Paul Brancato Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 3 hours ago, Steve Thomas said: Jim, I have yet to see a single piece of paper with Crichton's 488th name on it. I have yet to see a primary source of information from someone claiming to belong to it. I have yet to see anyone claiming that they reported to Crichton on anything. The closest I have come to someone believed to belong to a 488th MID is an obituary of a Jack E. Ernest: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/houstonchronicle/obituary.aspx?pid=160976735#sthash.mX3LJS6E.dpuf obit of Jack E. Earnest: "He enlisted in the United States Army Reserve in 1948 and served as an enlisted man in various units attaining the rank of Master Sergeant, was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in September, 1953 and assigned to the 847th CIC Detachment. In June 1956, he was assigned to the 488th Strategic Intelligence Detachment until 1962, achieving the rank of Captain. This latter assignment was primarily concerned with providing intelligence on Russian and other countries' status in exploration and production of oil and natural gas for use with other intelligence units in preparing and updating National Intelligence Summaries." (This global strategic focus was the primary mission of Military Intelligence Detachments, by the way). There was a real 488th MID, but I don't believe it was Crichton's. See page 14 of Thomas Cagley's Study - page 21 of the pdf file http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a233391.pdf Steve Thomas Steve - you don’t consider Brandstetter’s autobiography Brandstetter - Portrait of an Intelligence Officer a primary source? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Thomas Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said: Steve - you don’t consider Brandstetter’s autobiography Brandstetter - Portrait of an Intelligence Officer a primary source? Paul, I don't know. Is it written in the third person by a man named Chuck Render? How much literary license did he take? Steve Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gene Kelly Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 Steve: Westbrook is interesting. He was with DPD for many years (starting in 1940, at age 22) and rose to the rank of Captain by 1963. He left DPD in 1965 and spends 4-5 years in Saigon with the US AID. Following the assassination, he remained with DPD for about two years (perhaps to see the Warren Commission through) and then "retired" and went overseas to get away from the limelight and out of the country, when he was still relatively unknown as far as suspects in the plot and assassination go. I think this was done with many of the players and participants (e.g. Morales, Hunt) to take them out of sight/out of mind as far as any serious investigation is concerned. His name never really surfaces publicly until this second wallet became prominent more than 30 years later. The story of the wallet at the Tippit murder scene did not become public knowledge until 1996 (33 years later), when FBI agent James Hosty, revealed that a wallet containing identification for both Oswald and “Alek Hidell” was found near a pool of Tippit's blood. However, no witness ever saw the wallet on the ground, and a second witness, patrolman Leonard Jez, revealed at a conference in 1999 that the wallet was identified at the murder scene as belonging to Oswald. Had Westbrook not been captured on a television footage at the Tippit scene with the phantom wallet, we may never have focused any attention upon him. Its no coincidence that that Dale Myers book With Malice was published shortly thereafter, in 1998 ... as a counterattack to this damaging new information. Michael T. Griffith (2002), Joseph McBride (February 2014, Kennedys and King) and others have put the Meyers book - in effect, the Warren Report of the Tippit murder - in perspective. Meyers book was conveniently revised for the publication of a second edition at the 50th anniversary of the assassination in October 2013. As Joe McBride points out, the book's title gives away its agenda. For many years, the "official" story remained that Oswald's wallet was not found until about an hour after the Tippit murder, when Dallas police detective Paul Bentley removed it from Oswald's back pocket after being apprehended at the Texas Theatre. FBI agent Robert Barrett (who was at the scene of Tippit’s murder along with Westbrook) later disputed the Bentley story ... but much later. That drop-wallet contained what is the only known instance of Oswald carrying identification under the alias of “Alek Hidell” ... a sobering point. Nonetheless, by the next day, it was worldwide news that the assassination rifle was purchased by mail order made out by “A. Hidell” and listing Oswald’s post office box for pick up. The second wallet conveniently tied Oswald and “Hidell” to the rifle and Tippit's murder, less than two hours after the event. Barrett later stated (for the record) that the wallet made the case against Oswald a 'slam dunk' however, the DPD never wrote a report about any wallet found at the Tippit murder scene. Westbrook was subsequently put in charge of investigating how Jack Ruby was able to kill Oswald, when one of the officers helping hide Ruby's body in the basement before the shooting was Kenneth Croy, the same guy who came up with the wallet at the crime scene. An April 2014 Bill Simpich post on Jeff Morley's JFK Facts website pulls this smoke and mirrors altogether. Barrett's rebuttal of Officer Bentley - the Dallas officer who brought Oswald to the police station - is 50 years after the fact. Barrett claimed that Officer Bentley was lying about finding the wallet in Oswald’s possession, in a November 2013 WFAA news story. Simpich suggests that Barrett waited this long because "it was not a fight he cared to pick", and Bentley only recently died in 2008. It seems that Oswald owned many wallets ... but the one planted at the Tippit scene introduces the Hidell 'poison pill' and conveniently frames Oswald for everything. Obviously, the wallet in question was prepared in advance of Tippit’s killing, also implying that his murder was pre-planned. Simpich wrote about Westbrook and his specially assigned partner (a month before the assassination) Gerry Hill: Hill is not trustworthy to me at all and neither is Westbrook, but it gets a little bit worse because at 5:00, 5:30 Jerry Hill gets on national television. He's the guy who proceeds ... And he's good at telling the story. He was a trained TV reporter, right? He tells the entire story of Lee Harvey Oswald in the Soviet Union as a defector and then marrying this lady, Marina, a Russian woman from Minsk. Now he's telling this to the entire world. This guy's just a beat officer working in personnel. Somebody asks "Jerry, how in the world did you get all that information?" He's miles ahead of ABC and NBC and CBS. He's like "Oh, I got it all from Westbrook." He's just changed the course of history by telling the world the background of the assassin, the background that major news agencies still were trying to catch up on. Westbrook was in Saigon and Vietnam at the height of Operation Phoenix. Westbrook returned to Dallas - after RFK was murdered and the Vietnam War winding down - to work on Wade's staff from 1970-1983. He died in 1996 in Oklahoma. As I stated in an earlier post, you cant find very much about William R. Westbrook in searches ... as one researcher put it, its as though he didn't exist. A true spook. Gene Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Brancato Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 (edited) 20 minutes ago, Steve Thomas said: Paul, I don't know. Is it written in the third person by a man named Chuck Render? How much literary license did he take? Steve Thomas It’s written in first person. Go to Smashwords and read it. Fascinating book. correction - 3rd person. Page 102 is where the assignment to the 488th is mentioned. Edited October 11, 2018 by Paul Brancato Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Thomas Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 16 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said: It’s written in first person. Go to Smashwords and read it. Fascinating book. Paul, No, I'm sorry. It isn't. This, anyway, is from page 102: "After Brandy arrived back home in Dallas, he received a letter from Colonel Rose dated 20 March 1959, and it had some great news. The Selection Board to screen Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonels for promotion to full “Bird Colonels” was at last considering Brandy’s records to be submitted through the Chief of Army Reserve. In the meanwhile, Brandy had permission to perform “Appropriate Duty” for pay on the weekends with the 488th Strategic Intelligence Team in Dallas." I'm sorry, but I don't know what a "Strategic Intelligence Team" is. That doesn't fit into any Table of Organization and Expenditures I've ever seen. Steve Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Brancato Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 Looks like you found the book. Took me 30 minutes to find the reference. You have something more revealing with Texas State guard units? it was you who posted on the Colonels and brought Brandstetter to my attention. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Thomas Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 8 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said: You have something more revealing with Texas State guard units? Paul, Nothing more than what I've already shared with you in our many discussions. From here on in, I think it will take somebody going through the State Archives at the Texas State Library in Austin, and/or The Texas Military Forces Museum located in Building 6 on Camp Mabry in Austin, Texas. The street address of Camp Mabry is 2200 West 35th Street. The mailing address is P.O. Box 5218, Austin, TX 78763. The current entrance is on Maintenance Drive. Steve Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Brancato Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 23 hours ago, David Josephs said: FWIW Crichton appears a few times in The Skorzeny Papers. Why? He was in Madrid in the early 1950’s while with Golyer McNaughton arranging an oil deal brokered by Skorzeny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Hargrove Posted October 12, 2018 Author Share Posted October 12, 2018 5 hours ago, Gene Kelly said: Obviously, the wallet in question was prepared in advance of Tippit’s killing, also implying that his murder was pre-planned. And since the wallet indicates that the pre-planned assassination of Tippit was designed to implicate “Lee Harvey Oswald” in the crime, would the plotters utilize someone to kill Tippit who didn’t look at all like Oswald? Benavides, the witness closest to the crime, thought it was committed by Oswald, noting only that the killer’s hair in the back of his head “sort of went square instead of tapering off,” as Oswald’s clearly did. Someone who looked a lot like Oswald killed Tippit? Who could that be? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Thomas Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 On 10/10/2018 at 8:47 AM, Gene Kelly said: Researcher Jones Harris wrote that when Westbrook left the Dallas police in 1966, he went to work overseas at the Office of Public Safety, an agency that worked at the liaison between the CIA and the South Vietnamese police forces. Information in the 1998 Larry Sneed book "No More Silence" indicates that Westbrook worked for the United States Agency for International Development (i.e. CIA). Gene, Just an FMI (For my information) *grin*, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Public_Safety “The Office of Public Safety (OPS) was a U.S. government agency, established in August 1962 by president John F. Kennedy to train police forces of America's allies.[1] It was officially part of USAID (US Agency for International Development), and was close to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).[2] Police-training teams were sent to South Vietnam, Iran, Taiwan, Brazil, Uruguay and Greece.[3] Courses were held in French, Spanish and English.[3] According to a 1973 document revealed in the Family jewels CIA documents, around 700 police officers were trained a year, including in handling of explosives.[4] It was dissolved in 1974.” CIA "Family Jewels," June 25, 2007 Release Current Section: CI/Police Group https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=60409#relPageId=607&tab=page page 607 Steve Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Josephs Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 11 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said: And since the wallet indicates that the pre-planned assassination of Tippit was designed to implicate “Lee Harvey Oswald” in the crime, would the plotters utilize someone to kill Tippit who didn’t look at all like Oswald? Benavides, the witness closest to the crime, thought it was committed by Oswald, noting only that the killer’s hair in the back of his head “sort of went square instead of tapering off,” as Oswald’s clearly did. Someone who looked a lot like Oswald killed Tippit? Who could that be? ...as Oswald’s clearly DIDN’T Jim... Benavides did not identify Oswald... and in fact the hair description that it was squared off and not tapered.... is what may have gotten his brother killed... mistaken identity.. look here, the hair tapers off.. is not cleanly cut not squared off... I haven’t seen the back of Vaganov’s head Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Hargrove Posted October 12, 2018 Author Share Posted October 12, 2018 29 minutes ago, David Josephs said: Benavides did not identify Oswald... Mr. BELIN - You used the name Oswald. How did you know this man was Oswald? Mr. BENAVIDES - From the pictures I had seen. It looked like a guy, resembled the guy. That was the reason I figured it was Oswald. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Josephs Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 1 hour ago, Jim Hargrove said: Mr. BELIN - You used the name Oswald. How did you know this man was Oswald? Mr. BENAVIDES - From the pictures I had seen. It looked like a guy, resembled the guy. That was the reason I figured it was Oswald. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gene Kelly Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 (edited) The theatrical nature of the Tippit narrative has always been of great interest to me ... more so than the intricacies of Dealey Plaza, potential shooters, the autopsy, or any other aspect of the entire assassination saga. Unlike all of those other subplots, the Tippit story reveals quite a lot about the plot (and plotters). Westbrook and Hill stand out like a sore thumb ... they are quick to arrive at each prominent scene - Book Depository, 10th and Patton, and the Texas Theater - and quick to leave, but have no functional or investigatory reason to be there. Tippit's murder near Oswald's rooming house is a staged scene, where we get our first glimpse of an imposter acting the part of Oswald - a second Oswald. The one for whom Westbrook suppressed a list of 24 theater patrons, protecting the imposter (Lee) in the balcony. Westbrook - the plainclothes head of the DPD Personnel Department - then arrests Harvey (the patsy) and manages all of the evidence. It does surprise me that they would sacrifice a fellow policeman but, given Westbrook's HR job and access to personnel files, he must have selected Tippit for special (personal) reasons. It's always stuck me as clever to insert a cop killing into the aftermath of the assassination; as Jim Garrison first pointed out in his February 1967 Playboy interview, killing a policeman energizes the entire police force: "... the conspirators arranged the murder of Dallas Patrolman J. D. Tippit in a scheme "to get rid of the decoy in the case, Lee Oswald." The Warren report held that Oswald also killed the policeman. So that Oswald would not later describe the people involved in this, they had what I think was a rather clever plan. It's well known that police officers react violently to the murder of a police officer." In the Tippit story and Texas Theater drama, we see contemporaneous evidence of the Harvey/Lee gambit. Jim Garrison was also on to the second Oswald: I hesitate to use the words “second Oswald,” because they tend to lend an additional fictional quality to a case that already makes Dr. No and Goldfinger look like auditors’ reports. However, it is true that before the assassination, a calculated effort was made to implicate Oswald in the events to come. A young man approximating Oswald’s description and using Oswald’s name — we believe we have discovered his identity — engaged in a variety of activities designed to create such a strong impression of Oswald’s instability and culpability in people’s minds that they would recall him as a suspicious character after the President was murdered. More to the point, it has also struck me odd that "Oswald" was apprehended so quickly, in record time - within little more than an hour after the assassination - the crime of the century, solved in just one hour! Lee kills Tippit, incriminates Harvey with evidence strewn all over the neighborhood, proceeds to the Texas Theater where he makes himself conspicuous in a shoe store and the theater lobby, and then heads up to the balcony. The arrest has its origins with ticket cashier Julia Postal’s phone call to the DPD, after shoe salesman Johnny Brewer told her to call the police because a mysterious patron didn’t pay for a ticket ... one who allegedly fit a generic (contentious) description. At least thirty police officers in a fleet of patrol cars then descend on the theatre, a remarkable show of force for someone who didn't pay for a 75-cent ticket. Here is an excerpt of Ms. Postal's testimony: "I told Johnny [brewer] about the fact that the President had been assassinated. "I don't know if this is the man they want," I said, "in there, but he is running from them for some reason," and I said "I am going to call the police, and you and Butch go get on each of the exit doors and stay there." So, well, I called the police, and he wanted to know why I thought it was their man, and I said, "Well, I didn't know," and he said, "Well, it fits the description," and I have not---I said I hadn't heard the description. All I know is, this man is running from them for some reason. And he wanted to know why, and told him because every time the sirens go by he would duck and he wanted to know----well, if he fits the description is what he says. I said, "Let me tell you what he looks like and you take it from there." And explained that he had on this brown sports shirt and I couldn't tell you what design it was, and medium height, ruddy looking to me, and he said, "Thank you," and I called the operator and he wanted to know if I wanted him to cut the picture off, and I says, "No, let's wait until they get here." So, seemed like I hung up the intercom phone when here all of a sudden, police cars, policemen, plainclothesmen, I never saw so many people in my life. The Oswald look-alike (Lee) is then apprehended in the balcony after Harvey is brought out to Westbrook's unmarked car in front of the theatre. During an interview with author Ian Griggs in 1996, Brewer claimed that on the day of the assassination (when he observed Oswald duck into the lobby of his shoe store) there were two men "from IBM" in the store with him. Others have suggested that their surreptitious purpose was to get Brewer to summon police to the theater, to ensure Harvey's arrest (or murder). Author James Douglass later tracked down Warren “Butch” Burroughs who was working the concession stand inside the Texas Theatre. Burroughs stated that he saw Oswald enter the theatre between 1:00 pm and 1:07 pm, and that he sold him popcorn at 1:15 pm ... the exact time that Tippit was allegedly shot by "Oswald". Burroughs and Postal both had jobs that require knowledge of precise times, more so than other casual observers ... so there is at the least a timing issue here. The Tippit rigmarole reveals itself as a Broadway play or 'B' movie. In their essay "Looking at the Tippit Case from a Different Angle", Swedish writers Staffan Westerberg and Pete Engwall state that all of this had to be a deception ... the plotters had to create the image of a fleeing killer, and so they set up police officer to be ambushed. Tippit is vectored to Oak Cliff - which was not his regular patrol area - but a neighborhood connected to Oswald. There "Oswald" (or Lee) is briefly and infamously seen by his landlady Earlene Roberts ... a story etched in the stone of an official (but fictional) account. Obviously, an innocent man would have no need to change clothes and get a weapon (switching from a rifle to a revolver) ... and in order to become Tippit's murderer, "Oswald" had to have a revolver. In the parallel universe of this improbable narrative, Butch Burroughs sells Harvey a theater ticket (a double feature was playing that day, and “War is Hell” started at 1:20pm). As the more credible story goes, Harvey receives his instructions from the driver of a Rambler who picked him up at the TSBD and drove him to the theater, where he went inside to meet his contact (a pregnant woman, who sat with him for a while, and would later disappear). As an aside, why would a pregnant woman want to see “War is Hell” or "Cry of Battle" on a Friday afternoon when the President’s motorcade is passing by? There's a dramatic touch (perhaps even an intentional mocking) to the ending of this theatrical production, in that it climaxes in a theater. Westerberg and Engwall point out that the early evidence against "Oswald" would not otherwise present itself fast enough - an inventory head count of TSBD employees, a ticket cashiers phone call – so the plotters needed another murder "to muddy the water". The logic becomes clear when the President is killed outside of Oswald’s work place and then a police officer is killed close to his home ... timed so that the picture of an escapee emerges. The temptation to accept this entire line of thinking is classic disinformation, and the Swedish authors pull the fuller story into focus by suggesting that Tippit was guided into an ambush on 10th Street with the help of Collins Radio or perhaps the 488th Military Intelligence Detachment, with its radio central in the Dallas Civil Defense Emergency Operation Center in Fair Park. Here we see the tentacles of Jack Crichton, an associate of George Bush, both of whom are associated with and recruited for Operation 40 (present in Dealey Plaza). Many members of Crichton’s 488th group worked in the Dallas Police Department. We also see the shadow of Collins Radio when a Dallas reporter with the local FBI put a trace on the license plate number of the red Ford Falcon (with Lee in the seat) ... and come to find its owner (Carl Mathers) is a Collins Radio employee and a friend of JD Tippit. This storyline points in so many directions, reflecting Winston Churchill's famous statement on deception and subterfuge: "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." Perhaps we need to employ the Six Degrees of Separation concept, where sooner or later, Kevin Bacon will emerge in the Tippit story ... Gene Edited January 24, 2019 by Gene Kelly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Thomas Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 21 hours ago, Gene Kelly said: Steve: Westbrook is interesting. As I stated in an earlier post, you cant find very much about William R. Westbrook in searches ... as one researcher put it, its as though he didn't exist. A true spook. Gene Gene, Just some FYI's This supposedly is a photo of Westbrook on page 26 of this book.The Missing Chapter. by Jack SwikeI am not vouching for the author or his book. It's just something I ran across. Swike apparently served at Atsugi in the Marines.https://books.google.com/books?id=64ji-mF2oaAC&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&dq="William+R.+Westbrook"&source=bl&ots=0xdb2t1bTz&sig=YT8bpNEzyNXWrzg4hG-pY_ooQI0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjAu-KAtOLSAhWB6oMKHR-JADY4ChDoAQgmMAQ#v=onepage&q=%22William%20R.%20Westbrook%22&f=false Dallas Morning News, The (TX) - February 21, 1996 Deceased Name: Rites set for William Ralph Westbrook Services for William Ralph "Pinky" Westbrook , a retired Dallas Police Department captain, will be at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at Go Ye Village in Tahlequah, Okla. Mr. Westbrook , 78, died Monday of cancer at his home in Tahlequah. He worked for the Dallas Police Department from 1940 to 1965. He also worked as a special investigator for the Dallas County district attorney's office from 1970 to 1983. His wife, Anna Fern Westbrook , said he liked his job but he did not talk about it to his family. She said Mr. Westbrook wanted to do something that would benefit all the people of Dallas. "He would do just about anything for anybody because he was a very generous person," she said. "He also liked working back in the early days because he said it was not as dangerous as it is today." Mr. Westbrook is also survived by his son, Ralph Westbrook Jr. of Dallas; three grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren His son, Ralph Westbrook, responding to a question from a Brian Castle in the Reopen Kennedy Case Forum 10/22/2015 http://www.prayer-man.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/rokc%20forum/www.reopenkennedycase.org/apps/forums/topics/show/13102710-addendum-to-my-essay-on-westbrook4658.html?page=2 Pre-1963, just trying to establish the history. I'm sifting through service records, I have one with a serial number ending in 696, starting on 30 Dec 1941. Is that right? “Yes, I tried to edit that in, but it doesn't show up. He only spent a very short time in the milatary (sic)(less than six months) because of bleeding stomach ulcers. I don't remember ever hearing about any reserve activities, of course I wasn't around at that time. Dec, 1941 would have been about the right time.” Steve Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now