Lumpkin, Gannaway, and the DPD-Army Intelligence network

[Steve Roe]

On 2/23/2020 at 2:05 PM, Bill Simpich said:

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.

Absolutely complete nonsense Bill Simpich. This is nothing more than simplistic speculation that certain people of Dallas were behind setting up the assassination of the President. Anytime you would like to explore this, post accordingly. Woefully devoid of facts. 

[Bill Simpich]

You are way ahead of me, Steve Roe.  I am simply quoting Russ Baker as I explore the milieu.  If you don't like it, start your own thread.  Please don't disrupt this one unless you have some content to offer.

I am curious why the FBI is trying to hide its interest in TSBD employee Joseph Rodriguez Molina - he was the only person besides Oswald treated as a serious suspect on November 23...and why?

September 1963 - Dallas Communist Party member Bill Lowery's emergence as a Herbert Philbrick-style informant came out on Sept 23 at a Subversive Activities Control Board hearing in DC called by RFK to force a Dallas Communist Party member to register pursuant to the McCarran Act (see page 23....two days before the Mexico City saga began) and hit the Dallas papers on Sept. 26 (see page 21...Oswald was either in Mexico City or parts unknown, not in Dallas to our knowledge)

 

Lowery’s September 1963 testimony before the SACB in Washington spelled the end of his undercover career. But that opened the door for someone else to take over “surveillance”  of Joe Molina, who had been active in the American Gi Forum over the years and was very outspoken on Mexican-American rights.  Did Oswald take over Lowery's role?

 

Molina left his office at the second floor of the TSBD at 12;15, and went to the steps of the building to watch the parade. Was Oswald keeping an eye on him at the steps? We know LHO was having lunch on the 1st Floor - and LHO might be the Prayer Man figure on the steps near Molina.  For the record, Molina told the Warren Commission he did not see LHO on 11/22.

From thread 7:  "The Houston Chronicle's 11/22 report that Oswald was was the only one who couldn't be accounted for,'  in Truly's alleged employee roll-call according to Detective Capt. Pat Gannaway.   That night, Gannaway led a group of officers to visit the home of TSBD employee Joseph Molina - who was singled out a long time ago by Communist Party leader and FBI informant William Lowery who was "the Herbert Philbrick of Dallas".   Molina's name as a possible suspect got in the papers - and he wound up suing the Dallas police for defamation!"

Here's what I'm looking at now - a declaration written by Gannaway:  At 2 am on 11/23/63, Gannaway showed up at Molina's home with Special Service Bureau officers Jack Revill, HM Hart, PM Parks, and RW Westphal (who had worked closely with Westbrook earlier that day), as well as assistant DA Bill Alexander (who had been at the Tippit scene with Westphal).

They asked Molina for permission to search his home, which he agreed to.  "Nothing was found except some papers concerning the American GI Forum...I recognized some of the names therein as names of individuals who have been suspected by me in the past of being Communist Party members,  and I also noticed the name of Joe Molina...therein."

The declaration goes on to state that during November 23, 1963 - based on Gannaway's request, Molina came to the Special Services Bureau at 11 am - Revill took him over to Homicide, where he was questioned by Fritz's boys, then returned to the Special Services Bureau  where Revill and Detective H M Hart questioned him and obtained an affidavit about Molina's time with the American GI Forum - which was populated by "William Lowery, believed by Dallas police officers to be a Communist Party member".   In fact, Lowery was former FBI informant DL-2-S.  

Besides Bill Lowery, others mentioned by Molina in his affidavit were "Edmund Villasana, a jeweler, Felix Botello, Augustin Estrada, and Joe Landin."  Botello was FBI informant DL-18-S, and Joe Landin was also an informant, probably DL-6-S.  I assume the others were also FBI informants.  Jim Hosty was the FBI case officer for Botello in January 1963, and probably for the other men as well.

Before he exposed his cover in September 1963 at a meeting of the Subversive Activities Control Board, Lowery had served as chairman of the American GI Forum.  In late 1962, Lowery served as the chairman of the Oak Cliff American GI forum chapter, where Molina attended as a member.   During that time, Lowery was planning to go to New York to visit Sylvia Hall (nee Thompson, wife of Alabama Communist Sam Hall) and Jim Jackson (was this the baker James Jackson, whose info was found in Oswald's home?)

On November 23, 1963, CiA chief of the Central American division John Whitten sent a cable to Win Scott; "(FBI) tells us that Jose Rodriguez Molina is not involved in assassination and has been released.  Please inform your liaison of this, but do not attribute it to (FBI)."

During his testimony before the Warren Commission, Molina attempted to talk about Bill Lowery, but was cut short by Commission counsel, Joseph A. Ball. (6 H 373)

After the Warren Commission had completed its work, Detective Stringfellow and another Special Services Bureau officer contacted Lowery, asking about Molina and other former members of the American GI Forum (Elwood Ross, Augustin Estrada, Joe Landin, and Felix Botello - "from confidential sources, the Dallas Police Dept...had reason to believe" they were Communists - they were probably all FBI informants!)   

Lowery made it clear to them that Molina was not a member of the Communist Party and knew nothing of Communist Party infiltration of the group.  They also asked if Lowery knew George Butler, which threw Lowery because he knew that Butler was "associated in some respect with an extreme right group in Dallas in which Earl Lively and Dr. Robert Morris are active."

 

 

 

 

 

[Bill Simpich]

Food for thought...

Gannaway was quoted in the media as saying that Oswald 'was the only one who didn't show up and couldn't be accounted for'  in Truly's alleged employee roll-call.

Eddie Piper, a porter at the book depository, echoed Gannaway's quote on 11/23/63 when he was chatting with Joe Molina.  Molina quoted Piper as saying "he had heard that all employees in the building had been accounted for, except for Lee."

Also in the Dallas Times Herald, 11/24/63:   W.P. Gannaway of the Police Department's Special Services Bureau said this man's name (note; Joe Molina) has been in the subversive files of the department since 1955.  

[Steve Thomas]

13 hours ago, Bill Simpich said:

Food for thought...

Gannaway was quoted in the media as saying that Oswald 'was the only one who didn't show up and couldn't be accounted for'  in Truly's alleged employee roll-call.

Eddie Piper, a porter at the book depository, echoed Gannaway's quote on 11/23/63 when he was chatting with Joe Molina.  Molina quoted Piper as saying "he had heard that all employees in the building had been accounted for, except for Lee."

Also in the Dallas Times Herald, 11/24/63:   W.P. Gannaway of the Police Department's Special Services Bureau said this man's name (note; Joe Molina) has been in the subversive files of the department since 1955.  

Bill,

On February 5, 1964, Jack Revill wrote a memo to Captain Gannaway on the 13 groups the Criminal Intelligence Section of the Special Service Bureau had under surveillance prior to JFK's visit.

You can read a copy here:

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth340039/m1/1/?q=Revill

The GI Forum was not one of those groups.

The last line of his two-page memo reads:

That memo, plus the list of TSBD employees that comprises CE 2003 located in (24H259) submitted to Captain Gannaway through Jack Revill of TSBD employees,

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

and the fact that Oswald has the word "NONE" in the second column, tells me that Oswald was not, in fact, on the local DPD subversives radar.

How "some officer" told Fritz out in the hall that Oswald lived on Beckley completely escapes me, but I don't believe that that information came through the normal Criminal Intelligence Section channels.

 

Steve Thomas

[Steve Roe]

On 2/28/2020 at 3:21 AM, Bill Simpich said:

You are way ahead of me, Steve Roe.  I am simply quoting Russ Baker as I explore the milieu.  If you don't like it, start your own thread.  Please don't disrupt this one unless you have some content to offer.

I am curious why the FBI is trying to hide its interest in TSBD employee Joseph Rodriguez Molina - he was the only person besides Oswald treated as a serious suspect on November 23...and why?

September 1963 - Dallas Communist Party member Bill Lowery's emergence as a Herbert Philbrick-style informant came out on Sept 23 at a Subversive Activities Control Board hearing in DC called by RFK to force a Dallas Communist Party member to register pursuant to the McCarran Act (see page 23....two days before the Mexico City saga began) and hit the Dallas papers on Sept. 26 (see page 21...Oswald was either in Mexico City or parts unknown, not in Dallas to our knowledge)

 

Lowery’s September 1963 testimony before the SACB in Washington spelled the end of his undercover career. But that opened the door for someone else to take over “surveillance”  of Joe Molina, who had been active in the American Gi Forum over the years and was very outspoken on Mexican-American rights.  Did Oswald take over Lowery's role?

 

Molina left his office at the second floor of the TSBD at 12;15, and went to the steps of the building to watch the parade. Was Oswald keeping an eye on him at the steps? We know LHO was having lunch on the 1st Floor - and LHO might be the Prayer Man figure on the steps near Molina.  For the record, Molina told the Warren Commission he did not see LHO on 11/22.

From thread 7:  "The Houston Chronicle's 11/22 report that Oswald was was the only one who couldn't be accounted for,'  in Truly's alleged employee roll-call according to Detective Capt. Pat Gannaway.   That night, Gannaway led a group of officers to visit the home of TSBD employee Joseph Molina - who was singled out a long time ago by Communist Party leader and FBI informant William Lowery who was "the Herbert Philbrick of Dallas".   Molina's name as a possible suspect got in the papers - and he wound up suing the Dallas police for defamation!"

Here's what I'm looking at now - a declaration written by Gannaway:  At 2 am on 11/23/63, Gannaway showed up at Molina's home with Special Service Bureau officers Jack Revill, HM Hart, PM Parks, and RW Westphal (who had worked closely with Westbrook earlier that day), as well as assistant DA Bill Alexander (who had been at the Tippit scene with Westphal).

They asked Molina for permission to search his home, which he agreed to.  "Nothing was found except some papers concerning the American GI Forum...I recognized some of the names therein as names of individuals who have been suspected by me in the past of being Communist Party members,  and I also noticed the name of Joe Molina...therein."

The declaration goes on to state that during November 23, 1963 - based on Gannaway's request, Molina came to the Special Services Bureau at 11 am - Revill took him over to Homicide, where he was questioned by Fritz's boys, then returned to the Special Services Bureau  where Revill and Detective H M Hart questioned him and obtained an affidavit about Molina's time with the American GI Forum - which was populated by "William Lowery, believed by Dallas police officers to be a Communist Party member".   In fact, Lowery was former FBI informant DL-2-S.  

Besides Bill Lowery, others mentioned by Molina in his affidavit were "Edmund Villasana, a jeweler, Felix Botello, Augustin Estrada, and Joe Landin."  Botello was FBI informant DL-18-S, and Joe Landin was also an informant, probably DL-6-S.  I assume the others were also FBI informants.  Jim Hosty was the FBI case officer for Botello in January 1963, and probably for the other men as well.

Before he exposed his cover in September 1963 at a meeting of the Subversive Activities Control Board, Lowery had served as chairman of the American GI Forum.  In late 1962, Lowery served as the chairman of the Oak Cliff American GI forum chapter, where Molina attended as a member.   During that time, Lowery was planning to go to New York to visit Sylvia Hall (nee Thompson, wife of Alabama Communist Sam Hall) and Jim Jackson (was this the baker James Jackson, whose info was found in Oswald's home?)

On November 23, 1963, CiA chief of the Central American division John Whitten sent a cable to Win Scott; "(FBI) tells us that Jose Rodriguez Molina is not involved in assassination and has been released.  Please inform your liaison of this, but do not attribute it to (FBI)."

During his testimony before the Warren Commission, Molina attempted to talk about Bill Lowery, but was cut short by Commission counsel, Joseph A. Ball. (6 H 373)

After the Warren Commission had completed its work, Detective Stringfellow and another Special Services Bureau officer contacted Lowery, asking about Molina and other former members of the American GI Forum (Elwood Ross, Augustin Estrada, Joe Landin, and Felix Botello - "from confidential sources, the Dallas Police Dept...had reason to believe" they were Communists - they were probably all FBI informants!)   

Lowery made it clear to them that Molina was not a member of the Communist Party and knew nothing of Communist Party infiltration of the group.  They also asked if Lowery knew George Butler, which threw Lowery because he knew that Butler was "associated in some respect with an extreme right group in Dallas in which Earl Lively and Dr. Robert Morris are active."

 

 

 

 

[Steve Roe]

That’s fine Bill, not accusing you of being in lockstep with Russ Baker’s stereotypical view of Dallas. 
As you state, Joe Molina was cleared by Bill Lowery. And Molina got a raw deal from the DPD because of his association with the GI Forum chapter in Dallas. Headquarters were in Corpus Christi. The local Dallas GI Forum got put on the subversive list for some vocal activities regarding Mexican Americans in Dallas. One of those was regarding the right for Mexican Americans to swim at a Dallas Parks Swimming Pool. 
Felix Botello was also a Dallas FBI informant who was widely respected in Dallas for his heroic service in WWII in the Philippines. Times Herald reporter Harry McCormick was also in the Philippines serving as a correspondent who knew Botello, who had lost considerable amount of his eyesight. 
Bill Lowery, was an FBI Red Squad informant for 25 years and outed himself on that anniversary, plus his testimony bringing to trial, Texas Communist leader, John Stanford, for failure to register under the McCarran Act, who was not a Dallas resident. 
Hoover had many of these Red Squad informants scattered across the nation. John Abt was keenly aware of it and has stated so.

Well that’s my “ice-breaker” to you Bill. A lot of what I commented on were covered in your post, which I agree with for the most part. 
 

Edited March 1, 2020 by Steve Roe
Grammar, additional info

[Bill Simpich]

Here are six bullet points on the whole saga of Bill Lowery, John Stanford and the CPUSA members in the Dallas-Fort Worth area - I find it deeply thought provoking for these reasons.  I'll provide most of the sources in the next post.

1.  Most importantly, why didn't everyone in the intelligence side of law enforcement know that Oswald had returned to the Dallas-Fort Worth area in 1962.  It was in the major newspapers.  I believe that Revill, Gannaway, and company had to know that Oswald was back, and that this was "radioactive information" that simply could not be released to the Warren Commission or anyone else.

2.  Fort Worth CPUSA members were in contact with the John Fain of the FBI in 1961 and 1962 as a source on Oswald - letting the FBI know in August 1962 that Oswald was not a Communist Party member.

3.  Lowery and several other Dallas-Fort Worth CPUSA members informed on both the CPUSA as well as the MInutemen and other right-wing forces, and reported to Jim Hosty and other FBI forces.   (Lowery was the man who got paid $200 a month - a story that later got laid on LHO.)  As I recall, Felix Botello (DL 18-S) spied on one of General Walker's gunrunners for his expedition against James Meredith in 1962.

4.  On  Sept 23, 1963, right before LHO left the USA rather than return to Dallas with Marina - Lowery went to the Subversive Activities Control Board in Washington DC.  He testified against his long-time friend John Stanford, the executive secretary of the Texas branch of the CPUSA.   John Abt was Stanford's counsel! 

5.  It came out in early December 1963 that John Stanford was on the mailing list of the Tampa Bay FPCC.  This was hot information because Gilberto Policarpo Lopez was a Tampa Bay FPCC member who made plans to return to Cuba right before 11/22, returned to Cuba in the immediate wake of the Kennedy assassination, and left behind many allegations that he was involved in some way.

6.  The disinformation artist Colonel Philip Corso got ahold of the Stanford story - Corso was interviewed by FBI supervisor Cartha DeLoach on 2/10/64.  Corso said he had worked with Army Intelligence, had some contacts with the FBI, and was currently employed by ultra-right Senator Strom Thurmond.   DeLoach confronted Corso about his claim that Oswald was an FBI informant, asking him "point-blank if his sources within CIA had named Oswald as an informant to him...(he stated these persons) indicated that Oswald's residence in the Soviet Union represented a State Dept. operation.  Corso added that there was a Communist Party member supposedly in Texas by the name of (John) Stanford who knew that Oswald had been an FBI source of information and had related this fact to other parties."  Corso then claimed that Stanford's statement was a communist attempt to smear the FBI.

[Bill Simpich]

I see at least four poison pills implicating Oswald - the first poison pill addresses the six bullet points above...

1.  The mere presence of Oswald in Dallas as of 11/22/63 was a poison pill for Dallas police intelligence and law enforcement chiefs alike.

 

This story will be the subject of an upcoming short article on the "Communists and FBI informants of Dallas 1963"- please let me publish it before you share this info...

 

The arrest of Oswald must have caused grave embarrassment among Texas law enforcement.  I have seen documents showing that the state Texas Public Safety (aka Texas Rangers) knew about LHO's return from the USSR and his move to Fort Worth.   The Special Services Bureau and its intelligence unit -- also known as the Red Squad  of Jack Revill and VJ Brian -  should have known about Oswald's return and I believe they did.  

 

DL-16-S and DL-20-S reported on LHO to John Fain during 1961 while LHO was out of the country - going on memory here, they didn't know anything that wasn't already in the papers, and that both of them were based in Fort Worth.   (DL-16-S was a member of the Fort Worth GI Forum, and reported to John Fain)   

 

These two informants say that all that they know is what they read in the paper about LHO defecting to the USSR.   They also assured Fain in August 1962 that LHO was not a Communist Party member.

The reports from T-3/DL-16-S and T-4/DL-20-S indicate they are Communist Party USA members and the meetings they attended were in  Fort Worth.

 

DL-20-S and DL-16-S were members of the Fort Worth CPUSA as of 1/29/61. This 1/29/61 report of DL-20-S has as its subject "Betty Mann".  I believe Betty Mann is DL-20-S and her husband Harold Mann was DL-16-S (he is mentioned at the end of the report).   Believe it or not, they were working on the Gonzalez senatorial campaign after LBJ vacated his seat to become VP) - that's Henry Gonzalez, who helped start the HSCA and then got caught up in a feud with Richard Sprague that almost destroyed the HSCA!

 

Bill Lowery aka DL-2-S often reported to Hosty in 1960 -  Jim Hosty had been monitoring Bill Lowery since 1955.

 

See http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/po-arm/id/25293/rec/28  page 5:  William Lowery, the CPUSA officer in Dallas who came out as an FBI informant in Sept 1963, is the guy who actually received $200 a month as an informant from Jim Hosty.

 

- and believe it or not, FBI cover-up artist Wally Heitman volunteered to work for free as Lowery's lawyer before the HSCA!  When Lowery admitted he got paid $2500 a year - which boils down, again, to $200 a month, the next question was "how was he paid" -Heitman instructed Lowery not to answer.  He did not want the answer that Hosty paid him $200 a month!  (p. 15)  When they pinned him down, he said $50 a week (p. 19)   

 

Lowery had got into a bit of a fight with the Manns in 1960 and CPUSA exec secretary John Stanford advised Lowery to avoid them, as they seemed like Trotskyists to him.   (Lowery testified against Stanford to the Subversive Activities Control Board on 9/23/63, which hit the papers in Dallas on 9/26/63, at the same time LHO was supposedly on a bus to Mexico City and supposedly visiting the Odios! - for his part, Stanford was on the Tampa Bay FPCC mailing list in 1963.

 

That same year, Army Intelligence visited military members of the Unitarian church in Dallas and interrogated them for 6-8 hours at a clip about alleged Communist influence.  It seems to me Michael Paine would have known about that - and may have been interrogated.

 

The curious matter, of course, is that Fort Worth would have had an even bigger reason to know about Oswald's return from the USSR, as that town was the landing pad - LHO initially moved to their town, and then slowly found his way to Dallas.   Did he manage to shake whoever was watching him?     I have never seen a single Fort Worth law enforcement/intelligence report re Oswald - have you?

 

When Oswald came back from New Orleans - he went straight back to Dallas, but lay low never having an "official residential address".  That period was nearing its end on 11/22/63 - he and Marina were seriously discussing getting their own place now that he had a regular pay check - which I think was part of the reason the "curtain rod" cover story was used, it was logical that he would be shopping for that kind of thing at that time.   I think a woman (like Buell Frazier's sister) dreamed up that story - most men would not.

 

The notion that the Dallas police would not know about Oswald living in their town is "radioactive evidence".  Recall the Revill-Hosty elevator ride before they check in with Gannaway?   They couldn't keep their stories straight.  I wouldn't be surprised if both of them lied about different things.  Revill did not want it insinuated that he knew in any way from any source, much less Hosty, that the Soviet defector Oswald was living in Dallas.

 

2.  The visit to Robert Ray McKeown by gun purchasers that McKeown ID'd as the real LHO and "Hernandez" - who could have been Carlos Hernandez/AMHAZE-2524

 

I don't know who the target of the poison pill would be here - CIA?  FBI?  Texas state law enforcement?  what is now ATF?   

 

3.  The visit by LHO or an imposter to Mexico City

 

For me, the targets would be the CIA and the FBI.  If you include those who got the 10/10 memos, that would include State, Navy, INS - all would want to cover up their degree of knowledge

 

4.  The visit by "Angelo, Leopoldo, and LHO" - or an LHO imposter - to the Odio residence

 

For me, the target would have been the FBI, coupled with the confusion it would cause in all sectors to have two LHO appearances at the same period of time.  

 

Dallas did not want to give any credence to the notion that LHO was in their town, running around with local Cuban exiles.

 

The feds did not want to give any credence to the notion that LHO might have been impersonated in Mexico City, with the real LHO running around with local Cuban exiles - or that LHO might have been impersonated in Dallas.

 

This situation would cause the Dallas authorities as well as the federal authorities to go out of their way to refuse to give any credence to the Odio story.   

[David Josephs]

On 2/3/2020 at 12:44 PM, Andrej Stancak said:

"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

HART was was of the only ones reporting on these relationships...  I realize they are after the fact... are we to suppose they/he did not ask "T-1" about, or be told about these connections prior to 11/22?

If RUBY was a POI in the summer of '63... how could the DPD not know about a RUBY/OSWALD relationship?

[Bill Simpich]

The whole business of the homosexual leanings of Oswald, Ruby, General Walker and others deserves its own special thread!

With that said, Hart's role in intelligence at the Special Service Bureau is important - he was second in command under Jack Revill - and he was FBI agent Jim Hosty's "counterpart" at the DPD covering the "subversive desk".

Ian Griggs offers a good description of the Special Service Bureau:  "It was basically a covert surveillance and intelligence-gathering unit which, as well as the Criminal Intelligence Squad, encompassed the Vice Squad and the Narcotics Squad, et al."  Its chief Pat Gannaway retired in 1976 as a lieutenant colonel in Army Intelligence - US Army Reserve in 1976.  Gannaway died in 2000.

This memo from New York's BOSS (Bureau of Special Services) is a good reminder that Dallas' Special Service Bureau had counterparts all around the country.   BOSS had information about FPCC leader Vincent Lee's guns even though he never brought them up from Florida to their knowledge!

Gannaway's counterpart in Chicago was William J. Duffy, the Chief of Intelligence.  In Las Vegas, it was Lt. Robert Griffin.

[Steve Thomas]

4 hours ago, Bill Simpich said:

With that said, Hart's role in intelligence at the Special Service Bureau is important - he was second in command under Jack Revill - and he was FBI agent Jim Hosty's "counterpart" at the DPD covering the "subversive desk".

Ian Griggs offers a good description of the Special Service Bureau:  "It was basically a covert surveillance and intelligence-gathering unit which, as well as the Criminal Intelligence Squad, encompassed the Vice Squad and the Narcotics Squad, et al."  Its chief Pat Gannaway retired in 1976 as a lieutenant colonel in Army Intelligence - US Army Reserve in 1976.  Gannaway died in 2000.

This memo from New York's BOSS (Bureau of Special Services) is a good reminder that Dallas' Special Service Bureau had counterparts all around the country.   BOSS had information about FPCC leader Vincent Lee's guns even though he never brought them up from Florida to their knowledge!

Gannaway's counterpart in Chicago was William J. Duffy, the Chief of Intelligence.  In Las Vegas, it was Lt. Robert Griffin.

Bill,

 

I once read that the Criminal Intelligence Sections of these Special Service Bureaus concentrated on "non-Mafia related" criminal matters. (which kind of goes along with Hoover's denial that the "Mafia" even existed).

I would take H.M. Hart's role as Revill's "second in command" with a grain of salt. Revill was a Lieutenant in that Bureau, but there are no Sergeants listed in Batchelor's Exhibit 5002,

(see page 4)

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

In his various memos in the Dallas Police Archives, Hart only identifies himself as "Detective" Hart.

https://www.maryferrell.org/php/showlist.php?docset=2105

Hosty may have identified Hart as his "counterpart", but I think that's just Hosty being Hosty.

Steve Thomas

[Bill Simpich]

Thanks, Steve.  I don't usually post my research on the Ed Forum until it's vetted - but this material is so spare that this is the best place to vet it!

Do you have any thoughts on the Special Services Bureau's knowledge of Oswald pre-11/22?  Between Jack Revill's role as a Red Squad leader and Gannaway & Revill's relations with law enforcement/intelligence sources throughout Texas, it's hard to believe they didn't know who Oswald was.  When he flew back to Fort Worth, it was in the Washington Post and maybe the local papers as well.

[Bill Simpich]

I am also curious if any research has been done in the Fort Worth police records for LHO.  I believe that Betty Mann and her husband Harold Mann were the two Fort Worth Communist Party members (DL-20-S and DL-16-S) that advised John Fain of the FBI that all they knew about LHO was what "was available in the newspapers" in 1961, as well as LHO's non-membership in the CPUSA after his return to the US in 1962.

[Bill Simpich]

On Batchlelor's list of Special Service Bureau personnel, they are some heavy hitters that are prominent in the first-day investigation.

* Leonard Jez was prominent in the Tippit scene investigation and told researcher Martha Moyer that LHO and Hidell cards were found in the wallet found at the scene.

* Bob Carroll was prominent in the Oswald theater capture and allegedly came up with a revolver that was in Oswald's possession.  He handed it to Jerry Hill to enter into the evidence pool.  

* Roy Westphal helped Jerry Hill with the initial TSBD search (WC Volume VII, page 45) and then traveled with Pinky Westbrook to the Tippit crime scene.  He was with Gannaway, P. M. Parks and H. M. Hart for the search of Joe Molina's home that night.

* Don Stringfellow advised that Oswald had confessed to the shooting of President Kennedy and Police Officer Tippit.  He also provided additional false information ---portraying Oswald as a card-carrying Communist who had defected to Cuba---used in a message to the US Strike Command in Florida.

[Bill Simpich]

Steve,

I keep thinking that Hart may have been #2 under Revill at Intelligence because of the sheer number of reports he wrote, and his trusted position next to Revill when the two of them interviewed Joe Molina on 11/23.

The Molina search was conducted due to a tip from Communist Party member/long-time FBI informant Bill Lowery.  When Gannaway searched Molina's apartment, he commented that he saw the "names of individuals who have been suspected by me in the past of being Communist Party members".

If he knew the names of suspected CPUSA members prior to 11/22, it's hard to believe he didn't know the name of the Dallas-Fort Worth area's most famous Soviet defector.