Jim Root

When Oswald defected to the Soviet Union the passenger lists for his trip from London to Helsinki were never presented to the Warren Commission although they would have been available at the time. This does lead one to speculate on who could have been traveling on a plane with Oswald. My research has shown that Edwin Walker was traveling to Augsburg, Germany during this same time. While true there is a problem with this, Oswald went North and East from London while Walker went South and East. (Just as a coincidence the first 707 around the world flight flew into and out of London the same day Oswald left London on his way to Helsinki), it is interesting to note that a person that Oswald would later be accused of attempting to murder was traveling in Europe at the same time Oswald was traveling with a group of passengers whom the Warren Commission neglected to identify.

I have done a great deal of research on this subject and have shown in past posts that Oswald could have traveled from London to Frankfort or from London to Hamburg, Germany on the same day that he arrived in Helsinki. Planes were available to make these trips from London early in the day. If Oswald did go first to Germany, as he told his Marine buddy Delgado he was going to do, Oswald still could have then made the connection to the plane that began the day in Frankfort traveled to Hamburg then Stockholm (where it picked up other London passengers) and then arrived in Helsinki in time for Oswald to check into the Torni Hotel when he did in fact check in.

For Walker to get to Augsburg he would have had to travel to either Frankfurt or Hamburg. The possibility exists that they were on the same plane but the passenger lists (just as the December note that Oswald speaks of) are/is missing from the official record. My research suggests a string of missing information that may be the key to providing a better understanding of the assassination and who may have had a hand in orchestrating the events leading up to it.

When Oswald arrived in Helsinki he converted his US currency to Soviet Intourist vouchers prior to applying for a visa to enter the Soviet Union. We found during the HSCA the US Ambassador to Helsinki had sent this "top secrete" information on how to get a visa into the Soviet Union to the State Department one day prior to Oswald's arrival in Helsinki. Was Oswald made aware of this information? If so who provided it to him? Could Edwin Walker, a man whom Oswald describes as a person who is the head of a bad organization that does not want to see peace between the Soviet Union and the USA, have provided it to him? Could this have been a motive for Oswald to attempt to assassinate Maj. Gen. Edwin Anderson Walker as the Warren Commission suggests?

When Oswald arrived in La Harve, France in route to Helsinki he could have very easily taken a train to Paris and boarded a plane to Helsinki which would have been routed to Stockholm as well. Oswald would have arrived in Helsinki one day before he did in fact arrive and he would have spent less money doing it but the information collected by the US Ambassador in Helsinki would not have been available to be passed on to Oswald if it were in fact provided to him. It is curious that Oswald spent an extra travel day to arrive in Helsinki.

Was it was Walker who provided this information to Oswald?.....it would be very easy to understand why, after the U-2 incident doomed the Paris Summit, Oswald could believe Walker was the leader of a very bad organization that did not want to see peace between the two countries. It would also explain Oswald's statement after the assassination of JFK that the reason he (Oswald) was being arrested was because he went to the Soviet Union.....and that he was a patsy.

While I appreciate additional comments and input about Oswald and his life my inquiry deals with thoughts about the possibility of a missing letter written by Oswald.

Jefferson Morley has been able to link several notes written by FBI agents prior to the assassination of JFK to the office of Richard Helms. Yet a third note that we know was written by Agent Hosty was never given a Commission Exhibit Number and has never been identified by the CIA as having been received. Why are two Hosty notes admitted to the record and a third not? Why can the two admitted notes be tracked to the office of Richard Helms but that same office seems to have no record of the third note which Hosty's own testimony confirms was written and sent just like the other two.

If Morley could track the FBI notes to Richard Helm's office could Hosty's third note be tracked beyond that office creating a reason why it remains "lost?"

Hosty's third note identified exactly where Oswald was working prior to the motorcade route being decided upon. Seems that information would be an important lead to follow (ie who knew where Oswald was working prior to putting Kennedy's vehicle in front of the TSBD).

Same for any note that Oswald may have written requesting a return of his US Passport. Who would want to know that Oswald may be returning to the US and what, if any, would be the repercussions of his return?

Needless to say the repercussions were great when we associate Oswald in whatever manner with the assassination of JFK.

Jim Root

According to the Warren Commission report on February 13, the United States Embassy received an undated letter from Oswald postmarked Minsk, February 5.

The letter stated:

Since I have not received a reply to my letter of December 1960, I am writing again asking that you consider my request for the return of my American passport.

I desire to return to the United States, that is if we could come to some agreement concerning the dropping of any legal proceedings against me. If so, than I would be free to ask the Russian authorities to allow me to leave. If I could show them my American passport, I am of the opinion they would give me an exit

They have at no time insisted that I take Russian citizenship. I am living here with non-permanent type papers for a foreigner.

I cannot leave Minsk without permission, therefore I am writing rather than calling in person.

I hope that in recalling the responsibility I have to america that you remember your's in doing everything you can to help me since I am an american citizen.

The Warren Commission suggests that despite Oswald's reference to his letter of December 1960, there is no indication that he had written to the Embassy previously. Furthermore, his diary refers to his February 1 letter as his "first request" concerning his return to the United States.

From the Diary of Lee Harvey Oswald we find this entry for February 1^st,

“Make my first request to American Embassy, Moscow, for reconsidering my position, I stated, ‘I would like to go back to U.S.’"

Oswald does make it very clear in the second paragraph of his letter to the American Embassy that he had a “desire to return to the United States…”

The Warren Commission uses the diary entry to suggest that the first paragraph of his letter had no merit…..the Warren Commission’s conclusion was that there was no letter from December 1960.

Why would Oswald lie about this?

As early as May 1960 Oswald writes in his diary;

“… I respect Ziger; he has seen the world. He says many things and relates many things I do not know about the U.S.S.R. I begin to feel uneasy inside, it's true!

In Oswald’s Aug-Sept. Entry he writes;

“ As my Russian improves, I become increasingly conscious of just what sort of a society I live in. Mass gymnastics, compulsary after work meeting, usually political information meeting. Compulsary attendence at lectures and the sending of the entire shop collective (except me) to pick potatoes on a Sunday, at a State collective farm. A "patriotic duty" to bring in the harvest. The opinions of the workers (unvoiced) are that it's a great pain in the neck. They don't seem to be especially enthusiastic about any of the "collective" duties, a natural feeling. I am increasingly aware of the presence, in all things, of Lebizen, shop party secretary, fat, fortyish, and jovial on the outside. He is a no-nonsense party regular.”

In his own words it seems that Lee Harvey Oswald in becoming increasing disillusioned with his life in the Soviet Union. It is true that he spends a lot of words writing about his various affairs and loves but on issues of substance Oswald, by August and September, seems to be questioning his position in life.

On January 3^rd Oswald again turns to his diary to say;

“I am miserable about Ella. I love her but what can I do? It is the state of fear which was always in the Soviet Union.”

January 4^th Diary entry. “One year after I received the residence document I am called in to the passport office and asked if I want citizenship (Russian). I say no simply extend my residential passport to agree and my document is extended until Jan 4, 1962.”

Oswald also writes in January (seems questionable as to when);

“I am starting to reconsider my desire about staying. The work is drap, the money I get has nowhere to be spent. No nightclubs or bowling alleys, no places of recreation except the trade union dances. I have have had enough.”

Has Oswald already requested that his U.S. Passport be returned?

In Oswald’s own words, both via his diary and his letter to the US Embassy, without a doubt Oswald is formally requesting for the first time to return to the US but had he in December requested that his passport be returned?

According to the Warren Commission, all of Oswald’s correspondence is included in the record of the Warren Commission….but the letter that he says he wrote in December…..well it doesn’t exist.

Why would Oswald lie about this?

And if he did write a letter in December, why did it disappear?

Jim Root

Just an opinion but perhaps Allen Dulles is nothing more than a second stringer compared to John J. McCloy.

Jim Root states a few important but often overlooked points, including the idea that the case for conspiracy doesn't necessitate multiple shooters, and that Lee Harvey Oswald can be perceived in the same light regardless of his role as either a lone shooter or a patsy.

Jim Root wrote, "A majority of the reasons that researchers give that would lead us to believe that Oswald was a 'patsy' for the conspirators begins with their belief that Oswald could not have been a shooter and that the fatal bullets could not have been fired from the TSBD or some sort of twist on this idea."

"The primary divide between 'lone nutters' and conspiracy theorist hinges on this single point," Root writes, noting that, "I think it is fair to say that 'lone nutters' continue to believe the official version, that Oswald acted alone, therefore no conspiracy. 'Lone nutters' seem all too willing to accept one shooter proves no conspiracy rather than accepting that a conspiracy could still have existed that would include Oswald."

"On the other hand," continues Root, "it seems the 'holy grail' of conspiracy theorists is that there must have been more than one shooter and that, therefore, even if Oswald was in any way involved he was actually 'set up' as the 'patsy' because the 'magic bullet' is an impossibility."

"I have spent a great deal of time," Jim Root writes, "pondering how a group of conspirators could have executed a plan so exact and precise that, to this day, it has allowed their names to remain a mystery. I at times speculate that if Oswald was the shooter for the conspirators they would want the world to believe that he was nothing more than a patsy and therefore not a shooter. If this speculation is correct then the conspiracy theorist have done more to protect the conspirators than to uncover who they actually were. If on the other hand Oswald was not a shooter and was the pre-determined 'patsy' then they had to be sure that Oswald was in a place that the motorcade would pass at the exact time that the assassination would take place."

In either case, Oswald a shooter, even a lone shooter, or Oswald the "patsy," it is the perception of his role as a pawn in the Great Game, rather than a psychologically deranged loser, that is the dividing line and not whether there was more than one assassin, that is the key to continuing the inquiry further.

As Jim Root concludes, "John J. McCloy's refusal to put Hosty's third note into the record and to investigate exactly who in government had access to the knowledge of where Oswald was working prior to the final decissions on the exact motorcade route, leads me to suggest that McCloy didn't want that information to become public…"

The idea is that whether the assassin or a patsy, it wasn't necessary to "control" him, only to know his whereabouts. That Hosty knew and reported Oswald working at TSBD before the assassination, in an official letter/memo that no one today can account for, indicates that they knew this was an important point, and could not let it be known that their knowledge of Oswald's presence there was in their files before the assassination.

The case for conspiracy doesn't rest with a two shooter scenario.

BK

William.....

I put into bold some of words that I too believe are important to consider!

Jim Root

Just like to pop in and say....please consider that George De Mohrenschildt's brother was Demitri De Mohrerschildt......close associate of Whitney Shepardson (together they started Radio Free Europe).....Whitney Shepardson was one of two heads of Secrete Intelligence and is a person closely associated with John J. McCloy.

Just prior to Lee Harvey Oswald's defection to the Soviet Union Whitney Shepardson was meeting with Richard Helms and many others to gather information about OSS and SI WWII activities in Sweden and Finland. In correspondence from these meeting information surrounding the Venona Project was discussed.....John Hurt.....(a name that would later pops up associated with Lee Harvey Oswald) was a key player in the early development of the Venona Project and operation Stella Polaris (which relocated many members of intelligence service of Finland into Allied control.)

One of the people involved in these discussions was former OSS Station Chief Wilho Tikander whom, in his correspondence just weeks prior to Oswald traveling to Helsinki, suggests that he has heard that there is about to be a mission, officially outside of the CIA, that will involve Helsinki in the near future.

Is it a coincidence that Whitney Shepardson and Richard Helms, both SI men, would be, according to Wilho, involved in a covert mission via Helsinki at the same time Oswald is applying for a visa to travel to, among other places, Helsinki? Is it a coincidence that Richard Helms would be the CIA liaison to the Warren Commission?

Ernie-

And during the depression the US Army was in charge of processing the CCC workers......Walker played a roll in processing 10's of thousands of young men. He would do the same thing again in Norway at the end of WWII when he processed not only German's who had surrendered but also Russian and Eastern European POW's that were held by the Germans prior to being repatriated. At the end of the Korean War Walker would be in charge of processing Chinese and North Korean POW's.

Jim Root

PS Wasn't it in the late 1960's or early 70's that the US Army destroyed lots of records collected from their domestic spying?

Paul

Let me offer a third reason why Walker would refuse his pension. As a retired General in the US Military Walker would be considered a reserve officer subject to recall at any time into the military.....A retired General literally remains in the Military throughout their retirement. By resigning his commission and not accepting his pension Walker was not subject to this particular rule for generals.

It is illegal for the US Military to spy on US civilians.....interestingly Walker would not be subject to this particular rule.....at least not until his retirement was quietly restored many years later.

Just food for thought and a third idea to consider.

Jim Root

Paul- Paul Trejo and I have communicated in the past.....I must admit that I have sort of let the ball drop on that communication. I know that Paul has had greater access to the Walker papers than I have had although I do hope to have an opportunity to peruse those papers in greater detail at some time in the future.

My research suggests that Walker was a soldier ready to do whatever he was commanded to do and to do it to the best of his ability. Despite the fact that Walker obtained a couple of stars in his career I see Walker as a facilitator rather than as a planner and not as a deep thinker. In other words I don't see him as being capable of being the leader of a plot to assassinate the President.

I do agree that Walker, throughout his life, continuously suggested that Oswald was arrested immediately following the assassination attempt on his life and seems to have believed that it was the Kennedy administration that stepped in to have Oswald released. I have found nothing to suggest that that story is true. I do believe that immediately upon seeing Oswald arrested after the assassination of Kennedy Walker recognized him because he had seen him in an airport while traveling to Germany and immediately knew that Oswald must have some very high intelligence connections. Walker did not need to know what those connections were but he would probably, if I am correct, at that same time realize that his fall from grace in the military may well have been orchestrated because Oswald returned to the United States. The telephone interview that Walker did the morning following the assassination with the German publication which then "broke" the story that Oswald was the person that had attempted to kill Walker suggests that Walker was, at a minimum, aware of who Oswald was and in addition wanted to separate himself from Oswald. The Warren Commission testimony of Walker is a very interesting read to me but no one asked him the question, "How did this German publication know to call the Captain Shreve Hotel in Shreve Port, La?" I believe a very scared Walker wanted that story to hit. After the death of Oswald, Walker had no fear of what Oswald would say but I believe Walker realized that it was Oswald that shot at him as soon as he realized Oswald was in Dallas. I also believe that for the rest of his life Walker had to avoid telling how he was so sure so soon after the assassination of Kennedy that Oswald had shot at him and that is why Walker maintained the other story, to avoid having to discuss what I believe to be the real problem that Walker would have had explaining his interview with the German newspaper.

Jim Root

Gerry Patrick Hemming confirmed to me that he believed that Walker was part of the "team" that inserted Oswald into the Soviet Union. I believe that Walker was doing nothing more than what he had done perhaps 100's of times before....pass on information to someone in some "officially designed" chance meeting. Walker would not have been particularly interested in or privy to what the "mission" may have been. Walker just followed orders!

My study of Walker's life suggests that Walker was involved in many sensitive assignments throughout his career and his favorite phrase when he would accomplish his assignment was "check!" Transporting the Nazi loot captured at Merkers Mine near the end of World War II, running the Greek Desk during the Greek Civil War, the First Straits of Taiwan Crisis, Little Rock, Arkansas, capture of a sophisticated radar installation during WWII, negotiating the POW exchange at the end of the Korean War, being associated with John Hurt, taking the surrender of Norway from the Germans, etc., etc, etc. Walker was a "very slippery fellow."

It does seem odd to me that their is no official reporting of the passenger lists in the Warren Commission Report. It does seem odd that this is omitted while they did interview people on the boat he traveled on and they also interviewed passengers on the buses he rode on. But that is no where near as odd as the fact that FBI agent Hosty's third note which identified exactly where Lee Harvey Oswald was working in Dallas prior to the motorcade route being designed was never given a commission exhibit number and has never shown up in any official assassination documents released by the CIA. This even though Hosty's first two notes, as we know from the research of Jefferson Morely, made it to the office of Richard Helms.

Hence it is up to researchers to attempt to fill in and connect the missing dots and place them into as consistent story as they possibly can. For myself it is the provable missing pieces that prove most interesting. Passenger list......Walker was traveling in the same area at the same time. Coincidence....Why would Oswald believe Walker was the leader of a very bad organization that did not want to see peace between the Soviet Union and the US.....Walker took command of the 24th Infantry Div. out of the normal rotation routine.....and traveled to Europe at the time Oswald is traveling to the Soviet Union....one day prior to Oswald's arrival in Helsinki Ambassador Hickerson (whom Walker had worked with during WWII) sends sensitive information to the State Department that Oswald then follows to get a visa into the Soviet Union.....Oswald could have traveled from La Harve, France to Paris and caught a flight to Helsinki (Paris to Hamburg to Stockholm to Helsinki) and arrived one day earlier in Helsinki while spending less money to get there but he travels to London first.....Do these coincidental facts lead to proof of anything.....we get to decide... but it is a fact that the passenger list was not provided.

Jim Root

Sorry I don't pop in on this site very often anymore but it pleases me to see that this topic still seems to generate interest. Walker is interesting! And Walker is in many ways, I believe, a key to the assassination story but not for the reasons that so may people seem to speculate on.

For example everyone wants to focus on Walker's Right Wing political activities while Oswald seems to have focused on Walker because he believed that Walker was the leader of a very bad organization that did not want to see peace between the Soviet Union and the United States. In addition, the failure of the Paris Summit in May of 1960 was very much on Oswald's mind in the period between the assassination attempt on Walker and the assassination of President Kennedy as Oswald's Spring Hill College speech clearly suggests. Nobody "planted" or "created" the speech Oswald gave to this group of Masters level students. The information we have about this speech comes from the notes of a student who attended it. Oswald's contrary position on Walker from being a Right Wing segregationist to instead being the leader of an organization that did not want peace between the Soviet Union and the United States puts a cog in any theory that connects Oswald to Walker in any other manner. In my opinion we must consider what would drive Oswald to believe this about Walker if we are to find any true connection between these two important characters in the assassination story.

Several points to consider.

When Oswald defected to the Soviet Union the passenger lists for his trip from London to Helsinki were never presented to the Warren Commission although they would have been available at the time. This does lead one to speculate on who could have been traveling on a plane with Oswald. My research has shown that Edwin Walker was traveling to Augsburg, Germany at this same time. The problem with this is that Oswald went North and East from London while Walker went South and East. I have done a great deal of research on this subject and have shown that Oswald could have traveled from London to Frankfort or from London to Hamburg, Germany on the same day that he arrived in Helsinki. If Oswald did go first to Germany, as he told his Marine buddy Delgado he was going to do, Oswald still could have then made the connection to the plane that began the day in Frankfort traveled to Hamburg then Stockholm and then arrived in Helsinki in time for Oswald to check into the Torni Hotel when he did in fact check in.

For Walker to get to Augsburg he would have had to travel to either Frankfurt or Hamburg.

When Oswald arrived in Helsinki he converted in US currency to Soviet Intourist vouchers prior to applying for a visa to enter the Soviet Union. We found during the HSCA the US Ambassador to Helsinki had sent this "top secrete" information on how to get a visa into the Soviet Union to the State Department one day prior to Oswald's arrival in Helsinki.

IF......yes a big IF......

it was Walker who provided this information to Oswald.....it would be very easy to understand why, after the U-2 incident doomed the Paris Summit, Oswald could believe Walker was the leader of a very bad organization that did not want to see peace between the two countries. It would also explain Oswald's statement that the reason he was being arrested was because he went to the Soviet Union.....and that he was a patsy.

Paul

I agree that Helms was involved in the cover up but not so sure about the assassination.

I believe I wrote several years ago of some documents that I uncovered dealing with meetings between Helms, Whitney Shepardson, Wilho Tikander and others in June or so of 1959. At the time Tikander speculated that his old friend and Stockholm associate "Dick" Helms was going to run an off track mission through Helsinki, Sweden. A few months later Oswald enters Sweden and a U-2 is shot down over Russia the following May leading to the failure of the Paris Summit. Paris Summit and the Limited Test Ban Treaty was something that John J. McCloy did not want to see happen and it did not happen.

This is where I believe Oswald was the "Patsy" that he said he was and this is supported by what Oswald spoke about at Spring Hill College shortly before the assassination of JFK. Oswald was upset about the failure of the Paris Summit and I speculate that Oswald was also very upset by the way that he was "set-up" to play a roll in the failure of the Paris Summit. Upset enough to kill the President? Even the House Select Committee on Assassinations suggested that Oswald had the capacity to kill the President and that it would be predictable that he would do so if given the chance based upon Oswald's willingness to attempt to kill Walker (Something that G. D. speculated immediately following the attempt on Walker's life).

I can imagine that Helms would be very quick to deny any association with Oswald and as such would be the right point man to have reporting to the Warren Commission.....even if Helms could figure out who was behind the assassination of JFK. I believe Walker helped Oswald make his way to Helsinki (and GP Hemming agreed with me) making it important for Walker to sustain his story and belief that it was in fact Oswald that had shot at him.

In MHO the man who would have been behind the assassination would have to know that both Helms and Walker would fall into place after the assassination if for no other reason than they could be associated with Oswald and therefor be labeled as co-conspirators if the dominos started to fall.

To me this is the key.......who is that one man that knew all the pieces.....and IMHO it is John J. McCloy.

Jim root

Thanks for your response Paul.

To carry the discussion further you point out that his political campaigns were in 1962 yet the resignation flyer (with ZIP code) was 1963 or later....perhaps after the assassination of JFK. While he was still doing the speaker circuit his political aspirations had, I believe, been checked as you suggest and his attempts for "political super-stardom" dashed.

The "Muzzling the Military" hearings in Congress were political and Walker's refusal to receive a pension appears to be very political. Walker becomes the radical right winger in the light that he is now viewed. He also has distanced himself in every sense from the US Government.....that is really something for a man that attained the rank of Major General to do. Prior to this time he had successfully ran the Pentagon's Greek Desk during the US involvement in the Greek Civil War. Walker had been the US Point man in the First Straits of Taiwan Crisis, he had taken the surrender of German Troops in Norway at the end of the WWII. As head of the Arkansas Military District (and I could use a little clarification on this....my information came from a local newspaper clipping from Texas) played a lead role in the Army Ballistic Missile Program, etc., etc., etc.

Walker was a man who always followed orders! Walker was a man whose military career seems to place him at the center of much intrigue but, at a particular point in time, something changes in the life of Edwin Walker. It is the timing of this radical change that I question.....

In my dealings with GP Hemming he seemed to sense some of the same things. While he never answered the specific question, I believed that Hemming was recruited into intelligence work by Walker (I believe around 1954). It was only after asking this question that Hemming began communicating with me and providing some interesting information. Hemming did relate to me that Walker was, to his knowledge, involved with the infiltration of Lee Harvey Oswald into the Soviet Union. IF true then the new radical Walker emerges shortly thereafter.....and this radicalization becomes very apparent when Oswald begins his attempts to return to the United States from the Soviet Union. Was there a fear on the part of highly placed people in US Intelligence that Oswald, if he returned to the United States could identify Walker as a person who had helped him to enter the Soviet Union (I have written many posts in the past about the potential Walker-Oswald connection and how it COULD have occurred).

Oswald's own description of Walker as the leader of a bad organization that does not want peace between the Soviet Union and the United States differs from the public persona of Walker the anti-segregationist leading riots at Mississippi State. Did Oswald know more about Walker than what many believe is the obvious persona that was been built up around Walker in these critical months leading to the assassination of Kennedy? Did Oswald have a first hand motive for wanting to see Walker die?

I found it interesting that in two letters to his brother Frank, Walker asks him to save those letters, then apparently retrieves them and includes them in his records. While that may be much ado about nothing......how many more letters to his brother are in the Walker files? If there are a lot then no big deal if only these few.....was Walker writing for effect?

I do not have answers to my questions but am interested in hearing the thoughts of a person that has gotten much deeper into Walker's papers than I have had a chance to.

Jim Root

I am intrigued by the resignation letters that were in Walker's files.

First: It is reported to be "The Official Defense Department Record" but it is printed by "American Eagle Publishing Co." complete with address and ZIP code. ZIP codes did not come into use till 1963 some time after these letters were written.

Second: These same two letters do not appear in Walker's Cullum File from West Point although that may or may not be unusual.

Third: While the second resignation says that it was accepted and an Honorable Discharge was given.....Walker lost his pension when he left the Army....not sure that goes along with an Honorable discharge.(although years later he did get his pension approved after several denials)

Thoughts?????

Jim Root

Thank you

I sent you a note with my email address

Jim

Hi Paul

I appreciate the work that you are doing! While my research leads me in a different direction toward a conclusion the information that you are bringing up closely mirrors my own. I envy that you are in Austin and so close to the Walker papers....I have only had one brief encounter with them.....which I would love to study further.

I too believe that the potential of Walker's homosexual tendencies would force him to lead a very strange life while in the military. But, as is suggested by the life of J. Edgar Hoover, do also speculate that Walker may have had a long term love interest that may have been a controlling factor in his life. I will leave that a lone for the time being but would love to speak with you in a less open setting about that particular possibility.

The Civil Rights movement that you speak of, especially dealing with the Warren Court, is also something that I find interesting in its association, in whatever way, to the Kennedy assassination, if for no other reason than Earl Warren put his name on the investigation that was done following the assassination.

So many threads that tie together in this case but I believe it is much deeper than the obvious "Right - Wing" that was responsible.

I was unable to locate the October 1959 resignation attempt that you spoke of but would love to know more about it and view it if you could post it here. I have also heard mentioned that Walker attempted to resign prior to being assigned to Little Rock, Arkansas but have never seen the solid proof of that as well. You mentioned also a letter to his brother Frank dated January 1, 1960 "only one month after Edwin Walker arrived in Germany..." My records show that he arrived in October of 1959 about three months before January.....would love to see that letter as well since the lead you posted did not take me to it.

Must admit that the October 1959 letter you spoke of has my mind spinning.

Thank you for your work,

Jim Root

FYI

Prior to becoming Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Maxwell Taylor also spent time in Mexico City.

Interesting place.

Jim Root

Dave

Thank you....it has been a while....life is a funny thing!

Currently interested in Oswald's supposed first note that he wrote requesting his passport be returned by the government so that he could return to the USA. In it he refers to a previous note that he had written but the Warren Commission Report suggests that no such note was ever written.......Question: "Why would Oswald refer to a note he never wrote?" and if he did write such a note "Why would the persons in charge of such things want to cover up that note if it was written?"

I believe these to be important questions. If Oswald did write a first note then someone was interested in the fact that he might return to the USA. Also, whoever that note would have gone to would not want it known who it went to.......just like Hosty's third note!

Jim root

Just to add a bit......the recently retired John Hurt was in France at the time that Dinkin received his information. It has always interested me that Hurt was in France at the time of Kinkin's attempts to warn RFK! I cannot make any connection to Hurt and the assassin/s other than the fact that Oswald attempted to contact someone who shared a name with retired NSA cryptographer John Hurt but the fact that John Hurt reported directly to John J. McCloy during WWII does intrigue me greatly. Perhaps just another coincidence surrounding this interesting person.

Thank you for this article Douglas

Jim Root

Oswald was a patsy just as he said..... "the reason I'm being arrested is that I went to the Soviet Union, I'm a patsy." but then the reason Oswald was a patsy was that he had gone to the Soviet Union.

Could it be so simple? Should we look at the whole statement and not just the last three words?

I belive we should absorb all the words contained in Oswald's patsy statement and that we should examine closely all the events that lead to Oswald's travel to the Soviet Union. Perhaps Oswald's speech at Spring Hill College just weeks before the assassination is an indication of just how much Oswald's trip to the Soviet Union and perhaps his involvement in the failure of the Paris Summit was playing on Oswald's mind at the time! And perhaps there were those (like Richard Helms who was monitoring Oswald's movements prior to the assassination) who knew that Oswald was bitter about being used as a patsy.

Just thoughts,

Jim Root

Always like to point out that about six months before Oswald arrived in Helsinki, Finland, Richard Helms, Whitney Shepardson and others were meeting about what Wilho Tykander (former WWII OSS Station Chief to Stockholm Sweeden) would describe as an off the grid covert action centered on Helsinki.

Were these men talking about Oswald's defection to the Soviet Union? I belive it is possible that they were!

Jim Root

Been a long time since I logged into this site but I am happy to read that intelligent discssion still being delivered. Please excuse my spelling error in advance!

Myy study of Walker includes going to his hometown, interviews with people who knew him and his mother, local research from his youth in both Texas and New Mexico. I then followed his career to West Point and beyond till his death.

What is most interesting for myself is the connections that I found, beginning prior to WWII, that can be associated with the assassination of JFK. While at West Point Walker was a student of Maxwell Taylor. Their relationship would continue right up until, it seems, Walkers resignation from the Military.

Walker's involvement in intelligence seems apparent throughout his career and an early connection to William Friedman and his team of cryptologist (including John Hurt) led to my making the connection of the "Raliegh Call" to the NSA's John Hurt. I especially like connections to Operation Stella Polaris and the Venona Project where Hurt and Walker can be tied together.

The John Hurt of William Friedman's team (later the NSA) is easily connected to two of John J. McCloy's great coups as Asst. Sec. of War under Stimson....namely prior knowledge of Japan's intention to declare War on the US (just hours prior to Pearl Harbor) and McCloys suggestion that Japan would be willing to surrender without dropping the Atomic Bomb (if e were willing to allow the Emperor to remain in Japan). I have previously shown that the same John Hurt is associated with Frank Rowlett and Meredith Gardner who woud be tasked by the Warren Commission (via the CIA via the NSA) to investgate LHO for possible intelligence connections.

Walker during WWII was tasked with moving the Nazi "loot" found at Merker's mine, negotiated the surrender of Norway by the Germans and the repatriation of both German and Russian Soldiers. During the US's successful intervention in the Greek Civil War Walker was running the Greek Desk at the Pentagon, during the Korean War Walker negotiated the prisoner exchange between China and the US, during the First Straits of Tiawan Crisis he was the Army's point man on scene. Walker was selected by his old friend Max Taylor to go to Little Rock, trained rangers for Korea, was involved with special forces beginning in WWII and commanded a unit that had over 100 future intelligence opperatives recruited from it. Walker was in Hawaii when the first covert troops were sent to Vietnam via his post and had been involved in the training of most of that group. Walker's unit, during WWII, captured the most sophisticated radar instalation that the Japanese possessed and Edwin Walker was traveling to Germany to take command of the 24th ID at the same time that Oswald was mysteriously arriving in Helsinki aboard a plane or planes that nobody bothered checking the passenger lists on (see previous posts of mine dealing with that subject).

But for me, despite this breif discription of Walker's career, I do not believe that Walker was actually involved in the assassination of JFK directly but I do firmly believe that he immedietly knew who was! Walker's communication with the German newspaper Overseas Weekly the morning following the assassination of JFK, while Walker was in Sherveport, LA is, to me, interesting. I do believe that Walker recognized Oswald and that he had reason to belive that he would be connected not only to Oswald but then, also, to the assassination of JFK which, then led to Walker's neeed to communicate with the Germans and to declare that Oswald had shot at him as well. Self survival, I believe, is the key to Walker's actions after the assassination.

As to Walker's Pro Blue involvement? It can be traced back years before his arrival to take command of the 24th ID. And, in interviews with people involved with Overseas Weekly at the time, we find that OW's involvement in the frying of Walker can be traced to Oswald's first letter that indicated that he wanted to return to the US (Warren Commission report says this letted did not exist, just as the Raleigh Call is not mentioned, Hosty's third note is not made a commission exhibit and the passenger lists of Oswald's travel to Russia were apparently overlooked). Too me it makes since that if Oswald were to return to the US after the downing of the U-2 and the failure of the Paris Summit in 1960 (two issues that Oswald would be speaking about just weeks before the assassination of JFK at Spring Hill College) and be able to identify Walker if he were the man who had helped him to enter the Soviet Union (check prior posts of mine dealing with intelligence information that provided information about what a person would need to do to receive a visa into Russia within 24 hours that was sent one day prior to Oswald's arrival in Helsinki) as G. P. Hemming told me Walker was!

In my humble opinion Walker is not a conspirator but if we move beyond the presentation of Walker being as a Right Wing crackpot and look at him as a highly complicated and sophisticated tool of US intelligece at the highest level (under John J. McCloy) we can really start to unravel a conspiracy theory that does fit all the pieces!

Keep up the fine work all,

Jim Root

Thank you Mark Knight for the kind words. Yes I have worked on this "John Hurt" subject for many years. I was informed of the ABC News film with Bill Lord by Gary Mack while at the 6th Floor Museum. I have written several pieces in the past on the Raliegh Call so I will not spend a great deal of time or effort repeating or retrieving that information.

For myself I believe that the call was made to a cut out and was not intended to go to any person named John Hurt. I do believe the name John Hurt, was the message and that it signed Oswald's death warrent when he himself made the call. If true very few people would have known the ramifications that would be carried by that name being used by Lee Harvey Oswald. That this story did not make it into the WC Report is, in my opinion, telling. But.....

I first became aware of a person named John Hurt, who was involved in US Intelligence, while researching Maj. Gen. Edwin Walker. The reference was obscure but Walker and Hurt were assigned to the same place at the same time in the 1930's. John B. Hurt was an original member of William Friedman's team of cryptologist. This TEAM became the NSA after World War II. Hurt's work after WWII has remained classified to this day. Of the seven original members of Friedman's team, Hurt is the only one whose work remains classified. During WWII Hurt's work went directly to John J. McCloy and led to McCloy's discussion with President Truman about the droping of the first atomic bomb and that the US could negotiate a peace without droping the bomb. Prior to WWII Hurt worked with Frank Rowlet (also one of the oringinal members of Friedman't team) and during WWII he worked with Meridith Gardner. These two men, Gardner and Rowlet, would be involved in the Venona Project. It was a Hurt translated intercept that led to Operation Stella Polaris (the start of the Venona Project). They also would be the two men who investigated Oswald's intelligence connections for the Warren Commission. Stella Polaris involves many of the major players in the Kennedy assassination saga....including Richard Helms.

If for no other reasons than the few listed above, and there are so many more, I find it strange that the name John Hurt would become a part of the Kennedy Assassination story.

Jim Root

<snip>

2nd. I do not believe you will find any report of Walker suggesting that Oswald shot at him until he first mentions this in his telephone interviews with the German magazine that occured just hours after the assassination of JFK (when Oswald's picture was on every television screen in the nation). Interestingly, then it seems to become important to Walker at that point to present this story to the public. Interestingly also, each of us must accept the position that Oswald did shoot at Walker as Walker and the Warren Commission suggests or believe that Oswald did not shoot at Walker. Following our heads or tails position on this point we must ask either, "How did Walker know this was true (Oswald shooting at him) immediately after the assassination of Kennedy?" or ask, "Why did Walker put this story out that the Warren commission embraced so readily?" I suggest that it is because Walker had met Oswald in October of 1959 while Oswald was on his way to Helsinki. I have proven that this is a possibility via airline records that are available and it would explain why the Warren Commission did not produce the passenger list, which were available at the time but seem to have never seen the light of day, for Oswald's travel to Helsinki. If Walker had meet Oswald and given him information that helped Oswald defect to the Soviet Union it would explain why Oswald speculated later that Walker was the leader of some organization that did not want to see peace between the US and the USSR. Oswasl spoke about certain groups in both countries that did not want peace while at Spring Hill College in the time period between the attempt on the life of Walker and the assassination of JFK.

<snip>

Jim Root

Jim, it isn't just me or Harry Dean or Loran Hall or Gerry Patrick Hemming or Dick Russell who claims that General Walker had direct or indirect interaction with Lee Harvey Oswald between May and October of 1963. General Walker's archives contain several items that suggest this. Here is a letter from Walker to Senator Frank Church in 1975 -- but it refers to the week of the 10 April 1963 shooting that we are talking about. I'd like to hear your opinion about this letter in particular:

-------------------------------- ATTACHMENT ---------------

To: Senator Frank Church

U.S. Senate Office Bld’g

Washington, D.C.

June 23, 1975

Dear Senator Church:

The Warren Commission found and concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to assassinate the undersigned at his home, at 9pm. on April 10, 1963. The initial and immediate investigation at the time of the incident reported two men at my home, one with a gun, seen by an eye-witness – a neighbor. Within days I was informed by a Lieutenant on the Dallas City Police Force that Oswald was in custody by 12pm that night for questioning. He was released on a higher authority than that in Dallas. There were two men, not a "Lonely Loner". Please inform me if the CIA was involved in this attempted assassination?

Yours sincerely,

Edwin A. Walker

--------------------------- END ATTACHMENT ----------------

There's the letter, Jim. Edwin Walker himself tells the Senator that he obtained knowledge that Oswald was his shooter "within days" of the shooting. I realize there are more puzzles than this one involved within the content of this letter, but I would ask you, please, to offer your opinion about this one key point -- that Walker knew about Oswald "within days" of the April shooting.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Paul

Great question and I can only speculate on what was in the mind of General Walker at the time of that particular letter.

1). No Dallas police officier or record from that night suggests that this is true. We only have Walker's unsubstantiated statements both verbal or printed made after the death of Kennedy.

2).Walker then contradicts himself when he suggests that there was "two men" which if you read the police reports and listen to the news broadcasts of the time was the information that the police were acting upon. Why would Walker contridict himself in this letter, one man arrested vs two seen?

3). Walker asks if the CIA was involved in the assassination attempt. Did he have reason to believe that the CIA may have been involved? I ask this question because I believe he knew Oswald was an intelligence asset and had been tasked with assisiting Oswald to enter the Soviet Union as GPH suggests.

Paul;

Have you read the documents where Walker is trying to figure out who and why he was persecuted after the Overseas Weekly article? I found those very interesting.

Jim Root