information about Lee Harvey Oswald, but manufactured false intelligence that seemed designed to provoke retaliation against Cuba. I call such provocations phase-one stories, efforts to portray Oswald as a Communist conspirator (as opposed to the later phase-two stories, also false, portraying him as a disgruntled loner). A conspicuous example of such phase-one stories is a cable from the Fourth Army Command in Texas, reporting a tip from a Dallas policeman who was also in an Army Intelligence Reserve unit…The cable was not an isolated aberration. It was supported by other false phase-one stories from Dallas about Oswald’s alleged rifle, and specifically by concatenated false translations of Marina Oswald’s testimony, to suggest that Oswald’s rifle in Dallas was one he had owned in Russia.”

And as pointed out by Peter Dale Scott, “This cable was sent on November 22 directly to the U.S. Strike Command at FortMacDill in Florida, the base poised for a possible retaliatory attack against Cuba.”

I also find it highly significant that we now know that Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis, as well as student agitator and protest singer Phil Ochs and other players like them were not FBI or CIA agents or operatives, as their government files confirm, but were in fact military intelligence agents reporting not to the CIA, but to the U.S. military, and run out of the Pentagon.

And in the case of those who first suspected Oswald’s involvement in the assassination and gave his name and background to the official investigators and the media - George deMohrenschildt, George Lumpkin, Pat Gannaway, George Whitmeyer, Jack Chrichton, Frank Brandsetter and Don Stringfellow - it is curious that they all reported to the small and obscure Pentagon office with the innocuous title of US Army Intelligence Reserve Branch Office, Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (aka as ACSI), whose military files on Oswald and Hidell, when requested by the HSCA, were reported routinely destroyed.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Sorrells then met TSBD supervisor Roy Truly, who he asked to draw up a list of employees so they could be questioned, and Sorrells requested a stenographer to record their statements

.

Bill: Do you recall the source for this statement?

[William Kelly]

Sorrells then met TSBD supervisor Roy Truly, who he asked to draw up a list of employees so they could be questioned, and Sorrells requested a stenographer to record their statements

.

Bill: Do you recall the source for this statement?

Yes, I'm pretty sure it's Vincent Bugliosi's Reclaiming History, which is full of details that belie his wrong conclusions.

Will check and get back to you on it though,

BK

[Paul Brancato]

Here you are Thomas. Sometimes its the most interesting threads that get the least attention.

[Paul Brancato]

I am bumping this thread again. All you good people - please read Bill Kelly's opening post on this thread.

[Larry Hancock]

Paul, it should be noted that Strike Command was a special organization devoted to organizing and overseeing military actions in regions not covered by the other designated unified military commands of the period, however any action against Cuba would have been conducted under the auspices of Commander in Chief Atlantic, not Strike Command. CINC Atlantic had carried the responsibility for supporting the Bay of Pigs, of all the large scale military planning and exercises relating to contingency preparations for an invasion of Cuba that had gone on since 1960 and for the military operation which was assembled in the event an invasion was ordered in the fall of 1962.

I have no explanation for why the 112th MIG communicated with Strike Command but we do now know that elements that were on call to the Command included the armored units out of Fort Hood in Texas - as well as other units around the nation. As Bill and I have also discussed, we have anecdotal information that says an armored brigade was boarded onto trains for deployment to Dallas beginning the afternoon of Nov. 22 but that the order for its movement was canceled early that evening with Johnson back in DC. We also know a good deal about the records that the 112th had on Lee Oswald, including the fact that most of them were newspaper articles from New Orleans and copies of FBI reports generated out of the NO field office and copied to the 112th which had the responsibility for Louisiana, Texas and other states.

[Ray Mitcham]

Sorrells said that from when the shots were fired to when he returned to the TSBD, it was twenty to twenty five minutes. He then went round the rear of the building spoke to several people and then walked out front where he met Brennan and Euins. (Add about five minutes for these after he arrived back at the TSBD).

WC testimony.

"Mr. SORRELS - I don't believe it could have been more than 20 or 25 minutes at the very most.

Mr. STERN - Then you arrived at the Book Depository Building, and did you see any police officers outside the building?
Mr. SORRELS - Yes; there were officers. I recall seeing officers. I could not say any specific one.
Now, as I came into the back of the building, there was a colored man standing on the rear platform, a loading platform. And he was just standing there looking off into the distance. I don't think he knew what happened.
And I said to him, "Did you see anyone run out the back?"
He said, "No, sir."
"Did you see anyone leave the back way?"
"No, sir."
Mr. STERN - Did you get his name?
Mr. SORRELS - No, sir; I did not. I did not stop to do that, because I figured he was an employee of the building.
I went on the inside of the building and asked someone for the manager and they pointed to Mr. Truly.
I identified myself to Mr. Truly.
Mr. STERN - Just a minute.
Did you establish how long that man had been on the loading platform?
Mr. SORRELS - No, sir; I did not.
Mr. STERN - There was no policeman stationed at the loading platform when you came up?
Mr. SORRELS - I did not see one; no, sir.
Mr. STERN - And you were able to enter the building without identifying yourself?
Mr. SORRELS - Yes, sir.
Mr. STERN - Then you got inside the building and what did you do?
Mr. SORRELS - I asked for the manager, and I was directed to Mr. Truly. He was standing there.
I went up and identified myself to him. I said, "I want to get a stenographer, and we would like to have you put down the names and addresses of every employee of the building, in the building."
And I then walked on out the front door and asked, "Did anyone here see anything?"
And someone pointed to Mr. Brennan."

This seems to make him talking to Brennan and Euins at about 12.55 or later. The description of Oswald was first broadcast at 12.48. So the description couldn't have come from Brennan via Sorrells.

As the description doesn't match what Brennan said anyway, it must have come from another source.

Edited March 12, 2015 by Ray Mitcham

[Paul Brancato]

Larry - thanks. It is the 488th that I am mostly wondering about, and the continuity of government operations in the underground facility in Dallas.

Ray - thanks for that tidbit. It is clear I think that the description of Oswald 18 minutes after the assassination is proof of conspiracy on the part of some local military intelligence operative or operatives.

[William Kelly]

We've learned a lot since I wrote that and appreciate Larry Hancock's contributions - and will add some more soon.

BK

[Mark Knight]

Thanks for that, Bill.

Glad to see you back posting here!

[Paul Brancato]

Bill - I eagerly await the update.

[Jon G. Tidd]

IMO,

There is no reason for the DPD to focus on Marina's husband in the immediate wake of the assassination.

Roy Truly allegedly reported to a law enforcement officer shortly after the assassination that "Oswald" was missing from the TSBD.

Tippit was killed, and according to some an "Oswald wallet" was found (notice passive voice) at the killing scene.

Then Marina's husband was arrested at the Texas Theater, because Johnny Brewer said he saw him sneak into the theater.

Lots of questions here. Most important is why the DPD sent a task force to the Texas Theater.

Bottom line: The DPD was programmed to arrest Marina's husband. Find the programmer, that's JFK's killer.

[Thomas Graves]

IMO,

There is no reason for the DPD to focus on Marina's husband in the immediate wake of the assassination.

Roy Truly allegedly reported to a law enforcement officer shortly after the assassination that "Oswald" was missing from the TSBD.

Tippit was killed, and according to some an "Oswald wallet" was found (notice passive voice) at the killing scene.

Then Marina's husband was arrested at the Texas Theater, because Johnny Brewer said he saw him sneak into the theater.

Lots of questions here. Most important is why the DPD sent a task force to the Texas Theater.

Bottom line: The DPD was programmed to arrest Marina's husband. Find the programmer, that's JFK's killer.

Jon,

I think you're starting to catch on.

--Tommy

[Guest Mark Valenti]

Then the key timeframe is between 12:30 and 1:15 pm in and around Dealey Plaza. Drill down there and come up with the answer.

[Paul Brancato]

Drill down indeed - to the underground continuity of government command and control center.