Jim Root

James Do you have any more on Harrod Miller? Jim

Myra For over a decade my research line has been Major General Edwin Anderson Walker. I invite you to read my posts from the last several years and will be happy to answer any questions about where I have matriculated to and from. My three main characters, McCloy, Taylor and Walker were already working together by 1944 and seem to have remained together in some form up to the assassination. This dispite an attempt by McCloy to distance himself from (or communicate with) Walker in June of 1963. As for the CIA/NSA/Military Intelligence puzzle, it is my belief they are all tied together while maintaining their own identity, a "holy trinity" of sorts with "somebody" who coordinates the whole. I have made the assumption, not without a great deal of thought and backround information, that John J. McCloy may have been that "somebody." The British system of intelligence, which Henry Stimson tasked McCloy to mirror while revamping American Intelligence in the months preceeding WWII, had, at the top ,a person referred to as "C." It is my contention that General McCloy became that person in US Intelligence. This would make McCloy the one man that would have access to all the different parts of this "holy trinity" and would be the one person who would coordinate the various elements or cells of intelligence. For example we know know that the development of the Atomic Bomb and the distribution of the Magic Intercepts, two of the most important secrets of the WWII both were controlled by McCloy. This control would begin with the decission to place the OSS under the direction of the War Department (McCloy) during WWII and would continue, I believe, with the National Security Act of 1947(?). Eisenhower was great at taking military developments and putting them under the control of civilian agencies. An example of this was the creation of NASA by taking the successful Army Ballistic Missle program and folding it into NASA (Eisenhower didn't want former Nazi's leading our space program without a civilian cover). I believe the same is true for our intelligence agencies. We don't want the military spying on our own citizens, etc. If this fish bowl holds any water the big fish would be McCloy who, by the way, was well positioned within the Warren Commission to control the investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald. Of the commissioners, Dulles, Cooper and Warren himself had all been directly involved with McCloy for years and were vested to McCloy. A connection between McCloy and Russell is not difficult to make as well. If nothing else, McCloy was a very powerful man in the United Stated in 1963. The question is, "was McCloy the most powerful man in the United States?" Jim Root

Stan It is my contention that the conspirators had already made the decission to assassinate the President no later than June of 1963. I also believe that Taylor may have been one of the two primary decission makers in this event. Deflecting quilt to the CIA would be, perhaps, a natural thing for the conspirators to attempt and may well have been part of the plan for the coverup. It is my contention that Oswald's attempt to contact "John Hurt," while in captivity for the assassination, forced the CIA to fall into line with the coup. If Oswald's trip to the Soviet Union had in fact been a CIA counter intelligence operation, it would be impossible for the CIA to explain how one of there own (whose movements they were monitoring) assassinated the President and then attempted to contact an NSA employee while in custody. Thoughts..... Jim Root

Additional information: The actual spelling of this man's name is Frederick Pryor. I recently received this information about him: "Most people don't know I was in an East German prison. In September 1961, I was 27 years old and working in West Berlin on my dissertation on communist foreign trade. I went to East Berlin to hear a speech by Walter Ulbricht, then leader of the East German Socialist Unity Party. Afterward, I went to visit the sister of a West Berlin friend to ask whether or not she had any message for me to deliver to her brother because telephone connections between East and West Berlin were cut after the wall went up. But she wasn't there and coming down from her rooming house, I was stopped by two secret policemen, the Stasi, who asked where I had been. I said it was a wrong address, but they arrested me. It turned out the woman I went to visit had escaped from East Berlin. They thought I was coming for her possessions. It was a mistake. I knew nothing, and I certainly wasn't spying for anyone. For five-and-a-half months, I shared a cell that was 6 paces long by 2 paces wide with another prisoner. I was released as part of a prisoner exchange on Feb. 10, 1962. In these kinds of exchanges, everyone had two lawyers: a capitalist lawyer and a communist lawyer. My communist lawyer was also the lawyer for the Russian spy Lt. Colonel Rudolph Abel. My capitalist lawyer was also the lawyer for American U-2 pilot Capt. Francis Gary Powers. So when the two lawyers were negotiating between Powers and Abel, they tossed in their common client, namely, me." Jim Root

Robert I too have speculated on this question: "If it was not Lee Harvey Oswald that visited the Cuban and Soviet Embassy then who was it?" If it was not our Oswald we have another, perhaps even more, important question: "If our Oswald was not visiting those embassy's, why was he in Mexico and who did he visit while he was there?" Lee's visit to Mexico is well documented. Proof of his visits to the embassys seems to be clouded within the frame of a picture of a man who is not LHO. We know for a fact that the pictures are not Lee. We are left to conclude that the best evidence of Oswald's meetings with the Soviets and the Cubans (the pictures) is false so we can ask, "did Oswald even meet with those groups?" Who would have known that those pictures of "Oswald" existed before the assassination took place and that Oswald was actually in Mexico? My bet is that if there was a conspiracy the conspirators would have had access to that information. We do know that Oswald did attempt to contact someone by the name of John Hurt after the assassination. It is interesting to note that Winston Scott (who was in Mexico at the time) was involved with Operation Stella Polaris as was John J. McCloy, Edwin Walker, Frank Rowlett and Meredith Gardner (all names that would be tied to Oswald or the investigation of Oswald in relationship to the death of the President. Was the protection of Venona secret (of which we now know that Operation Stella Polaris was a major part of )what allowed the conspirators the ability to align the complete intelligence apparatus of the United States in a coverup of who Lee Harvey Oswald really was without that same intelligence apparatus having been involved in the assassination itself? We could speculate that Oswald's attempt to contact John Hurt was his death warrent. For the conspirators it may have served the double purpose of alligning the intelligence agencys of several nations to assure Oswald's elimination while at the same time distracting all suspicion away from them as others became responsible for Oswald's death cover story. Jim Root

And Edwin Walker ran the Greek Desk at the Pentagon during the Greek Civil War ...................... Coincidence? Jim Root PS Your comments about the elimination of the Communist and Socialist Partisan groups in the North of Italy is, in my opinion, on target. Tompkins was very upset about this very thing and his writtings display a distinct Socialist leaning. Oswald also claimed an attachment to the Socialist train of thought. Interestingly enough so do the writtings of John B. Hurt.

John I do have several past posts on what I have called the Italian connection. John J. McCloy worked very closely with Maxwell Taylor on the surrender of the Italians to the Allied Forces prior to the landings on the mainland of Italy. After the invasion the State Department was totaly unprepared to handle the administration of captured territory in Italy. As a result of this lack of preperation the military (ie John J. McCloy) developed a plan to administer Italy. This experience would lead to similiar programs for Germany and Japan that were developed by McCloy as well. During this period McCloy would become very adept at manipulating the political control of governments to assure the development of "pro western" governments for the post war era. Was McCloy still in the business of "manipulating the political control of governments" at the time of the assassination of John F. Kennedy? For me this is a very interesting question. We do know for sure that John J. McCloy was an influencial member of the Warren Commission and was, by the way, associated with John B. Hurt (a man that at a minimum shares a name with a person that Lee Harvey Oswald would attempt to contact after the assassination). I more than agree about the statistical anomaly. The number os standard deviations needed to account for what I have uncovered is so great that the word impossible comes into play. Jim Root

William "I was wondering if Tompkins was hooked up with Angleton in Italy." More importantly Tompkins was hooked up with Angleton in Berlin at the end of the War. (As I understand it Angleton assignment in Italy somehow followed Tompkins but I would have to look back in my notes on that subject. Have you read Tompkins' book on the Assassination of Admiral Darlan? It has an excellent read on the inner workings of French Intelligence during the War. Written shortly after the assassination of Kennedy it is surprizing to see how many of the same names pop up. I often wondered if Tompkins motive for writting about the Darlan affair was a way of suggesting a connection to OSS/CIA folks without actually comming out and saying it. Imagine my surprize, when sudying the declassified papers of John B. Hurt, to find reference to the Darlan assassination. Hurt, who was a "Japanese linguist," it would seem, would have had no reason to be in the know about the Darlan incident. At one time I was provided with an email address for Peter Tompkins and asked him several specific questions about his time in Rome, the Anzio situation and his connection to Maxwell Taylor at that time. He never replied and I will never be able to confirm a most interesting story that was shared with me about a member of the 3rd Regiment of the First Special Services Force which connected Col. Edwin Walker, Maxwell Taylor and John J. McCloy to Peter Tompkins. I have several posts on Tompkins and the Darlan affair on this forum. Jim Root

John "Richard Randolph Carr was born in Dallas. During the Second World War Carr was a member of the Fifth Ranger Battalion. He served in North Africa and took part in the fighting at Anzio where his battalion was annihilated (only 13 men survived). After the war Carr worked as a steel construction worker in Dallas. On 22nd November, 1963, Carr was working on the seventh floor of the new courthouse building on the corner of Houston Street in Dealey Plaza." If Richard Carr was in a fact one of the "13" survivors of the Fifth Ranger Battalion at Anzio he would have been part of the survivors of Ranger Units that were folded into the First Special Services Force and it successor unit the 474th, both commanded by Edwin Walker. Small world we live in. Jim Root

James A little background on on Calvin Bryce Hoover mayh suggest that he and Surrey may have remained associated. Calvin Bryce Hoover, who, by his own account, began intelligence work for the U.S. government in 1933: "From 1920 through 1958, he studied, taught and undertook research in the Soviet Union, Germany, Italy, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. His long history of service to government began in 1933 when he became economic advisor to the Department of Agriculture. During World War II, he was responsible as an O.S.S. official for Northern Europe and Poland and the penetration of Germany from those areas. After the war, as chairman of the German Standard of Living Board and advisor to General Lucius Clay, he prepared the Hoover Report, which established Germany's postwar level of production. He was an active participant in the implementation of the Marshall Plan, and the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. In 1947 he was awarded the Medal of Freedom. His books include Economic Life of Soviet Russia; Germany Enters The Third Reich; Dictators and Democracies; International Trade and Domestic Employment; Economic Resources and Policies of the South; and The Economy, Liberty, and the State. His autobiography, Memoirs of Capitalism, Communism and Nazism, was published in 1965. He contributed numerous articles to newspapers, magazines and professional journals. Hoover served as President of the American Economic Association (the first Southerner to attain that distinction), the Comparative Economics Association, and the Southern Economic Association; and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Economic Society. He was widely accepted as the founder of the field of Comparative Economic Systems." (taken from http://www.econ.duke.edu/History/Hoover/hoover.html] Calvin B. Hoover wass to be in charge of the Intelligence Group on the Control Council and was also to be a special advisor to General Draper. In a letter to the Editor of the New York Times on October 9, 1944, Hoover wrote as follows: The publication of Secretary Morgenthau's plan for dealing with Germany has disturbed me deeply. . . such a Carthaginian peace would leave a legacy of hate to poison international relations for generations to come. . . the void in the economy of Europe which would exist through the destruction of all German industry is something which is difficult to contemplate." This statement aligns Hoover to the McCloy-Stimson Plan, perhaps leading to his appointment. A 1944 CED Report, International Trade and Domestic Employment, by Duke University Professor Calvin B. Hoover, helped push the United States into the International Monetary Fund, which was laid out at the Bretton Woods Conference in June, 1944, by chief negotiators Harry Dexter White(of the CFR) and John Maynard Keynes (of the Fabian Society); and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank); which both became part of the United Nations. It also helped motivate Establishment backing for what later emerged as the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs. McCloy would lead the World Bank. Also: "Consultant Calvin Hoover's memoirs shed some light on this controversy. He describes the Board of National Estimates as follows (Hoover, p. 270): It was the responsibility of our board to produce intelligence estimates which could be used as the background by the appropriate agencies of our government for decisions on long-term international policies and on current action required, particularly those within the competency of the National Security Council. National intelligence estimates had to be provided covering a very large number of countries and particular situations, all involving in some fashion the threat of Soviet aggression. For example, how explosive was the political, social, and economic situation in Iran? When Mossadegh came to power, to what extent was he under the domination of the local Communist party and was the Communist party effectively controlled by Moscow? If the oil resources of Iran were nationalized, would they be made available to the Soviet government and could they effectively be utilized? How serious would be the loss of these resources to the West?' Hoover's reference to Mossadegh raises a question about the role of "estimates" in at least one actual CIA operation: the 1953 coup in Iran that put the Shah back onto the throne for the next 25 years. Economist Calvin Hoover was one of Averell Harriman's top advisers on the Marshall Plan. Hoover remained at Duke University until his retirement in 1966. Interesting man. Jim Root

Brought back to add some new tidbits to this thread. Operation Stella Polaris was named after the cruise ship Stella Polaris which moved the Finnish crpto team at the end of WWII. The movement of this team of Finns was financed by the Japanese Government. Infomation about this movement was intercepted and translated by American intelligence (John B. Hurt connection, Raliegh Call???). The Finns had been successful in breaking Soviet Codes and would be usefull to American cryptologist who were beginning a program to intercept and understand the Soviet Codes (Venona). In charge of that program were Frank Rowlett and Meredith Gardner (these same two men would later be asked to investigate Lee Harvey Oswald's personal effects for potential intelligence connections). A plan was put into effect to capture this team of Finns with the apparent approval of Calvin Bryce Hoover (who lived in Raleigh/Durmham, North Carolina at the time of the assassination of JFK)and his associate Winston Scott (Mexico City at the time of Oswald's visit). This same ship, Stella Polaris, was also used to move Soviet POW's from Norway back to the Soviet Union at the end of the War. In charge of that POW movement and scheduling the movements of the Stella Polaris was none other than Edwin Walker. Was Lee Harvey Oswald used in connection with the interception of Soviet Codes? Why are so many people that can be tied to LHO also tied to the "Top Secrete" program to intecept and break Soviet Codes as well as being linked to the assassination or the coverup thereof? Jim Root

John Tim never did like my suggestion that John J. McCloy may have been involved with the assasination of JFK. Perhaps we will have an opportunity to continue the discussion. Jim Root

John Nazi gold is one of the areas that tie John J. McCloy and (at the time) Col. Edwin A. Walker together during WWII. The story goes like this: Bernard Bernstein, an assistant to Sec. of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, was assigned as Financial Adviser to General Dwight D. Eisenhower for Civil Affairs and Military Government from1942-45. In that capacity he was able to obtain a copy of Henry Stimson’s Plan (The McCloy - Stimson Plan) for post war Germany that he provided to Henry Morgenthau. The resulting chaos within the Roosevelt administration turned into a political drama that was a centerpiece of controversy for the 1944 election. Needless to say Bernstein, who after the war would become Legal Adviser to the American Jewish Conference, 1946-48, was put on a watch list by McCloy and was not allowed to leave England to enter France without McCloy's knowledge. With the discovery of a huge cache of Nazi loot, which was discovered at Merkers Mine in southern Germany, McCloy found himself in a dilemma. What to do with this “loot” became a major topic of discussion and its movement to a safe location a major priority. Bernstein would be in charge but who would watch Bernstein was a concern that McCloy would have to deal with in a covert way. Assigned to the task of guaranteeing the safe transportation of this treasure (and “protecting” Bernard Bernstein) was the 474th Infantry Regiment Detached. This special unit was made up by combining the 99th Battalion Separate, the surviving American members of the First Special Services Force and remnants of some Ranger groups. It was put under the command of Col. Edwin “Ted” Walker. John J. McCloy, Nazi gold and Edwin Walker! What an interesting mix in 1945 but were they still mixed up together in 1963? McCloy's June of 1963 letter to Walker suggests that they didn't know each other but the historical record suggest otherwise. Why did McCloy have a need to distance himself from Walker in the months preceeding the assassination of JFK? Afterall McCloy had called upon Walker's special talents for "speccial" assignments in the past? Jim Root

Greg Nice work. Perhaps this will be of interest to you as well. You wrote: "1953 The Army is tasked with evaluating the problem of Korean POWs who defected or collaborated with the enemy. One aim of this study was to establish a profile among 13 to 17 year olds most at risk of defecting in the future.(22) In charge of this study was Army Psychologist, Major William Mayer.(23) Mayer found that American youth susceptible to the techniques employed in Korea were emotionally weak and unable to withstand any form of physical or mental stress.(24) Morris became involved in this study through the Jenner Committee, which also conducted investigations into the problem.(25) But the Chinese and Koreans had also been taking notes. They found early in the conflict that those from the southern states who had an unstable home life, and who, moreover, were raised in a female-dominated house, had high IQs, a thirst for information and an aversion to authority, should be made prime targets for Communist Party recruitment.(26) Oswald's partially falsified background, Youth House reports and truancy record [see following entries] thus made him a perfect candidate for both recruitment by the Communist Party, and as an infiltrator of such actions on behalf of the Morris-Moskoff student spy network. April 13, 1953 By the time the Korean War and the investigation of POWs was underway, "the Office of Naval Research, the Air Force Psychological Warfare Division, and the CIA [and its fore-runner, OSS] had all attempted to develop methods of interrogation and de-brainwashing. On 10 April 1953, Secretary of State Dulles publicly noted that the UNC [united Nations Command] refused to torture captured soldiers and so possessed no human guinea pigs on which to experiment. Just three days later, however, [Allen] Dulles acted on aide Richard Helms's suggestion to form MKULTRA, a top-secret project to investigate whether and how it was possible to modify an individual's behavior by covert means."(27)" You might want to add this little tidbit to your files: In 1952/53 Edwin Anderson Walker held the position of Deputy Chief of Staff for Prisoners of War Affairs, 8th Army. By the way it was not the first time that Walker found himself in the position of processing large numbers of human beings for the Army. Jim Root

James Your post made me reread portions of the "Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives," in particular that which deals with the HT-LINGUAL project. It is located around page 205 and deals with information about Oswald's movements into and out of the Soviet Union that was given a HT-LINGUAL file number of CI/PROJECT/RE. Information from page 212 of this report has been vital to my research surrounding Oswald's flight from London to Helsinki (Serendipity, JFK Online Seminars, The Education Forum). My reread turns up two vital supporting pieces of information for my "pet" theory: A) The HT-LINGUAL project was managed by Richard Helms (the same man that Jefferson Morley has shown was still receiving information about LHO in the days prior to the assassination). This consistancy is more than interesting. Helms is also the person that reports Oswald's flight from London to Helsinki is somehow to obscure for the CIA to identify exactly how Oswald got there. More importantly the CI/Project did in fact reference counterintelligence and the RE stood for the initials of a foreign language translator: "One employee, however, testified that the "CI Project" was "simply a name of convenience that was used to describe the HT-Lingual project"; (79) another testified that "CI Project" was the name of the component that ran the HT-Lingual project. This person also explained that "RE" represented the initials of a person who had been a translator of foreign language documents and that the initials had probably been placed there so that someone could come back to the translator if a question arose concerning one of the documents." In addition: "With respect to the meaning of the notation "CI/Project/RE," the CIA explained that there existed an office within the counterintelligence staff that was known as "CI/Project," a cover title that had been used to hide the true nature of the office's functions. In fact, this office was responsible for the exploitation of the material produced by the HT-Lingual project. The Agency further explained that "RE" represented the initials of a former employee." My person of interest, John B. Hurt, (Raleigh Call John Hurt?????) fits the discription of RE exactly. Hurt was a "person who had been a translator of foreign language documents" and if John B. Hurt is somehow "RE" he was also, by the time of the HSCA "a former employee." Coincidence? Jim Root

Does anyone have any information about this person? As I understand it he was imprisoned by the Soviets for spying and was exchanged on the same day (but at a diferent location) as the Abel Powers trade. Jim Root

A few tidbits about Winston G. Lawson 1. His Testimony before the Warren Commission begins in this unusual way: TESTIMONY OF WINSTON G. LAWSON, ACCOMPANIED BY FRED B. SMITH, DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL, TREASURY DEPARTMENT The President's Commission reconvened at 2 p.m. Mr. McCLOY. Mr. Lawson, you know the general purpose of what we are here for? Mr. LAWSON. Yes, sir. Mr. McCLOY. In the way of trying to get as much information as we can, not only regarding the assassination of the President but also some background as to the steps that have been taken to protect him and as well as perhaps to take some testimony with the thought that we might be able to recommend measures that might insure future security of our Presidents. I will ask you, if you will, to rise and I will swear you. Do you solemnly swear the testimony you will give in this hearing will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Mr. LAWSON. I do. Mr. McCLOY. Go ahead. Since I have reasons to believe that John J. McCloy may have been a conspirator I find it opportune that McCloy chaired the testimony of Winston Lawson, the man who designed the motorcade route. 2. During the Korean War Winston Lawson was trained in Counter Intelligence and interviewed Korean and Chineese POW's prior to their exchange near the end of hostilities in Korea. Edwin Walker was placed in charge of this program by Maxwell Taylor near the end of the Korean War. 3. Winston Lawson applied to the Secrete Service more than once beginning in 1956. He was accepted in October of 1959, the same month that Lee Harvey Oswald defected to the Soviet Union. 4. Lawson was transfered to Washington DC in March of 1961 and was soon after assigned to the Presidential security detail. This coincides with John J. McCloy's beginning dissolutionment with JFK over nuclear arms talks. 5. I understand he is still alive and living in West Virginia. Speculation, perhaps. Comments, please. Jim Root

Jack "I do not understand how a SINGLE PARADE IN 1936 makes Main Street THE TRADITIONAL ROUTE, just because the WC says so." I agree! Jim Root

Jack I will respectfully disagree with you on the probable order of events I might suggest: 1. Decision to kill JFK 2. Search for potential assassins/patsys 3. FBI begins to follow Lee Harvey Oswald’s movements after the attempted assassination of Major General Edwin Anderson Walker. (Associated or not this did in fact occur and the movements of LHO were provided to Richard Helms of the CIA). 4. Oswald gets a job at the TSBD 5. Conspirators become aware of this fact and have reason to believe that Oswald attempted the assassination of General Walker and they may even know why Oswald attempted to assassinate Walker. They are also aware or believe that Oswald has a weapon capable of accomplishing the deed and that he has a motive that very few others would understand. 6. John F. Kennedy has a trip planned to Dallas. 6. Conspirators plan for the cover-up (lone nut scenario) and multiple ways to eliminate Oswald if he escapes or is arrested. Providing Oswald with the contact name of John Hurt would assure the cooperation of US intelligence in the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald after the assassination. 7. Route is planned providing the greatest opportunity for Oswald to accomplish the deed. 8. Conspirators wait, understanding that they have provided a person who has a motive and a weapon the means and opportunity to accomplish their desired outcome, the assassination of the President of the United States. Jim Root

Jack I believe the Warren Commission Report sites a Presidential visit by Roosevelt using the Main St. motorcade route and then refers to it as the 'Traditional" route. Jim Root

Ron Always appreciate your comments. I understand that Main St. was the traditional parade route in Dallas. My statement deals with access to Elm St. from Main Street. I think that all would agree that a right then a left would have to be made at some point in order to leave Main and gain access to Elm. Would you agree that the 135 degree turn from Houston to Elm was an unusual turn? Did this turn require a slower approach than a traditional 90 degree left turn? Were there alternative ways to access Elm from Main? Would the selected route provide a view of the motorcades approach, turn and departure from the intersection of Houston and Elm to a potential assassin in the TSBD? And what about the man who designed the route, Winston G. Lawson. Can he be associated with any of my potential conspirators? Jim

Route of Death Speculating about how the motorcade route was selected has intrigued me for years. It seems obvious to me that the route chosen would have been a major decision for any potential conspirators to have considered while finalizing their plans to carry out an assassination of the President in Dallas. It is my belief that but for this single decision (the actual motorcade route) the events of November 22, 1963 would not have happened (at least would not have happened in the manner and sequence that they did in fact occur). Could the results of the route planning have pre-determined the outcome? If so a conspiracy would exist only if the conspirators would have the pre-determined outcome in their minds while the planning was taking shape. First: Was information available to potential conspirators that could have influenced the route planning? With the work of Jefferson Morley and John Newman we have learned that at least one note sent by FBI agent James Hosty about the doings of Lee Harvey Oswald in the months preceding the assassination was forwarded to the office of Richard Helms within days after being sent. Although Hosty’s November 4th note, which provided the crucial information about where Oswald was working (TSBD) was never given a Warren Commission Exhibit number we can logically assume that this Hosty note made it to the same office as his previous note (one which Morley and Newman were able to track). The planning for the motorcade was not completed until days after the Hosty note was sent and possibly not until the information about where Oswald was working was in the hands of Richard Helms, the CIA and perhaps others who would have access to this information for whatever potential reasons that we may speculate upon. Second: Looking at a map of the motorcade approach (Commission Exhibit No. 2113) I noticed several interesting facts: 1. The turn from Houston to Elm is approx. 135 degrees rather than the normal 90 degree left hand turn. 2. If one wished to enter the Stemmons Freeway from Commerce St. (from either direction) one would be routed to Elm via Lamar not Houston (four blocks before Houston). 3. Lamar offers access to the Stemmons Freeway via Continental Ave. without the security risk of the Triple Underpass. 4. According to Commission Exhibit No. 2113 access to Elm could have been gained by a right turn then left onto Elm via anyone of these roads: Lamar, Austin, Market or Record. 5. The Houston to Elm route provides a view of both the approach (along Houston) of the motorcade and (after the 135 degree turn) the departure of the motorcade from a person (or sniper) on the upper floors of the TSBD Building 6. The (approx.) 135 degree turn onto Elm requires the motorcade to slow considerably to accomplish this turn. 7. Once the turn onto Elm is accomplished there is no escape route for the Presidential Limousine until after it has passed below the Triple Underpass and entered the Stemmons Freeway. 8. Any shot fired while the motorcade was approaching Elm from Houston would have allowed two possible escape routes for the Presidential Limousine(continuing down Houston or turning right onto Elm (instead of left) making this shot a less favorable shot decision for a person in the TSBD Building. 9. The only building on the complete motorcade route that has a view of both the approach of the motorcade and then views its departure is the TSBD. 10. “If” conspirators existed who wanted to give Lee Harvey Oswald the most favorable opportunity possible to assassinate the President they could not have selected a better motorcade route. 11. Information was available to any potential conspirators (via the Hosty note) of where Oswald was working. 11. As I have demonstrated there were alternative routes, which from a security approach, were safer to access the Stemmons Freeway, from Main St. (via Lamar would not have subjected the President to the threat that the Triple Underpass provided) and there were alternative ways to access Elm (rather than negotiating a 135 degree turn in front of the TSBD) rather than from Houston (Record, Market, Austin or Lamar). Third: It is my belief that the conspirators could not have provided Lee Harvey Oswald with a better opportunity to assassinate the President. Fourth: They (the conspirators) would have to have reason to believe that Oswald would take “the shot.” Jim Root

Robert I appreciate your interest in this potential avenue of research. As you know the connection of John J. McCloy, Major General Edwin Anderson Walker, General Maxwell Taylor, and the two men assigned by the NSA to investigate potential intelligence links to Lee Harvey Oswald, Meredith Gardner and Frank Rowlett, can all be closely associated with John B. Hurt. By coincidence or by design Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to call a person with this same name while in custody following the assassination of John F. Kennedy. If John B. Hurt was the man that Oswald was in fact attempting to contact or if Oswald was duped into asking for a John Hurt at a specific number in Raleigh, North Carolina that would be passed on to the highest levels of the intelligence community very quickly, then I believe very strongly that we have uncovered the Rosetta Stone necessary to decode this crime of the century. If Oswald had attempted to place a “person to person” phone call to a predetermined number (asking for a John Hurt) and if that call had been rejected by a “cut out” (who would then send an alert to the next member up in an intelligence cell) it seems natural that Oswald would then, in a frenzy, seek to find a “correct” number for a person with the name of John Hurt. This would explain why the Dallas Police operators would then retrieve numbers for two different John Hurt’s in the Raleigh, North Carolina area. Adding additional mystery to this area of research we find that of the five original members of Friedman’s team of cryptologists (April, 1930 Friedman, Sinkov, Rowlett, Kullbeck and Hurt, only Hurt’s work after 1946 remains classified to this day. But Hurt’s own writings (1946 declassified document) suggest that he was very involved in code work in the areas of French, Soviet, German, perhaps Italian and Scandinavian as well as Japanese Intelligence issues. Much of Hurt’s early work ended up directly in the hands of John J. McCloy including information that McCloy used in an attempt to prevent the use of the Atomic Bomb at the end of World War II. Oswald assignment to the air base in Astugi, Japan could also be another tie to the Japanese liguist/intelligence operative John B. Hurt My suggestion is that the work of John B. Hurt may have been so sensitive that the association of this man with the accused assassin of JFK may have had two effects: 1. It may have guaranteed that the accused assassin would be himself assassinated without the conspirators having to arrange that hit….It would be left to others who would be forced to protect US Intelligence Secrets. 2. It may have led to the creation of a “real” fear that the assassination of JFK could create ripples in the international intelligence agencies that could actually be the blasting cap that would detonate a World War III. The fear of associating Lee Harvey Oswald with John B. Hurt may have been the catalyst that created the need for a cover up of the background of Lee Harvey Oswald, once again, without the real plotters having to dirty their hands with the task. I am hard pressed not to believe that this scenario, or one closely resembling it, may have in fact occurred. If so it points to the possibility of one primary person, John J. McCloy, as the only man that was positioned to know exactly how the post assassination scenario would play out by inserting the elements that he may have been the only one who would have known how to insert them. All of the pieces would fall into place beginning from the attempted assassination of Major General Edwin Anderson Walker. Back too the actual point at hand generated by your question of recruiting foreign nationals as linguists. etc. to work for US Intelligence. Walker would be repeatedly involved in the processing of huge numbers of POW’s (at the end of WWII and in Korea) before their return to their home countries. I have information to suggest that he had been well trained in this area of counter intelligence throughout his career with preperation beginning in the 1930's. I believe that Walker’s involvement in intelligence/counter intelligence is what led him to be associated with Lee Harvey Oswald during his defection to the Soviet Union in 1959 and that Walker had repeatedly done sensitive intelligence missions for both Maxwell Taylor and John J. McCloy throughout his career. Once again we have the coincidence of Oswald’s association with the U-2, his defection to the Soviet Union, the downing of the U-2 which then leads to the failure of the Paris Summit (an event that McCloy wanted to have fail) and Oswalds attempt to contact John Hurt as a continuous string of events that not only leads to the assassination of JFK but points back towards John J. McCloy. Please excuse me for my aggressiveness in pushing this plausible scenario. Jim Root

Mark I believe it was sometime around June 12, 1963 when it was decided to move forward with the plan to assassinate the President. Just a few days prior to this date Kennedy hd changed positions on this countries nuclear disarmament policy. In the same time frame Major General Edwin Walker would resign from the West Point Alumni Association after John J. McCloy was given the Sylvanus Thayer Award. John J. McCloy would write a letter to Major General Edwin Walker explaining his differences with the Kennedy administration and explaining his pride in receiving the Sylvanus Thayer Award. Maxwell Taylor would give a commencement speech at West Point and discuss the importance of a professional military that had been established by Sylvanus Thayer. Each man would indicate that elected officials were only temporary guardians of the Constitution and there position was subject to be changed at any time while the country and the constitution would, should and must continue and be protected. The single most important date in Thayer's establishment of a professional military was November 22, 1817. Coincidence perhaps but each of these three men had worked together for years. Taylor was first associated with Walker in 1927 and would be used by Taylor repeatedly for sensitive assignments (Little Rock and the First Straits of Taiwan Crisis to name just two). Assisstant Secretary of War John J. McCloy would be associated with Taylor beginning in 1940 when Taylor was assigned as an assisstant to George Marshall in the War Plans Division. Taylor would do several assignments for McCloy over the years (go behind enemy lines and negotiate the surrender of Italy, involvment in establishing military civilian control over Italy during the Italian Campaign, Military Governor of Berlin while McCloy was High Commissioner of Germany after the War). Walker would be assigned to at least two very sensitive missions that were personally of interest to McCloy during World War II (Capture of a sophisticated radar system on the Island of Kiska during WWII and the transfter of the Holocast loot that was recovered from Merkers Mine near the end of the War. All three of these men (McCloy, Taylor and Walker) would each be associated with John B. Hurt (a man that at a minimum shares a name with someone that Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to contact afer the assassination of JFK). Hurt, along with Frank Rowlett (who would be assigned by the CIA to investigate Lee Harvey Oswald's potential intelligence backround), was one the original members of William Friedman's Team of Cryptologists that lead directly to the creation of the National Security Agency. Hurt remained an employee of the NSA until just months before the assassination of JFK when he retired and took a year long vacation in France (where NSA employee Eugene B. Dinkin would pick up information that allowed him to predict the assassination of JFK before the event). Just thoughts Jim Root

I continue to find information that tends to support my belief that a very small group of powerful individuals within Government played the major role in the assassination of JFK. In the new light of my continuing research centering around whom I believe to be the plotters I was rereading Kai Bird's well documented work on the life of John J. McCloy. While focusing upon McCloy's involvement within the area of Nuclear Disarmament I stumbled upon the Acheson - Lilienthal Report (one of the earliest documents to deal with the post war problem of how to handle the technology that created the atomic bomb). McCloy found himself on the side of sharing the technology with the rest of the world because he felt that the genie was out of the bottle and could never be returned. In other words if the US attempted to deal from a position of strength based upon our sole possession of the "Bomb" we would do nothing more than create an arms race that could lead to the nuclear destruction of the world. McCloy was drawn to the scientific side that an international government needed to be established that would monopolize all asspects of the discovery, recovery, movement and development of all fussionalble material in the world. His position was not the one that was accepted by the Truman Administration and Bernard Baruch was put in the position to negotiate thur the UN Americas position (a position that McCloy seems to have coveted). It seems to me that from the earliest days of McCloy's involvement in Nuclear Diplomacy he is repeatedly frustrated in his attempt to achieve international cooperation upon the issue until after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. McCloy expressed worry over the Paris Summit and the signing of a Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty as early as Nov. 1959 (just days after Lee Harvey Oswald had entered the Soviet Union). As we all know that summit never occured and the treaty was never signed after Francis Gary Powers and the U-2 were downed. Kennedy would be elected President and during his very first press conference McCloy would be the first man that Kennedy would name to a position in his government. If my research is pointing in the proper direction it suggests that Oswald's "defection" to the Soviet Union would be the first time that McCloy would use Oswald to achieve his mission. Lee Harvey Oswald did attempt to contact someone named John Hurt after the assassination. McCloy was associated with NSA employee John B. Hurt and used information provided by Hurt when he attempted to stop the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This information continues to tie together into a very neatly wrapped package. It remains difficult for me to disregard it as a plausible scenario within the context of the assassination story. Jim Root Information on the Acheson - Lilienthal Report from US History .com posted below: Foreign Affairs Acheson-Lilienthal Report 1945-1946 By using its atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States revealed that it possessed weapons of unprecedented destructive power. Following the war, the question arose: How should this knowledge and technology be shared with the rest of the world? The Acheson-Lilienthal Report was the United States' first effort to answer that question. Although the report generated a great deal of discussion, it was ultimately unsuccessful. Two schools of thought emerged immediately after the end of the war. One school, which had Secretary of War Henry Stimson as its chief spokesman, believed that the "secrets" of the atomic bomb were scientific in nature and could not be sequestered forever. They further felt that to hold the bomb ostentatiously in reserve while negotiating with the Soviet Union would simply drive them into developing their own weapon to restore the balance of power. From the other school were men like Secretary of State James Byrnes, who felt that America's monopoly on atomic weapons had been honestly gained and should not be surrendered. In their view, the Soviet Union understood only power and nowhere was power so obviously concentrated as in the sole possession of atomic weapons. President Harry S. Truman was torn between the two positions. Increasingly distrustful of the Soviet Union, he still didn't want to lead the world down a path of destruction. He continued to solicit views from both sides. Stimson presented his position in a final cabinet meeting on September 21, 1945, Stimson's 78th birthday and final day in office. Thereafter, the task of promoting his approach fell primarily on Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson. Acheson and Stimson had advocated direct negotiations with the Soviet Union, while Byrnes and Vannevar Bush, the director of the office that controlled the Manhattan Project, preferred to use the United Nations as the forum. On that issue, Byrnes carried the day. His proposal to pass the responsibility for the control of atomic energy to a United Nations Atomic Energy Commission was endorsed by the Soviets at meetings in Moscow in December 1945. That success left Truman and Byrnes with a dilemma. They had the forum, but the United States had not yet articulated a policy that it wished the new commission to adopt. To resolve the problem, Acheson was appointed to head a committee to set forth U.S. policy on atomic energy. The other members of the committee were scientists James Conant and Vannevar Bush, John McCloy, and General Leslie R. Groves, who had been the military officer in charge of the Manhattan Project, that had produced the first atomic bomb. Acheson decided that the committee needed technical advice, so he appointed a board of consultants with David Lilienthal, the well-regarded chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority, as chairman. Another member of the committee was even better known than Lilienthal. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Groves' counterpart on the science side of the Manhattan Project, provided influential advice. Oppenheimer’s contribution lay in the idea of policing the production of atomic weapons at their source mines. On March 16, 1946, the committee's report was presented to the State Department, which released it to the public on March 28. The Report on the International Control of Atomic Energy soon became known as the Acheson-Lilienthal Report. The primary message of the report was that control of atomic energy through inspections and "police" operations was unlikely to succeed. Instead, the report proposed that all fissile material be owned by an international agency called the Atomic Development Authority, which would release small amounts to individual nations for the development of peaceful uses of atomic energy. In the first years of the atomic era, it was generally believed that the great obstacle facing a would-be developer of an atomic bomb was the acquisition of sufficient fissile material. In response, the Acheson-Lilienthal Report proposed that the complete path from the uranium and thorium mines to post production be under international ownership. In addition, the report proposed that the United States abandon its monopoly on atomic weapons, revealing what it knew to the Soviet Union in exchange for a mutual agreement against the development of additional atomic bombs. Truman accepted the report in general, but by appointing Bernard Baruch to carry the proposal forward, he opened the door to modifications of "immediate and sure punishment" for violations. In addition, those penalties could not be vetoed by the U.N. Security Council, both modifications that neither Acheson nor Lilienthal accepted. Those modifications ultimately led to the plan’s rejection by the Soviet Union.