"Albert Jenner stated that a series of extraordinary coincidences made it seem most likely that the assassination..."

January 12, 2011

It is a tempting standard of proof to use, and Albert Jenner enthusiastically promoted it. The problem for his legacy, and for the reliability of the official line

is that, when I use the same standard Jenner endorsed, all I find is that he most likely played a key part in a conspiracy to obstruct and to alter the WC investigation and report, raising the likelihood that there were one or more conspiracies involved in the assassination of president Kennedy and the murder of LHO, and in what the government claimed was a reliable investigation and report of who murdered JFK.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=albert+jenner+conspiracy&sa=N&tbs=nws:1,ar:1#sclient=psy&hl=en&safe=off&tbs=cdr:1%2Ccd_min%3A1964%2Ccd_max%3A1966%2Cbks%3A1&q=coincidences+made+it+seem+most+likely+that+the+assassination+of&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=albert+jenner+conspiracy&gs_rfai=&psj=1&fp=80f78c692ae3c498
Federal bar news: Volume 13

Federal Bar Association - 1966 - Snippet view

In his address, Mr. Jenner stated that a series of extraordinary coincidences made it seem most likely that the assassination of President Kennedy was the work of one man — Lee Harvey Oswald. "After months of intensive research, the reading of some 40000 pages of material assembled by units of the federal government, and the questioning of scores of persons, including Oswald's wife, we came to the conclusion that there was no conspiracy, either domestic or foreign," Jenner said...

Mr. Scully stated that a series of extraordinary coincidences made it seem most likely that the participation of Albert E. Jenner in the investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy was just one component of an elaborate conspiracy to obstruct the investigation and to distort the conclusions in the Warren Commission Report.

A series of extraordinary coincidences.:

We know now that Earl Warren advanced the name of Albert E. Jenner, Jr. for consideration for a senior assistant investigative counsel on the WC, in an executive sesssion, before 15 December, 1963. We know Warren also said that Tom Clark and Dean Acheson had agreed that Jenner was a good selection for the position.

We also know that later in the LBJ White House years, Clark Clifford advanced the name of republican Jenner for a Supreme Court nomination.

1946- US Attorney General Tom Clark tells columnist Drew Pearson that FBI investigators have confirmed the reliability of testimony accusing Henry Crown, the Hilton Hotel chain, and Walter Annenberg of controlling the Chicago mob.

1953- Albert Jenner represents Chicago union local 1031 business manager, M. Frank Darling in a legislative committee hearing in DC. Darling is the first labor union customer of the Paul and Allen Dorfman health insurance brokerage. Pritzker and Teamsters Cent. State Pension Funds attorney, Stanford Clinton represents the Dorfmans. Later, Jenner's firm represents the Teamsters Funds in hotel financing loans to the Pritzkers.

1956- Tom Clark, now a Supreme Court Justice, selects Henry Crown's son, John as on of his two law clerks for the 1956 court term.

1959- Henry Crown, about to gain control of 20 percent of General Dynamics stock and its executive compensation chair, is Albert Jenner's wealthiest and most important client. Jenner's lawfirm hires former Tom Clark law clerk, John Crown, and he stays long enough to become a partner.

1960- Henry Crown hires Chicago Sherman Hotel group president, Patrick Hoy and appoints Hoy with no related experience, as executive VP of General Dynamics. Hoy is a close friend of mob attorney, Sidney Korshak. Hoy has worked for the hotel owners, the Ernest Byfield, Jr. family since 1945. Byfield is former US army, OSS, and in November, Clark Clifford and William Walton persuade Byfield's mother to lease for several years, her 400 acres, Virginia hunt country estate, Glen Ora, to the JFK family.

1961- JFK oversees and then shuts down Bay of Pigs weekend invasion from Glen Ora telephones. Byfield's sister-in-law, Nina, is the wife of Placido Ervesun, first cousin and sugar business partner of Rionda Braga. Braga shares the employ of his company executive Jack Malone, a CIA asset, with LBJ's first political mentor, Richard Kleberg of King Ranch. Malone and Braga have also been in the kenaf business with Joseph Dryer, an Army intel informant, is a future contact of DeMohrenschildt in Haiti. In 1972, GHW Bush escorts Susan Hooker, daughter of his deceased school roommate, a nephew of DeMohrenschildt, down the wedding aisle to marry Rionda Braga's son, Ames. Susan Hooker Braga divorces and marries a protege of McKinsey partner and Celanese president, John D Macomber. Macomber hires Tom Devine as VP at Celanese. Devine is former CIA, Bush's oil exploration business partner, reactivated with CIA in 1963 to meet in NYC with Demohrenschildt and Haitian banker, Clemard Charles and again in 1968, to escort Bush on a Vietnam tour. Macomber's brother, William, OSS and CIA, is 1946 best man in Bush's sister's wedding, brings LHO and other defectors to the attention of Otepka at state in 1960, and serves as Devine's best man in a 1973 Jupiter Island wedding to daughter of a Yale bonesman.

1962- News reports claim Crown's General Dynamics has suffered the largest one year loss of any US corporation in history. Defense secretary McNamara selects General Dynamics over rival, Boeing, for award of most expensive contract award in US military history, to build the TFX war plane.

1963- Senate hearings on TFX contract award process worry Henry Crown. He lobbies for General Dynamics on capitol hill. In autumn, Navy secretary Fred Korth is fired for conflict of interests in his participation in awarding TFX contract to General Dynamics. In late October, Drew Pearson column states that Tom Clark told him in 1946 that prominent businessmen whose names are familiar to every Chicago household,

ran the mob. 22 November news reports say TFX award may be reconsidered. JFK is assassinated. By 15 December, TFX hearings are suspended until 1969, with no action taken, and Albert Jenner had been chosen to serve on the WC.

1974- Five years after Drew Pearson's death, his stepson, Tyler Abell published Pearson's diaries.:

http://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks%3A1&tbo=1&q=led+to+very+high+places&btnG=Search+Books#sclient=psy&hl=en&safe=off&tbo=1&tbs=bks:1&source=hp&q=%22led+to+very+high+places%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=%22led+to+very+high+places%22&gs_rfai=&psj=1&fp=9bef8cda26d1a6ec
Diaries, 1949-1959: Volume 1

Drew Pearson, Tyler Abell - 1974 - 592 pages - Snippet view

Tom Clark told me afterward that it led to very high places. J. Edgar Hoover intimated the same thing. He said the people Ragen pointed to had now reformed. I learned later that it pointed to the Hilton hotel chain, Henry Crown, ...

1970- Henry Crown's VP, Patrick Hoy is indicted for fraud. Hoy had spent 15 years (1945 - 1960) as manager of Byfield's Chicago Pump Room, nightly haunt of Irv Kupcinet, a Chicago TV show host who also co-wrote a daily newspaper column with Jack Ruby's lifelong friend, Jimmy Colitz. Colitz owned the Clover bar next to Hoy and Byfield's Sherman Hotel executive offices. Ruby stopped at the Clover bar when he visited Chicago from Dallas. Colitz's brother and partner, Ira, also knew Ruby and was a close friend of Humphrey Bogart and Virginia Hill. Hoy was close to Sid Korshak and Kupcinet considered Korshak his closest friend.

1984- Crown's son, Lester, brother-in-law of LA Ambassador Hotel GM and RFK nemesis, G David Schine, is now a general Dynamics board member. Lester's security clearance is threatened because he failed to disclose that he was name as an unindicted co-conspirator in a bribery investigation of Illinois legislatures. Albert Jenner had negotiated an agreement with prosecutors that permitted Lester to avoid indictment.:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZLvASZtQpC4J:www.lib.niu.edu/1976/ii761206.html+%22attorney+for+Lester+Crown+and+an+architect+of+the+package%22&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Corruption in the legislature: Cement Bribery Trial -

Albert E. Jenner, Jr., attorney for Lester Crown and an architect of the package immunity deal for Crown and company, also former minority counsel in the ...

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0916F8385D0C758DDDAF0894DD484D81

New York Times - Jun 16, 1985 LESTER CROWN BLAMES THE SYSTEM. By WAYNE BIDDLE (NYT); Financial Desk. June 16, 1985, Sunday. Late City Final Edition,

Albert E. Jenner Jr., who was Republican counsel during the Watergate hearings and has long been a member of the General Dynamics board, said: ''Lester is a splendid person. He's very careful not to have the board believe he is the major domo of this corporation,'' but Mr. Jenner conceded that Mr. Crown was not just one among equals...."

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50717F83E590C748CDDAB0994DE484D81

THE ORDEAL OF LESTER CROWN - Free Preview - The New York Times

New York Times - Dec 7, 1986

...The family turned to Albert E. Jenner Jr., a lawyer and longtime friend who is on the board of General Dynamics. ''Whenever the kids got into trouble,'' Jenner says, ''they never bothered the old man. They talked to me, and I got them out of trouble.'' In return for his cooperation with the grand jury, Lester Crown was granted immunity from prosecution....

2004-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3686-2004Sep7.html
Wedding Bells for Robert McNamara By Roxanne Roberts Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, September 8, 2004; Page C01

"Romantic" is not the first word that comes to mind when referring to Robert McNamara, but the 88-year-old former defense secretary is a dove when it comes to love. McNamara will wed his Italian-born sweetheart, Diana Masieri Byfield, next week in a ceremony in Italy.

This is the second marriage for both. ...

...She was married for more than three decades to Ernest Byfield, a former OSS officer and public relations executive. Byfield has lived for many years on a farm in Middleburg, and is an avid tennis player."

Robert Howard · January 12, 2011

It is a tempting standard of proof to use, and Albert Jenner enthusiastically promoted it. The problem for his legacy, and for the reliability of the official line

is that, when I use the same standard Jenner endorsed, all I find is that he most likely played a key part in a conspiracy to obstruct and to alter the WC investigation and report, raising the likelihood that there were one or more conspiracies involved in the assassination of president Kennedy and the murder of LHO, and in what the government claimed was a reliable investigation and report of who murdered JFK.

http://www.google.co...0f78c692ae3c498
Federal bar news: Volume 13

Federal Bar Association - 1966 - Snippet view

In his address, Mr. Jenner stated that a series of extraordinary coincidences made it seem most likely that the assassination of President Kennedy was the work of one man — Lee Harvey Oswald. "After months of intensive research, the reading of some 40000 pages of material assembled by units of the federal government, and the questioning of scores of persons, including Oswald's wife, we came to the conclusion that there was no conspiracy, either domestic or foreign," Jenner said...

Mr. Scully stated that a series of extraordinary coincidences made it seem most likely that the participation of Albert E. Jenner in the investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy was just one component of an elaborate conspiracy to obstruct the investigation and to distort the conclusions in the Warren Commission Report.

A series of extraordinary coincidences.:

We know now that Earl Warren advanced the name of Albert E. Jenner, Jr. for consideration for a senior assistant investigative counsel on the WC, in an executive sesssion, before 15 December, 1963. We know Warren also said that Tom Clark and Dean Acheson had agreed that Jenner was a good selection for the position.

We also know that later in the LBJ White House years, Clark Clifford advanced the name of republican Jenner for a Supreme Court nomination.

1946- US Attorney General Tom Clark tells columnist Drew Pearson that FBI investigators have confirmed the reliability of testimony accusing Henry Crown, the Hilton Hotel chain, and Walter Annenberg of controlling the Chicago mob.

1953- Albert Jenner represents Chicago union local 1031 business manager, M. Frank Darling in a legislative committee hearing in DC. Darling is the first labor union customer of the Paul and Allen Dorfman health insurance brokerage. Pritzker and Teamsters Cent. State Pension Funds attorney, Stanford Clinton represents the Dorfmans. Later, Jenner's firm represents the Teamsters Funds in hotel financing loans to the Pritzkers.

1956- Tom Clark, now a Supreme Court Justice, selects Henry Crown's son, John as on of his two law clerks for the 1956 court term.

1959- Henry Crown, about to gain control of 20 percent of General Dynamics stock and its executive compensation chair, is Albert Jenner's wealthiest and most important client. Jenner's lawfirm hires former Tom Clark law clerk, John Crown, and he stays long enough to become a partner.

1960- Henry Crown hires Chicago Sherman Hotel group president, Patrick Hoy and appoints Hoy with no related experience, as executive VP of General Dynamics. Hoy is a close friend of mob attorney, Sidney Korshak. Hoy has worked for the hotel owners, the Ernest Byfield, Jr. family since 1945. Byfield is former US army, OSS, and in November, Clark Clifford and William Walton persuade Byfield's mother to lease for several years, her 400 acres, Virginia hunt country estate, Glen Ora, to the JFK family.

1961- JFK oversees and then shuts down Bay of Pigs weekend invasion from Glen Ora telephones. Byfield's sister-in-law, Nina, is the wife of Placido Ervesun, first cousin and sugar business partner of Rionda Braga. Braga shares the employ of his company executive Jack Malone, a CIA asset, with LBJ's first political mentor, Richard Kleberg of King Ranch. Malone and Braga have also been in the kenaf business with Joseph Dryer, an Army intel informant, is a future contact of DeMohrenschildt in Haiti. In 1972, GHW Bush escorts Susan Hooker, daughter of his deceased school roommate, a nephew of DeMohrenschildt, down the wedding aisle to marry Rionda Braga's son, Ames. Susan Hooker Braga divorces and marries a protege of McKinsey partner and Celanese president, John D Macomber. Macomber hires Tom Devine as VP at Celanese. Devine is former CIA, Bush's oil exploration business partner, reactivated with CIA in 1963 to meet in NYC with Demohrenschildt and Haitian banker, Clemard Charles and again in 1968, to escort Bush on a Vietnam tour. Macomber's brother, William, OSS and CIA, is 1946 best man in Bush's sister's wedding, brings LHO and other defectors to the attention of Otepka at state in 1960, and serves as Devine's best man in a 1973 Jupiter Island wedding to daughter of a Yale bonesman.

1962- News reports claim Crown's General Dynamics has suffered the largest one year loss of any US corporation in history. Defense secretary McNamara selects General Dynamics over rival, Boeing, for award of most expensive contract award in US military history, to build the TFX war plane.

1963- Senate hearings on TFX contract award process worry Henry Crown. He lobbies for General Dynamics on capitol hill. In autumn, Navy secretary Fred Korth is fired for conflict of interests in his participation in awarding TFX contract to General Dynamics. In late October, Drew Pearson column states that Tom Clark told him in 1946 that prominent businessmen whose names are familiar to every Chicago household,

ran the mob. 22 November news reports say TFX award may be reconsidered. JFK is assassinated. By 15 December, TFX hearings are suspended until 1969, with no action taken, and Albert Jenner had been chosen to serve on the WC.

1974- Five years after Drew Pearson's death, his stepson, Tyler Abell published Pearson's diaries.:

http://www.google.co...bef8cda26d1a6ec
Diaries, 1949-1959: Volume 1

Drew Pearson, Tyler Abell - 1974 - 592 pages - Snippet view

Tom Clark told me afterward that it led to very high places. J. Edgar Hoover intimated the same thing. He said the people Ragen pointed to had now reformed. I learned later that it pointed to the Hilton hotel chain, Henry Crown, ...

1970- Henry Crown's VP, Patrick Hoy is indicted for fraud. Hoy had spent 15 years (1945 - 1960) as manager of Byfield's Chicago Pump Room, nightly haunt of Irv Kupcinet, a Chicago TV show host who also co-wrote a daily newspaper column with Jack Ruby's lifelong friend, Jimmy Colitz. Colitz owned the Clover bar next to Hoy and Byfield's Sherman Hotel executive offices. Ruby stopped at the Clover bar when he visited Chicago from Dallas. Colitz's brother and partner, Ira, also knew Ruby and was a close friend of Humphrey Bogart and Virginia Hill. Hoy was close to Sid Korshak and Kupcinet considered Korshak his closest friend.

1984- Crown's son, Lester, brother-in-law of LA Ambassador Hotel GM and RFK nemesis, G David Schine, is now a general Dynamics board member. Lester's security clearance is threatened because he failed to disclose that he was name as an unindicted co-conspirator in a bribery investigation of Illinois legislatures. Albert Jenner had negotiated an agreement with prosecutors that permitted Lester to avoid indictment.:

http://webcache.goog...n&ct=clnk&gl=us
Corruption in the legislature: Cement Bribery Trial -

Albert E. Jenner, Jr., attorney for Lester Crown and an architect of the package immunity deal for Crown and company, also former minority counsel in the ...

http://select.nytime...DAF0894DD484D81

New York Times - Jun 16, 1985 LESTER CROWN BLAMES THE SYSTEM. By WAYNE BIDDLE (NYT); Financial Desk. June 16, 1985, Sunday. Late City Final Edition,

Albert E. Jenner Jr., who was Republican counsel during the Watergate hearings and has long been a member of the General Dynamics board, said: ''Lester is a splendid person. He's very careful not to have the board believe he is the major domo of this corporation,'' but Mr. Jenner conceded that Mr. Crown was not just one among equals...."

http://select.nytime...DAB0994DE484D81

THE ORDEAL OF LESTER CROWN - Free Preview - The New York Times

New York Times - Dec 7, 1986

...The family turned to Albert E. Jenner Jr., a lawyer and longtime friend who is on the board of General Dynamics. ''Whenever the kids got into trouble,'' Jenner says, ''they never bothered the old man. They talked to me, and I got them out of trouble.'' In return for his cooperation with the grand jury, Lester Crown was granted immunity from prosecution....

2004-

http://www.washingto...6-2004Sep7.html
Wedding Bells for Robert McNamara By Roxanne Roberts Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, September 8, 2004; Page C01

"Romantic" is not the first word that comes to mind when referring to Robert McNamara, but the 88-year-old former defense secretary is a dove when it comes to love. McNamara will wed his Italian-born sweetheart, Diana Masieri Byfield, next week in a ceremony in Italy.

This is the second marriage for both. ...

...She was married for more than three decades to Ernest Byfield, a former OSS officer and public relations executive. Byfield has lived for many years on a farm in Middleburg, and is an avid tennis player."

Great post, to say it is illuminating would be an understatement. It, among other things shows the Chicago connections to the assassination to be multi-layered. Consider Jack Ruby's informant history. In addition to Jack Ruby being an informant during

his pre-assassination days in Dallas [1959-1961]. Richard Gilbride, in Matrix For Assassination, has the following quote, Ruby "appeared before the Kefauver Senate Rackets Committee in 1950 offering to discuss Chicago underworld activities on the condition that the investigation avoid Dallas. His lawyer, Luis Kutner, presented him as a "syndicate lieutenant who had been sent to Dallas to serve as a liason for Chicago mobsters."

more

See google books page 70 Matrix for Assassination Richard Gilbride.

If you read the passage in Matrix for Assassination, you will discover a reference to an alleged memo discovered by Trowbridge Ford that goes into even more detail about Jack Ruby and Richard Nixon, for more on that

See

http://cryptome.quin...nsa-heroes2.htm

Covert history's blog states that many believe the document to be a fake, as it contains a reference to a zip

code that didn't exist in 1947.

If you can find it on the net, there is a very illuminating article written by Drew Pearson dated January 13, 1950,

Interstate Gambling Deals with Government

It also illuminates the complex network of organized crime of that era, Chicago included;

Pearson references the 1946 murder of "Jack" James M.Regan there, associate of Moe Annenberg.

Also See Deep Politics and the Death of JFK - Peter Dale Scott

One last thing, I found the following item in Dallas Documents Online, the remarkable and painstaking work by Steve Thomas

on that should be commended, by the way.

I don't know if you would call it a lead, but the allegation now is more interesting now than it used to be

pdf 295. "Jack Wilner, crime reporter for a Chicago Daily News reports that his "syndicate sources" reflect that Ruby as being connected to Nick St. John, Paul Labriola, Marcus Lipsky and Paul Roland Jones in efforts to take over gambling in Texas. Allegedly involved were Steve Guthrie, Sheriff of the County and one George Butler. In this connection with the above, one George Butler, Dallas Police Department was known to have been an investigator for the late Senator Kefaufer." Investigations failed to verify Wilners statements.

Edited January 12, 2011 by Robert Howard

January 13, 2011

Robert, thank you for the great lead! It lead me right to Butler's 1958 testimony, elicited by RFK.

...I've found information supporting the idea that RFK had to know that the Warren Commission's investigation was compromised; sabotaged by the alliance of organized labor and organized crime that RFK had devoted himself, at least publicly, to exposing and bringing to justice...

Gore Vidal, Palimpsest: A Memoir. (New York: Random House, 1995) Excerpts in italics are adapted from notes Vidal made in 1961...

So, who were Jack and Bobby, really? I don't buy the opinions I've read in posts so often, here, stating that Bobby was so intimidated by the shooting of his brother that he was sidelined out of concern for the safety of his family.

The more material I read along the lines of the following testimony, the more I suspect Ruby was selected to silence not only Oswald, but Bobby as well. I wonder if Bobby was put in a position where he had to choose between propping up the democratic party and his political ambitions, or pursuing justice for his brother, where ever the evidence led. Bobby had to know about Tom Clark, Henry Crown, and Albert Jenner, Paul Ziffren, and David Bazelon. The year after the WC report, republican Earl Warren chose Ziffren's son as his law clerk for the 1965 Supreme Court term. Drew Pearson vacationed with Earl Warren.

Bobby could have blocked Jenner or removed him from the WC, after the fact. Instead, he did nothing, and I think he endorsed the WC cover up as the least awful of the choices he was boxed into making.

The only things Bobby might not have known that I have outlined in this thread, is how close Earl Warren was to Ziffren, how close Gerald Ford was to the FBI, and he could not have known that McNamara would one day marry the future daughter-in-law of his brother's Glen Ora landlady. He had to know that Henry Crown owned Roz Gilpatric and was close to Paul Nitze. He had to know that the death of his brother resulted in the immediate cessation of the senate inquiry into TFX. He probably did not know that General Dynamics industrial security manager, IB Hale's sons had been spotted burglarizing Judit Exner's LA apartment. He had no reason, during the remainder of his life, to marvel at the coincidence that G. David Schine was GM at the Ambassador Hotel in LA, and that Schine's sister was Henry Crown's daughter-in-law. Thus it would not have meant anything to Bobby that Ruby's roommate, George was from the same small NY town as the Schines, or that Ruby had called Vincent Alo's soldier, Joe Cataldo at a number in that same small town, shortly before November, 1963.

Consider that this hearing took place just five years before Bobby stopped pushing back.:

http://www.archive.org/stream/investigationofi33unit/investigationofi33unit_djvu.txt
...INVESTIGATION OF IMPROPER ACTIVITIES IN THE

LABOR OR MANAGE3IENT FIELD

TUESDAY, JULY 8, 1958

United States Senate,

Select Committee on Improper Activities

IN the Labor or j\L\nagement Field,

Washington^ D. C.

The select committee met at 10 a. m., pursuant to Senate Resolution

74, agreed to January 30, 1957, in the caucus room. Senate Office

Building, Senator John L. McClellan (chairman of the select com-

mittee) presiding.

Present: Senator John L. McClellan, Democrat, Arkansas; Sen-

ator Frank Church, Democrat, Idaho ; Senator Carl T. Curtis, Repub-

lican, Nebraska.

Also present : Robert F. Kennedy, chief counsel ; John J. McGov-

ern, assistant counsel; LaVern J. Duffy, investigator; James P. Kelly,

investigator; James Mundie, investigator; Ruth Young Watt, chief

clerk. ...

...All right, Mr. Kennedy, will you call the first witness ?

Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Virgil Peterson, Mr. Chairman, who is the oper-

ating director of the Chicago Crime Commission.

The Chairman. Will you be sworn, please ?

Do you solemnly swear that the evidence, given before this Senate

select committee, shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but

the truth, so help you God ?

Mr. Peterson. I do.

TESTIMONY OF VIEGIL W. PETERSON

...Mr. Peterson. Well, I have heard that.

Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Chairman, we were talking about Danny Lar-

dino. He controlled local 658, which had up to 1,000 members. When

they merged with local 593 it had only approximately 400 workers, but

he had complete control and dominion of the local and the individuals

in the local. Mr. Peterson has given some background information on

Mr. Lardino, but we have another witness who will give some more

background information on him. For that reason, I would like to

have Mr. Peterson step aside and call Lieutenant Butler.

IMPROPER ACTIVITIES IN THE LABOR FIELD 12519

The Chairman. Lieutenant, you do solemnly swear the evidence

you shall give before the Senate select committee shall be the truth,

the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God ?

Mr. Butler. I do.

TESTIMONY OF GEOKGE BUTLER

The Chairman. State your name, your place of residence.

Mr. Butler. George Butler, Dallas, Tex.; police officer.

The Chairman. How long have you been a police officer ?

Mr. Butler. 22 years.

The Chairman. What is your rank ?

Mr. Butler. Lieutenant of detectives.

The Chairman. That is in Chicago ?

Mr. Butler. Dallas, Tex.

The Chairman. Dallas, Tex. ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

The CHAiRiiAN. Do you waive counsel ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

The Chairman. Proceed, Mr. Kennedy.

Mr. Kennedy. Lieutenant, were you with the intelligence division

of the Dallas Police Department for a period of time ?

JSIr. Butler. No, sir; it was not called the intelligence division

then.

Mr. Kennedy. What was it called at that time ?

Mr. Butler. Just special assignments detail.

Mr. Kennedy. Were you working on the racketeers and gangsters ?

Was that your specific assignment?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. Are you on that assignment at the present time?

Mr. Butler. No, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. How long have you been not working on that?

Mr. Butler. I have been assigned to juvenile work for the past 3

years.

Mr. Kennedy. But prior to that you were an expert in the field

of racketeers and gangsters ; is that right ?

Mr. Butler. Yv^ell, that is

Mr. Kennedy. Well, you had worked on it ; hadn't you ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. And for the last 3 years you have been working on

juveniles ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. Ivennedy. You were transferred into this juvenile work?

INIr. Butler. Yes, sir.

ISIr. Kennedy. Did you find in the mid-1940's that there was a

group of gangsters that came from Chicago to try to take over the

rackets in the city of Dallas and that area?

Mr. Butler. That is right, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. Could you tell the committee what you found in the

course of your investigation and some of the individuals that were

involved, and what they were trying to do ?

Mr. Butler. Well, in 1946, or 1945, there had been a change in ad-

ministration in Dallas. The gang that ordinarily operated down

there was run out, which left the gambling field and racket field wide

12520 IMPROPER ACTIVITIES IN THE LABOR FIELD

open. These boys from Chicago came in, looked the situation over,

and decided that they wanted to take over not only Dallas but the

whole State of Texas and the Southwest.

Mr. Kennedy, Who were some of the people that came in? Can

you tell us that ?

Mr. Butler. The first man that came down that we got informa-

tion about was Paul Roland Jones.

Mr. Kennedy. Who was Paul Roland Jones ?

Mr. Butler. He is a con man. He has been handled for murder.

He has been handled for narcotics.

Mr. Kennedy. He has been handled ?

Mr, Butler. Well, he has been sent to the penitentiary for murder.

That is a term we use in police work, handled.

Mr. Kennedy. He was convicted for murder; was he not?

Mr, Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. And for narcotics?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. And he had been pardoned on the murder charge?

Mr. Butler. That is right.

Mr. Kennedy. Out of a penitentiary in Kansas, was it ?

Mr. Butler. That is right, sir.

Mr, Kennedy, And he had come down to Dallas. Had he come

originally from Chicago? Had he been associated with the gang-

sters there ?

Mr. Butler. He had been associated with the Chicago people in

black-market operations and counterfeit ration-stamp deals and

things of that character during the war years.

Mr. Kennedy. Will you tell us what happened after that ?

Mr. Butler. He came down and put in a liquor store with the

thought in mind of taking over the bootleg whisky running into Okla-

homa, the adjoining dry State. We got onto him, and he sold his

liquor store. Then a man named Marcus Lipsky

Mr. Kennedy. Wlio is Marcus Lipsky ?

Mr. Butler. He was a man from the Chicago area who we later

found to have developed some milk unions there in the milk industry

for the Capone people.

Mr. Kennedy. Was he also a well-known gangster in Chicago ?

Mr. Butler. Well, I had never heard of him prior to that. He was

a supersalesman type of person, high pressure, a con man, a very

smooth' operator. He could mix in any company, with all kinds of

people.

He came down and got with Jones. They made a survey of Dallas

and estimated that the rackets there would pay around $18 million a

year. He goes back to Chicago and wants to get those people to O. K.

him. By that he indicated that they would back him up financially,

and with any manpower he may need should he run into resistance on

this new enterprise that they had in mind.

Lipsky wanted tlie Mhisky, he Avanted the gambling, he wanted the

slot machines, the coin machines, and he wanted the whole business,

not only in Dallas but all of the Southwest.

Mr. Kennedy. What other States were specifically included in

what they were going to take over?

Mr. Butler. They took over coin machine and amusement com-

panies in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas.

IMPROPER ACTrV^TIES IN THE LABOR FIELD 12521

Mr. Kennedy. They were going to take over Arkanscas, also?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir; they were operating in Fort Smith, Ark., a

slot-machine and jukebox route up there which was very lucrative.

Mr. IvENNEDY. This was not just slot machines, but it was these pin-

ball machines and, generally, coin-operated machines ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. You say he went up to Chicago to see if he could

get this operation fmanced ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir. He made arrangements through a man

known as Nick DeJolin. DeJohn, according to our investigation, was

an arbitrator or acted as the judge in any disputes in the Capone gang

at that time. When he O. K.'d Lipsgy and the boys up there put up

the money for Lipsky to come into Texas and the Southwest, Nick

DeJohn, in ejffect, serv^ed to guarantee the return of that money should

anything happen. A little later on it developed that a gang war was

about to break loose down there between Lipsky, who had brought

in

Mr. Kennedy. ^Hio did Lipsky bring into Texas with him?

Mr. Butler. He brought Danny Lardino. Paul Labriola.

Mr. Kennedy. "VA-lio was Danny Lardino? Did you find out any-

thing about him, what his background had been ?

Mr. Butler. Lardino had been associated, we found out, with the

Capone interests for some time, and they sent him down here on a dual

purpose : One, to keep track of Lipsky, and watch how he was running

the show, and the other, of course, as a bodyguard to Lipsky.

!Mr. Kennedy. Was he known as a strong-arm man ?

Mr. Butler. He was known as a bodyguard down there; yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. Wlio were the other individuals ?

Mr. Butler. Labriola.

Mr. KJENNEDY. AMiat was Labriola ? Would you spell his name ?

Mr. Butler. L-a-b-r-i-o-l-a ; the first name is Paul.

Mr. Kennedy. Did he have a nickname ?

Mr. Butler, Needlenose ; yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. Needlenose ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. IvENNEDY. Paul "Needlenose" Labriola?

Mr. Butler. Yes. sir.

]Mr. Kennedy. AVlio was the other ?

Mr. Butler. James Weinberg.

Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Chairman, Labriola and Weinberg played very

important roles in the investigation as it continues, and it is of con-

siderable interest that they were down in Dallas, Tex., during this

period of time, with Nick DeJohn and with Danny Lardino. They

will play extremely important roles in our investigation.

Mr. Butler. Another member of that goon squad was "Marty the

Ox," whose real name was, I believe, Martin Ochs. He was a well-

known Chicago hoodlum. In all, there were about 20 members of that

mob that came down into Dallas.

Mr. Kennedy. Did they set up this operation ?

Mr. Butler. They set up the operation ; yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. "\'\^iere did they live when they arrived there ?

Mr. Butler. Well, at that time, hotel space was at a premium, and

they could not stay anywhere over 5 days at a time. They were stay-

12522 IMPROPER ACTIVITIES IN THE LABOR FIELD

ing at the Whitmore Hotel, and they stayed at a place called the Scott

Hotel. Then there was a man named Sam Yaras.

Mr. Kennedy. How do you spell his name ?

Mr. Butler. Y-a-r-a-s, from Chicago. He had an apartment there.

Occasionally, they stayed with him.

Mr. Kennedy. Is he the brother of Dave Yaras ?

Mr. Butler. That is right, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Chairman, we have already had testimony about

Dave Yaras in cennection with taking over of certain unions in the

Miami area at the present time, and that he has also moved in, I

believe, in some gambling in Cuba, has he not ? Do you have infor-

mation along those lines ?

Mr. Butler. That is my understanding ; yes, sir.

Senator Curtis. Mr. Chairman?

The Chairman. Senator Curtis.

Senator Curtis. I would like to ask, Mr. Butler, did hoodlums and

criminals move in and, if so, did they have any measure of success

in infiltrating unions in the Dallas area ?

Mr. Butler. No, sir ; I would not think so.

Senator Curtis. Did they have any successs in moving into unions

anyplace in Texas ?

Mr. Butler. No, sir.

Senator Curtis. Why didn't they.

Mr. Butler. Well, at that time, the gambling business was appeal-

ing to them more than anything else.

Senator Curtis. What year was this ?

Mr. Butler. 1945 and 1946.

Senator Curtis. Have the criminal elements, such as described by

the previous witness, Mr. Peterson — and you heard his testimony —

have they at any time since been successful in moving into unions in

Texas?

Mr. Butler. Not that I know of, sir.

Senator Curtis. Apparently, not on any large scale ?

Mr. Butler. That is right.

Senator Curtis. Why is it ?

Mr. Butler. Well, maybe it is the breed of men down there. They

resent somebody trying to tell them what to do. There have been some

fights from time to time. Somebody might start something and one of

those Texas boys would peal his head with a club or something; so,

so far, they have not had enough on the ball to get started.

Senator Curtis. And Texas does not permit compulsory unionism,

do they ?

Mr. Butler. That is my understanding; that is right.

Senator Curtis. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Kennedy. Did they appear to have a great deal of money when

they were down there ?

Mr. Butler. Who is that ?

Mr. Kennedy. This group that moved in ; did they appear to have

a great deal of money ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir; they had unlimited.

Mr. Kennedy. For instance, Weinberg and Labriola ; did they give

any occupation ?

IMPROPER ACTIVITIES IN THE LABOR FIELD 12523

Mr, Butler. Well, they claimed to be clerks at the San Jacinto

liquor store, which was run by this mob, but actually, they were living

in a hotel suite at that time that cost them around $30 a day.

Mr. Kennedy. Would you tell us how it developed then, or what

occurred ?

Mr. Butler. Well, when this pending trouble began to materialize

between the Dallas group and this outside group

Mr. Kennedy. Was there any suggestion by this outside group as

to how they were going to handle the Dallas group ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir. Lipsky's idea was to kill the four top

gamblers in the Dallas area, put their bodies in a stolen car, and park

the car alongside the police department, and let everybody know

how tough he was, and that he would not stand for any foolishness

down there.

Mr. Kennedy. Was that plan opposed by some of the other people ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir. Jones thought this was a foolish move. He

^ets on the phone and calls Nick DeJohn and tells him what Lipsky

IS up to, and he suggests that he get Danny Lardino, Weinberg,

Labriola, and Marty the Ox out of Texas.

Mr. Kennedy. If any killing was to be done, it was to be done by

this group, Labriola, Weinberg, Danny Lardino, and the Ox?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. And he suggested to Nick DeJohn, who was financing

this whole operation, that he get the four individuals out of Texas

back to Chicago?

Mr. Butler. John told Jones that he would have John call Danny

back to Chicago.

Mr. Kennedy. John Lardino ?

Mr. Butler. John Lardino. And which was done. We did, about

the same time, or just a few days after that instant, the police depart-

ment rounded up possibly 20 of these characters and discouraged them

as much as possible. So they liquidated their interest and got out of

the State for a while.

Mr. Kennedy. Werethey also running down into Mexico?

Mr. Butler. Some of that equipment that they bought to operate

in Texas they did move into Mexico. They set up a gambling deal

down there.

Mr. Kennedy. With pinballs and jukeboxes ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir. And they also had a big crapgame down

there. They had made a fix with some official. They ran into a

little trouble there. Some of the politicians that were not in on the

fix give them a big check for chips, lose $15 or $20 and cash the rest

of the chips in and stick the money in their pockets. Of course, the

chips weren't any good.

Mr. Kennedy. Was it Jones' idea, rather than to kill this other

group, that he could make some deal down there with the officials?

Mr. Butler. Jones wanted to make a fix, and he tried to make a fix

with the elected sheriff, Steve Guthrie. During this time, we con-

ducted an extensive investigation into the whole setup, and, as a re-

sult of that, we got Jones trapped and a man named Pat Mano, from

Chicago, supposedly the fifth member of that group, who was going to

bankroll Jones in his operation there. Incidentally, when the group

effort fizzled out as far as Lipsky was concerned, they lost a good deal

12524 IMPROPER ACTIVITIES IN THE LABOR FIELD

of money. Nick DeJohn was called on to make this guaranty of his

stand up, and he couldn't produce the money. We knew several weeks

ahead of time that he was going to get killed. They finally did kill

him.

Mr. Kennedy. Where did they kill him ?

Mr. Butler. He was finally located in San Francisco.

Mr. Kennedy. How did they kill him ?

Mr. Butler. They tied a wire around his neck and stuck him in

the back end of a car. Incidentally, it was the same, identical way

that Labriola and Weinberg were killed in 1954.

Mr. Kennedy. Labriola and Weinberg, who were also down there,

were ultimately killed, also ?

Mr. Butler. In the same manner ; yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. By the wire around their neck ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. Is that an old, gangland way of disposing of friends ?

Mr. Butler. It apparently does not make much noise or attract too

much witnesses.

Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Jones, who was down there, did he ultimately

talk and expose a lot of these things to the police department ?

Mr. Butler. Well, sir, in this investigation we found out some of

the moves that the gang had planned to make, and some of the busi-

ness ventures that they were going to enter into. It developed that

they were going to muscle into the Continental Press, the nationwide

wire service. That happened just like he said it would happen.

Mr. Kennedy. He described what they were going to do; is that

right?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir. They would use this means to muscle into

other communities, which was followed almost to a letter when they

muscled into Miami, Fla. Another venture, of course, was their enter-

ing into the labor unions.

Mr. Kennedy. Did he discuss their entrance into the labor unions ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir; that was one of their prime objectives at that

time.

Mr. Kennedy. Would you describe what was said about that?

Mr. Butler. Well, he discussed many different angles of putting

pressure on different companies and businesses. One of the things

that he brought out was the fact tliat they were going to try to organ-

ize or unionize every truckdriver in the Nation. He said, "Wien we

do that, we can bring industry to its knees, and even the Government,

if we have to." He was talking about different angles.

Mr. Kennedy. Did he indicate that that was the most important

area — to get control of the truckdrivers ?

Mr. Butler. In the general conversation. For the most part, I let

these people talk without pinning them down too much because when

I did they would shut up.

Another way that they worked was in this waiters union that they

used, and one of the gimmicks there was some of these racket boys

would go into a higli-class restaurant and say, "We are going to sell

you some meat. You are paying $1 a pound for this stuff, and we

are going to charge you $1 .25, but it will be better meat."

Of course, the restaurant owner would be pretty well satisfied with

what ho had, and tliey would run the man off, and tha next day,

through these unions' control, the restaurant operator would not get

IMPROPER ACTIVITIES IN THE LABOR FIELD 12525

any linens, and he would not have any tablecloths or napkins. The

racket boys would go back and say, "I still want to sell you that meat,

and it has gone up to $1.50."

The man would run him off again, and finally this racket boy would

have the union call and call all of his help out of the restaurant. So,

eventually, he had to do business with them and that is just one phase

of their activities, excessive charges on commodities that they used

in the restaurants, and terror.

He claimed that the coin-machine business was theirs.

Mr. Kexnedy. Will you speak up a little louder?

Mr. Butler. They told me that they had control of the coin-machine

devices, and one of their big gimmicks was the cigarette deal, that they

put those cigarettes in liquor stores because they controlled the liquor

business, and they would sell you cigarettes at a very cheap price by

simply cutting the retailer, the liquor-store operator, out of his profits

and telling him that he could use only cheap cigarettes as a leader to

get people to come into his store. Most of them did.

Mr. Kennedy. Did they indicate what the value of all of these

operations was going to be at any time ?

Mr. Butler. The Dallas Survey, according to most people, would

run about $18 million a year. The wire-service deal that they planned

to muscle in, and did muscle in by killing Kagan

JSIr. Kennedy. That was Kagan that was killed up in Chicago, was

it, in 1948 or around then ?

Mr, Butler. I believe it was 1946 or 1947, or somewhere in there.

Mr. Kennedy. He had indicated just prior to that that he had

expected to be killed ?

Mr. Buti.er. That is right. They said that this thing would run

them $1 million a week, the wire service, which is a pretty fat thing.

Senator Church. Wliat is a wire service ?

Mr. Butler. It was the service that bookies used back when the

country was wide open, and they would charge each bookie according

to the volume of business that he did. All of them would get the

same service, but a man who had 20 customers would not pay as much

as a man that had 300 customers.

It depended on the size of the operation.

Mr. Kennedy. Did you ever learn anything as to who was responsi-

ble for killing Kagan ?

Mr. Butler. Well, nothing that I could swear to. It was en-

gineered by these people.

Mr. Kennedy. This same group down in Dallas ?

Mr. Butler. The same group that were behind this bunch, yes.

Mr. Kennedy. Wasn't Yaris involved in that ?

Mr. Butt^er. Dave Yaris, according to the information given out

by these people was the man behind the killing, yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. Did they indicate what these enterprises would bring

in in these other States they were moving into ?

Mr. Butler. No, sir. I never did hear any estimate give to that.

Mr. Kennedy. Just the $1 million a week for the wire services and

then the $18 million in Dallas, Tex., alone, would indicate that it is

a very profitable enterprise.

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. Now, Jones was arrested and was convicted was he

not, for the attempt to bribe the sheriff?

12526 IMPROPER ACTIVITrES IN THE LABOR FIELD

Mr. Butler. That is right.

Mr. Kennedy. What was the sheriff's name ?

Mr. Butler. Guthrie, Steve Guthrie.

Mr. Kennedy. Did you have any more difficulty with Mr. Jones

after that?

Mr. Butler. He was given a 3- to 5-year sentence and while he

was out on appeal we got him for bringing in 57 kilos of opium from

old Mexico, and he had previously told us that he was not interested

in narcotics. Later on, it developed that they had some plans to

have decisions handed down by certain judges that they controlled,

which practically handcuffed the law-enforcement field in their fight

against narcotics.

Mr. Kennedy. Danny Lardino was called back to Chicago by John

Lardino through Nick de John, and Weinberg and Labriola were actu-

ally there but he moved into this group.

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir, they were arrested.

Mr. Kennedy. And you put them out of Texas, is that right ?

Mr. Butler. That is right.

Mr. Kennedy. Now, Mr. Chairman, as I explained, this is the same

Danny Lardino that subsequently went back to Chicago and took over

this local and controlled it, and John Lardino is the one that runs

and controls the biggest hotel and restaurant workers union in Chi-

cago.

That is 10,000 members and both of them are still miion officials.

The Chairman. Are there any questions ?

Mr. Kennedy. Just in passing, did you request to be transferred to

juvenile delinquency ?

Mr. Butler. No, sir. In 1955 I worked for Senator Kefauver on

his investigation into juvenile delinquency and when I got back to

Dallas they assumed I was an expert on the subject and transferred

me there.

Mr. Kennedy. Was there also a man by the name of Mirro down

there?

Mr. Butler. He was down there. They called him "Cowboy."

Mr. Kennedy. Do you know how he got the name "Cowboy" ?

Mr. Butler. No, sir ; I don't.

Mr. KJENNEDY. He also will be here in the course of our investiga-

tions further on, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Butler, was Lou Schneider down

there?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. He was also down there ?

Mr. Butler. That is right.

Mr. Kennedy. Do you know what Schneider's position was ?

Mr. Butler. No, sir. They tell me that Lou Schneider was a pretty

nice sort of person and he got in with those people and as soon as he did

he realized he was over his head, and tried to get out, but he couldn't

doit.

Mr. Kennedy. That is all.

The Chairman. All right. Are there any further questions ?

Mr. Kennedy. Was there anything else that you can think of ?

]Mr. Butler. No, sir.

The Chairman. Thank you very much. Lieutenant.

Robert Howard · January 14, 2011

Robert, thank you for the great lead! It lead me right to Butler's 1958 testimony, elicited by RFK.

...I've found information supporting the idea that RFK had to know that the Warren Commission's investigation was compromised; sabotaged by the alliance of organized labor and organized crime that RFK had devoted himself, at least publicly, to exposing and bringing to justice...

Gore Vidal, Palimpsest: A Memoir. (New York: Random House, 1995) Excerpts in italics are adapted from notes Vidal made in 1961...

So, who were Jack and Bobby, really? I don't buy the opinions I've read in posts so often, here, stating that Bobby was so intimidated by the shooting of his brother that he was sidelined out of concern for the safety of his family.

The more material I read along the lines of the following testimony, the more I suspect Ruby was selected to silence not only Oswald, but Bobby as well. I wonder if Bobby was put in a position where he had to choose between propping up the democratic party and his political ambitions, or pursuing justice for his brother, where ever the evidence led. Bobby had to know about Tom Clark, Henry Crown, and Albert Jenner, Paul Ziffren, and David Bazelon. The year after the WC report, republican Earl Warren chose Ziffren's son as his law clerk for the 1965 Supreme Court term. Drew Pearson vacationed with Earl Warren.

Bobby could have blocked Jenner or removed him from the WC, after the fact. Instead, he did nothing, and I think he endorsed the WC cover up as the least awful of the choices he was boxed into making.

The only things Bobby might not have known that I have outlined in this thread, is how close Earl Warren was to Ziffren, how close Gerald Ford was to the FBI, and he could not have known that McNamara would one day marry the future daughter-in-law of his brother's Glen Ora landlady. He had to know that Henry Crown owned Roz Gilpatric and was close to Paul Nitze. He had to know that the death of his brother resulted in the immediate cessation of the senate inquiry into TFX. He probably did not know that General Dynamics industrial security manager, IB Hale's sons had been spotted burglarizing Judit Exner's LA apartment. He had no reason, during the remainder of his life, to marvel at the coincidence that G. David Schine was GM at the Ambassador Hotel in LA, and that Schine's sister was Henry Crown's daughter-in-law. Thus it would not have meant anything to Bobby that Ruby's roommate, George was from the same small NY town as the Schines, or that Ruby had called Vincent Alo's soldier, Joe Cataldo at a number in that same small town, shortly before November, 1963.

Consider that this hearing took place just five years before Bobby stopped pushing back.:

http://www.archive.o...33unit_djvu.txt
...INVESTIGATION OF IMPROPER ACTIVITIES IN THE

LABOR OR MANAGE3IENT FIELD

TUESDAY, JULY 8, 1958

United States Senate,

Select Committee on Improper Activities

IN the Labor or j\L\nagement Field,

Washington^ D. C.

The select committee met at 10 a. m., pursuant to Senate Resolution

74, agreed to January 30, 1957, in the caucus room. Senate Office

Building, Senator John L. McClellan (chairman of the select com-

mittee) presiding.

Present: Senator John L. McClellan, Democrat, Arkansas; Sen-

ator Frank Church, Democrat, Idaho ; Senator Carl T. Curtis, Repub-

lican, Nebraska.

Also present : Robert F. Kennedy, chief counsel ; John J. McGov-

ern, assistant counsel; LaVern J. Duffy, investigator; James P. Kelly,

investigator; James Mundie, investigator; Ruth Young Watt, chief

clerk. ...

...All right, Mr. Kennedy, will you call the first witness ?

Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Virgil Peterson, Mr. Chairman, who is the oper-

ating director of the Chicago Crime Commission.

The Chairman. Will you be sworn, please ?

Do you solemnly swear that the evidence, given before this Senate

select committee, shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but

the truth, so help you God ?

Mr. Peterson. I do.

TESTIMONY OF VIEGIL W. PETERSON

...Mr. Peterson. Well, I have heard that.

Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Chairman, we were talking about Danny Lar-

dino. He controlled local 658, which had up to 1,000 members. When

they merged with local 593 it had only approximately 400 workers, but

he had complete control and dominion of the local and the individuals

in the local. Mr. Peterson has given some background information on

Mr. Lardino, but we have another witness who will give some more

background information on him. For that reason, I would like to

have Mr. Peterson step aside and call Lieutenant Butler.

IMPROPER ACTIVITIES IN THE LABOR FIELD 12519

The Chairman. Lieutenant, you do solemnly swear the evidence

you shall give before the Senate select committee shall be the truth,

the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God ?

Mr. Butler. I do.

TESTIMONY OF GEOKGE BUTLER

The Chairman. State your name, your place of residence.

Mr. Butler. George Butler, Dallas, Tex.; police officer.

The Chairman. How long have you been a police officer ?

Mr. Butler. 22 years.

The Chairman. What is your rank ?

Mr. Butler. Lieutenant of detectives.

The Chairman. That is in Chicago ?

Mr. Butler. Dallas, Tex.

The Chairman. Dallas, Tex. ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

The CHAiRiiAN. Do you waive counsel ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

The Chairman. Proceed, Mr. Kennedy.

Mr. Kennedy. Lieutenant, were you with the intelligence division

of the Dallas Police Department for a period of time ?

JSIr. Butler. No, sir; it was not called the intelligence division

then.

Mr. Kennedy. What was it called at that time ?

Mr. Butler. Just special assignments detail.

Mr. Kennedy. Were you working on the racketeers and gangsters ?

Was that your specific assignment?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. Are you on that assignment at the present time?

Mr. Butler. No, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. How long have you been not working on that?

Mr. Butler. I have been assigned to juvenile work for the past 3

years.

Mr. Kennedy. But prior to that you were an expert in the field

of racketeers and gangsters ; is that right ?

Mr. Butler. Yv^ell, that is

Mr. Kennedy. Well, you had worked on it ; hadn't you ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. And for the last 3 years you have been working on

juveniles ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. Ivennedy. You were transferred into this juvenile work?

INIr. Butler. Yes, sir.

ISIr. Kennedy. Did you find in the mid-1940's that there was a

group of gangsters that came from Chicago to try to take over the

rackets in the city of Dallas and that area?

Mr. Butler. That is right, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. Could you tell the committee what you found in the

course of your investigation and some of the individuals that were

involved, and what they were trying to do ?

Mr. Butler. Well, in 1946, or 1945, there had been a change in ad-

ministration in Dallas. The gang that ordinarily operated down

there was run out, which left the gambling field and racket field wide

12520 IMPROPER ACTIVITIES IN THE LABOR FIELD

open. These boys from Chicago came in, looked the situation over,

and decided that they wanted to take over not only Dallas but the

whole State of Texas and the Southwest.

Mr. Kennedy, Who were some of the people that came in? Can

you tell us that ?

Mr. Butler. The first man that came down that we got informa-

tion about was Paul Roland Jones.

Mr. Kennedy. Who was Paul Roland Jones ?

Mr. Butler. He is a con man. He has been handled for murder.

He has been handled for narcotics.

Mr. Kennedy. He has been handled ?

Mr, Butler. Well, he has been sent to the penitentiary for murder.

That is a term we use in police work, handled.

Mr. Kennedy. He was convicted for murder; was he not?

Mr, Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. And for narcotics?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. And he had been pardoned on the murder charge?

Mr. Butler. That is right.

Mr. Kennedy. Out of a penitentiary in Kansas, was it ?

Mr. Butler. That is right, sir.

Mr, Kennedy, And he had come down to Dallas. Had he come

originally from Chicago? Had he been associated with the gang-

sters there ?

Mr. Butler. He had been associated with the Chicago people in

black-market operations and counterfeit ration-stamp deals and

things of that character during the war years.

Mr. Kennedy. Will you tell us what happened after that ?

Mr. Butler. He came down and put in a liquor store with the

thought in mind of taking over the bootleg whisky running into Okla-

homa, the adjoining dry State. We got onto him, and he sold his

liquor store. Then a man named Marcus Lipsky

Mr. Kennedy. Wlio is Marcus Lipsky ?

Mr. Butler. He was a man from the Chicago area who we later

found to have developed some milk unions there in the milk industry

for the Capone people.

Mr. Kennedy. Was he also a well-known gangster in Chicago ?

Mr. Butler. Well, I had never heard of him prior to that. He was

a supersalesman type of person, high pressure, a con man, a very

smooth' operator. He could mix in any company, with all kinds of

people.

He came down and got with Jones. They made a survey of Dallas

and estimated that the rackets there would pay around $18 million a

year. He goes back to Chicago and wants to get those people to O. K.

him. By that he indicated that they would back him up financially,

and with any manpower he may need should he run into resistance on

this new enterprise that they had in mind.

Lipsky wanted tlie Mhisky, he Avanted the gambling, he wanted the

slot machines, the coin machines, and he wanted the whole business,

not only in Dallas but all of the Southwest.

Mr. Kennedy. What other States were specifically included in

what they were going to take over?

Mr. Butler. They took over coin machine and amusement com-

panies in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas.

IMPROPER ACTrV^TIES IN THE LABOR FIELD 12521

Mr. Kennedy. They were going to take over Arkanscas, also?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir; they were operating in Fort Smith, Ark., a

slot-machine and jukebox route up there which was very lucrative.

Mr. IvENNEDY. This was not just slot machines, but it was these pin-

ball machines and, generally, coin-operated machines ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. You say he went up to Chicago to see if he could

get this operation fmanced ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir. He made arrangements through a man

known as Nick DeJolin. DeJohn, according to our investigation, was

an arbitrator or acted as the judge in any disputes in the Capone gang

at that time. When he O. K.'d Lipsgy and the boys up there put up

the money for Lipsky to come into Texas and the Southwest, Nick

DeJohn, in ejffect, serv^ed to guarantee the return of that money should

anything happen. A little later on it developed that a gang war was

about to break loose down there between Lipsky, who had brought

in

Mr. Kennedy. ^Hio did Lipsky bring into Texas with him?

Mr. Butler. He brought Danny Lardino. Paul Labriola.

Mr. Kennedy. "VA-lio was Danny Lardino? Did you find out any-

thing about him, what his background had been ?

Mr. Butler. Lardino had been associated, we found out, with the

Capone interests for some time, and they sent him down here on a dual

purpose : One, to keep track of Lipsky, and watch how he was running

the show, and the other, of course, as a bodyguard to Lipsky.

!Mr. Kennedy. Was he known as a strong-arm man ?

Mr. Butler. He was known as a bodyguard down there; yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. Wlio were the other individuals ?

Mr. Butler. Labriola.

Mr. KJENNEDY. AMiat was Labriola ? Would you spell his name ?

Mr. Butler. L-a-b-r-i-o-l-a ; the first name is Paul.

Mr. Kennedy. Did he have a nickname ?

Mr. Butler, Needlenose ; yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. Needlenose ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. IvENNEDY. Paul "Needlenose" Labriola?

Mr. Butler. Yes. sir.

]Mr. Kennedy. AVlio was the other ?

Mr. Butler. James Weinberg.

Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Chairman, Labriola and Weinberg played very

important roles in the investigation as it continues, and it is of con-

siderable interest that they were down in Dallas, Tex., during this

period of time, with Nick DeJohn and with Danny Lardino. They

will play extremely important roles in our investigation.

Mr. Butler. Another member of that goon squad was "Marty the

Ox," whose real name was, I believe, Martin Ochs. He was a well-

known Chicago hoodlum. In all, there were about 20 members of that

mob that came down into Dallas.

Mr. Kennedy. Did they set up this operation ?

Mr. Butler. They set up the operation ; yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. "\'\^iere did they live when they arrived there ?

Mr. Butler. Well, at that time, hotel space was at a premium, and

they could not stay anywhere over 5 days at a time. They were stay-

12522 IMPROPER ACTIVITIES IN THE LABOR FIELD

ing at the Whitmore Hotel, and they stayed at a place called the Scott

Hotel. Then there was a man named Sam Yaras.

Mr. Kennedy. How do you spell his name ?

Mr. Butler. Y-a-r-a-s, from Chicago. He had an apartment there.

Occasionally, they stayed with him.

Mr. Kennedy. Is he the brother of Dave Yaras ?

Mr. Butler. That is right, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Chairman, we have already had testimony about

Dave Yaras in cennection with taking over of certain unions in the

Miami area at the present time, and that he has also moved in, I

believe, in some gambling in Cuba, has he not ? Do you have infor-

mation along those lines ?

Mr. Butler. That is my understanding ; yes, sir.

Senator Curtis. Mr. Chairman?

The Chairman. Senator Curtis.

Senator Curtis. I would like to ask, Mr. Butler, did hoodlums and

criminals move in and, if so, did they have any measure of success

in infiltrating unions in the Dallas area ?

Mr. Butler. No, sir ; I would not think so.

Senator Curtis. Did they have any successs in moving into unions

anyplace in Texas ?

Mr. Butler. No, sir.

Senator Curtis. Why didn't they.

Mr. Butler. Well, at that time, the gambling business was appeal-

ing to them more than anything else.

Senator Curtis. What year was this ?

Mr. Butler. 1945 and 1946.

Senator Curtis. Have the criminal elements, such as described by

the previous witness, Mr. Peterson — and you heard his testimony —

have they at any time since been successful in moving into unions in

Texas?

Mr. Butler. Not that I know of, sir.

Senator Curtis. Apparently, not on any large scale ?

Mr. Butler. That is right.

Senator Curtis. Why is it ?

Mr. Butler. Well, maybe it is the breed of men down there. They

resent somebody trying to tell them what to do. There have been some

fights from time to time. Somebody might start something and one of

those Texas boys would peal his head with a club or something; so,

so far, they have not had enough on the ball to get started.

Senator Curtis. And Texas does not permit compulsory unionism,

do they ?

Mr. Butler. That is my understanding; that is right.

Senator Curtis. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Kennedy. Did they appear to have a great deal of money when

they were down there ?

Mr. Butler. Who is that ?

Mr. Kennedy. This group that moved in ; did they appear to have

a great deal of money ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir; they had unlimited.

Mr. Kennedy. For instance, Weinberg and Labriola ; did they give

any occupation ?

IMPROPER ACTIVITIES IN THE LABOR FIELD 12523

Mr, Butler. Well, they claimed to be clerks at the San Jacinto

liquor store, which was run by this mob, but actually, they were living

in a hotel suite at that time that cost them around $30 a day.

Mr. Kennedy. Would you tell us how it developed then, or what

occurred ?

Mr. Butler. Well, when this pending trouble began to materialize

between the Dallas group and this outside group

Mr. Kennedy. Was there any suggestion by this outside group as

to how they were going to handle the Dallas group ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir. Lipsky's idea was to kill the four top

gamblers in the Dallas area, put their bodies in a stolen car, and park

the car alongside the police department, and let everybody know

how tough he was, and that he would not stand for any foolishness

down there.

Mr. Kennedy. Was that plan opposed by some of the other people ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir. Jones thought this was a foolish move. He

^ets on the phone and calls Nick DeJohn and tells him what Lipsky

IS up to, and he suggests that he get Danny Lardino, Weinberg,

Labriola, and Marty the Ox out of Texas.

Mr. Kennedy. If any killing was to be done, it was to be done by

this group, Labriola, Weinberg, Danny Lardino, and the Ox?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. And he suggested to Nick DeJohn, who was financing

this whole operation, that he get the four individuals out of Texas

back to Chicago?

Mr. Butler. John told Jones that he would have John call Danny

back to Chicago.

Mr. Kennedy. John Lardino ?

Mr. Butler. John Lardino. And which was done. We did, about

the same time, or just a few days after that instant, the police depart-

ment rounded up possibly 20 of these characters and discouraged them

as much as possible. So they liquidated their interest and got out of

the State for a while.

Mr. Kennedy. Werethey also running down into Mexico?

Mr. Butler. Some of that equipment that they bought to operate

in Texas they did move into Mexico. They set up a gambling deal

down there.

Mr. Kennedy. With pinballs and jukeboxes ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir. And they also had a big crapgame down

there. They had made a fix with some official. They ran into a

little trouble there. Some of the politicians that were not in on the

fix give them a big check for chips, lose $15 or $20 and cash the rest

of the chips in and stick the money in their pockets. Of course, the

chips weren't any good.

Mr. Kennedy. Was it Jones' idea, rather than to kill this other

group, that he could make some deal down there with the officials?

Mr. Butler. Jones wanted to make a fix, and he tried to make a fix

with the elected sheriff, Steve Guthrie. During this time, we con-

ducted an extensive investigation into the whole setup, and, as a re-

sult of that, we got Jones trapped and a man named Pat Mano, from

Chicago, supposedly the fifth member of that group, who was going to

bankroll Jones in his operation there. Incidentally, when the group

effort fizzled out as far as Lipsky was concerned, they lost a good deal

12524 IMPROPER ACTIVITIES IN THE LABOR FIELD

of money. Nick DeJohn was called on to make this guaranty of his

stand up, and he couldn't produce the money. We knew several weeks

ahead of time that he was going to get killed. They finally did kill

him.

Mr. Kennedy. Where did they kill him ?

Mr. Butler. He was finally located in San Francisco.

Mr. Kennedy. How did they kill him ?

Mr. Butler. They tied a wire around his neck and stuck him in

the back end of a car. Incidentally, it was the same, identical way

that Labriola and Weinberg were killed in 1954.

Mr. Kennedy. Labriola and Weinberg, who were also down there,

were ultimately killed, also ?

Mr. Butler. In the same manner ; yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. By the wire around their neck ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. Is that an old, gangland way of disposing of friends ?

Mr. Butler. It apparently does not make much noise or attract too

much witnesses.

Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Jones, who was down there, did he ultimately

talk and expose a lot of these things to the police department ?

Mr. Butler. Well, sir, in this investigation we found out some of

the moves that the gang had planned to make, and some of the busi-

ness ventures that they were going to enter into. It developed that

they were going to muscle into the Continental Press, the nationwide

wire service. That happened just like he said it would happen.

Mr. Kennedy. He described what they were going to do; is that

right?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir. They would use this means to muscle into

other communities, which was followed almost to a letter when they

muscled into Miami, Fla. Another venture, of course, was their enter-

ing into the labor unions.

Mr. Kennedy. Did he discuss their entrance into the labor unions ?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir; that was one of their prime objectives at that

time.

Mr. Kennedy. Would you describe what was said about that?

Mr. Butler. Well, he discussed many different angles of putting

pressure on different companies and businesses. One of the things

that he brought out was the fact tliat they were going to try to organ-

ize or unionize every truckdriver in the Nation. He said, "Wien we

do that, we can bring industry to its knees, and even the Government,

if we have to." He was talking about different angles.

Mr. Kennedy. Did he indicate that that was the most important

area — to get control of the truckdrivers ?

Mr. Butler. In the general conversation. For the most part, I let

these people talk without pinning them down too much because when

I did they would shut up.

Another way that they worked was in this waiters union that they

used, and one of the gimmicks there was some of these racket boys

would go into a higli-class restaurant and say, "We are going to sell

you some meat. You are paying $1 a pound for this stuff, and we

are going to charge you $1 .25, but it will be better meat."

Of course, the restaurant owner would be pretty well satisfied with

what ho had, and tliey would run the man off, and tha next day,

through these unions' control, the restaurant operator would not get

IMPROPER ACTIVITIES IN THE LABOR FIELD 12525

any linens, and he would not have any tablecloths or napkins. The

racket boys would go back and say, "I still want to sell you that meat,

and it has gone up to $1.50."

The man would run him off again, and finally this racket boy would

have the union call and call all of his help out of the restaurant. So,

eventually, he had to do business with them and that is just one phase

of their activities, excessive charges on commodities that they used

in the restaurants, and terror.

He claimed that the coin-machine business was theirs.

Mr. Kexnedy. Will you speak up a little louder?

Mr. Butler. They told me that they had control of the coin-machine

devices, and one of their big gimmicks was the cigarette deal, that they

put those cigarettes in liquor stores because they controlled the liquor

business, and they would sell you cigarettes at a very cheap price by

simply cutting the retailer, the liquor-store operator, out of his profits

and telling him that he could use only cheap cigarettes as a leader to

get people to come into his store. Most of them did.

Mr. Kennedy. Did they indicate what the value of all of these

operations was going to be at any time ?

Mr. Butler. The Dallas Survey, according to most people, would

run about $18 million a year. The wire-service deal that they planned

to muscle in, and did muscle in by killing Kagan

JSIr. Kennedy. That was Kagan that was killed up in Chicago, was

it, in 1948 or around then ?

Mr, Butler. I believe it was 1946 or 1947, or somewhere in there.

Mr. Kennedy. He had indicated just prior to that that he had

expected to be killed ?

Mr. Buti.er. That is right. They said that this thing would run

them $1 million a week, the wire service, which is a pretty fat thing.

Senator Church. Wliat is a wire service ?

Mr. Butler. It was the service that bookies used back when the

country was wide open, and they would charge each bookie according

to the volume of business that he did. All of them would get the

same service, but a man who had 20 customers would not pay as much

as a man that had 300 customers.

It depended on the size of the operation.

Mr. Kennedy. Did you ever learn anything as to who was responsi-

ble for killing Kagan ?

Mr. Butler. Well, nothing that I could swear to. It was en-

gineered by these people.

Mr. Kennedy. This same group down in Dallas ?

Mr. Butler. The same group that were behind this bunch, yes.

Mr. Kennedy. Wasn't Yaris involved in that ?

Mr. Butt^er. Dave Yaris, according to the information given out

by these people was the man behind the killing, yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. Did they indicate what these enterprises would bring

in in these other States they were moving into ?

Mr. Butler. No, sir. I never did hear any estimate give to that.

Mr. Kennedy. Just the $1 million a week for the wire services and

then the $18 million in Dallas, Tex., alone, would indicate that it is

a very profitable enterprise.

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. Now, Jones was arrested and was convicted was he

not, for the attempt to bribe the sheriff?

12526 IMPROPER ACTIVITrES IN THE LABOR FIELD

Mr. Butler. That is right.

Mr. Kennedy. What was the sheriff's name ?

Mr. Butler. Guthrie, Steve Guthrie.

Mr. Kennedy. Did you have any more difficulty with Mr. Jones

after that?

Mr. Butler. He was given a 3- to 5-year sentence and while he

was out on appeal we got him for bringing in 57 kilos of opium from

old Mexico, and he had previously told us that he was not interested

in narcotics. Later on, it developed that they had some plans to

have decisions handed down by certain judges that they controlled,

which practically handcuffed the law-enforcement field in their fight

against narcotics.

Mr. Kennedy. Danny Lardino was called back to Chicago by John

Lardino through Nick de John, and Weinberg and Labriola were actu-

ally there but he moved into this group.

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir, they were arrested.

Mr. Kennedy. And you put them out of Texas, is that right ?

Mr. Butler. That is right.

Mr. Kennedy. Now, Mr. Chairman, as I explained, this is the same

Danny Lardino that subsequently went back to Chicago and took over

this local and controlled it, and John Lardino is the one that runs

and controls the biggest hotel and restaurant workers union in Chi-

cago.

That is 10,000 members and both of them are still miion officials.

The Chairman. Are there any questions ?

Mr. Kennedy. Just in passing, did you request to be transferred to

juvenile delinquency ?

Mr. Butler. No, sir. In 1955 I worked for Senator Kefauver on

his investigation into juvenile delinquency and when I got back to

Dallas they assumed I was an expert on the subject and transferred

me there.

Mr. Kennedy. Was there also a man by the name of Mirro down

there?

Mr. Butler. He was down there. They called him "Cowboy."

Mr. Kennedy. Do you know how he got the name "Cowboy" ?

Mr. Butler. No, sir ; I don't.

Mr. KJENNEDY. He also will be here in the course of our investiga-

tions further on, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Butler, was Lou Schneider down

there?

Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.

Mr. Kennedy. He was also down there ?

Mr. Butler. That is right.

Mr. Kennedy. Do you know what Schneider's position was ?

Mr. Butler. No, sir. They tell me that Lou Schneider was a pretty

nice sort of person and he got in with those people and as soon as he did

he realized he was over his head, and tried to get out, but he couldn't

doit.

Mr. Kennedy. That is all.

The Chairman. All right. Are there any further questions ?

Mr. Kennedy. Was there anything else that you can think of ?

]Mr. Butler. No, sir.

The Chairman. Thank you very much. Lieutenant.

But there is much more.

Name, Thomas Hill found in Ruby's possession. Hill was the Director of Field Activities, John Birch Society. Said he was employed from July, 1959 to Huly, 1960 in Dallas by the JBS. Hill's name appeared on the "Impeach Earl Warren" billboards as a person to contact for more information.

JFK researcher A. J. Weberman wrote

RUBY AND JESSE CURRY

In 1956 RUBY traveled to Hot Springs, Arkansas, a center of gambling and vice in the South. RUBY was accompanied by Jesse Curry, the Chief of Police of Dallas, Texas. After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a friend of RUBY'S, Eli Schulman, told the FBI that "RUBY had many Dallas cops for friends - in fact he took the Chief of Police to Hot Springs Arkansas, when I don't know." [FBI 44-24016-275; C.Ray Hall WCE 3; FBI DL 44-1639; LL R: BC D-cover page] The contents of a cable regarding "Possible Association Between Jesse Curry Chief of Police and JACK RUBY" stated: "(Deleted) advised that (Deleted) born Poland Texas [Ralph Paul?] November 30, 1963, (deleted) stated that he had information indicating that the correspondent, name not known, of Indian publication Blitz was in Dallas November 22, 1963, and apparently obtained documents stating that Police Sheriff Curry and RUBY were members of the 'MB SESIDE.' (Deleted) was to verify this information December two next and (deleted) also indicated this information would be published in the near future by Blitz which he described as an anti-American publication. The list of non-U.S. nationals accredited as correspondents and representatives of information media by the U.N. as October 31, 1963, lists Ramesh Sanghvi of Indian nationality as associated with Blitz. (Deleted) Born India Texas." [FBI 44-24016-610]

EILEEN ELLIS CURRY

In 1940 Eileen Curry was sent to the Ventura School for girls for five years. In 1943 Eileen Curry went to work for the War Department but by 1947 she was in the Oregon State Penitentiary. She was released in 1949. In 1951 Eileen Curry was arrested for lewd vagrancy. Curry was arrested for vagrancy on June 23, 1956 in Dallas. Eileen Curry was "lodged in a motel frequented by colored patrons...where she plied her trade as a prostitute." On October 18, 1956, she was arrested in Louisville, Kentucky. On October 30, 1956, Eileen Curry was charged with passing a bad check in Indianapolis, Indiana. She pleaded guilty and served one month in jail. She was arrested on January 3, 1957, in Cleveland, Ohio. She was arrested on December 13, 1958. On May 16, 1959, Eileen Curry was sent to prison in Ohio for prostitution. She told authorities there that "she started prostitution at an early age and has known no other measure of making a living, nor has she any intention of changing her behavior pattern." She was released on March 19, 1960. She was arrested on November 7, 1960, in Cleveland. She was arrested on August 7, 1961, and on September 29, 1961, in Cleveland. That year Assistant United States Attorney Burt W. Griffin indicted her for violations of the White Slavery Act. She plead guilty and was sentenced to two years in prison beginning on October 25, 1961. Click HERE to see a photo of Eileen Curry.

RUBY AND CURRY AND BREEN

After November 22, 1963, the Los Angeles Field Office of the FBI located a reference to JACK RUBY, James Breen and Eileen Curry in its files. Titled "James Breen, Miscellaneous Information Concerning" the file related that on March 18, 1956, Eileen Curry requested that the Los Angeles FBI Office have S.A. Ambrose K. Law call her collect at Dallas, Texas. The rest of the text read "She had been interviewed twice for information she might furnish in the case entitled 'Unknown Subject, Abraham Davidian - Victim. Obstruction of Justice.' She was acting, as was James Breen, as an informant for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Los Angeles Police Department Vice Squad. She indicated she had formerly been with Stanley Adams, a Subject in this case. Bunny at that time was operating a house of prostitution in Los Angeles on a call girl basis. She furnished no information of particular significance. James Breen was interviewed two or three times as a possible Potential Criminal Informant, but both were constantly in trouble with local authorities and contact could not be maintained with them. Bunny, on March 18, 1956, last, advised that she and James had jumped a local bond on narcotics charges about the first of this year and gone to Dallas. James was driving a cab for City Transportation Company and was apparently operating in some branch of the prostitution racket. Bunny was told by James he had a connection with a large narcotics set up operating between Mexico, Texas and the East. James made several trips and returned. He purposely did not give details so she could not get into trouble. He took his clothes about three weeks ago and said he was going on another trip. She heard later that he left her, but heard also from a bondsman named (Deleted) this was not true, and that James had contacted him, and asked him to look out for her in case she got into any trouble. She believes James made the connection to narcotics ring through a former associate from Seagoville Prison where James served time. In some fashion James got the okay to operate through JACK RUBY of Dallas. Several days ago, one Jack, (LNU) of Houston came to see Bunny with one Gordon Winter of Houston, a friend of hers and James. Jack told her that James was trying to hijack a 300 to 400 thousand dollar load of narcotics from Mexico and was going to try and go with another distribution setup...Bunny fears James has been killed or kidnapped and wanted to talk to someone she could trust." [FBI 62-103069 3.22.56; WCE 1762; FBI LHM, Cleveland, Ohio, 6.9.64; FBI 44-24016-1160; FBI 44-24016-1180; FBI 44-24016,1492, 5158, 610]

On February 11, 1964, Eileen Curry was arrested in Chicago for running a house of prostitution. The FBI received this information in March 1964. The Dallas FBI: "Since the trial of JACK RUBY is now in progress no action with be taken UACB to locate Curry and Breen for interview... Following references in Dallas files are identifiable with Breen: 137-440 (Potential Criminal Informant file on Eileen Curry). 31-7327.31-6047, 31-7294, 91-1185, Ser. 16, 29, 52, 79, 135, 91-1184 Ser. 7." In June 1964 the Warren Commission asked the FBI to locate Eileen Curry and James Breen. The FBI interviewed Lieutenant Martin P. Cooney who was in charge of the Bureau of Special Investigations of the Cleveland Police Department. He told the FBI that Eileen Curry operated a brothel in Chicago and gave the agents the address. He said he considered Eileen Curry to be unreliable and would not place any credence in anything she said unless her statements could be corroborated from at least two other sources. Lieutenant Martin P. Cooney considered her "one of the most dangerous and unreliable woman he had ever dealt with."

On June 11, 1964, Curry told the FBI: "Approximately four weeks after their arrival in Dallas, James Breen brought JACK RUBY to the apartment house where he introduced RUBY to Curry as a friend of his. A few days after this first meeting, JACK RUBY, accompanied by a white male, who was short and dark, drove to the Curry apartment. They waited outside of the apartment until joined by James Breen, at which time they departed. Later that day James Breen told Curry that he had accompanied RUBY to an unnamed location, where he had been shown moving pictures of various border guards both Mexican and American. [RUBY had the telephone number of a Mexican Government Official in one of the notebooks taken from his home by the FBI in late November 1963]. In addition, included among the movies were films of persons described by James Breen as various narcotics agents as well as persons who were contacts on the Mexican side."

The FBI contacted the parents of James Breen and was told that he had been adopted, and the Breen family had experienced considerable difficulty with him. Mrs. Breen had not heard from him for 14 years. In July 1964, as a result of a telephone conversation between Burt Griffin and FBI Agent Hines, the Warren Commission asked the FBI to discontinue its attempt to find James Breen.

The Warren Commission never called Eileen Curry as a witness, despite the fact that the files of the FBI on RUBY listed Eileen Curry as one of his associates: "Information concerning RUBY'S association with Eileen Curry appears on page five of a nine page memorandum, undated, but block stamped, April 4, 1956, submitted by S.A. Emmet J. Murphy, captioned (deleted). The memo is a former Dallas Office form DL-3, which was used at the time for recording preliminary information to form the basis for opening a Potential Criminal Informant file. RUBY'S name appears on page five, paragraph J, under the sub-caption, 'Criminal Associates' The basis for inclusion of RUBY as an associate of the Potential Criminal Informant was apparently an airtel dated March 20, 1956, from the Los Angeles Office to the Director (deleted)." [FBI 44-1639-4518] Information about James Breen was withheld from a document declassified in 1994. [NARA RIF 124-10099-10249]

ANALYSIS

James Breen and Eileen "Bunny" Curry were career criminals. They were apprehended often and became informants. What was the FBI waiting for? A nun or a rabbi to come forward with information on Ruby? Curry's story corroborated the earlier allegations that RUBY was involved in narcotics. The FBI was afraid to interview Breen.

END

Home/Archive/Documents/JFK Assassination Documents/JFK Documents - Federal Bureau of Investigation/FBI - HSCA Subject Files/FBI - HSCA Subject Files, A - B/FBI - HSCA Subject File: George Butler/

NARA Record Number: 124-90017-10003

No Title

http://www.maryferre....do?docId=75090

According to the above document Lt. George Butler was apparently at the Flamingo Hotel on August 2, 1963

In the time frame of May 7-10th, 1963, Lt George Butler, apparently was at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, a fact which can be proven as a result of ELSUR usage by the FBI in that period. One gets the impression he was doing a little gambling, although it is hard to say definitively.

See

http://www.maryferre...amp;relPageId=1

First, in a conversation between Jerry Gordon and Morris Lansburgh. In this conversation, Gordon is referring to hotel bookings for the day's of May 7, 8, 9, and 10, 1963. At one point in the conversation, Gordon states, "10th down, thirty-five, seven, zero, two [pause] yes sir! [Pause] Some of your friends from Texas"..........

On May 12 1963, [Jerry] Gordon is having a discussion with Sam Belkin, a casino credit manager concerning customers at the casino who owe the casino money......Gordon is reading off the names to Belkin, and Belkin is cross-referencing them against a list he has, after running down the 36th name, Sam Gordon.....five. the following,"...........BUTLER......Paid..."

So, the conversation implies, at least by what Gordon states to Lansburgh, that a Dallas police Lieutenant is on familiar terms with Morris Lansburgh. If that were the case it belies the fact that with the assassination seven months away, there is good reason to suspect the charge made through the years that there were some bad apples on the Dallas police force was not inaccurate; In that context, a Dallas detective staying at the Flamingo in Vegas.......Doesent look too good on the old resume.

I have always wondered if there was a possible genealogical link between Jesse and Eileen Curry, if there was it might have given leverage

to anyone interested in blackmail, in reference to Jack Ruby at the time of the assassination.

Apparently there was another appearance by Lt. Butler, but the location isn't disclosed.

August 2, 1963

Jack advised that Butler is out - "we may have to sue him."

Both Jack and Allard speak very highly of Hank LNU

Cut 37-45 is in reference to construction

12:32 P.M.

http://www.maryferre....do?docId=75091

An Eileen Curry is listed on the website family search.org in the 1920 census as living in Chicago's 6th ward, the list of people living with her is a mile long.

https://www.familyse...56iYku8TUc%253D

Household Gender Age

Helen M Kuscha F 25y

Anna Bagala F 30y

Joseph A Verbeck F 30y

Catherine A Verbeck F 31y

John Verbeck M 7y

Sarah M Buckley F 24y

Mary M Mosier F 32y

Anna Bombest F 26y

Stella Lewandowska F 25y

Stella Koziniski F 18y

Martha Kuruthowski F 30y

Jennie Glam F 25y

Mary Romanska F 25y

Ada M Nevlida F 19y

Angline W Piehtka F 23y

Louise Sander F 25y

Mike Jakubowicz M 27y

William Jerme M 38y

Jerry Dunbry M 38y

Michael Murray M 43y

George Sitok M 30y

Joe Kazuditshik M 23y

Nicholas Roduk M 36y

Stanley Kloswitz M 33y

Arthur C Hornt M 34y

Mary A Sezemla F 24y

Bessie Mako F 22y

Tillie Steline F 24y

Mary Geodzoela F 24y

Eileen Curry F 24y

Anna Gregory F 49y

Everett Garry M 18y

Elizabeth Murphy F 50y

Mary Kenger F 20y

Carl Letsch M 30y

Mary Letsch F 25y

Carl Letsch M 2y6m

Theresa Westmere F 45y

Theresa Kubic F 26y

Veronica Veelk F 23y

Antonette Stargo F 23y

Isador BradankiawicgF 23y

Pearl Janazeka F 25y

Agnes Rudnick F 39y

Ingobor Boline F 22y

Eva Godbotch F 24y

Michael KozubouskyM 25y

John Migar M 24y

Frank Kiccana M 29y

Patrick Murphy M 69y

Charles S O'Gara M 18y

Frank Jeric M 39y

Ingeborg Boline F 22y

Anna Batog F 23y

Francis Kanalchun M 26y

Mary Jurck F 30y

Peter Losko M 28y

Justine Kuratkowski F 19y

Tom Daniel M 26y

James G Keller M 55y

Alex Czaikowsko M 24y

John Kliszeika M 34y

Frank Karayka M 29y

Matthew Murlos M 36y

Paul Gorkos M 27y

Edited January 14, 2011 by Robert Howard

January 14, 2011

Robert, I'll look for a census record on Jesse Curry, tonight or tomorrow.

http://books.google.com/books?id=CFfZAAAAMAAJ&q=%22george+butler%22+kefauver+juvenile&dq=%22george+butler%22+kefauver+juvenile&hl=en&ei=-KgwTZ4RwaqUB-DunbkK&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAw
Ramparts

No cover image

1967 - Snippet view

He approached then-sheriff Steve Guthrie and an obscure lieutenant on the police force, George Butler, to arrange for ... Butler became a hero of sorts, and was tapped to assist the Kefauver Committee in its 1950 rackets hearings.

http://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks%3A1&tbo=1&q=fbi+interview+with+jones+in+which+he+stated+that+when+he+first+met+ruby%2C+both+weinberg+&btnG=Search+Books#sclient=psy&hl=en&safe=off&tbo=1&tbs=bks:1&source=hp&q=fbi+interview+with+jones+in+which+he+stated+that+when+he+first+met+ruby%2C+both+weinberg+%22all+right%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=fbi+interview+with+jones+in+which+he+stated+that+when+he+first+met+ruby%2C+both+weinberg+%22all+right%22&psj=1&fp=fd0f73886609171d

Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy - Page 385

Jim Marrs - 1993 - 656 pages - Preview

In fact, to arrive at their conclusion that Ruby was not mob connected, they had to ignore an FBI interview with Jones in which he stated that when he first met Ruby, both Weinberg and ...

Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy - Page 385

Jim Marrs - 1993 - 656 pages - Preview

Jones held meetings with Sheriff Guthrie and an obscure Dallas police lieutenant named George Butler, ... said he believed Butler was serious about accepting mob payoffs, changing his position only after learning that the Texas Rangers ...

January 16, 2011

http://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks%3A1&tbo=1&q=%22McClellan+contended+Gilpatric+had+left+an+earlier+impression+that+the+merger+*%22&btnG=Search+Books#q=gilpatrick+maurice+t.+moore&hl=en&safe=off&tbs=nws:1,ar:1&source=lnt&sa=X&ei=UY4yTa_HPMzpgQf9ptmVCw&ved=0CBMQpwUoBQ&fp=537f1e892d64f77a
GILPATRIC'S ROLE IN TFX QUESTIONED; McClellan Raises an...

‎- New York Times - Nov 19, 1963

Mr. Gilpat,tic immediately answered that his participation in the controversial ... that Maurice Moore, senior partner of the firm, was named to the General ...

http://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks%3A1&tbo=1&q=%22McClellan+contended+Gilpatric+had+left+an+earlier+impression+that+the+merger+*%22&btnG=Search+Books#hl=en&ds=n&sugexp=ldymls&xhr=t&q=general+dynamics+%22maurice+t.+moore%22&cp=17&qe=Z2VuZXJhbCBkeW5hbWljcyAibWF1cmljZSB0LiBtb29yZSI&qesig=MVZqi8ETaZ7waIiqZW8U8w&pkc=AFgZ2tnBF3WR7Tzl75v4b5c80PF4WJAXFu4zKgiWK7Zt9IWuRLsx-yxdntPPihIUy7jsk1d-6tbbmE7mbjs2fNKqKHaoD5fCzg&pf=p&sclient=psy&safe=off&tbs=nws:1%2Car%3A1&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=general+dynamics+%22maurice+t.+moore%22&pbx=1&fp=537f1e892d64f77a

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Evidence Implies Order Expected by Dynamics

‎

Pay-Per-View - Hartford Courant - Nov 21, 1963

The company still is counsel! to General Dynamics. Its senior, partner, Maurice T. Moore, is a General Dynamics director. Gilpatric told the subcommit-i lee ...

McClellan, Gilpatric Clash in TFX...‎ - Chicago Tribune (Pay-Per-View)

all 26 news articles »

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New Director Named By General Dynamics

‎

$3.95 - New York Times - Jan 7, 1963

Maurice T. Moore, special counsel to the executive committee of the General Dynamics Corporation's board of directors, has been elected a director of tha ...

TFX Inquiry Gets Hotter

‎

Pay-Per-View - Wall Street Journal - Mar 21, 1963

In the case of General Dynamics. for example, the Cravath tom advises on certain ... Maurice T. Moore of the taw firm said Mr. Gilpatnc hadn't any financial ...

http://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks%3A1&tbo=1&q=%22McClellan+contended+Gilpatric+had+left+an+earlier+impression+that+the+merger+*%22&btnG=Search+Books#hl=en&ds=bo&sugexp=ldymls&xhr=t&q=gilpatrick+maurice+t.+moore&cp=27&qe=Z2lscGF0cmljayBtYXVyaWNlIHQuIG1vb3Jl&qesig=Iv4k6w65uCt3nn-YIyW2nw&pkc=AFgZ2tluBJnl0H8yywaX6QnRev3wjLQRVh744YKDFSC1HkTBz9yKTqS9iQHZ4g7ofnf8F9LEdALS26XfAe-r3RxilAPIthkPQw&pf=p&sclient=psy&safe=off&tbo=1&tbs=bks:1&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=gilpatrick+maurice+t.+moore&pbx=1&fp=211449ec20a1000f

The corporate director: a critical evaluation: Volume 222

Stanley C. Vance - 1968 - 261 pages - Snippet view

allegation of collusive action by pointing out that one of Gilpat- rick's former law partners, Maurice T. Moore, became a director of General Dynamics a month after the Defense Department gave the TFX contract to the corporation...

http://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks%3A1&tbo=1&q=%22McClellan+contended+Gilpatric+had+left+an+earlier+impression+that+the+merger+*%22&btnG=Search+Books#hl=en&ds=bo&sugexp=ldymls&xhr=t&q=pertinent+to+the+TFX+contract.+Senators+McClellan+and+Carl+Curtis%2C+&cp=67&qe=cGVydGluZW50IHRvIHRoZSBURlggY29udHJhY3QuIFNlbmF0b3JzIE1jQ2xlbGxhbiBhbmQgQ2FybCBDdXJ0aXMsIA&qesig=TAZ8SfWTb2icyYvFbodMQg&pkc=AFgZ2tlF-Pn7z__0IIpTTAwndUnBSJ4sUur4xAKj7NnqpfGer1fe639iy2JcYfgU_iU8vPXTjEf0gQBJPKVWsHAYWGnuyAaEOQ&pf=p&sclient=psy&safe=off&tbs=bks:1&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=pertinent+to+the+TFX+contract.+Senators+McClellan+and+Carl+Curtis,+&pbx=1&fp=211449ec20a1000f

The corporate director: a critical evaluation: Volume 222

Stanley C. Vance - 1968 - 261 pages - Snippet view

He argued that his legal services were restricted to other matters not pertinent to the TFX contract. Senators McClellan and Carl Curtis, however, produced records to show that Gilpatrick: 1 . Attended 1 8 board meetings during the period. 2. Advised on personnel matters involving top management. 3. Investigated other possible acquisitions or mergers as part of a contemplated General Dynamics diversification program. 4. Prepared a special advisory memorandum in August 1960 at the request of Frank Pace, Jr., then board chairman for for General Dynamics, on the long-range outlook for the Corvair Division.5 Senator Anderson summarized the situation by stating "It became obvious many months ago that TFX and the Administration's standards of what might be called 'TFX ethics' are shot through with political interest and favoritism. There are facts pointing to a misuse by some of the trusts which repose in public office."6 These charges of collusive action and their equally vehement denials can be cause

for concern. If even a few of our leading corporations do engage in nefarious back-of-the-scene maneuvers in order to get multi-million-dollar government contracts, then both the philosophy and practice of corporate directors is in jeopardy. This is precisely the sort of questionable activity which gave "free" enterprise of the late 19th century a bad name....

Maurice T. Moore just happened to be Roswell Gilpatrick's law partner, a Rockefeller lawyer, chairman of Life Magazine in 1963 when Life hid the Zapruder film, and was close enough to Henry Crown to cause a controversy related to the TFX contract.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=15323&view=findpost&p=180439
..."Henry Crown," said Booth, "views the Sanitary District as a small subsidiary of

Material Service Corporation." From the mid 1920s to the early 1940s, Crown purchased nearly 1000

acres of district land through nominees — Benjamin Z. Gould, general counsel of MSC,

and one Clarence R. Serb — without competitive bidding, paying an average of $64 an acre.

These vast holdings, plus another 420 acres held under long-term leases negotiated mostly in the 1950s, literally formed the foundation of MSC. These properties had mountains of earth and rock deposits on their surface (spoil banks rich in limestone used for crushed rock and cement) which were the residue from channel widening and deepening at the turn of the century. They saved MSC the expense of quarrying for years. In his complaint, Booth pointed out that "none of the leases approved by the Trustees authorized Material Service Corporation to engage in excavation of sand, gravel, or other materials from below the surface of the ground. On information and belief Material Service Corporation has engaged in extensive excavating operations and removed enormous quantities of sand, gravel, limestone and other materials from below the surface of the ground which it has sold. . .[obtaining] large revenues . . . and has unjustly and unlawfully enriched itself thereby....

http://www.loislaw.com/advsrny/doclink.htp?alias=FDCR&cite=264+F.+Supp.+465

BOOTH v. GENERAL DYNAMICS CORPORATION, (1967)

264 F. Supp. 465

Harry R. BOOTH, Plaintiff, v. GENERAL DYNAMICS CORPORATION, a foreign

corporation, Defendant.

No. 66 C 673.

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois,

E.D.

January 25, 1967.

West Page 466

[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN

OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.]

West Page 467

Harry R. Booth, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff.

Albert E. Jenner, Jr., Edward R. Johnston, Keith F. Bode,

Raymond, Mayer, Jenner & Block, Chicago, Ill., for defendant.

Gilpatrick misled senate investigators about his role at General Dynamics, after he negotiated the merger of Henry Crown's Material Service Corp. and General Dynamics. Material Service Corp. was actually an assetless shell, and...:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,836817,00.html
Editors: Last Testament

Friday, Mar. 17, 1967

"I, Henry R. Luce, of New York, New York, declare this to be my last will and testament." As with the will of any successful man, the 22-page document filed in New York County Surrogate's Court last week was complex and lengthened by terms of trusts and the powers of the trustees named to administer them. But the effect of it was to make the Henry Luce Foundation, which was set up in 1936 in honor of Luce's father, Henry Winters Luce, the principal beneficiary of the $110 million estate. In the past, the foundation has financed student and faculty exchange programs between Far Eastern countries and the U.S., and promoted Christian education and other mission ary activities.

Luce left 149,465 shares of Time Inc. common stock, which closed the week at $108 a share, to the foundation. Another 540,000 shares, owned by a trust created in 1961, were vested in the foundation on Luce's death. Since the foundation already owned 191,029 shares, it will, with a total of 880,494 shares, control 12.7% of the common stock and constitute the largest single voting block. Its members include Luce's two sons, Henry III, who is president, and Peter Paul; Luce's sister, Elisabeth Luce Moore, and her husband Maurice T. Moore, a member of the Time Inc. board of directors and a partner in the Manhattan law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore; and two early associates of Luce's: Roy E. Larsen, chairman of the executive committee of Time Inc., and Charles L. Stillman, chairman of the finance committee.

In the Public Interest. The will be queathed 180,000 shares to be held in trust for Luce's wife, Clare Boothe Luce. She also received all of Luce's personal property, as well as their home in Phoenix, a Fifth Avenue apartment in Manhattan, and property in Hawaii. After payment of taxes and other expenses, the remainder of the estate, consisting mainly of 143,110 shares, is to be held in trust in equal amounts for Luce's two sons. Trustees, in all cases, are Henry III, Luce's brother, Sheldon R. Luce, and Luce's brother-in-law, Maurice Moore. The trustees are empowered by the will to vote all stock held in trust....

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