Lumpkin, Gannaway, and the DPD-Army Intelligence network

[Steve Thomas]

8 hours ago, Bill Simpich said:

Right, Steve, Peter Dale Scott studied Senkel and Turner for years and has always had a number of concerns about them and their handling of the evidence.  They would fit the description of "Fritz's men".

Senkel and Turner were also in the lead car of the motorcade with Lumpkin, Lt. Col. George Whitmeyer and Democratic National Committee advance man Jack Puterbaugh.  Senkel said "Lumpkin explained that we would be driving ahead of the motorcade about a half -mile."  Connally had worked hard to ensure that the Trade Mart was the luncheon site, with Puterbaugh, SS Winston Lawson and others checking it out ahead of time.  The motorcade route hit the papers on the 19th.   

Turner also referred to the man as "Harvey Lee Oswald" in his report.

Bill,

 

Thanks for the tip about Turner's reference to Harvey Lee Oswald. I will add it to my list of HLO references.

This convinces me more than ever that either Billy Senkel, or F.M. Turner was the policeman out in the hall who told Will Fritz that Oswald lived on Beckley; and that the source of the DPD's knowledge of N. Beckley was military intelligence.

DPD Archives Box 3, Folder# 12, Item# 1 Undated Report of B.L. Senkel.

http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/box3.htm

He rode in the motorcade's pilot car along with Deputy Chief George Lumpkin, F.M. Turner, George L. Whitmeyer, and Jack Puterbaugh. Senkel was in left rear seat.

(Lumpkin and Whitmeyer were Army Intelligence Reserves).

At 2:40 PM, W.E. Potts, B.L. Senkel and Lt. E.L. Cunningham were dispatched to 1026 N. Beckley. Potts wrote in his after-action report (Box 2, Folder# 9, Item# 32) http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/box2.htm that after he finished taking some affidavits, Fritz dispatched them to the Beckely St address at 2:40 and they arrived at Beckley at 3:00PM.

Walter E. Potts, Billy L. Senkel and Fay M. Turner were Detectives in Will Fritz's Homicide Bureau.

Lt. Elmo L. Cunningham was a lieutenant in the Forgery Bureau. Both Bureaus were part of the Criminal Investigation Division.

Batchelor's Exhibit 5002 (19H)

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

 

Billy Senkel, who rode in the Pilot Car with Army Reserve Officers George Lumpkin and George Whitmeyer, who was dispatched to 1026 N. Beckley, and when arriving, asked for Harvey Lee Oswald.

Was Senkel the unknown policeman who told Fritz out in the hall that Oswald lived on Beckley?

 

Mrs. ROBERTS. Well, they asked him if there was a Harvey Lee Oswald there.

Mrs. ROBERTS. No---he registered as O. H. Lee and they were asking for Harvey Lee Oswald.

In his undated After-Action Report (DPD Archives Box 3, Folder# 13, Item# 1, Page# 7, http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/box3.htm F.M. Turner wrote that on November 25, 1963 a picture of Harvey Lee Oswald  DPD# 54018 was shown to witness, Ronald Fischer of Mesquite, Texas, who said that the picture looked like a man who he (Fischer) “saw at the window where the shots were fired from”.

 

Steve Thomas

 

[Ron Bulman]

I should re read this whole thread before asking this.  I tried to follow it early on then sporadically.  It is deep with unfamiliar territory and names for me.  Enlightening but I still feel lost.

Lets blame Paul (B).  He kept pounding, hammering on other threads about Military Intelligence in Dallas regarding the assassination.  Then Steve Thomas has that thing for the Colonels that I get lost in.  Top it off with recent reading about John Newman questioning the bonafide's of Antonio Veciana regarding the CIA, suggesting he was more so Army Intelligence.  

It all makes me wonder.   Was the assassination itself a military operation?

I admit to confusion, many questions.  I don't want to detract from or derail the thread.  But, did maybe the CIA set it up, provide cover and the patsy, but maybe the actual snipers were part of practiced trained military teams?  Military intelligence seems obviously involved regarding the parade route and in Dealy Plaza (photographers, where are all of their pictures?).

So many of us have become convinced over the years it was a CIA operation with they're own snipers, Cuban's, Corsicans, mob or otherwise.  Was that all smoke to obscure, like Veciana ID'ing Oswald with Phillips, blaming it all on the CIA ultimately (while the were involved, complicit?).

Bill and Larry's thoughts in particular would be appreciated.  There's not much proof of anything.  Does it sound logical? 

[Steve Thomas]

6 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

 

Lets blame Paul (B).  He kept pounding, hammering on other threads about Military Intelligence in Dallas regarding the assassination.  Then Steve Thomas has that thing for the Colonels that I get lost in.  Top it off with recent reading about John Newman questioning the bonafide's of Antonio Veciana regarding the CIA, suggesting he was more so Army Intelligence.  

It all makes me wonder.   Was the assassination itself a military operation?

I admit to confusion, many questions.  I don't want to detract from or derail the thread.  But, did maybe the CIA set it up, provide cover and the patsy, but maybe the actual snipers were part of practiced trained military teams?  Military intelligence seems obviously involved regarding the parade route and in Dealy Plaza (photographers, where are all of their pictures?).

So many of us have become convinced over the years it was a CIA operation with they're own snipers, Cuban's, Corsicans, mob or otherwise.  Was that all smoke to obscure, like Veciana ID'ing Oswald with Phillips, blaming it all on the CIA ultimately (while the were involved, complicit?).

Bill and Larry's thoughts in particular would be appreciated.  There's not much proof of anything.  Does it sound logical? 

Ron,

 

For me, the WC testimony of Nancy Perrin Rich is a metaphor of what happened. Some of the details vary, but all the basic elements are there. You've got Cubans and Colonels and the mob, and spooky guys sitting in the corner not saying much. It's all in there.

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

🙂

In the end, the Colonel was in charge.

Mr. HUBERT. All right. Tell us what happened.
Mrs. RICH. Well, we got there and at that time there was the colonel and another middle-aged woman, kind of a real old granite face I would describe her, steel-gray hair. Looked rather mannish.

Mr. HUBERT. Who else was there?
Mrs. RICH. The colonel, the woman, and the prizefighter type, a couple of other men that just kind of sat off in the corner.

Mrs. RICH. "The colonel seemed to be the head of it and seemed to do all the talking.

Mr. HUBERT. Did he tell you whom he was representing in the matter?
Mrs. RICH. Not exactly. That fact never did come clear to me. A group of people.

 

Steve Thomas

 

[Larry Hancock]

Well I'm getting use to being a contrarian and trying not to sound old and grumpy, but Ron did ask for comments.  Personally I think its way easy too jump on bandwagons when something new comes along. Perhaps I feel that way because I've seen so many new and "sexy" scenarios pass by in the last few decades, all very exciting at the time (admittedly I would be in the front row listening to them, eagerly taking notes).  Interestingly Larry Haapenen, whose name many will not recognize, and I spent a number of years looking at the military angle - starting with the Silver Dollar lead and then looking at LeMay et al.  These days it appears that Lemnitzer may replace LeMay as the military suspect of choice.

And as Steve notes, there have always been spooky meetings - he refers to one above, but Joan Mellon wrote at length about something equally mysterious with Crisman and Beckham. I years on those two and collecting extensive files, recently I put my files on he and Crisman on a CD so folks could decide for themselves - I think Lancer sold maybe two CDs of the Beckham/Crisman  collection.

Specifically to your point Ron,  I'm following the newer leads like Skorzeny and Lemnitzer but so far I've seen nothing compelling - interesting but nothing that connects all the dots to Dallas. Of course that doesn't mean it may not appear next year.  I've just reread Newman's Vietnam book and dug into his two newest works in minute detail as references for my upcoming book on covert warfare and the Bay of Pigs. But I'm not jumping on any new bandwagons yet. 

As an example, much of what John found soundly deconstructs Veciana's book...but as far as the Army being involved with him and Alpha 66, that's not really new at all.  And its also not mysterious considering the Army;'s tasking on Cuban affairs circa 62/63 - and not just the exiles going on missions but on the FPCC and travel to Cuba.  You see all these groups copying each other and circulating information on individuals and activities...often with military intelligence and CIA and FBI on the same document distribution (which is the way its supposed to work actually).

Not to be redundant, but we have a concrete example of the planning for an attack very much like Dallas, using CIA resources and Cuban exiles - a sniper attack on Fidel Castro which aborted in spring 1961.  And we can trace some of those same people to Dallas.  And there is a good bit of detail to corroborate a scenario involving those same people.  As for me, I'm going to have to see an equivalent amount of detail and corroboration to switch to a new scenario.  Of course there might have been a Plan B and I remain open to that.  Hopefully next year will be very interesting if John's forthcoming book and the Alberelli book make it out. 

[David Andrews]

For me, the WC testimony of Nancy Perrin Rich is a metaphor of what happened. Some of the details vary, but all the basic elements are there. You've got Cubans and Colonels and the mob, and spooky guys sitting in the corner not saying much. It's all in there.

 

Nancy Perrin Rich is a metaphor for involvements in herself.  Watch her filmed interviews, in which what they used to call a chippie tries to come off as an Eastern society type.  It's useful to see these to get the flavor of her WC appearance.

Edited October 23, 2019 by David Andrews

[Steve Thomas]

3 hours ago, David Andrews said:

For me, the WC testimony of Nancy Perrin Rich is a metaphor of what happened. Some of the details vary, but all the basic elements are there. You've got Cubans and Colonels and the mob, and spooky guys sitting in the corner not saying much. It's all in there.

 

Nancy Perrin Rich is a metaphor for involvements in herself.  Watch her filmed interviews, in which what they used to call a chippie tries to come off as a Dallas society type.  It's useful to see these to get the flavor of her WC appearance.

David,

 

I only used Nancy Rich as a metaphor for the different elements who might have been involved.

The way I see it, a handful of guys are sitting in easy chairs, drinking brandy and smoking cigars around the fire at the yacht club. There’s a spy guy, and military man, a mob guy and a rich guy.

One of the guys says, “That sumbitch Kennedy has got to go. Everybody raises their brandy snifter and say, “Hear hear!”

One guy turns to the military guy and says, “General, you kill people for a living, how would you do it?” The General says, “I’d use a triangulation of fire and mow him down with an enfilade approach.”

The mob guy says, “I’d bring in some shooters from out of the country, so they can’t be traced.”

The spy guy says, “I’ve got some Cubans who trained with the Green Berets at Fort Bragg who are crack snipers.”

The General says, “I know some local Reserves who can take care of logistics, like food and lodging, and ingress and egress routes.”

And either the spy guy, or the military guy offers to get the President’s schedule to figure out the best place and time.

Everybody says, “Yeah, but this is going to cost a lot of money.” and the oil guy says, “I’ll take care of that end of things.”

 

There were several people who all had their own motives.

Ron asked, " Was the assassination itself a military operation?"

Who coordinated things? I don’t know, but to me, JFK's assassination was a whole lot more coordinated than the techniques the CIA was trying to use on Castro like exploding seashells that he just might happen to pick up.

 

Steve Thomas

[David Andrews]

2 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

David,

 

I only used Nancy Rich as a metaphor for the different elements who might have been involved.

Steve Thomas

Steve,

I getcha completely, and wasn't criticizing.  I'm just saying, watch Nancy Perrin Rich on film and you get a sense of the Carousel-Ruby milieu, from a floozy putting on airs that approach the level of delusions.  Seeing her coming on grander than Princess Grace helps color in her WC testimony.  Here she is in Rush to Judgment at about 1:13:30, after her marriage to William Hamilton, owner of Inslaw:

The Hamiltons and Inslaw:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inslaw

Sorry to go off-topic, but I hope this puts Rich's "spooky meeting" in context.

Edited October 23, 2019 by David Andrews

[Paul Brancato]

3 hours ago, David Andrews said:

Steve,

I getcha completely, and wasn't criticizing.  I'm just saying, watch Nancy Perrin Rich on film and you get a sense of the Carousel-Ruby milieu, from a floozy putting on airs that approach the level of delusions.  Seeing her coming on grander than Princess Grace helps color in her WC testimony.  Here she is in Rush to Judgment at about 1:13:30, after her marriage to William Hamilton, owner of Inslaw:

The Hamiltons and Inslaw:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inslaw

Sorry to go off-topic, but I hope this puts Rich's "spooky meeting" in context.

Thanks for posting this David. I guess Lane didn’t question her about the gun running meeting. I don’t know how credible her story is, but I don’t have the same reaction you do to the Lane segment. Her accent is New England, where I think she hailed from. 

[Ron Bulman]

On 9/21/2019 at 3:50 PM, Bill Simpich said:

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Posted Monday at 02:33 PM

OK - here's ten bullet points on the real (or imagined?) sins of Lumpkin and Gannaway - please send your comments and additions!

I consider Lumpkin and Gannaway part of a small group that includes DPD personnel chief William Westbrook (who allegedly worked with the CIA), sergeant Jerry Hill (a former police reporter), reserve sergeant Kenneth Croy, (who allegedly "found" the Tippit wallet at his death scene and never reported it, and was suspected by the WC as assisting Jack Ruby in getting in position to shoot Oswald) and Lt. George Butler (Gannaway's partner for many years - who interviewed Jack Ruby at length back in 1950 and testified about it to the corruption investigations  years later to the Kefauver Committee - Harold Weisberg and others believe Butler gave the order to bring down Oswald prematurely before the escort vehicle was in place, also aiding Ruby in getting in position to shoot Oswald)  All six of these men are now deceased, but their friends and families can and should be interviewed.

These men should all be treated as suspects - there are small groups like this I can identify at another time - identifying their roles puts together an important building block of the JFK investigation.

1.  Both Lumpkin and Gannaway were high-ranking DPD officials that were also members of Army Intelligence.  Both men were present at the meeting reviewing the entire operational plan for the motorcade conducted in Curry's office on 11/21/63.  Both men played central roles in the events that resulted in Oswald being named as a suspect in the moments before his capture at the Texas Theatre.  Lt. George Butler - who was Gannaway’s partner for many years - was the one in charge of the downtown jail at the time of the transfer of Oswald when he was shot by Jack Ruby.

2.  Lumpkin was in the pilot car, 3 minutes ahead of the motorcade.  It made a suspicious stop - talking to a policeman, unreported in any of the police affidavits - right in front of the book depository in the moments before the assassination.   (21 WH 579; Scott, p. 273)

3.  In the moments after the assassination, Lumpkin ordered the sealing of the book depository.  (21 WH 580). This “sealing” proved to be very ineffective, as not all the doors were covered.  (need source).   Herbert Sawyer, the officer allegedly watching the doors after the "sealing", was the one who called in at 12:44 and  got the radio call going that an unknown white man  of nondescript build had told him that the shooter was “Slender white male about 30, five feet ten, 165”.  Sawyer was with the Special Services Bureau - his boss was Gannaway.  Sawyer was accused of corruption a few years after and resigned in disgrace.

4.  Jerry Hill went to work for Westbrook in the personnel division just weeks before 11/22/63.  Between the two men, they had access to all the personnel files. Westbrook was the decision-maker on hiring, firing, discipline, and Internal Affairs.  Neither man had any business being at a crime scene - but Jerry Hill was one of the two men credited with finding the shells on the sixth floor and is photographed leaning out the window for the crime scene unit to come upstairs.  The official report indicates that homicide officers found the shells in the TSBD - when in fact it was Jerry Hill and/or Luke Mooney.  

5. "(Deputy Chief) Lumpkin (see Peter Dale Scott - Deep Politics, p. 274)  then instructed Revill to organize his team against the east wall...and make a systematic search...a member of Revill's searching party...found the rifle."   

Why was Lumpkin making these various decisions.  Because Lumpkin was head of the Service Division, which included George Doughty's Identification Bureau (this unit got the tip at 3:15 pm that there were cards in Oswald's wallet identifying him as "Alek Hidell" - the rifle was mail ordered in the name of Hidell), Fingerprint Section, Crime Scene Search Section, HQ Section, Warrant Section, Property Bureau and the Records Bureau.  Lumpkin controlled the entire crime scene process and the subsequent processing - in other words, he controlled the evidence.

6.  Lumpkin's role in taking Truly to Fritz right after Fritz's arrival at the TSBD with the story "I don't know if it means anything, but I'm missing a man - a young fellow named Lee Oswald."  Truly was clutching a piece of paper he had already obtained from a phone call to "Aiken" at the warehouse for employee files were kept, and wrote down Oswald's age, height, weight, phone and address from his application form.  (23, 5'9, 150,  BL 31628, 2515 W. 5th Street, Irving)

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!

8. Peter Dale Scott wrote in 2010 about "the coincidence that the same the 488th Army Intelligence Reserve unit helped generate the false Marina story, as well as the false Stringfellow report."    Scott points to a number of false reports about Oswald’s alleged rifle, and specifically reports indicating, falsely, that Marina Oswald presumed Oswald’s rifle in Dallas to be the rifle he owned in Russia. 

(Marina’s actual words, before mis-translation, were quite innocuous: “I cannot describe it [the gun] because a rifle to me like all rifles.”)

...The interpreter who first supplied the Marina story, Ilya Mamantov, was selected as the result of a phone call between Deputy Police Chief George Lumpkin and Jack Crichton.   We have already seen that Crichton commanded the 488th; and Lumpkin, in addition to being the Deputy Police Chief, was also a deputy commander of the 488th under Crichton."

9.  Scott also points to the statement made by "Assistant Chief Don Stringfellow, Intelligence Section, Dallas Police Department, (who) notified 112th INTC [Intelligence] Group, this Headquarters, that information obtained from Oswald revealed he had defected to Cuba in 1959 and is a card-carrying member of Communist Party.  The cable sent on November 22 from the Fourth Army Command in Texas to the U.S. Strike Command at Fort MacDill in Florida, the base poised for a possible retaliatory attack against Cuba. 

...Stringfellow’s superior officer, Captain W.P. Gannaway, was a member of Army Intelligence Reserve.   Later Ed Coyle, himself a warrant officer of the 112th Intelligence Group, testified to the Assassinations Records Review Board that all the officers in the DPD’s Intelligence Section were in army intelligence. 

Actually they were almost certainly in the 488th Army Intelligence Reserve unit of Dallas: Jack Crichton , the head of the 488th, revealed in an oral history that there were “about a hundred men in that unit and about forty or fifty of them were from the Dallas Police Department.”  (Russ Baker, Family of Secrets, p. 122)

10.  On 2/26/64 - in an effort made to resolve chain of possession of backyard photo - Lumpkin "forgets" he made multiple copies and made them available on November 23 and November 24, but Carl Day tells on him, saying that "24 or more" were placed on a table for law enforcement officers - and "anyone" could have got ahold of them.  This act directly violated a police order issued on November 22 that "photographs (in the JFK case) were to be disseminated only on authority of the Chief's office".  Lumpkin was a deputy chief - not the chief.

Days later, even the hangdog WC was asking the FBI for info on the "chain of possession" on the backyard photo - apparently sold to Life by Marina and James Martin for 5K - 

 

 

These 10 points in particular are what made me think and post here.  So much info here to process.

If Gannaway and Lumpkin were involved in the final planning of the parade route, on behalf of Army Intelligence...  Lumpkin was in the pilot car scouting in advance for potential threats, to the presidents security on behalf of the DPD, and Military intelligence...  An officer coincidentally in Dealy Plaza taking pictures... Caught in the TSBD when it was locked up (?)...

Then there's this totally unsupported story on my part I've read about somewhere in the past that I probably shouldn't mention for that reason.  But I wonder if anyone else read about it.  I don't remember where or how many years ago, but I'm not making it up.  It was about a sniper or snipers, and their spotters/lookouts being brought in from South East Asia, Cambodia or Laos.  I.E., Marine or Army.

More likely someone trained in Operation 40?

[David Andrews]

5 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Thanks for posting this David. I guess Lane didn’t question her about the gun running meeting. I don’t know how credible her story is, but I don’t have the same reaction you do to the Lane segment. Her accent is New England, where I think she hailed from. 

She's putting it on.  You can hear her grand manner slip and slide.  She heard it in a Katherine Hepburn movie.  Delusional, but an act that took her far.  Belongs in a James Ellroy novel.

 

Edited October 24, 2019 by David Andrews

[David Boylan]

Ron, 

As far as a shooter arriving from SE Asia, I'd suggest looking at Evan Marshall's posts. He describes meeting him.

[Paul Bacon]

14 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Thanks for posting this David. I guess Lane didn’t question her about the gun running meeting. I don’t know how credible her story is, but I don’t have the same reaction you do to the Lane segment. Her accent is New England, where I think she hailed from. 

You're right Paul.  She has a heavy-ish Massachusetts accent.  I'm guessing she was born in MA, as I was.  It's not really as thick as many from MA, though.  Nor is mine--generally, the more schooling, the less the accent.

David, I don't see her slipping in and out--the accent is consistent throughout.  She's a little nervous, as were many of Mark Lane's interviewees.  I think Mark's formal manner and the general format of the interviews created a bit of an artificial setting that made the interviewees self-conscious.

Sorry for the hi-jacking....

Edited October 24, 2019 by Paul Bacon
added last line

[David Andrews]

2 hours ago, Paul Bacon said:

David, I don't see her slipping in and out--the accent is consistent throughout.  She's a little nervous, as were many of Mark Lane's interviewees.  I think Mark's formal manner and the general format of the interviews created a bit of an artificial setting that made the interviewees self-conscious.

 

1:17:37 in Rush, "Ah, several that I could probably name..." and following, where the upper-crust accent drops because she's asked a direct question about crime.  Also the "mixed drinks" section afterward. 

It's an act.  She has her hooks in Hamilton by now, and has to elevate herself above the run of Ruby's girls.  It's a hooker trick.

Edited October 24, 2019 by David Andrews

[Jon Pickering]

Voracious reading and research - not the least of which is Bill Simpich's current run through this most obstacled of courses to truth, and Brancato's eloquent support thereof - and observation leads me to the conclusion that the full weight of the U.S. military's armed forces' institutional authority ramrodded - as in concieved, plotted, and, executed - John F. Kennedy's murder. Various 'civilian' enties and agencies served the role of patsy - including C.I.A. agents and assets playing civilian roles.

[Paul Bacon]

2 hours ago, David Andrews said:

1:17:37 in Rush, "Ah, several that I could probably name..." and following, where the upper-crust accent drops because she's asked a direct question about crime.  Also the "mixed drinks" section afterward. 

It's an act.  She has her hooks in Hamilton by now, and has to elevate herself above the run of Ruby's girls.  It's a hooker trick.

I think I see what you're referring to.  She says "Up to a point they was probably witnesses, after that I suppose they didn’t care."  The wrong verb tense.  Makes her come across as "uneducated".  Living in NH, as I do, I hear it all the time.  But, I think, the "putting on airs" affect is the result of the Mass. accent.  But, you could be right.  Sadly, I never knew many hookers .