Lumpkin, Gannaway, and the DPD-Army Intelligence network

[Bill Simpich]

Late during the night of the assassination, Gannaway and his buddies came to Joe Molina's house and asked him questions about Oswald and the assassination.  They asked Molina to come to the station the next day, where he is asked a lot of follow-up questions.  Molina was fired a few days later, although he was never arrested.  Greg Parker offered some informed speculation on Lowery back in 2015:

"Oswald was a long-time cia asset who became the property of the fbi on return from Russia. What got him into "intelligence" was a program that will be revealed in the upcoming volume. This program both took him to the soviet union, and was the one used to get him into the TSBD.

"He was told he would be taking over from William Lowery in watching and informing on Joe Molina. Lowery had "outed" himself (and thus making him useless as an informant) in September."

[Steve Thomas]

4 hours ago, Bill Simpich said:

 

 

Deleted

Edited December 29, 2019 by Steve Thomas

[Larry Hancock]

That's a very interesting idea Bill, as you develop it could you elaborate on how he would inform on Molina - who worked in a different building.  Do you think Oswald was to try and join Molina's veterans group or just engage him in conversation?   Why was Oswald continuing to look for other work, was that just a cover of some sort.  And did his informant job get changed to something that was taking him out of Dallas and maybe out of the country? 

[Steve Thomas]

This was an interesting article:

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2013/09/14/dallas-mexican-americans-remember-the-jfk-years-surveillance-by-fbi/

" Lowery discussed his role in 1963 testimony in Washington before the Subversive Activities Control Board, a government group established in 1950. Days later, he gave interviews to reporters like Jim Lehrer, then a Dallas Times Herald reporter."

 

One thing I haven't resolved yet, is if the anti-Castro Cubans knew Lowery was a prominent Texas communist, why would they have allowed him in a Cuban exile meeting?

Steve Thomas

Edited December 29, 2019 by Steve Thomas

[Ron Bulman]

12 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

That's a very interesting idea Bill, as you develop it could you elaborate on how he would inform on Molina - who worked in a different building.  Do you think Oswald was to try and join Molina's veterans group or just engage him in conversation?   Why was Oswald continuing to look for other work, was that just a cover of some sort.  And did his informant job get changed to something that was taking him out of Dallas and maybe out of the country? 

Hi Larry.  I never knew Molina worked in a different building.  I guess the one a couple of blocks away where Truly called for Oswald's application info when he '"discovered" he was missing?

[Larry Hancock]

As I understand it, the TSBD administrative offices were in a building a couple of blocks NE of the TSBD bldg.  Actually that was where Ruth Paine mistakenly pointed out to Marina that Oswald worked.  The storage facilities, the actual warehousing and shipping facility for the TSBD had been across the street in the Daltex and only moved over to the TSBD building less than a year before the assassination. Before that time that building  had been a grocery warehouse...which was why the upper floors needed reworking to hold the heavier book cartons.  Which is also why that fall several employees were relocated over to the new TSBD building to work on the flooring, which in turn created the stocking vacancy that Oswald filled.  

Molina would normally have worked in the administrative area in the other building although he certainly could have spent time in the store house, which was what the TSBD was - remember that building also contained a number of independent book related firms.

All the above is from memory so I welcome any corrections,  there was much written about the move of the Book Depository from the DalTex to the TSBD building in the early days of research,  several articles in Jerry Roses Third and Fourth Decade journals including some great ones by William Weston, whom I only met once, briefly.  Its really important background material but its been years since I dug into it.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=48681&relPageId=24&search=texas_school book depository forth decade

I suspect Bill has already gone into all this so he or anyone with a fresher memory should correct or flesh anything I got wrong.  

 

[Bill Simpich]

Steve,  the Mexican-Americans like Joe Molina in the GI Forum did not know that Bill Lowery was with the Communist Party.  Bill would attend their meetings with other Communists without revealing their party membership.

As to Larry's questions about how LHO would actually spy on Molina - Greg Parker's whole idea is new to me, but I must admit I find it appealing.  Molina handled the TSBD's finances, so I think LHO would have never met him on the job in any case - the American GI Forum would have been ideal for LHO, especially if he could avoid the meetings but write letters to Joe Molina!

I am convinced that the shoe store salesman/Communist Party member Bill Lowery is a "spare part" in the assassination that was never used. 

I find the whole shoe store story of Johnny Brewer wild, especially when he runs out the door after listening to the Texas police chase over the radio of his "IBM pals" that liked to hang out at the shoe store with him and apparently egged him into chasing Oswald - they even had a key and locked the store up for him!

[Bill Simpich]

i ran into Steve Thomas' comment that Special Service Bureaus were established all over the country - and were better known as Red Squads!

This blew me away.  

I've studied Red Squads off and on much of my life, but never deeply studied their history.

I have believed all along that the Special Service Bureau had to know about LHO and his Soviet/Marxist ties pre-assassination - after all, it was in the local papers that LHO was moving to the Dallas-Fort Worth area upon his return from the USSR.

But I had subconsciously bought into the denials of Gannaway and Revill that the Special Services Bureau studied "subversives" - even though I knew that Jack Revill testified to the Warren Commission that he was active in the LEIU.   The LEIU - the Law Enforcement Intelligence Units - was and is a network formed in 1956 that shares intelligence between state and local officers.

Gannaway told the FBI that "the Criminal lntelligence Section does not 

The LEIU studies subversives all over the country but is insulated from the terms of the Freedom of Information Act.  The LEIU doesn't keep its files in the public arena even though the members are present and former police officers from around the country.

So here's the first question - did Dallas law enforcement knew about Oswald prior to the assassination?  Here's Paul Hoch on the subject, and Paul does ask the hard questions:

 The Dallas Police Department claimed to have no pre-assassination
awareness of Lee Harvey Oswald.  This claim was challenged by early critics.
As Sylvia Meagher put it, the immediate focus on Oswald was "curious" but
"the same actions begin to make sense if one assumes that [DPD Captain Will]
Fritz knew of Oswald beforehand, was familiar with Oswald's unpopular
political tendencies and Marxist convictions, and recognized in him the
perfect candidate for the role of the assassin."  (Accessories After the
Fact, p. 89)
     If the Dallas Police had reported starting a file on Oswald after his
return from Russia in 1962, I would not have been surprised.  His return was
the subject of two stories  one on the front page  in Fort Worth newspapers.
People who had shown as much commitment to the USSR as Oswald had done by
defecting were not common in Texas in 1963.
     I think those newspaper stories are in the Warren Commission volumes,
but I cannot readily locate them.  Enclosed is a detailed description from a
1962 FBI report (CE 823, pp. 810).  (I vaguely recall, incidentally, that
these and earlier clippings constituted the preassassination file on Oswald
held by the Texas Department of Public Safety.  A check of indexed
references to DPS officer Homer Garrison might verify this claim.)

Second question:  If the Dallas police knew about Oswald pre-11/22/63, who would that be?

Here's a hint - if Robert Sam Anson is right that Dallas intelligence officers Jack Revill and V. J. Brian comprised the Dallas Red Squad...

Revill led the search in the Book Depository in the moments after the assassination, and doubtlessly spoke to Fritz when he arrived...and then Revill left to talk to the chief...

On Revill's way upstairs to see the chief...remember the alleged frantic discussion in the elevator on 11/22 between Jack Revill and Jim Hosty?  Wasn't there a high level of tension between their two stories regarding the background knowledge of Oswald?   Revill said Hosty said to him that the FBI knew that LHO was a Communist, but they never thought he would do something like this or words to that effect?   Hosty called Revill a xxxx.  Hoover went on to break friendly relations with Dallas Police for years after?

Third question:  Who in law enforcement or intelligence knew about Oswald prior to the assassination?

My friend Patrick McCarthy calls this information "radioactive", and offers a three-level provocative flowchart.   Think of the American People and Oswald's "radioactive" background as two separate items - with law enforcement and intelligence as the "protective wall" that insulates the American people from this "radioactive information".

                                              ---- KNOWLEDGE OF OSWALD'S BACKGROUND ----

                         Dallas Police Department _______FBI_____CIA______Military Intelligence 

                                                                  -THE AMERICAN PEOPLE -

Review this flowchart.

The Dallas Police Department claims they didn't know anything about Oswald before the assassination.  (But the Texas Dept of Public Safety knew about Oswald's background and his return from the Soviet Union - the precise kind of info that the LEIU collected and shared with people like Jack Revill!

The FBI admits they knew a fair amount about Oswald before the assassination, and that they passed their information on to the CIA but not the Dallas police.  (Note, for example, after 11/22 New Orleans Police Dept undercover agent Joseph Hummel claims having seen Oswald in both New Orleans and the Dallas YMCA - the FBI goes to great lengths to say "Hummel is wrong".)

The CIA admits they knew some hot items about Oswald before the assassination that they did not pass on to the FBI.  (e.g., LHO's alleged visit to the Cuban consulate in Mexico City)

Military intelligence files (ONI, Marine, and others) indicate that they had the deepest background on Oswald, and that they generally did not pass on their information about Oswald to anybody prior to the assassination.

Conclusions from this flowchart?   

My conclusion is that it is hard to believe that none of the Special Services Bureau boys (Revill and his boss Gannaway) didn't know about Oswald pre-assassination - and that military intelligence knew more about LHO than anyone else and kept it to itself as much as possible.

 

[Guest]

On 12/29/2019 at 11:15 AM, Bill Simpich said:

.  Molina was fired a few days later, although he was never arrested.  Greg Parker offered some informed speculation on Lowery back in 2015:

"

Molina was fired just before X-Mas.

Given three months pay,three months half pay and a little X-Mas bonus.

[Andrej Stancak]

FBI agent James Hosty appeared to be in contact with the Dallas Police Department on a regular basis. This part is from Assignment:Oswald - describing the moments when Hosty learned about the assassination but did not know about Lee Oswald yet:

"I called the Dallas police station, intelligence unit, and asked to speak to Detective Sergeant H. M. Hart, my counterpart, and the second in command at the intelligence unit there. “Sergeant, Jim Hosty here. I’m compiling a list of radical right-wingers and I was wondering if the police had any of these folks under surveillance today.” “No,” Hart replied. “And we haven’t picked any up today, either. All of us in the intelligence unit were down at the Trade Mart monitoring the Indignant White Citizens Council.”

Hosty, James P.. Assignment: Oswald . Skyhorse Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

It is possible but not confirmed that Sgt. Hart could know about Lee Oswald if Hosty knew and communicated with the intelligence unit. Revill may not know about Oswald but someone else in the Intelligence Unit could know.

[Steve Thomas]

14 hours ago, Bill Simpich said:

My conclusion is that it is hard to believe that none of the Special Services Bureau boys (Revill and his boss Gannaway) didn't know about Oswald pre-assassination - and that military intelligence knew more about LHO than anyone else and kept it to itself as much as possible.

 

Bill,

Lieutenant Jack Revill testified before the Warren Commission on May 13, 1964. (Bob Carroll had already testified a month earlier – see below)

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/revill2.htm

 

The questioning concerns a Report that Revill wrote out at approximately 3:30 to 3:35 on the afternoon of the 22^nd concerning Lee Harvey Oswald at 605 Elsbeth St.

This Report is CE 709 at (17H495)

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1134#relPageId=521&tab=page

Mr. REVILL. That is what they gave me.
Mr. RANKIN. You found that out?
Mr. DULLES. This is an address he once lived at.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you know that?
Mr. DULLES. This is correct. I want to find out what he knows about it.

Notice the interplay between Rankin and Dulles. Dulles seems to know about the Elsbeth St. address and he wants to know how Revill knows about it.

 

CE 2003 located in (24H259) is the list submitted to Captain Gannaway through Jack Revill of TSBD employees.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1140#relPageId=277&tab=page

It is dated November 22, 1963. Heading that list is Harvey Lee Oswald at 605 Elsbeth. The Report submitted to Gannaway says it is coming thru Jack Revill. Page 3 of CE 2003, found on page 260, is signed by R.W. Westphal, Detective, Criminal Intelligence Section and P.M. Parks, Detective, Administrative Section. R.W. Westphal and P.M. Parks were both Detectives in the Special Service Bureau. Carroll and Taylor were also Detectives in that Bureau. W.P. Gannaway was the Captain and Revill was one of the Lieutenants.

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/pdf/WH19_Batchelor_Ex_5002.pdf

 

The list was compiled by Roy Westphal, Detective, Criminal Intelligence Section and P.M. Parks, Detective, Administrative Section, and given to Jack Revill. Westphal and Parks were both Detectives in the Special Service Bureau.

The second column has the abbreviations at the top that says, "REF. INT". at the top.

Most of the names have NONE listed, but there are three names that have a number alongside their name. I always thought that the INT at the top of the column meant Interview, but then I remembered something. In the book, No More Silence by Larry Sneed, Westphal says that later in the evening on the 22nd, he and Parks had returned to their office at the Fairgrounds to write up their Report of their days activities. While they were there, Gannaway called them and asked them to cross-reference the list of TSBD employees against the CID's Intelligence Files. When they did, they recognized Joe Molina's name. Gannaway told them to bring the whole file downtown.

https://books.google.com/books?id=7uT-47ysB5MC&pg=PA326&lpg=PA326&dq=Dallas+"+Roy+Westphal"&source=bl&ots=eii6yRhLo8&sig=nr0C2_dukxaBfdcQiFnDLg3ugKM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjt-9Xpi8nRAhVpwFQKHZBBDX0Q6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=Dallas " Roy Westphal"&f=false

I realized that the "INT" at the top of the second column stands for "Intelligence", not "Interview".

 

With Harvey Lee Oswald, living at 605 Elsbeth is listed as having NONE alongside his name, this would indicate that Oswald was not in their Intelligence files, and that that information had come from somewhere else.

 

At the same time Westphal is preparing a Report of the names and addresses of the TSBD employees, (within 30 minutes of meeting Hosty) Revill is also writing a Report to Chief Curry on the Subject Lee Harvey Oswald 605 Elsbeth concerning meeting with James Hosty at 2:50 PM wherein Hosty tells Revill that the FBI knew that Oswald was a communist and that he was “capable of committing the assassination of President Kennedy.”

CE 709 at (17H495)

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1134#relPageId=521&tab=page

 

Why does Revill’s Report (CE 709) and the List of Employees (CE 2003) both stop at Elsbeth? There is no indication of Neely (where Oswald moved in March), or of New Orleans, or of Oswald’s return from Mexico nd subsequent move to Marsalis?

 

It seems clear that the pipeline of information is coming through George Bouhe and the White Russian Community. Look who Lumpkin and Crichton turned to when trying to find an interpreter for Marina – Ilya Mamantov. Elsbeth was the last known address George Bouhe had for Oswald.

 

From the WC testimony of James Hosty:

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/hosty.htm

 

Mr. HOSTY. No, sir; I did not take over directly. When Agent Fain retired directly from the Bureau he had closed the case. He had a case which we call a pending inactive case on Mrs. Marina Oswald. This case I did take over. It was in what we call a pending inactive status, that is, nothing was to be done for a period of 6 months. Then at the end of the 6-month period it was then turned into a pending case and I went out and attempted to locate Mrs. Marina Oswald for the purpose of interviewing her.
I might add that it is the practice of the FBI to interview immigrants from behind the Iron Curtain on a selective basis, and she was so selected to be one of these persons to be interviewed.
Mr. STERN. When was this?
Mr. HOSTY. This was March 4, 1963, when I began my inquiry as to her present whereabouts. I determined on March 4, 1963, through the Immigration and Naturalization Service records that she had moved from Fort Worth to the Dallas area. She was living on a street called Elsbeth Street in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas.

On March 11, 1963, I made inquiry at this Elsbeth address, and determined from the landlady, I believe

her name was Mrs. Tobias, that she had just evicted Lee and Marina Oswald from her apartment building because of their alleged fighting and his alleged drinking. They caused a disturbance and she had asked him to leave on March 3, 1963. She told me they had moved a short distance away. She didn't know where. On that same date, I was able to determine from the postal authorities that they had changed their address to 214 Neely Street, also in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas.
On the 14th of March, I verified that Oswalds were residing at this address when I found the mailbox with the name of Lee and Marina Oswald at this address, 214 Neely Street.

Hosty told the WC that he knew about Elsbeth as far back as March when he went there and found out that Oswald had moved to Neely. Oswald moved to Neely on March 2^nd, 1963?

 

Oswald moved on March 2^nd, but Mrs. Tobias didn't ask him to leave until March 3^rd.

 

The FBI knew about Neely, but Geroge Bouhe didn’t.

Robert Jomes told the HSCA that the 112^th INTC had information about Oswald in New Orleans because of his leafletting for the FPCC down there, and the FBI knew about his arrest, but George Bouhe didn’t. He said he had “lost all communication with them”.

 

From the WC testimony of George Bouhe:

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/bouhe.htm

 

 

Mr. LIEBELER - As far as you know, the next place that Oswald lived after he moved out of the YMCA was in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas?
Mr. BOUHE - Madison is around the corner from somewhere he ultimately lived.
Mr. LIEBELER - He ultimately lived at 604 Elsbeth?
Mr. BOUHE - And on my card I have a date of November the 2d, 1962, that he found this apartment and moved there, but that I heard from others because by that time I lost all communication with them; didn't talk to him; didn't ask him anything, and he didn't call me.

Mr. LIEBELER - That would have been in November 1962, would it not, Mr. Bouhe, that he moved to the apartment you are speaking of?
Mr. BOUHE - Yes; and I would say that is pretty good because I think the FBI agent told me they proved that, or something.

 

On November 28, 1963 George Bouhe was interviewed by SA John Flanagan about any possible relationship between Jack Ruby and Lee Oswald.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10672&relPageId=400&search=Bouhe

In the course of the interview, Bouhe "produced a card on which he kept addresses and this card bore the notation dated November 1, 1963, 602 Elsbeth..."

“Following his residence at the YMCA, he said Oswald secured a room in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas, but he could not recall this address, nor did he have a record of it in his papers. At this point Mr. Bouhe produced a card on which he kept addresses.”

1963 is a typo. This should be 1962

 

Steve Thomas

 

 

[Paul Brancato]

was Crichton ever asked anything about his MID? Don’t we have proof that Crichton was in charge of some of the operations in the Fairgrounds bunker?

[Guest]

This set has two extra pages and is overall of better quality.

Thanks to Malcolm Blunt.

316th Intelligence Corps Detachment.

 

 

[Bill Simpich]

The history of the South in years past was based on King Cotton (i.e., see Civil War) and Queen Sugar. 

Sugar was based in New Orleans.

On the role of Army Intelligence, the DPD's Special Services Bureau in Fair Oaks, and the sugar convention in Dallas on the week of 11/22/63 - Russ Baker has some cogent comments in his book Family of Secrets, at Chapter 10.  The most provocative comments are in bold:

In mid-1963, friends (of Richard Nixon) had persuaded him that his long-term prospects required a move from California,
where he had lost the 1962 race for the governorship. Now that he
was a two-time loser, Nixon’s best hope, they counseled, was to find a position
in New York that would pay him handsomely, and let him politick and
keep himself in the public eye. His friend Donald Kendall, the longtime head
of Pepsi’s international operations, offered to make him chairman of the
international division. But the consensus was that a law firm job would suit
him better, so he joined the firm of Mudge, Stern, Baldwin, and Todd.
Kendall sweetened the deal by throwing the law firm Pepsi’s lucrative legal
business. In September, Kendall himself was promoted to head the entire
Pepsi company...

 

...Kendall asked Nixon to accompany him to Dallas for the Pepsi corporate
gathering coinciding with the bottlers’ convention in late November. The
convention was an important annual event for Pepsi, and so would have
been on Kendall’s schedule for a while, though the necessity of Nixon’s
presence is less apparent. And with LBJ as keynote speaker, and appearances
by Miss USA, Yogi Berra, and Joan Crawford, Nixon, the two-time loser, did
not even appear at the convention.

For his part, Nixon seems to have agreed to go because it was an opportunity
to share the limelight surrounding Kennedy’s visit. And since Nixon was
traveling as a representative of Pepsi, and flying on its corporate plane—
something noted in the news coverage—Kendall was getting double duty out
of Nixon’s play for media attention. That was something Kendall understood
well.

Donald Kendall was, like Nixon and Poppy Bush, a World War II Navy
vet who had served in the Pacific. But instead of politics, he had gone into
the business world, joining the Pepsi-Cola company and rising quickly
through the ranks. Like Nixon and Bush, he was enormously ambitious.
And in his oversight of Pepsi operations abroad, he also shared something
else with them: a deep concern about Communist encroachment—which
was just about everywhere. Plus Kendall had a passion for covert operations.

Kendall’s particular reason for being interested in Cuba was sugar, for
many years a key ingredient of Pepsi-Cola. Cuba was the world’s leading
supplier; and Castro’s expropriations, and the resulting U.S. embargo, had
caused chaos in the soft drink industry. (It also had affected the fortunes of
Wall Street firms such as Brown Brothers Harriman, which, as noted in
chapter 3, had extensive sugar holdings on the island.)

Indeed, articles from the Dallas papers anticipating the bottlers’ convention
talked openly about all these problems with Cuba. One of the articles, titled
“Little Relief Seen for Sugar Problem,” explains the pressure felt by soft drink
bottlers in light of a crisis concerning high sugar prices. The president of a major
New York-based sugar company is quoted explaining why the crisis had
not yet been averted: “The government probably thought the Castro regime
might be eliminated.”...

...Nixon, the former coordinator of covert operations under Ike, clearly knew that Kendall was
more than a soda pop man. Nixon’s experiences representing Pepsi instilled
in him a lasting—and not altogether favorable—impression of what he
acidly termed “the sugar lobby.” Haldeman got the message that treading
carefully was wise. Some of his notes are intriguing in this respect. He
urges special counsel Charles Colson:

0900 Cols[on]—re idea of getting pol. Commitments—
Sugar people are richest & most ruthless
before we commit—shld put screws on
& get quid pro quo
ie Fl[anigan]—always go to Sugar lobby or oil etc.
before we give them anything

The CIA also knew the soft drink industry well. The agency used bottling
plants, including those run by Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and other companies, for
both cover and intelligence. Moreover, the local bottling franchises tended
to be given to crucial figures in each country, with ties to the military and
the ruling elites. It was not just bottlers that played such a role; there were
marketing monopolies for all kinds of products, from cars to sewing machines,
given out on recommendations of the CIA...

...Like many on the right, quite a few bottlers regarded the Kennedy administration’s
policy toward Castro’s Cuba as dangerously soft. Declassified FBI
files show that, after Kennedy’s death, one man contacted the FBI regarding
threatening remarks that his brother, a bottler, had made in reference to the
president. Another convention attendee was identified in FBI reports as
having had a drink with Jack Ruby, the assassin of Lee Harvey Oswald, on
the night of November 21.

Though unhappy with Kennedy, these independent businessmen clearly
wanted to hear what Johnson had to say, which is why the Texas-born vice
president was the convention’s keynote speaker.

By some estimates, the convention included close to eight thousand
bottlers—so many, in fact, that it had taken over Dallas’s largest venue, the
new Market Hall. This meant that when Kennedy’s trip planners determined
where he would speak on November 22, one of the very few sufficiently large
and central venues had long since been taken. The Dallas Trade Mart thereby
became the most likely location for Kennedy’s speech, with the route through
downtown to the Trade Mart, past the Texas School Book Depository, as the
most likely for the presidential motorcade.

In fact, the Trade Mart was secured by that most unlikely group of “friends”
of JFK, the Dallas Citizens Council, whose members’ views were described by
the New York Times as “very conservative and range rightward.” The council
had cosponsored the luncheon as a putative peace offering to JFK. Indeed, it
seems that JFK’s itinerary in Dallas was circumscribed by the bottlers and the
Citizens Council.

The mere fact that eight thousand strangers had poured into Dallas in
the days before JFK’s arrival should presumably have been of interest, yet
the Warren Commission ignored the event altogether.

Another interesting thing about the bottlers’ convention is that the Army
Reserves volunteered to help facilitate an unusual extracurricular activity.
As noted in chapters 6 and 7, Poppy Bush’s friend Jack Crichton was head of
a local Army Intelligence unit. Associates of Crichton’s who were involved
with the Army Reserves had managed to get into the pilot car of Kennedy’s
procession, with one as the driver. Crichton would also provide the interpreter
for Marina Oswald after her husband’s arrest as the prime suspect in
Kennedy’s murder.

According to a short item in the Dallas Morning News the day before
Kennedy was shot, members of the Dallas unit of the 90th Artillery Division
of the Army Reserve would be providing trucks and drivers to transport two
hundred orphans to a livestock arena for a rodeo sponsored by the bottlers’
group.

This was to take place at nine P.M. on the night before Kennedy’s arrival.
The arena was at Fair Park, near the site under which Crichton’s Dallas
Civil Defense maintained its underground emergency bunker and communications
facility. Putting aside the Dickensian aspect of moving orphans in
Army trucks within an affluent American city, this raises some questions
about the reason for this odd maneuver. Whatever the true purpose of a small
platoon of Army vehicles being permitted to move about Dallas on purportedly
unrelated civilian business as the president’s arrival was imminent, it appears
investigators never considered this incident worthy of a closer look.

Cumulatively, the bottlers’ convention was responsible for a number of
curious circumstances that may be said to have some relevance to the
events surrounding Kennedy’s death:

•    The convention brought Nixon to Dallas.
•    It brought eight thousand strangers to Dallas.
•    It sent army vehicles into action on city streets the night before the
assassination.
•    Its early reservation of one large venue helped determine Kennedy’s
ultimate destination and thus the motorcade route.

In any event, as Nixon’s adviser Stephen Hess has recounted, the former
vice president emerged deeply shaken about the timing of his Dallas visit. It
served to remind him that if he ever occupied the Oval Office, he too could
be vulnerable and targeted—by the very same players. And his presence in
this incriminating spot was suggestive of wheels within wheels, to which he
of all people would have been alert. Were these intrigues what fueled President
Nixon’s obsession with the CIA and its cloak-and-dagger activities in
the Kennedy era? This little-noted tug-of-war, a struggle over both current
policy and past history, would become an ongoing theme throughout Nixon’s
term in office.

[Ron Bulman]

I've never read about the Army transporting the orphans to the rodeo at Fair Park on behalf of the bottlers.  I guess U S tax money paid for their part of this excursion?  Neither did I realize the bottlers convention was 8000 strong.  This was all happening at the same time George H W Bush was there on a U S Congress campaign stop to speak at the Oil industry (?) tool makers convention?

Also, when was LBJ scheduled to speak as the keynote speaker?  He arrived in Fort Worth about from Houston following JFK about 11 PM didn't the?  Too much info, hard to keep it all straight.