Silvia Odio and Other Inconvenient Witnesses

[David Josephs]

So then if the Odio scenario is questionable at best and there seems to be evidence that the WC wanted to avoid this story, it cannot be used in any way to even show that LHO was possibly being framed? Is it possible (or worth) to at least consider the earliest version of the story as told by Odio?

it is truly not as questionable as it is being presented.

She told her doctor and her father about this well before the assassination...

Mr. Valenti... talk to me directly... man-up already and learn the material. You post as if you haven't the first clue what was actually said or what the evidence actually looks lilke.

If anything I write is "unsettled and highly questionable" - do what you can to show I'm wrong.

Your work on the tramps falls terribly short of convincing anyone that the two separate sets of men being described were really only one set of men who stayed in jail until the 26th...

Wise and Bass do not agree with Chambers and Jones... espcially since Jones asks Chambers to release the men BEFORE Oswald is even at the station, which is BEFORE the photos of the DP tramps were even taken.

To the matter at hand....

The FBI wanted it to be Hall, Howard and Seymour... and right up to the day before the publication of the WCR they were finding out it was NOT them... and still refusing to change their minds about Odio...

Her info was hidden... the WCR says it could not have been Oswald since he was on the way to Mexico - citing the FBI evidence of a bus ride which never took place... over which I go into deep detail in other writings.

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wr/html/WCReport_0173b.htm The WCR does not say she was not telling the truth but that since the FBI had determined that Oswald was not in Dallas rom the beginning of Sept until October 3rd, he couldn't have been at Odio. If it can be shown that Oswald was not actually in Mexico City at the time, or even traveling to Mexico... what does that do to the WCR conclusion about who Odio sees?

Mr. LIEBELER. Did you tell Dr. Einspruch about it?

Mrs. ODIO. Yes; but the things you talk with a doctor in an office, he will tell you before that he is going to say it. He would have told me, "I am going to tell the FBI." You have to trust a doctor, especially a psychiatrist. I know they talked to him later, but I don't think it was him that called the FBI

Mrs. ODIO. Before you start, let me give you a letter of my father's which he wrote me from prison. You can have it. It was very funny, because at the time he wrote it, the FBI incident happened a week later. I told my father this man had been in my house and he introduced himself as your friend; and he wrote me back in December telling me that such people were not his friends, and he said not to receive anybody in my house, and not any of them were his friends, and he didn't know those people. At the time I did give the names of one or two, and he wrote back, "I actually don't know who they are."

Mrs. ODIO. At first, I thought he was just trying to get fresh with me. The second time, it never occurred to me until I went to my psychiatrist.

I used to go to see Dr. Einspruch in the Southwestern Medical School, and I used to tell him all the events that happened to me during the week. And he relates that I mentioned to him the fact that these men had been at my door, and the fact that these Cubans were trying to get in the underground, and thought I was a good contact for it, they were simply trying to introduce him. Anyhow, I did not know for what purpose.

My father and mother are prisoners, and you never know if they can blackmail you or they are going to get them out of there, if you give them a certain amount of money. You never know what to expect. I expect anything. Later on I did establish opinions, because you can't help but establish opinions.

Mr. LIEBELER. Did you establish that opinion after the assassination or before the assassination?

Mrs. ODIO. This first opinion that I mentioned to my psychiatrist, I did not give it a second thought. I forgot to tell Alentado about it; except 3 days later I wrote to my father after they came, and mentioned the fact that the two men had called themselves friends of his. And later in December, because the letter takes a long time to get here, he writes me back, "I do not know any of these men. Do not get involved with any of them."

[Paul Trejo]

It may be useful to consider that in the Spanish language, the first name "Lee" does not exist.

The closest one gets to the name "Lee" in Spanish is "Leon".

If one was speaking with Spanish-speakers, and one did not wish to continually take time to explain an uncommon first name like "Lee," one would quickly become accustomed to introducing oneself as "Leon" in Spanish company.

It was completely natural for Leopoldo (i.e. Loran Hall) to refer to OSWALD by the name, "Leon" when speaking in Spanish.

Furthermore, even though Silvia Odio did not identify Loran Hall and Larry Howard (or so said the FBI) as Leopoldo and Angelo, nevertheless -- for some completely unexplained reason -- the FBI picked up Loran Hall to question him about Silvia Odio.

Does anybody here know why?

Then, as history tells it, Loran Hall admitted his visit -- but claimed that William Seymour was his Americano companion.

When William Seymour denied it and produced an alibi, Loran Hall then recanted and said he never spoke to Silvia Odio.

Come on -- Loran Hall confessed -- what more do we want?

Now, to be fair to Silvia Odio, the WC attorneys told her point blank before taking her testimony, that if she tended to suggest that OSWALD had any "accomplices," that the WC would reject her story out of hand. She was warned.

Now, I believe that Loran Hall was Leopoldo, and that Silvia Odio did ID him, and the FBI stomped on that ID very hard.

On the other hand, if she really did refuse to ID Loran Hall and Larry Howard, then my guess is that Loran Hall was a menacing figure for her -- and had her telephone number -- and she was terrified of him. That was probably why she didn't (if she didn't) ID him.

It all fits, IMHO. Loran Hall and Larry Howard drove OSWALD from New Orleans to Mexico City (as they told Silvia Odio). Loran Hall chose, out of his macho moxy, to drop in on Silvia Odio and seek money and/or a date.

He wasn't her type. She turned them down flat, with grace and courage. But "Leopoldo" called her that weekend (probably seeking a date, as she said he was "fresh" to her). The fact that Loran Hall could reach out and touch Silvia Odio probably sent chills up her spine.

As Mexican Immigration records show (aside from the phony bus data that the WC, CIA, DFS produced) OSWALD entered and exited Mexico by "automobile." Silvia Odio told the TRUTH.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited April 29, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Trejo]

Having recently reviewed the otherwise excellent 1993 book by Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation, I am struck by how quickly he dismissed the connection of Loran Hall in the Silvia Odio incident.

Larry Hancock also dismissed Loran Hall very quickly, IMHO, and perhaps for the same reasons as Gaeton Fonzi (as they once worked together, I gather). Yet those reasons still remain obscure to me.

What are the possibilities? Silvia Odio reported that she received three visitors on or about 25 September 1963 at her apartment in Dallas. She did not let them in, but kept them outside her front door, in a public, well-lighted porch, for about twenty minutes.

They looked somewhat sloppy, as if they had been on the road for some time.

They were: one Cuban-American; one Mexican-American; and one Anglo-American. They introduced themselves poorly; the Cuban and the Mexican refused to give their real names, but offered Silvia their "war names". Her memory was hazy, but she believes they were similar to "Leonardo" and "Angelo." The Anglo-American was introduced as "Leon Oswald." She shook all their hands. The Anglo didn't say much. The Cuban-American did most of the talking.

They lied and told her they were members of JURE, and that they knew her father who was then in a jail in Cuba, as Fidel Castro's prisoner. So she listened, but she also doubted them -- she never heard of them before, and she was a member of JURE herself.

They asked her to help her circulate a fund-raising letter for their cause, which was delivering arms and supplies to various Raider Groups against Castro. She said she would think about it, after asking her father.

Then they left, saying that they had come from New Orleans, and had to continue their long journey ahead of them.

Silvia promptly wrote a letter to her father, telling him of their visit. She knew it would be months before she would ever hear a reply back from a Cuban prison. She also asked the leader of JURE about these men, and he said he never heard of them in his life.

Then, a few days later, "Leonardo" called her on the telephone to chat. Silvia thought he was being fresh, but for some reason he also wanted to ask about "the American," a Marine and a sharpshooter. He could be useful to the cause of killing Fidel Castro -- or perhaps he could also get revenge from JFK for foiling the Bay of Pigs, said "Leonardo".

Silvia Odio was shocked at this sort of talk from a total stranger. She did not pursue that conversation. But she could not forget it, so she told her psychological counselor about it, and also told some of her closest companions (e.g. Mrs. Lucille Connell).

Silvia eventually forgot all about it, until the day JFK was murdered. At that time she and her sister Annie (who also saw the visitors, but from a distance) realized that the Anglo-American was Lee Harvey Oswald -- and there was no mistake about it -- not a doubt in their minds.

At that time, too, Mrs. Lucile Connell ran to the FBI with the story -- and the FBI asked Silvia Odio about it. She told them exactly what happened -- no more and no less. But her story went on the back burner.

As 1964 developed, and the Warren Report was being prepared for press, the FBI decided that they would finish off the Silvia Odio story, just to show that Oswald truly "had no accomplices who are still at large." So, that is when they took Silvia Odio's deposition; near the very end of the proceedings. Liebeler also warned Odio, however, that if she testified that Oswald had "accomplices," then the Earl Warren would probably not accept her story.

The WC did reject her story. Yet for some strange, weird, unaccountable reason, the FBI decided to question Loran Hall.

That's what I don't understand. That's the part that still bothers me. The FBI showed Silvia Odio countless photographs of suspects who they thought might have been the Cuban-American and the Mexican-American -- and she failed to identify Loran Hall in any of those photographs.

(Now, rumor has it that mug shots of Loran Hall, a Cuban-American, and Larry Howard, a Mexican-American, were also included in those photographs -- but I want to be certain -- I have strong doubts about that.)

In any case, for some strange, weird, unaccountable reason, the FBI decided to question Loran Hall. Why Hall? Because he was a known associate of Larry Howard for many years? Because they had a well-known route of pick-up and delivery of weapons and supplies for various Raid Groups against Castro? Because they often went through Dallas on their routes (and were occasionally arrested)? Why Loran Hall? I want to know!

But anyway, the fact is that Loran Hall confessed!

Yes, he did visit Silvia Odio during the final week of September 1963!

Yes, he did have Larry Howard with him in his car!

Yes, they also had an Anglo-American with them!

Yes, they were fund-raising for their cause!

However, said Loran Hall, the Anglo-American was really William Seymour, a former member of Gerry Patrick Hemming's group, Interpen (just as Hall and Howard were former members). So, Silvia Odio merely made a mistake, said Hall; a simple case of mistaken identity.

Yet the FBI wanted to be squeaky clean about it, so they asked William Seymour and Larry Howard if they could confirm Loran Hall's affidavit. Absolutely not, they both screamed. Seymour got a documented alibi, and so did Larry Howard.

According to Loran Hall (National Enquirer, 1968), some associates, he doesn't know who, tried to kill him two different times after that. I don't know the timing, but shortly after the denials of Howard and Seymour, Loran Hall confronted the FBI and took back his whole story. It wasn't Silvia Odio, after all, he "remembered," and in fact, he never saw Silvia Odio before in his life!

Well -- I'm not satisfied with those facts. They are super-suspicious, IMHO. Furthermore, J. Edgar Hoover, upon hearing this entire story, just about the way I presented it here, decided that he would publish the following in the Warren Report (which is still there to this very day). I paraphrase:

"Silvia Odio saw Loran Hall, Larry Howard and William Seymour at her door on the 26th of September, 1963. She THOUGHT that Seymour was Oswald, which is impossible, since Oswald was in Mexico City on the 26th. But since Silvia Odio had a psychological counselor, then we must consider her a mental case who became hysterical. The End."

(Hoover knew very well that Silvia Odio never, ever fixed that date as the 26th of September 1963, but this is what made Hoover's main case against her.)

Gaeton Fonzi did not find Loran Hall to be suspicious in this regard. But Gaeton Fonzi also failed to explain why the FBI picked up Loran Hall in the first place. And Fonzi further failed to explain why Loran Hall would tell precisely the story he did. And Fonzi failed to explain why Loran Hall then reversed his story and took it all back.

I think the Sylvia Meagher is correct in noting that "Leonardo" and "Angelo" were clearly and certainly "Accomplices" in the JFK murder. Why the FBI let them get away, Sylvia Meagher could never understand.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited June 3, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Larry Hancock]

Paul, I certainly can’t speak to Gaeton’s exact reasons for finding Hall less than credible – from what I recall he simply found him to have lied consistently enough that he was not to be trusted. Circa 1963 Hall was so untrusted as a source that before being allowed to even speak to a John Birch Society group on the west coast, they demanded he take a polygraph. I’ve mentioned that before and if you have obtained all of Hall’s available files you should have that information among them. You have acknowledged that he was a proven xxxx, yet that does not necessarily mean he lied about everything he ever said….which may be true, just hard to prove one way or the other. I know from personal experience that even in his later years he lied on virtually everything he told an acquaintance of mine and that was when he was in jail over drugs and meth.

However, in regard to a couple of points about your Odio comments. When shown Odio’s photo Hall said he had never seen her before. Years later to the HSCA he simply qualified that perhaps he had, Separately Sylvia and her sister were shown photos of Hall, Howard and Seymour and stated none of them were the men who visited. Sylvia reaffirmed that to Gaeton.

As to why Hall would have ever been of interest to the FBI in the Odio visit, there are several reasons – one that his name surfaced very early in regard to a report on a rifle possibly associated with the assassination. (which I believe was a set up by Hemming to report him and get him out of their hair since Hall was trying to horn in on all their money sources, meagre as they were – just my speculation but that’s all in appendix H of SWHT). It would be very interesting to know more about the whole rifle investigation and the FBI’s contacts with Hall over it, something to look for when more files are released.

Even then Hall was already well known to the FBI and had been in contact and interviewed by them multiple times following his return from Cuba in 1959. Between those contacts and the rifle report, Hall was already quite “visible” when the FBI began to investigate the Odio incident and they found evidence that he had traveled through Dallas – and even been arrested there. That certainly raised the level of his being a suspect in the visit – at least before they showed to the Odio sisters.

The reasons behind Hall being a suspect in the Odio visit are clear; the fact that he originally denied it and that the Odio sisters both said he was not one of the men would seem to close it out. Later Hall opened the door to his perhaps having been there but like many of his other claims, I view that as very consistent with his ongoing attempts to enlarge his role in anti-Castro activities. I know his story is important to your scenario and I certainly cannot prove he and Howard were not at Odios but given her strong desire to identify the visitors and her consistent statements that they were not Howard and Hall and as for myself I’ll stay with that.

[Paul Trejo]

Paul, I certainly can’t speak to Gaeton’s exact reasons for finding Hall less than credible – from what I recall he simply found him to have lied consistently enough that he was not to be trusted. Circa 1963 Hall was so untrusted as a source that before being allowed to even speak to a John Birch Society group on the west coast, they demanded he take a polygraph. I’ve mentioned that before and if you have obtained all of Hall’s available files you should have that information among them. You have acknowledged that he was a proven xxxx, yet that does not necessarily mean he lied about everything he ever said….which may be true, just hard to prove one way or the other. I know from personal experience that even in his later years he lied on virtually everything he told an acquaintance of mine and that was when he was in jail over drugs and meth.

However, in regard to a couple of points about your Odio comments. When shown Odio’s photo Hall said he had never seen her before. Years later to the HSCA he simply qualified that perhaps he had, Separately Sylvia and her sister were shown photos of Hall, Howard and Seymour and stated none of them were the men who visited. Sylvia reaffirmed that to Gaeton.

As to why Hall would have ever been of interest to the FBI in the Odio visit, there are several reasons – one that his name surfaced very early in regard to a report on a rifle possibly associated with the assassination. (which I believe was a set up by Hemming to report him and get him out of their hair since Hall was trying to horn in on all their money sources, meagre as they were – just my speculation but that’s all in appendix H of SWHT). It would be very interesting to know more about the whole rifle investigation and the FBI’s contacts with Hall over it, something to look for when more files are released.

Even then Hall was already well known to the FBI and had been in contact and interviewed by them multiple times following his return from Cuba in 1959. Between those contacts and the rifle report, Hall was already quite “visible” when the FBI began to investigate the Odio incident and they found evidence that he had traveled through Dallas – and even been arrested there. That certainly raised the level of his being a suspect in the visit – at least before they showed to the Odio sisters.

The reasons behind Hall being a suspect in the Odio visit are clear; the fact that he originally denied it and that the Odio sisters both said he was not one of the men would seem to close it out. Later Hall opened the door to his perhaps having been there but like many of his other claims, I view that as very consistent with his ongoing attempts to enlarge his role in anti-Castro activities. I know his story is important to your scenario and I certainly cannot prove he and Howard were not at Odios but given her strong desire to identify the visitors and her consistent statements that they were not Howard and Hall and as for myself I’ll stay with that.

Many thanks, Larry, for stating in simple and clear terms why you reject Loran Hall's claims. I realize that Hall lied continually -- yet because he is a suspect, I expected a certain amount of lying. The problem, IMHO, is to weed out the truth from the lies using logic.

The point most damaging to my case is the report, even from Gaeton Fonzi, whom I generally trust implicitly, that Silvia and Annie Odio were shown photographs of Loran Hall and Larry Howard, and dismissed them as the two visitors to their home on 25 September 1963.

That should cinch it in most cases -- yet I continue to have nagging doubts. For one thing, I believe that Loran Hall terrified Silvia and Annie Odio.

Gaeton Fonzi's book, The Last Investigation (1993), made it crystal clear that Silvia Odio didn't want to cooperate with him or with the HSCA, because of the bad experience that she had with the Warren Commission and the FBI.

The most important element for a witness in a murder case, is that the witness must be protected by the Government. Silvia Odio was most certainly NOT protected by the Government, but the reverse -- she was accused of spreading rumors against the sacred cow of the "Lone Nut" theory of J. Edgar Hoover. She was called a "mental case" for her honest efforts.

That is part of the legacy of the Warren Commission -- that all honest witnesses who contradicted the ridiculous "Lone Nut" theory that Hoover and Warren promoted so forcefully, were bulldozed over.

So, based on Silvia Odio's suffering at the hands of the FBI and the US Government, I suspect that she did not feel protected. But who would be so threatening to her? IMHO, Loran Hall, who was not only a hardened mercenary in 1963, but already beginning to deal in drugs on the side of his illegal arms trade, would take pleasure in tormenting her, at least by telephone.

I believe that Loran Hall terrorized Silvia Odio. Without guarantees of protection -- which Gaeton Fonzi could not offer her -- I feel that Silvia Odio had no rational alternative than to set her limits herself. Those limits would deal with her fears of personal safety at the hands of thugs like Loran Hall and Larry Howard.

That's how it seems to me, and I can't shake this feeling, even though I admit that on the surface, the Odio sisters refusal to identify Loran Hall from photographs is a major problem for my theory.

I only wish that I could speak with Silvia Odio today -- yet she now maintains she was burned twice -- first by the Warren Commission and secondly by the HSCA. If she wouldn't cooperate fully with Gaeton Fonzi, with all his sincerity, then I doubt she would be willing to talk to anybody, even historians fifty years after the crime.

I must disagree with only one of your sentences above, Larry, namely this one: "The reasons behind Hall being a suspect in the Odio visit are clear; the fact that he originally denied it and that the Odio sisters both said he was not one of the men would seem to close it out."

Most of the sentence is correct, but I question one clause: "the fact that he originally denied it".

As it appears to me, Loran Hall originally confessed that he was with Larry Howard at Silvia Odio's doorstep in late September 1963, seeking funds for Raids on Cuba. It was only LATER, after the FBI received loud denials from Larry Howard and William Seymour, that Loran Hall took back what he said, and denied it.

This is part of the mystery, IMHO. I think the reason that Loran Hall later denied his visit to Silvia Odio is crystal clear -- Howard and Seymour were going to kill him for bringing their names into the JFK murder. HOWEVER, the mystery is that Loran Hall originally confessed to the visit.

That's the part that sticks with me. Why would he do that? And more, why did the FBI bother to question Loran Hall in the first place? Nobody seems to care about that central fact -- and I think it is absolutely central.

Why did the FBI go after Loran Hall, if Silvia Odio clearly saw his photograph and said, "No, not him." Why??

This, I think is also what bothered Sylvia Meagher way back in 1964 when she first read the Warren Report. Here is a body of evidence that just sits here, screaming for answers and investigation, and the FBI does nothing about it.

It seems to me that the FBI knew a lot more -- much, much more -- about Loran Hall and the Silvia Odio incident, than we ever heard from the Warren Commission or from any FOIA documents yet released.

It seems to me that Loran Hall was the driver who drove Lee Harvey Oswald to Mexico City on 26 September 1963. Naturally, the FBI had to deny that Oswald had any "accomplices," so they forged the "bus" riding "Lone Nut" in Mexico City. But official Mexican Immigration records state fairly clearly that Oswald entered and exited Mexico City as a passenger in a "car".

Yet even today, 50 years later, all these questions are obscured by speculations about a Double-Oswald.

IMHO, the Silvia Odio case is the key to cracking the Lee Harvey Oswald mystery, the Mexico City mystery, and the identity of the ACCOMPLICES of Lee Harvey Oswald, the Patsy in the murder of JFK.

Loran Hall will lead us to Gerry Patrick Hemming (who confessed to a role in the JFK murder to AJ Weberman, as I read it) and to Ex-General Edwin Walker and his extreme right-wing activists in Dallas.

As you noted, Larry, this also brings up the episode of Dick Hathcock and the rifle of Gerry Patrick Hemming picked up by the FBI in Dallas on the day of the JFK murder, also linked to Loran Hall. But that's another story.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited June 3, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[Larry Hancock]

Paul, I'm not sure Odio was that uncooperative after Fonzi had worked with her a bit. After all, she agreed to meet with and give testimony to the HSCA....and could have requested to be an anonymous witness

with protected testimony as others did...but she did not. It was only after the interview was so horribly mishandled - in a hotel room for heavens sake - that she became offended, frustrated and told Fonzi that although

she had been more than willing it was clear that they just didn't want to hear what she had to say. Very similar to Sandra Serrano in the RFK investigation.

I just wanted to make my own reasons for not believing so clear and I'll leave it at that.

[Jim Hargrove]

Your theory seems to be, the more unlikely something is to have happened, the greater the chance it did happen.

You mean like someone's tonsils growing back?

As I have posted previous, at the time Oswald had his operation, he was under 8 and the norm was for partial removal only. The biggest risk to regrowth was to kids under 8 (when tonsils are more or less fully grown) and only partially removed. Nothing remotely unlikely about them growing back in his case.

Nice try.

Got anything on topic?

Sorry to continue the off-topic interruption, but I showed Greg the following article some time ago. This peer-reviewed professional medical monologue indicates that "complete removal of the tonsil has been accepted" in both the U.S. and Europe since 1910 or so.

============== QUOTE ON ===================

A HISTORY OF TONSILLECTOMY:

TWO MILLENIA OF TRAUMA, HAEMORRHAGE

AND CONTROVERSY

By RONALD ALASTAIR McNENLL, M.B., B.Ch.

Senior House Officer in Surgery, Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast

....

The first sign of a permanent change from partial to complete removal of the

tonsils came in 1897. Ballenger in the U.S.A. realised that partial removal failed

to alleviate symptoms completely in a large majority of cases. He began to

remove the tonsil with its capsule, using a scalpel and forceps. His results, using

this new technique, were so much better than partial removal, for a time the

guillotine fell into disrepute in America.

Some ten years later, dissection tonsillectomy was pioneered in this country

by George Waugh of Children's Hospital, Great Ormond Street. In 1909 he

published, in the Lancet, his account of nine hundred cases of dissecting out

the tonsils complete with capsule, using fine dissecting forceps and curved

scissors. The operation was performed with the patient lying on his back with

the head extended. The tongue was held out of the way with a stitch, and the

mouth held open with a gag between the last molar teeth. Waugh became a

great opponent of guillotine tonsillectomy, giving his reasons in these words:

"Even in highly skilled and experienced hands, the complete removal of

tonsils by means of a guillotine is a task of such technical difficulty as to be,

except in a few rare cases, quite impossible."

In the following year Whillis and Pybus in Britain and Sluder in America

pointed out that a guillotine with a fairly blunt blade instead of a sharp one

could be used in such a way as to enucleate the tonsil complete in its capsule.

Whillis and Pybus gave the following figures for their series:

Tonsil completely enucleated in its capsule - - - 74%

,,,, capsule incomplete - - 13.5%

in two pieces - - 9%

in three pieces - - 0.5%

Incompletely enucleated - - - - - 3%

From this time onwards the value of complete removal of the tonsil has been

accepted.

================= QUOTE OFF ================

[Paul Trejo]

Paul, I'm not sure Odio was that uncooperative after Fonzi had worked with her a bit. After all, she agreed to meet with and give testimony to the HSCA....and could have requested to be an anonymous witness with protected testimony as others did...but she did not.

It was only after the interview was so horribly mishandled - in a hotel room for heavens sake - that she became offended, frustrated and told Fonzi that although she had been more than willing it was clear that they just didn't want to hear what she had to say. Very similar to Sandra Serrano in the RFK investigation.

I just wanted to make my own reasons for not believing so clear and I'll leave it at that.

Thanks, Larry, for belaboring this point further. We agree that Silvia Odio did give Gaeton Fonzi "one more chance" and Gaeton Fonzi himself admits that he let Silvia Odio down. He had no choice -- the rug was pulled out from his own investigations by the HSCA leadership.

In the end, Fonzi agreed with Silvia Odio when she sighed, "We lost again; we all lost."

Gaeton Fonzi was closer to the truth of the JFK murder than anybody else on the HSCA, in my humble opinion. Fonzi was far, far closer than the ridiculous "Mafia-did-it" theory by Robert Blakey, who somehow succeeded in taking leadership of the HSCA.

I get the impression from his book, The Last Investigation (1993), that precisely because Fonzi was getting so close to the truth, that the rug was pulled out from under him.

If that's true, then perhaps, as Fonzi seems to have suspected, David Atlee Phillips (DAP) really stifled the whole HSCA proceedings only to save his own neck. Perhaps Fonzi's suspicions were correct -- that Antonio Veciana saw DAP in the company of Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas in late September 1963, specifically in the context of the JFK murder.

The fact is that the CIA refused to cooperate with the HSCA. That burned Gaeton Fonzi, who was getting so close to the truth in his investigations of Silvia Odio.

Yet I will continue to give the FBI and the CIA the benefit of the doubt, based on the argument of Cold War paranoia, which was still raging in 1979.

I'm still willing to regard DAP as exploiting Oswald in the cause of assassinating Fidel Castro -- and Veciana said nothing to suggest otherwise . DAP's bio-fiction, The AMLASH Legacy (1988) admits to using Oswald in his plot to kill Castro. Perhaps the HSCA was still too early in history -- too close to the USSR exploiting any fault-line in the USA for advantage.

The FBI was obsessed with the "Lone Nut" Oswald. I attribute this to National Security concerns. The CIA was obsessed with just keeping out of the limelight with regard to Oswald. I attribute this, also, to National Security concerns.

But everything has changed since 1990 when the USSR and the Berlin Wall fell to the ground. There is no more Cold War.

Clearly, we can never have another JFK Investigation. The HSCA clearly was "the last investigation," as Gaeton Fonzi said. That's too bad, because finally the time is right -- the Cold War is over -- and the Truth about JFK can finally be brought to the light of day without the threat of a Nuclear War.

This is why, IMHO, President GHW Bush signed the JFK Records Act in 1992 -- promising to release all Top Secret FBI and CIA materials related to the JFK murder by 26 October 2017. I hope that on that date we will finally see the real autopsy and X-rays and remains of JFK's brain. As creepy as that may sound, it will allow millions of Americans to trust the US Government again.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited June 4, 2015 by Paul Trejo

[David Boylan]

Paul,

If memory serves me, try reading CD1553. This covers Hall's trip from California to Dallas. It also discusses Hall's visit to Kiki Masferrer's apartment. Then ask yourself how did the FBI know all this? I suspect that Hall was an FBI CI.

Dave

[Larry Hancock]

Well said David, we know that Hall made ongoing contact with the FBI and did provide some information that way. If he did become even a potential informant at some point those informant class files are long gone.

Of course even Hemming and Howard were providing some information to the FBI on an ongoing basis, hard to tell the point but they certainly seemed to like to talk about what other people were doing, especially

if they were temporarily on the outs with them.

[Steven Gaal]

PROBE From the September-October, 1996 issue (Vol. 3 No. 6)

Sylvia Odio vs. Liebeler & the La Fontaines

By Jim DiEugenio

=========================================================================

http://www.ctka.net/pr996-odio.html

[Don Jeffries]

I urge interested parties to recall Paul Trejo's comment earlier in this thread, where he stated that the name "Lee" is basically unknown in Spanish, and that its closest approximation would be "Leon."

Thus, it seems perfectly logical for those wishing to implicate Lee Oswald to witnesses whose primary language is Spanish, to use the name "Leon" instead.

[Greg Parker]

I urge interested parties to recall Paul Trejo's comment earlier in this thread, where he stated that the name "Lee" is basically unknown in Spanish, and that its closest approximation would be "Leon."

Thus, it seems perfectly logical for those wishing to implicate Lee Oswald to witnesses whose primary language is Spanish, to use the name "Leon" instead.

Utter rubbish.

It makes sense only for the REAL Lee Oswald to do that (if he knew that Lee was virtually unknown in Spanish and he gave a tinker's cuss about whether Sylvia had ever heard the name "Lee" before)

It makes little or no sense for someone IMPERSONATING him to do it. It just makes connecting him to Lee Oswald that much more difficult.

The fact is, does anyone actually do that - change their name when introducing themselves on the off chance that the person may not be familiar with the name you actually have?

What if Oswald's first name was like Tippit, just initials? That would throw those poor dumb Cubans into a tizz wouldn't it? Better make up a Spanish name so they don't get suspicious! What if his name had been Icabod or Rastus?

Nope. Let's face it. Those poor dumb Cubans just wouldn't be able to get their heads around anyone being name "Lee".

You are grasping at straws.

Edited June 4, 2015 by Greg Parker

[Greg Parker]

PROBE From the September-October, 1996 issue (Vol. 3 No. 6)

Sylvia Odio vs. Liebeler & the La Fontaines

By Jim DiEugenio

=========================================================================

http://www.ctka.net/pr996-odio.html

To the commission in 1964

he was introduced to me as Leon Oswald.

And he said, "We wanted you to meet this American. His name is Leon Oswald." He repeated it twice.

To Fonzi in 1976

he himself said, "My name is Leon Oswald."

--------------------------

She was a very emotional and very confused person.

She told those around her at the time she connected Oswald to "Leon" only through the media stories.

She told Liebeler he was introduced to her by the others as "Leon Oswald" before being evasive when questioned more closely about it

She told Fonzi he himself told her his name was "Leon Oswald".

It's a classic case of a story getting bigger with the retelling over the years.

And don't get me started on her various stories (followed by denials) of Oswald talking at various meetings.

Edited June 4, 2015 by Greg Parker

[Steven Gaal]

A day or two later one of the Cubans called her on the phone & stated that the American "Leon Oswald was a former Marine and an expert shot.//// She didn't take the bait and her "LEFT" wing anti-Castro group was left out (escaped really ,out) of the plot/blame // Gaal

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The Cuban also told her that Oswald said that Kennedy should be shot for abandoning the Cubans at the Bay of Pigs Fiasco.

They could NOT have Oswald talking about Killing Kennedy in advance while with Anti-Castro Cubans. So, They Invented the Mexico City Scenario