William Kelly

AL, HAVE YOU READ THIS ARTICLE ON THE ADVANCE SECURITY FOR FT. WORTH? - bk

THE URL IS:

Thanks to Gary Mack for the link.

Summer 2000, Vol. 32, No. 2

The Hours before Dallas: A Recollection by President Kennedy's Fort Worth Advance Man

By Jeb Byrne © 2000 by Jeb Byrne

PHOTO Vice President Lyndon Johnson, Jacqueline Kennedy, and President Kennedy at the breakfast in Fort Worth's Hotel Texas on November 22, 1963. (NARA, Kennedy Library)

In November of 1963, to seek support for New Frontier policies and with an eye on the 1964 elections, President John F. Kennedy set out on what was planned as a two-day, five-city tour of Texas.

Well before the President departed for Texas, advance men were dispatched from Washington to make on-the-scene preparations. Among them was Jeb Byrne, who had been serving as a political appointee in the General Services Administration since the Kennedy administration began in 1961.

Byrne, a ten-year veteran of wire service journalism who more recently had been press secretary to a Democratic governor of Maine, was assigned to Fort Worth. His mission was to make sure that the President's stay in Fort Worth went off without a hitch.

In an account written for Prologue, the author relates how the President spent his time in Fort Worth. Byrne also details the challenges he faced as the Fort Worth advance man in making logistical arrangements, handling requests for access to the President, and navigating the shoal waters of the then-dominant Texas Democratic party.

Byrne draws his account in part from papers and other materials he kept from his duty in Fort Worth. He has donated those materials to the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, which is opening them on publication of this article.

Kennedy's stay in Fort Worth came off as planned. His work done, Byrne watched as the President took off in Air Force One for the thirteen-minute flight to Love Field in Dallas— and into the realms of history, legend, and speculation.

Here is an advance man's account of JFK's final hours:

*

In the early morning of November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy spoke in a light drizzle to a crowd assembled in a downtown Fort Worth parking lot, and then, shortly thereafter, to a dressier audience at a chamber of commerce breakfast in the ballroom of the adjacent Hotel Texas. Although the two events were similar to many other Kennedy public appearances, their evocation carries a special poignancy because they took place in the final hours of his presidency and his life.

As a bit player sent from Washington with responsibility for non-security preparations in Fort Worth, I had stood watchfully on the peripheries of both events. Arrangements for this part of a two-day presidential visit to Texas had been my concern since I arrived in Fort Worth and moved into the hotel ten days earlier.

The story of President Kennedy's Texas trip has been told many times, concentrating inevitably on the tragic denouement in Dallas. This account, however, is simply an advance man's perspective on President Kennedy's stay, and the preparations that preceded it, in neighboring Fort Worth. There, he spent his last night and, on the morning of the day of his assassination, made his last public appearances before his short flight to Love Field in Dallas and the fatal motorcade through that city's streets.

Most of what I relate comes from memory, bolstered by the long-preserved paper detritus that I had swept into a briefcase while vacating a hotel room in a time of turmoil: the President's itinerary, flight manifests, an annotated breakfast program, a letter to chamber of commerce members describing how to obtain tickets to the breakfast, partial lists of the names of people I had given tickets to the breakfast, odd scraps of paper bearing names and telephone numbers or scrawled notes, copies of progress reports on the Fort Worth advance, a map of the city, and yellowed newspaper clippings. This memory-reinforcing residue of paper was supplemented later by photographs that had been taken of the formation of the presidential motorcade in front of the Hotel Texas in the late morning of November 22 and by an unpublished summary of the Fort Worth presidential visit I had written while the events were still fresh in mind. Because what follows is an account rooted in memory, I have eschewed the use of endnotes. Copies of relevant materials have been deposited in the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston.

*

Involvement in President Kennedy's Texas trip had begun for the assigned Secret Service agents, specialists of the White House Communication Agency, and a handful of advance men—myself among them—on November 12, when we gathered at Andrews Air Force Base on the outskirts of Washington. There we boarded a plane for Texas, where we would prepare the way for President Kennedy's visits on November 21-22 to five cities: San Antonio, Houston, Fort Worth, Dallas, and Austin— in that order. Although all events except a Democratic fundraising dinner in Austin were organized on a nonpartisan basis, the tour was widely viewed as a prelude to the President's impending campaign to win reelection the following year. The political ticket of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson had barely carried Texas in 1960, and success in this state would be important again if they were to be reelected in 1964.

There had been uncertainty in the White House about the efficacy of the tour because of disarray at the top levels of the Texas Democratic Party. The animosity between Senator Ralph W. Yarborough and the state's two other leading Democrats, Governor John B. Connally and Vice President Johnson, was well known. But Kennedy decided to make the trip despite any misgivings he had about factionalism in the Texas Democratic Party and the deep-seated antipathy of some conservative Texans toward his administration.

Our small advance party for Fort Worth was the next to last group to be dropped off in its assigned city when the flight from Washington reached Texas. The others were: William L. Duncan, the lithe and intense twenty-eight-year-old lead Secret Service agent for the Fort Worth visit who was a member of the White House detail; Ned Hall, a second Secret Service agent from the White House detail; army Maj. Jack Rubley, who was operations officer of the White House Communications Agency (WHCA); and army Capt. Bill Harnett, who was junior to Rubley at WHCA. Rubley was along on the trip to give Harnett his "check ride" in performing WHCA's duties on an overnight presidential stay. The Secret Service agents would, of course, provide security for the President. The communication specialists would set up the traveling "electronic White House," which would keep members of the presidential party in quick touch with Washington, the wider world, and each other.

I was to handle other aspects of the advance. Nonsecurity aspects of presidential advancing were much less structured in the early 1960s than in later years. Beginning with President Richard M. Nixon's administration, a permanent office within the White House has had overall responsibility for advancing presidential trips. No such formal unit existed within the White House in 1963. Advance men usually were enlisted on an ad hoc basis for individual trips. I was borrowed for the Fort Worth assignment, willingly enough on my part, from my less exciting regular job in a federal agency.

In Fort Worth, we were met by agent Mike Howard from the Secret Service's Dallas office, who was to work with Duncan and Hall on presidential security. We checked into the Hotel Texas, ate steaks together in the Cattlemen's Restaurant, and exchanged notes on our plans for the next day. Rubley and Harnett would be conferring with their contact at Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. I asked Duncan and Hall to come with me in the morning to meet Raymond E. Buck, president of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, which was sponsoring the breakfast that was the central event of the presidential visit. After dinner on the night of our arrival, the agents and I drove around Fort Worth to familiarize ourselves with street patterns.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram announces Kennedy's arrival. (Courtesy of J. E. Byrne)

The next morning, I wondered for a brief moment if Raymond Buck manufactured shovels. There was a row of them along a wall of his spacious, ground floor offices. But these were not fated to gouge dirt more than once. Each of them, painted and bearing a plaque, had been used in a groundbreaking ceremony for a new building. Lawyer, president of insurance companies, and a past Democratic state chairman, Buck was a big man with white hair curling down the back of his neck.

"I'm the last of the long-haired Texas politicians since Tom Connally died," he told us as we sat around a conference table. This was a reference to former Texas Democratic Senator Thomas Connally (no relation to Governor Connally), who had died a few weeks earlier and whose Senate seat, which he had vacated in 1953, was now held by Yarborough.

Buck said that he was a longtime friend of Lyndon Johnson's. We discussed the basic program for the presidential visit. He said he had been waiting for guidance from Washington before making final arrangements for the November 22 breakfast event. The grand ballroom of the Hotel Texas had been reserved, but no invitations or tickets had been issued. The ballroom would hold two thousand persons, including members of the working press who would not be eating. The chamber of commerce planned to send out a letter to its members inviting them to apply for tickets. Buck said that there were about three thousand members of the chamber, and he expected that at least one thousand tickets would be requested, half for members and half for spouses. He added that Governor Connally wanted two hundred to three hundred tickets, Congressman Jim Wright of Fort Worth sought between three hundred and four hundred, and Senator Yarborough was expected to ask for a sizable number. Moreover, organized labor, the Democratic county organization, and a state senator were seeking blocs of tickets, and it had been tentatively arranged to set aside fifty for local federal officials, fifty for county officials, and twenty-five for city officials.

Visualizing the quick disappearance of all the tickets, I made haste to enter a White House claim for at least two hundred. Buck nodded his agreement. The letter to chamber members would say that tickets would be limited and would have to be picked up on a first-come, first-served basis. Members of the chamber were to pay three dollars a ticket. Buck said that he and "several others" would pay for the rest of the tickets. At this point I inquired to what extent the breakfast would be integrated. Buck said he understood that about thirty of those attending on labor tickets would be black.

Although the chamber president had indicated that little had been done about arrangements, a basic program had been developed and a head table proposed, neither of which required radical changes. The breakfast guests were to be served starting at 8 a.m. and would be finished with their meals by the time the Kennedys arrived in the ballroom. The four-piece Jimmy Ravitta orchestra and the Texas Boys' Choir would perform. A long head table would accommodate heads of local governments, officials of the chamber of commerce, and a labor union representative, as well as the political personages from Washington and Austin. Spouses also would be seated at the head table. Tactfully, Buck had not attempted to name the person who would introduce the President.

"You do it," I told him.

After the meeting with Buck, the Secret Service agents began to make their contacts. I knew they were busy, but it was not until years later that I read agent Duncan's "Final Survey Report" in the National Archives and found that 508 persons had participated in security at the Fort Worth stop (Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, Record Group 233, Washington, D.C.). The Fort Worth Police Department assigned 300 officers, the Carswell Air Force Base Police 80, the Tarrant County Sheriff's Department 60, and the Texas State Police 5. The Secret Service, including agents who traveled with the President and those in the advance party, had 32 on hand. The Fort Worth Fire Department and the River Oaks Police Department also contributed personnel.

The Hours before Dallas, Part 2

A former journalist, Jeb Byrne (John E. Byrne) was an appointee in the General Services Administration during the Kennedy administration. Later he joined the federal career service. He retired after serving as director of the Federal Register, 1980 - 1988. A Ph.D. in American Studies, he was a Fulbright Scholar in New Zealand in 1989.

Articles published in Prologue do not necessarily represent the views of NARA or of any other agency of the United States Government.

Part 2

Before leaving Washington, I had received the name of a Fort Worth attorney, David O. Belew, Jr., who was to be my local contact with Governor Connally. After leaving Raymond Buck's office, I went to see Belew at his office. He told me that his wife, Marjorie, was a Democratic state committeewoman and that both of them were being badgered by people seeking more information about the President's activities while in Fort Worth. He mentioned that many party regulars were indignant because of the visit's format, which they said seemed designed to keep the President away from rank-and-file Democrats. The Belews invited me to their home that night to meet with them and other interested parties whom they would assemble to discuss the President's visit.

The "others" at the Belew home, in addition to the pajama-clad Belew children who ducked in and out of the living room, were Garrett Morris, a Democratic state committeeman who was also introduced to me as a manager of Governor Connally's last campaign; Tarrant County Democratic Chairman William Potts; union representatives Garland Ham of the United Auto Workers and John Heath of the International Association of Machinists; and public relations practitioner Bill Haworth. The group was unanimous in pressing for increased public exposure of the President while in Fort Worth. Proposals were made that in addition to his chamber of commerce address, the President speak to a public gathering either in the parking lot next to the Hotel Texas, or four blocks from the hotel at Burnett Park (where he had spoken as a candidate in 1960), or at Carswell Air Force Base following the breakfast and before boarding Air Force One for Dallas. A fourth suggestion was for an extended motorcade "up and down the main streets."

I was a good listener. And in the following days it became clear that the gathering at the Belews' home had assessed accurately the widespread dissatisfaction among Democrats at the format of the presidential visit. As my name and mission became more widely known, the telephone in my hotel room rang with complaints. Labor leaders particularly were incensed by chamber of commerce sponsorship of the breakfast. I discussed the problem with Buck, and he assured me that he had no objection to a separate, public appearance of the President as long as it did not interfere with the nonpartisanship of the breakfast to which he had been committed before I came to town. I immediately passed along to Washington the suggestions that I had received, my own observations, and a recommendation that the President's schedule be revised to include a public appearance outside the hotel at which he would speak at least briefly.

*

In the next few days I began to receive overt reminders from Austin, the state capital, that the conflict between Governor Connally and Senator Yarborough had not appreciably diminished and was not being put aside for the presidential visit. First, it was a message that the governor wanted this order for the motorcade in Fort Worth:

President's car

Vice President's car

Governor's car

Press cars

Senator Yarborough's car

Then there was a request from Austin that congressmen and senators be seated on the breakfast dais at a lower level than the President, vice president and governor. Connally aide Scott Sayers came to Fort Worth and asked me how these requests were faring. I told him that normal political protocol would be followed in Fort Worth. There were no repercussions-at least that I knew about. I had cleared my response with Washington before making it.

About this time, Bill Turner, exalted ruler of Fort Worth Lodge 124 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, appeared on the scene representing Senator Yarborough. Turner said the senator had instructed him to see that protocol was "strictly followed" on the Fort Worth leg of the trip. "If that means equal treatment," I told him, "the senator will get it." Later, as the dates approached for the presidential visit, Turner came to the hotel and showed me a telegram he had received after reporting to the senator's Washington office on the Fort Worth arrangements. Dated November 19, it read:

Seating, cars, head tables perfectly satisfactory.

Please do not object or complain, it is 100% perfect.

As to stopping at Elks lodge, will see what can be done.

Ralph Yarborough

U.S.S.

The reference to the Elks lodge was an example of the many kinds of requests advance men receive for special appearances or actions by a President in a locality where preparations are being made for a presidential visit. This time, Yarborough's comment was in response to Turner's request that the President visit Turner's fraternal lodge and present it with an American flag. Turner pressed for such a presentation up to the time of the President's visit, but his request could not be accommodated.

The tempo of the final days before the President's arrival accelerated. I began to be in regular telephone contact with Bill Moyers, then-deputy director of the Peace Corps, who had been sent from Washington to Austin as an on-the-scene coordinator for the trip. His mission, I gathered, was to try to reduce discord in the planning process.

(Courtesy of J. E. Byrne)

I also had become, perforce, a ticket distribution agency. Twelve hundred tickets ultimately had been set aside for chamber of commerce members. The news that Jacqueline Kennedy would accompany the President on the trip had stimulated ticket sales to chamber members and their spouses. Buck kept control of the rest of the tickets. With his cooperation— we got along amiably— I allocated and distributed 550 tickets to various groups and persons outside the chamber's circle, requiring lists of names of those who were to receive the tickets.

While meeting with a labor delegation in my room at the Hotel Texas, I expressed concern about the extent of black attendance at the breakfast. One of the union leaders present told me that despite what I might have heard about the attendance of black persons "there will be damn few unless somebody does something." I asked if anyone knew the number of black people living in Tarrant County. When the figure seventy thousand was offered, I asked for the name of a leader in the black community. The name of Dr. Marion Brooks was suggested. As the labor delegation was going out the door, I was on the telephone with Dr. Brooks and with his assistance placed forty tickets directly with black people— in addition to those who might be included through labor and other connections.

With Latinos, I nearly struck out. The day before the breakfast, the county sheriff telephoned and said that a young man on his staff by the name of Jake Cardenas headed a local unit of the Political Organization of Spanish-Speaking People and was hurt that no one had made a move to involve his group in the breakfast event. I immediately talked to Cardenas and apologized.

"I didn't think of it," I said.

He was polite, but his voice was numb. "Nobody does."

I felt like kicking myself all the way back to Maine, where I had abandoned wire service journalism for politics and government. Although the ticket barrel was at rock bottom, I succeeded in retrieving ten tickets, which he picked up.

*

While I was engaged with my set of problems, Duncan, Hall, and Howard went about their business of providing for the safety of the President while he was in Fort Worth. They met with law enforcement agencies that would be involved in the visit, checked the backgrounds of hotel employees and others who would be in close contact with the presidential party, "ran out" and timed motorcade routes and alternatives, made arrangements for tight security on the President's quarters in the hotel, and went through the numerous other rituals peculiar to their calling. At night, we met to compare notes.

I also took the time to walk around downtown Fort Worth and get the feel of the city. On one walk, enticed by a sale, I entered a hat store and came out with a Stetson. I tried to appear accustomed to wearing this Western headgear but probably fooled no one. On my rambles I dropped in twice to The Cellar, a below-the-street place near the hotel, where strange drinks without alcohol were served to the heavy thrum of drums and guitars. The preferred dress style was 1960s Beatnik. The din did not encourage lengthy stays by visitors with unconditioned ears.

The Secret Service agents and I went out to Carswell Air Force Base for a meeting with the commanding officer, Brig. Gen. Howard W. Moore. He contended that because Carswell was a Strategic Air Command base, the public would not be able to enter to observe the President's arrival and departure. I argued that an exception should be made, that it was a highly unusual occasion, and that the people of the Fort Worth area should have the opportunity to see their President come and go. Eventually, Carswell was opened to the public for the visit; no doubt weightier voices than mine were responsible for the reversal of the original, negative decision that I had reported to Washington.

Was it inexperience as an advance man—this was my first presidential advance—or a sense that the Fort Worth arrangements were more accommodating to business interests than to the working man that led me to acquiesce so quickly in one demand by the local labor leadership?

Probably both.

I had made provision for O. C. Yancey, Jr., president of the Tarrant County AFL-CIO, and his wife to represent labor on the reception and departure committees at the airport as well as at the head table for the breakfast. Suddenly, at a meeting in my hotel room, the labor leadership threatened to boycott the breakfast unless other Tarrant County union officials and their wives had the opportunity to meet the Kennedys. Although it was unlikely that the threat would be carried out, I gave in. An elongated reception committee greeted the presidential party on the night of November 21 and, as a departure committee, said farewell in the late morning of November 22. In the serpentine line, as I recall, were Raymond Buck and several other chamber of commerce officials, the Democratic state committeeman and committeewoman, General Moore, the mayor of Fort Worth, the Tarrant County administrative judge, the enlarged delegation from the county's AFL-CIO, and spouses of many of the members of this committee that welcomed and bid farewell to the Kennedys at Carswell.

The prudent presidential advance man tries to avoid getting his name in news reports. Announcements of arrangements are best left to the White House, members of Congress, and local leaders. But sometimes it is unavoidable. For instance, following the session with labor leaders that had ended with me on the telephone to Dr. Brooks, the Fort Worth Star Telegram ran a front-page story headlined "Negroes Invited to Breakfast for JFK" in its November 20 edition. An unnamed "organized labor spokesman" was credited with prodding "one of the White House aides at the Hotel Texas" into issuing invitations to black people. Reporters, of course, sought out the "aides" who were doing such things. Identified, I was contacted by reporters seeking the latest information about the coming presidential visit. On the subject of invitations to blacks to attend the breakfast, I was quoted in the November 21 Star Telegram as affirming my role but pointing out as well that "Mr. Buck was interested in getting an across-the-board turnout of Fort Worth at the breakfast."

Representative Jim Wright, the future Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives who was Fort Worth's congressman, moved into the hotel a few rooms down the hall from mine. He was constantly on the telephone, although we found time now and then to talk about arrangements. The young and personable Wright worked diligently for White House approval of a public appearance by the President in addition to the breakfast speech. I suspect that the acceptance by the White House of a revision in the President's schedule to permit a short talk to the public in the parking lot in front of the hotel owed much to the congressman's advocacy. Moreover, as Wright notes his 1996 book Balance of Power (p. 104), he and Governor Connally had to work hard to convince oilman William A. Moncrief, who owned the city block that included the parking lot, to allow the area to be used for the President's public appearance. Wright says that although the first reaction of Moncrief, no Kennedy supporter, was to decline the request, he "finally relented."

Overall schedules of the Texas trip were appearing in the newspapers for the last few days before the visit. On November 19 the Fort Worth newspapers published a map of the routes the President's motorcade would take, coming and going, between Carswell Air Force Base and the Hotel Texas. I worked with local organizations to encourage crowd turnout. High school bands were asked to play along the presidential route. Local art lovers furnished the Kennedy suite in the hotel with original paintings and sculptures. Raymond Buck obtained through me the hat and shoe sizes of President Kennedy so that a Texas hat and boots could be presented to him. I was aware of the President's aversion to hats, gift or otherwise, but let Raymond Buck convince me that such a presentation was a Texas custom and would do no harm.

After all, the President didn't have to wear the gifts.

*

I am indebted to Mike Howard, a retired Secret Service agent who lives in McKinney, Texas, for sharing with me details of some of the security measures taken for President Kennedy's visit to Fort Worth. Howard, from the service's Dallas office, notes that agent Duncan had assigned him as "law enforcement liaison." He visited Fort Worth Police Chief Cato Hightower to advise him of "what was about to fall upon him." Howard sought the chief's help in viewing records of persons in the area who might be threats to the presidential party. He says that thirty people were detained or placed under surveillance. The agent then called on Tarrant County Sheriff Lon Evans to contact all law enforcement agencies in the county to tell them "we needed every body that wore a badge to work November 21 and 22." The call was answered. Even firemen turned out, many of them assigned to posts in the hotel's exits and stairwells.

Howard says that every floor and window in a tall building facing the parking lot where the President was to speak on Friday morning was thoroughly checked. Occupants were asked to keep their windows closed on November 21 - 22, but on Thursday afternoon a policeman spotted an open window on an upper floor. Howard says that two teenage boys in a law office were using a scope to get a closer look at preparations in the parking lot. The problem was that the scope was mounted on a hunting rifle belonging to the father of one of the boys, an attorney in the office. The rifle, taken from an office gun case, was not loaded. It was determined that innocent curiosity had compelled the boys to take a magnified look at the parking lot activity through the scope. The father was notified and the weaponry in the office safely locked up. Howard also remembers that in another of his Secret Service capacities, protecting the nation's currency, he had to shut down the business of an entrepreneur who, from a table in the hotel lobby, was selling one-dollar bills with a picture of President and Mrs. Kennedy pasted over George Washington's image.

*

As time went on, two more telephones were installed in my hotel room. The constant ringing of three telephones made the place resound like the inside of a campanile, so I called for assistance. Ross Wilder, on the staff of the Dallas office of the General Services Administration, the agency for which I then was a political appointee in Washington, came over to Fort Worth on November 21 and again on November 22 to help me answer the calls.

On November 21, Thursday, the two of us ate a late dinner and drove to Carswell, where Air Force One was to land shortly after 11 p.m. Streams of cars were entering the gates. As arrival time approached, I lined up the welcoming committee in a hangar and led the long column outside to the light-splashed apron. The blue and white Boeing 707 landed and taxied. The waiting crowd cheered wildly as the pilot of the aircraft, which was marked with the American flag and the presidential seal, cut the plane's engines. The presidential party came down the steps and went through the receiving line. Marjorie Belew handed Mrs. Kennedy a dewy armful of three dozen roses. The President and Mrs. Kennedy moved toward the fences. Cheers rose to a roar. Hands reached for theirs. There were laughter and shouts and a crescendo of cheers as they walked the fences, then entered their car. The motorcade began to move. Wilder and I got into our car and headed for the Hotel Texas.

Downtown Fort Worth was alive with lights and people. After the Kennedys had arrived and had gone to their suite, and the crowd in the hotel lobby had begun to clear, I went up to the President's floor to report to Kenneth P. O'Donnell, the President's appointments secretary and final arbiter of advance arrangements. O'Donnell was standing in a doorway, laughing at the antics of another presidential aide, the ebullient David Powers, who was clowning inside their suite. O'Donnell looked at me.

"Why," he asked, "did the congressmen have to wait at the desk in the lobby instead of being escorted to their rooms when the motorcade got here?"

I told him it was a detail that had not occurred to me. I must have looked abashed because he followed up his abrupt greeting with "Well, it's okay. Everything's fine."

We talked about the morning program, and then I went downstairs to my room. It was after midnight. Passing a mirror, I noticed that I was still wearing the new Stetson that I had donned to go to the airport. I had a belated feeling that this hat was not the proper headgear for a Kennedy advance man to wear when talking shop with Kenny O'Donnell of Massachusetts, a man known for his political toughness as well as his devotion to JFK, on a trip beset by a Texas-sized political problem that clearly was interfering with the main purpose.

Despite O'Donnell's remark about the delay in getting the congressmen to their rooms, I was encouraged by the outcome of the visit thus far. The airport crowd had been large and enthusiastic, streets had been lined despite the late hour, the breach between Connally/Johnson and Yarborough had not been in evidence, and the presidential party was safely in the hotel. I was tired, though, and anxious about the morning events to come. I went to bed, declining an invitation to visit the Fort Worth Press Club, which was staying open late for the benefit of visiting journalists.

Just as well. Among those who did go to the press club were some off-duty members of the Secret Service who had just arrived from Washington. A few also visited The Cellar, the aforementioned nightspot. After the Dallas catastrophe, they were pilloried by Drew Pearson, one of the most influential syndicated columnists of the day, for drinking and keeping late hours on a presidential trip. However, there was no evidence at all of extensive drinking by agents of the Secret Service. As one agent told me, they were much more interested in getting a bite to eat than a drink. Meals for Secret Service agents on presidential trips could be erratic.

PART 3

A misting rain was falling in the morning when I went out to the parking lot to check on arrangements for the President's public appearance. On the roofs of nearby buildings, policemen in slickers were outlined against the gray sky. Despite the rain, the crowd continued to swell. The waiting spectators, many of them men in work clothes, quietly watched the technicians adjusting the public address system on the flatbed truck that would serve as the President's platform.

During his stop in Fort Worth, President Kennedy made time for a speech in a parking lot near the Hotel Texas. (NARA, Kennedy Library)

At 8:45 a.m., President Kennedy, Congressman Wright at his side, strode out of the hotel, neither of them wearing raincoats. Flanking them were Vice President Johnson and Senator Yarborough, with Governor Connally a few steps behind, all three wearing raincoats against the drizzle. Mrs. Kennedy had remained behind in the Kennedys' suite.

"There are no faint hearts in Fort Worth," President Kennedy began when he mounted the platform, "and I appreciate your being here this morning. Mrs. Kennedy is organizing herself. It takes longer, but, of course, she looks better than we do when she does it. . . . We appreciate your welcome."

He went on to speak about the country's defense and the part that Fort Worth, home of such major defense contractors as General Dynamics and Bell Helicopter, played in protecting national security. He touched on the nation's space effort.

The President's delivery was warm and direct. Americans, he said, must be willing to bear the burdens of world leadership. "I know one place where they are," he told his wet audience. "Here in this rain, in Fort Worth, in the United States. We are going forward."

There was prolonged applause from the eight thousand or so people in the parking lot. The President reentered the hotel and, after stopping for some conversations along the way, proceeded to the grand ballroom. As prearranged, the breakfasters were on their coffee when the President walked through the kitchen and down the aisle to the head table to vigorous applause. I watched from the kitchen doorway.

At one point the President beckoned Agent Duncan to the head table and told him to ask Mrs. Kennedy to come down to the ballroom. He also told Duncan to ask the orchestra to play "The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You" when she arrived in the ballroom. Agents Mike Howard and Clint Hill escorted Mrs. Kennedy down from the Kennedys' suite. Lovely in a pink suit, which later would become one of the symbols of the day, she came into the kitchen as Raymond Buck was introducing those at the head table. She waited. Then, with a grand gesture, Buck swung the attention of the audience to the kitchen entrance. Mrs. Kennedy stepped into the room to a tumultuous welcome and joined her husband as the orchestra complied with the President's musical request.

Buck presented the Texas hat and boots to the President. Kennedy thanked him and, to no one's surprise, did not put on the hat—nor, of course, the boots. He began his address lightly, referring to the frequent rising for applause during the introductions.

"I know why everyone in Texas. Fort Worth, is so thin, having gotten up and down about nine times. This is what you do every morning . . ."

He paid tribute to his wife: "Two years ago, I introduced myself in Paris by saying that I was the man who had accompanied Mrs. Kennedy to Paris. I am getting somewhat the same sensation as I travel around Texas. Nobody wonders what Lyndon and I wear."

The President's prepared remarks were directed to the country's defense posture. The parking lot talk had been a foretaste of what was to come. He enlarged upon Fort Worth's contribution to air defense: World War II bombers, combat helicopters, the new TFX planes. It was a speech written for a Texas chamber of commerce, and it was enthusiastically received. The President came up the aisle with his wife. Their young and vibrant faces flashed smiles. Hands reached out to the President and he grasped them. The Kennedys went back into the security-cleared kitchen and through a rear door to the elevators.

As the crowd moved toward the exits, craggy Congressman Albert Thomas of Houston, whose big day had been Thursday in his home city, shook my hand.

"Wonderful," he said. "Congratulations on what you fellows did here."

I felt a glow of architectonic achievement. But Congressman Thomas had something in his other hand. He handed me a hatcheck and a quarter and asked if I would mind going through the crowd to get his hat on the other side of the ballroom and meet him in the front of the hotel where the motorcade cars were drawn up. He had missed his assigned transportation once earlier in the trip and was determined not to do so again. A trifle deflated, I went after his hat. He need not have worried. The motorcade would not leave for nearly an hour.

When the Kennedys had returned to their suite shortly after 10 a.m., a rare occurrence for usually tightly scheduled presidential trips ensued: Time off. It wouldn't do for the presidential party to arrive in Dallas too early. During this hiatus, according to later accounts, President Kennedy telephoned former Vice President John Nance Garner at his home in Ulvade, Texas, to wish him a happy ninety-fifth birthday. Garner had served with President Franklin D. Roosevelt during FDR's first two terms. The Kennedys also spent time looking at the art exhibit that had been mounted in their suite especially for their visit but which they had overlooked during their midnight arrival in the hotel. The exhibit included, among other original works, a Van Gogh, a Monet, and a Picasso. The presidential couple telephoned one of the exhibit's organizers, Mrs. Ruth Carter Johnson, whose name they found on a special exhibit catalog in the suite. They thanked her and her associates for their thoughtfulness.

During this waiting period, the President's attention apparently was directed by aides to a nasty advertisement in the day's Dallas Morning News. The ad, paid for by right-wing extremists, accused the President of disloyalty to the country through softness on communism. According to William Manchester's detailed chronicle of the Texas trip in his Death of a President (1967, p. 121), Kennedy mused out loud at this point about how easy it would be to assassinate a traveling President. This was followed by a quick visit to the suite by Vice President Johnson to introduce his sister and her husband to the President. Then, before the Kennedys departed for the motorcade, the President is said to have reiterated on the telephone to aide Lawrence F. O'Brien the importance of getting Senator Yarborough to ride in the same car with the Vice President.

The refusal of Senator Yarborough to ride with the Vice President earlier in the trip, except in the motorcade from Carswell Air Force Base to the Hotel Texas under the cover of darkness, had focused press attention on the rift in the Texas Democratic Party, with Yarborough on one side and Vice President Johnson and Governor Connally on the other. The liberal Yarborough and the conservative Connally had little use for each other. The friction between Yarborough and Johnson appears to have been more complicated, perhaps caused by a clash over the exercise of prerogatives of two leading politicians of the same party in the same state and by Yarborough's perception that Johnson was too closely allied with Connally. But I leave that analysis to the students of Texas politics of the 1960s.

My principal concern after the chamber of commerce breakfast on November 22 was the loading of the motorcade. I was hoping that the process would go smoothly but was apprehensive that it would not. I had not been privy, of course, to the activities in the presidential suite after the breakfast, including the President's final, peremptory telephone order to O'Brien to seat Yarborough and Johnson in the same car. But it was obvious that this maneuver had high priority to discourage negative stories on the political feuding, which was dominating news coverage of the trip. So, after the breakfast event, the recovery mission for Congressman Thomas's hat, and conversations with Secret Service agents and lingering breakfast guests, I went out to the front of the hotel, where the cars for the motorcade were placed.

"Welcome Mr. President" read the lettering on a side of the marquee of the hotel. Two open convertibles, one for the President and the other for the Vice President, were parked at the curb; other vehicles lined up behind them. I stood to one side, arms folded, smoking, waiting. Governor Connally and his wife emerged from the hotel. David and Marjorie Belew were on the sidewalk, and David introduced me to the governor.

"I've heard about your work here in Fort Worth," Connally said. "You did a good job, I understand." There was no mention of the two unfulfilled requests from Austin. I thanked him.

Soon O'Brien and Yarborough came out of the hotel. O'Brien stood nervously by the Vice President's car. Yarborough, with him for a time, wandered away, then returned and entered the car. However, he perched on the back of the rear seat on the driver's side, and his occupancy seemed tentative. At this point O'Brien beckoned to me and asked me to seat the Vice President in the car when he came out of the hotel, adding "You can do it easier than I can." He muttered something further about his need to interact frequently with the Vice President in Washington. My job in the nation's capital did not ordinarily include such high-level associations.

A Secret Service agent from the Washington detail came back from the President's car escorting Nellie Connally, the governor's wife. There was no room for her in the President's car, which was a five-passenger model, the same as the Vice President's car. The President and Mrs. Kennedy and Governor Connally would ride in the rear seat of the President's car. The driver and agent Roy Kellerman would be up front. So there was no place for Mrs. Connally. But the Vice President's car was now reserved for the Johnsons, Yarborough, and, of course, Johnson's Secret Service agent and driver. The senator showed signs of relinquishing his seat to the lady. O'Brien, his face working, quickly moved in. To accommodate larger occupancy of the car, he ushered Mrs. Connally into the middle of the front seat. The Vice President and Mrs. Johnson came out of the hotel and approached the motorcade. O'Brien stepped back as Mrs. Johnson entered the car, and I stepped forward.

"Here is your seat, Mr. Johnson," I said cheerfully. He stared down at me while he struggled into a coat held by Secret Service agent Rufus Youngblood. The Vice President climbed into the car. The deed was done. Up ahead, the Kennedys and Governor Connally settled into their white convertible, which, Agent Howard recalls, had been borrowed by the Secret Service from professional golfer Ben Hogan. There were waves and cheers from the onlookers. The motorcade to Carswell began. Riding in a Secret Service car, Howard was pleased to see Tarrant County's "Mounted Posse" out in force to supplement police on foot. Rain had canceled the planned presence of these deputies on horseback along the incoming route the night before. There was, Howard recalls, an unscheduled stop by the presidential cavalcade along the way. In the northwest suburb of River Oaks, the line of cars paused while the President spoke to some nuns and a group of school children.

This map shows the presidential motorcade route from Carswell Air Force Base to downtown Fort Worth and back. (Courtesy of J. E. Byrne)

Ross Wilder, my helper from GSA's Dallas office, and I drove to Carswell by a different route to arrive at the air base before the motorcade did. The departure committee, formerly the welcoming committee, was already in place by prearrangement. It did its duty. Thousands of people behind the barricades raised their voices as the presidential jet took off for Dallas at 11:25 a.m., about thirteen minutes away. Members of the departure committee, faces smiling, sought me out and shook my hand. I experienced a surge of euphoria, which I would recognize later as the common feeling of advance men watching a President's plane take to the air after a successful "stop" with no untoward incidents.

We drove back to the Hotel Texas, and I made a reservation for a commercial flight home. Jerry Bruno, who had made the pre-advance of the Texas trip, telephoned from Washington, and Moyers called from Austin. Each wanted to know how the morning had gone. I told them it went well. After giving these assurances, I sat down at my portable typewriter and wrote a one-page final report on JFK's Fort Worth visit. Then I lay down for a nap.

I dozed off. Suddenly, there was a furious knocking on the door.

"Turn on your radio," Ross Wilder's voice shouted. "Your boss is shot. Turn on your radio."

I switched on the hotel radio and let him in. Bulletin followed bulletin. A voice said that two priests emerging from a Dallas hospital room had confirmed that President Kennedy was dead. We sat in stunned silence. After a while I packed up my belongings and advance-related papers. Secret Service agents Duncan, Hall and Howard were gone, racing down the thruway in a sheriff's car to join their fellow agents in Dallas. Rubley was already there. He had driven to Dallas and had been in the motorcade there. I had lost track of Harnett. There was nothing for me to do in Fort Worth. Ross Wilder drove me to Love Field in Dallas for the flight home. I had a middle seat in the plane. My sobs would not stop. Passengers on either side began to show alarm. Finally, I told them: "You will have to put up with this. I was in Texas for the President."

Articles published in Prologue do not necessarily represent the views of NARA or of any other agency of the United States Government.

The 911 Commission, after a year persuading Congress and the Pres to impliment their 41 recomindations, officially disbanded yesterday - Monday, Dec. 5.

It ended with a crying thanks from a victim family member, who must have been screened to provide the pathetic wrapup. I don't think the Jersey Girls were there.

I spent two years following the exploits of the 911 Commission, and wrote two reports - on Air Defense StandDown and John O'Neill.

Able Danger was exposed by renegade Republican Congressman from Philadelphia Curt Weldon, and the public hearings are being held up by another Philly lawyer, Arlen Spector. Weldon was also instrumental in the back channel negotiations with Quadafi, via his son, in reestablishing diplomatic and trade relations with Libya.

Some of the demoted and repremanded whistleblowers are being represented by Mark Zaid, Esq., a jfk researcher turned foia lawyer under Jim Lesar's wings, and now attorney for spy guys - especially whistleblowers like Sybil, CIA and the Able Danger DOD guys.

They say all the offical docments were destroyed routinely, just like they said about Oswald's military records, but I don't believe it. As John Newman said, copies are made and distributed of all documents, and they can't destroy them all.

When Peter Noyes wrote in his book Legacy of Doubt that Jim Braden's 1948 Camden arrest report was being withheld from him because the Camden PD was controlled by the mob, I showed that passage to my father, then a Lt. in the Camden PD and he handed me the original file the next day. "The secretaries in the records office didn't want to go down into the cellar and get dirty," he explained. So much for the mob control of America's most dangerous city.

I am persuaded by Jeff Morley's reasoned arguments that one day we will know it all, and all the records will be released, about JFK, MLK, Watergate and 911 Able Danger, it's just a matter of getting the public to insist on the enforcement of the JFK Act and demand that all the records of government be open to the public at some point in time.

BK

John,

Judge King certainly did put the Christic Institute out of business. They were a true threat to the covert action boys, and Dan Sheehan was certainly targeted for retribution for his efforts.

Bill: Dan Sheehan has long been one of my MAJOR heros in life and I have wondered for years now what became of him. He just disappeared. Do you happen to know to where?

Also, the "former Catholic priest" who co-founded COPA would not be the (wonderful) James Douglas would it?

Dawn

Hello Dawn,

Sorry about being so tardy in response, but yes, as John has pointed out, it was Bill Davies. At those first early COPA organizational meetings, I sat between Bill Davies and Peter Dale Scott at tables arranged in a square so we all faced each other - about 30 people, also including Jim Lesar, Dan Alcorn, John Judge, John Newman, and others. I drove down from Atlantic City with Robert C., a Cherry Hill N.J. police Lt. The meetings were held over two days, and during breaks for lunch or afterwards we all walked around the corner to the Hawk & Dove bar. I talked with Davies, who was then from California, more than any of the others, a very mellow guy, though I don't know what happened to him.

The American reporter injured in the bomb explosion in Central America was Tony Avirgan, and the target of the bomb was Sandinesta Commander Zero, a non-communist who fought the Contras.

Although the Christic Institute failed, I think their legal tactics worked and that they should be reapplied to the political assassinations in the United States.

BK

As for whether he is a certified CIA asset or not, if you follow the money, and the non-profiot "philantropic" foundations who fund his "research" you will find some interesting ABLE DANGER type assocations. It's quite clear who is paying his freight; not the Nation.

And don't forget that it was the Nation that published Jean Daniel's original report of having been with Castro when he was informed that JFK was dead, and what Castro's reaction was, "This is very bad...."

BK

Bill, wasn't it New Republic who broke the Daniel story? Are you a disinfo agent? (A JOKE)

Hello Pat, And you are absolutly right about the New Republic and Jean Daniel story. I even used to subscribe to the New Republic, that's how liberal I used to be in my misguided youth. I stand corrected. Where's Gary Mack? I thought that was his job.

I have been talking with author of the Max & the Nation article Gary Aguliar however, and am expanding on my thesis that the Tony Lucas Foundatioun has taken over some of the CIA propaganda ops from the Catherwood Foundation.

Also, along these same lines, though it probably deserves a mention on the Mockingbird thread, the current issue of Rolling Stone (which did publish Bernstein's article on CIA use of journalists), has an article by James Bamfored - The Man Who Sold The War - about John Rendon - another Jersey Guy, who the CIA and Pentagon paid millions - $100 million as part of PR campaign to sell the war in Iraq. Very interesting.

BK

John,

Judge King certainly did put the Christic Institute out of business. They were a true threat to the covert action boys, and Dan Sheehan was certainly targeted for retribution for his efforts.

According to one of the bios of Ed Wilson, he was in charge, while Oswald was USMC in Japan, for U2 base security, which may have allowed their paths to cross.

They got Wilson for being out of control, but he certainly was connected. Having been incarcerated in Federal Pen with Noreaga, Wilson is slated to be released soon, compliments of an appeals judge in Texas who threw out one of his convictions. Now that the USA is pals with Quadafi, maybe they'll get back in business again once they spring Wilson.

Sheehan was most certainly a threat because he tried to apply the RICO statutes, authored by our good friend GRB, which was meant to attack organzed crime, but fit in with the RICO standards of rackettering.

During the course of the trial, which lasted years, I attened a lecture and press conference in Philadelphia with one of the American journalists wounded in a contra-bomb attack, an assassination attempt on one of the Sandinista leaders. The American reporter was severely wounded, grounds for his civil suit and party to the RICO suit against the bombers - Secord, et al.

Of course a similar civil suit, with the cooperation of James Tague, could be brought against the DP shooters and those responsible for killing JFK and wounding Connally, as he certainly was a victim too.

I wanted to get Sheehan to apply the same legal tactics to JFK, but once he went down, he left town (DC), but one of his assistants, a former Catholic priest, helped formed COPA when we met for the first organizational meeting at the Capitol Hill Friends Meeting House.

Although the COPA board of directors have not met in over two years, the organization is still in existence, John Judge is the secretary, and it has filed civil suits in the past, one of which was successful in prying loose the DOD USA After-Action reports on Memphis at the time of the MLK assassination. That suit was appealed by COPA attorney Dan Alcorn, but the last appeal before the Supreme Court, was rejected and Dan thought it a waste of time and money to try to go there.

COPA was founded as a non-profit, but not the type that you can make tax-deductable donations to, which allows it to endorse political candidates and to make organizational civil suits.

Alcorn is not supportive of the Grand Jury Project because he is primarily a defense attorney and FOIA specialist, and not a prosecutor. Judge is against using COPA in a JFK civil suit because of what they did to the Christic Institute.

Attorneys like Sheehan and Alcorn, who put their careers on the line for such lost causes are a rare breed.

I have more on the Christic Institute RICO action and COPA's MLK case if people are interested.

Bill Kelly

Hi Lee,

Thanks for Running down that lead, man.

I just didn't think it would go somewhere.

Another film that relates to the assassination that I am interested in finding out more about is a documentary movie that is said to have the title: How Hollywood Makes Movies, which was the featured presentation in a carnival tent at the Texas State Fair in Dallas in October, 1963.

Among those who worked at this operation were Larry Crafard and one of Jack Ruby's girl's, Joyce McDonald, I think (and not the Joyce McDonald who worked at Magnolia Oil).

While I have interviewed the Magnolia Oil McDonald, a friend of Volkmar Schmidt, this McDonald became friends with Jean Aase (aka West) when her companion, Larry Meyers, was otherwise preoccupied while they were in Dallas over the assassination weekend.

In October, Ruby took Larry Meyers to the fair just to visit this particular operation, and convinced him to invest some money in it, which he did, writing a check out to Ruby.

Now who was behind this How Hollywood Makes Movies outfit seem to be important to Ruby, as he gets Meyers to help them out financially and then gives jobs to two of the carnies, both of whom become important, and elusive witnesses.

Maybe there's a film freek who could help track down that documentary, who produced it? Who syndicated it? Etc., and that may pan out.

Bk

bkjfk3@yahoo.com

From what I recall from a previous inquiry into this ad, it may have been a publicity stunt for a movie that was to be released at the time called The Running Man, though I have never verified this.

BK

Football legend George (Georgie) Best died today aged 60. I saw Bestie play on many occasions, and he was without doubt the most naturally talented footballer Britian ever produced. RIP George

..great little snippet re. Guy F. and Parliament: yours.,or quoted?? I'd like to reuse it

Wait a minute. What do you mean "the most naturally talented footballer Britian ever produced"?

I thought George was a Mick? Is not Northern Irleand a sea apart from Britian?

My favorite George Best quote is, "I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars, the rest I squandured."

Bill Kelly

For those unfamiliar with Justice for the Crew of the Thresher or the contents of DPD Archives Box 4, JFCOTT - was said to be the name of the families of the victims of the Thresher, some of whom reportedly visited a Mr. Bray, who worked for Bendix or one of the defense contractors on the West Coast who made some of the Thresher parts that may have failed when the Thresher went down (the date is somehow significant but I can't think why).

In any case, Bray's visitors threatened Connally, as former Sec Nav, and the scenario appeared very similar to the Odio case, establishing an alternative motive for the assassination, and probably alternate patsy as well, although Oswald was groomed to fit this role as well. There was a trial, Bray v. Bendix, and a film of the assassination, other than the Zapruder film is mentioned in the trial transcripts, of which a microfilm record exists (copy was reportedly sent to Gordon Winslow by an Ohio researcher).

When I became intrigued by the submarine connection I started a SUB file, that kept getting bigger when I learned things like - Clay Shaw wrote a play about a sub crew stuck underwater, DeMohrenschildt's friend Adml. Chester Bruton (of Collins Radio) was a former Nuke sub commander working with Collins on a new radio communications system for subs, and Navy Lt. Com. Narut said that the trained assassins were recruited from Sub crews.

General Dynamics, the New England sub manufacturer, also designed and made the swift boats that were to replace the anti-Castro Cuban CIA navy attack boats, and is affiliated with the Woods Hole acoustics lab in Mass. whilch is just off the private Island owned by the Forbes family, where Ruth Paine visited her inlaws in the summer of 63.

I don't know what's in the DPD Box 4, but my Sub file box is full, and I don't know what to make of it.

Just today I added to it when I clipped a review of a new book Red Star Rogue - The Untold Story of the Soviet Submarine's Nuclear STrike Attack on the U.S. by Kenneth Sewell and Clint Richmond (Simon & Schuster), which makes the claim that Soviet sub K129 was engaged in an attempt to nuke Pearl Harbor as a Northwoods type of instigation of a war between China and USA.

BK

Dawn, indict WHO?

One suggestion: Indict Files; seek the death penalty; see what he then says.

But use a "Files grand jury" to re-open the investigation.

Problem is whether a responsible DA would indict Files.

T.G.

You're the one who brings up Files. I don't think anyone has even mentioned him seriously here.

First off, DAs don't indict, they take the evidence to a grand jury, who examines the evidence and then votes on whether to indict or not.

There are dozens of crimes - and once a grand jury begins takeing sworn testimony - perjury.

Forget Files, the Paines would be first in line.

BK

Here's a contemporary image of Gordy (left) and that wacko John Alexander. This is not the image referred to in the article Bill posted.

James

Hello Jack, Robert, my feelings too -

and James,

I thought you'd have a pix of Breck Wall and his Bottom's Up Girls in some skimpy outfits.

Maybe we should all chip in and book Breck Wall and his Bottoms Up review for the next JFK Conference, it might boost attendance.

BK

BK’S Top 5 JFK Assassination Books – Bill Kelly – Bkjfk3@yahoo.com

Hello David,

Okay, and after careful consideration, I’ll throw my hat in this ring too.

One of the first articles I ever had published professionally was a review of books about the assassination [see: The Kennedy Beat Goes On - from the 70s, which I think holds up pretty good after all these years, errr,…decades. ]

I’ve tried to keep up with all new books. This is not a list of the best books on the subject, nor the ten most influential, but rather, the ones that I believe you need to read in order to figure out the crime.

Agreed with David on Tony, the best investigative journalist on the case, when he is on the case, and I’m proud to have worked with him and contributed in a small way to the Jim Braden and Carl Mather sections of the book. But we’ve come along way since then. I couldn’t come up with just five, so I limited it to five areas, and a few obscure but important books.

1) Not In Your Lifetime – by Anthony Summers, the one book that puts it all together and deals with most of the significant issues in the right way. But Tony’s book is built on the firm ground set down by Sylvia Meagher, Joshia Thompson, Mark Lane, Vince Salandria, Penn Jones and other early independent researchers.

2) – The Fish Is Red (William Turner/Warren Hinkle) or Turner’s bio Rearview Mirror by former renegade FBI agent who runs down almost every important alley, follows the leads to New Orleans and Florida and gives an accurate report on what he finds. While Dick Russell, Gaeton Fonzi and today Larry Hancock take the same paths much further, Turner kicked open the door and went in first.

3) – The Warren Report or William Manchester’s Death of A President, though conceding the lone assassin senario, give the details you need to know, but fail to go the extra mile on all important leads.

4) – Nightwatch – by David Atlee Phillips, gives you the necessary historical context and gets you into the Great Game, learning the tradecraft of the game, which can also be learned from - The Craft of Intelligence, by Alan Dulles, or his girlfriend’s memoirs Autobiography of a Spy – by Mary Bancroft. Dulles suggests Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, which has a chapter on the use of secret agents, the five types of agents and how when they are used properly, are the Devine Scheme.

5) - As for strategy and techniques that were used in the assassination of JFK, Ed Lutwack’s Coup d’etat – A Practical Handbook lays out the procedures for taking over a government by coup (as opposed to insurrection, revolution or election) and reflects the need for the coup plotters to control communications.

Then there’s Paul Linebarger who wrote the textbook Propaganda and Pyschological Warfare, but when he taught such students as Ed Lansdale, E. Howard Hunt and David Atee Phillips, as a text he used The American Confidence Man (Charles C. Thomas, Pub. 1974 ), by Professor David W. Maurer, professor of linguistics at the University of Louisville, Kentucky.

Maurer’s The American Confidence Man is a fascinating book that I picked up for a quarter at a used book store, before I knew of Linebarger’s use of it to train his covert operatives.

In the course of his study of language, Maurer focused on the slang words used and developed by confidence gangs of the 1920s and 1930s, when the Big Con Big Store – was refined like a theatrical performance, one of which was the Wire, the fake western union wire and horse betting parlor as portrayed in the movie The Sting, one of the words Maurer helped define more clearly.

When I recognized the movie plot in the book, I called the linguistics dept. at UL and while Maurer had died, his former assistant acknowledged that Maurer had the same sensation I did when he saw the movie and recognized his book. He notified his attorney, who inquired with the production company, and the screenwriters, who denied having read Maurer’s book. But when they got the screenwriter on the stand in court, under oath, he couldn’t explain where they got the name Charlie Gondorf, one of the most prolific and real inside man on the Big Con, as outlined in Maurer’s book, and no where else. Maurer never got the recognition but eventually got some money from the Hollywood con men who tried to steal his research.

The idea is that what happened at Dealey Plaza should be looked on, not as a homicide, but as a Big Con job, with JFK being the Mark.

All the other details are just props, smoke and mirrors.

BK

Below is my review from the 1970s:

Parting Shot – The Kennedy Beat Goes On – Broadsider Magazine – Ocean City, New Jersey.

By William Kelly [Published June 19, 1976 by Marion Talese/Edited by Kurt Loder]

Since the murder of President John F. Kennedy almost thirteen years ago, countless books have been written – and at least a hundred of them published – documenting the assassination. And more of them are in the works. Six new books worthy of attention have been published this year alone, riding a wave of media publicity left in the wake of the recently renewed congressional investigation.

Not since Warren Commission attorney David Belin attempted to defend the findings of the original panel of investigators (in November 22, 1963 – You Are the Jury, Quadrangle Books) has anyone attempted to p;ut forth the notion that a lone nut – Lee Harvey Oswald – was the sole culpret. The most recently published works, in fact, all argue rather persuasively that the deed was done by agent-technicians of either the CIA, the Mafia, anti-Castro Cubans – or all three in concert.

Establishment Quack

Without a doubt, the last word has not been written on this subject – despite the rather inflated title of Appointment in Dallas: The Final Solution to the Assassination of JFK, which is probably the most widely discussed of the new books – Appointment is rife with tidbits of previously published research, and is the work, I believe, of a quack. Despite his certified Establishment credentials, author Hugh McDonald offers us nothing much beyond an astonishing tale of how he came to meet a man in London – whom he calls Saul – who, he asserts, is a professional assassin who killed the president for $50,000.

McDonald, who was formally chief of detectives with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office, a CIA contract agent, and head of security for Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign, has told his incredible story to Geoffrey Bocca, a novelist who will probably remain unknown for his two previous books, The Life and Death of Harry Oakes and Commander Amanda. Reading The Final Solution, one cannot help but recall the Howard Hughes/Clifford Irving affair. McDonald claims that the famous photo of an unknown man leaving the Cuban embassy in Mexico City – a man originally identified by the CIA as Oswald, although he obviously isn’t – is actually ‘Saul’, the real assassin. Armed with this photo, plus a story told to him by his CIA contact officer (now conveniently deceased) and the aid of a secret anti-communist underground society in Europe known as the ‘Blue Fox,” McDonald treks across South America and Europe in search of the elusive ‘Saul’ – whom he finally catches up with (of all places) in the lobby of a London hotel in 1972.

McDonald’s 210 pages churn with Cold War intrigues and stale, anti-Russian germ-warfare propaganda (that even the CIA has by now discarded), until the last chapter – which is ‘Saul’s’ True Confession. And which is anything but plausible.

Three Tramps

A good standard to use in determining the seriousness of an historian’s research is the quality of the index, references and footnotes. Appointment in Dallas has none, while Canfield and Weberman’s Coup d’etat in America and Robert Sam Anson’s They’ve Killed the President! Are both very well documented. Both books probe deeply into the sometimes (unavoidably) confusing but important relationships between Oswald, Ruby, organized crime, and various governmental agencies.

Canfield and Weberman begin with the celebrated photographs of the three “tramps” being taken into custody by police at Dealey Plaza immediately after the assassination. Who were they? According to the authors, two of them were Watergate burglars E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis. Canfield and Weberman gave copies of these photos to ex-comedian-turned-assassination theorists Dick Gregory, who got a lot of media publicity for them and finally forced the Rockefeller Commission to look into the allegations. (It was finally decided – tentatively, at least – that they were just three tramps.)

Coup d’etat is available now only in a $12 hardbound which makes it somewhat inaccessible to the general public, but Anson’s They’ve Killed the President – The Search for the Murderers of John F. Kennedy is readily available at your corner bookstore in a $2.50 Bantam paperback edition. It covers much of the same ground as Coup d’etat, but in a less paranoid, more reasonable – and ultimately more convincing – style. Working with a $25,000 advance, Anson, a political editor for New Times magazine, has put together a meticulous manuscript that covers the assassination in a sound, logical manner, from the curious ballistic evidence down to the Cuban connections.

Of the remaining books published recently, two are edited texts containing articles and news clippings previously published in various periodicals by both newsmen and independent researchers. Government By Gunplay, edited by Sid Blumenthal, of the Boston-based Assassination Information Bureau, is available at Mark’s Central News here in Ocean City for $1.50, and includes articles by former Pentagon/CIA liaison officer L. Fletcher Prouty; old New Left theorists Carl Oglesby; and Robert Groden, the optics expert who restored the original Zapruder film and finally got it onto national TV for the fist time – last year.

Awaiting the Last Word

The Assassination: Dallas and Beyond, edited by Peter Dale Scot, a professor at the University of California , is probably the most vital recent edition to assassination literature. It is an authoritative text containing 43 articles and important documents for serious conspiracy buffs and students of history at the college level.

For newcomers to the politics of assassination, re-issued classics now available in paperback at local bookstores include Mark Lane’s Rush to Judgement, first issued in 1966; Jim Garrison’s Heritage of Stone and Sylvia Meaagher’s brilliant but expensive ($7) Accessories After the Fact.

The most recent paperback available is JFK: The Case for Conspiracy, by F. Peter Model and the aforementioned Robert Groden, which is published by Manor Books, costs $1.95, and contains some rather disturbing color frames of the Zapruder film and an analysis of recent news reports on the assassination.

Certainly, the last word has yet to be written on the events that took place in Dallas thirteen years ago – and which have haunted us ever since. The only thing now known for sure is that the hard questions remain to this day unanswered.

[Ed Note: William Kelly has read the Warren Commission Report and 26 volumes of supporting records and is a substitute history teacher at Ocean City High School. ]

Adam and Shanet,

What you are confusing here is a breakdown in communications and acceptable practice from 1963 to present. The Tampa threat was not passed on to Dallas no more than the Chicago threat was passed on to Tampa. This is not conspiratorial, but simply a lack of communications that was not an issue prior to the Kennedy assassination as it is so blatent aftarwards.

HI AL, BUT I HAVE TO AGREE WITH SHANET, AND DON'T BELIEVE THAT IT WAS SIMPLY A MATTER OF A BREAKDOWN IN COMMUNICATIONS OR INCOMPITANCE ON THE PART OF THE SS.

AN ARTICLE IN PROLOGUE - THE MAGAZINE OF THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES & RECORDS AD OF A FEW YEARS AGO, BY THE SS ADVANCE MAN FOR FORT WORTH, DETAILS THE ROUTINE THEY GO THOUGH EVERY WHERE, EXCEPT DALLAS. WILL GET A CITATION FOR THIS ARTICLE, BECAUSE IT IS IMPORTANT.

Presently, the USSS sends an agent in advance that is in a primary intelligence role to communicate with the local USSS and LE...As far as the issue of watching open windows and overpasses; The secret service maintains security within the motorcade and at points of arrival, departure and destination. Even at these points, they rely heavily on local LE to provide the majority of physical security. In a moving motorcade, the Secret Service does not have agents on the ground and rely on local LE to provide security. The majority of this security is to block off traffic and to focus on points of concern along the motorcade route. To say that all open windows along a motorcade route are to be monitored is rediculous, considered Dallas alone and how many buildings were along the motorcade route....This is not conspiratorial, simple poor judgement and poor communications.

I will comment further if needed.

Al

AL, WITH YOUR BACKGROUND ON THESE SECURITY ISSUES, I'D LIKE YOU TO READ THE PROLOGUE ARTICLE IF I CAN DIG IT UP, AND COMMENT ON FLETCHER PROUTY'S FOLLOWING COMMENTS. PLEASE NOTE THE REFERENCES TO SECURITY AND FINAL SENTENCE.

I FIRST ENCOUNTERED PROUTY AT A NYU LAW SCHOOL SYMPOSIUM ON THE JFK ASSASSINATION, AND SAT IN ON A LECTURE HE GAVE ON COVERT OPERATIONAL PROCEDURES THAT WENT SOMETHING LIKE THIS:

The Anatomy of Assassination – By L. Fletcher Prouty – From Uncloaking The CIA (Edited by Howard Frazier, The Free Press, Macmillan, 1978, p. 196-209)

Assassination is big business. In fact, assassination is the business of big business and of the CIA and of any other power center that can pay for the “hit” and control the assured getaway. Rare is the individual “nut” who even gets a chance to shoot a chief of state or other big figure. The CIA brags that its operations in Iran in 1953 led to the pro-Western alignment of that important country. It takes credit for what it calls the “perfect job” in Guatemala. Both were achieved by assassination. In the Dominican Republic, Trujillo was removed by assassination. In Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem was removed by assassination. In both countries the hand of the CIA was evident. But what is this assassination business? How does it really work? How is it set up?

In all but a handful of countries around the world, power simply rests in the hands of those who have it until someone else is strong enough to take it away. There is little or no provision for change. The strongman stays in power until he dies or is removed by a coup d’etat, which often mean by assassination…

What, then, are the actual mechanics of an assassination? (In the business, the assassin – the professional secret murderer – is in fact, called a “mechanic”) How is an assassination made? If the CIA is involved, how does the CIA lay it on? The reality is much different from the usual picture. There is not some young character – an Oswald, a Ray, a Sirhan, or a Bremer – who broods over things for months, who writes a queer diary, who sends away for a mail-order gun and then draws attention to himself by all manner of strange activities. These are the characteristics of the “patsy” and the cover story. The real assassination scenario is quite different.

[bK NOTE:] Foreign assassinations, and to a degree domestic murders of that kind, are set in motion not so much by a definite plan to kill the intended victim as by a sinister plan to remove or relax the protective organization that is absolutely essential to keep the victim/leader alive.

If the CIA lets it be known, ever so secretly, that it is displeased with a certain ruler and that it would not raise a finger against a new regime, you may be sure that some cabal will move against that ruler…..

Murder is the violent and unlawful killing of one human being by another. Assassination is murder, but the motivation and sometimes the method is different. Historically assassination is the murder of the enemies of a religious sect as a sacred religious duty. The assassin is a professional secret murderer who kills for someone else or for a great cause. In many cases today, the religious called “anti-communism” is such a greater cause….

We re now finally beginning to hear much about the CIA and the subject of assassinations, both domestic and foreign….By the summer of 1963 ( a summer that we should write about and research a lot more because it was a very important period),…By August of 1963 memoranda were being circulated in the highest offices of the U.S. government. (At the time I was working in the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.) These papers were so secret that they were unmarked, with no classification, and hand-carried from “need-to-know” person to “need-to-know” person. If papers are really that secret, you don’t put “top secret” stamps on them, or “eyes only” stamps on them, or registered numbers on them. You don’t put anything on them….

The actual killing was a simple thing, “for the good of the cause.” The USA and the CIA could wash their hands of it. They had nothing to do with it. Like all assassinations, it had just happened….

Since World War II there have been hundreds of coup d’etats, a common euphemism for assassination. The list will grow for as long as the United States chooses to do its diplomatic work clandestinely….

Practitioners of the profession of assassination by the removal of power reach the point where they see that the technique as one fit for the removal of any opposition anywhere. Thus it was that President Kennedy was killed – not by some lone gunman, not by some limited conspiracy, but by the breakdown of the very system that should have functioned to make an assassination impossible. Once insiders knew that he would not be protected, it was easy to pick the day and the place. In fact, those responsible for luring him to that place on that day were not even in on the plan itself.

The President went to Texas innocuously enough to dedicate a hospital facility at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio. That simple event brought him to the state. It was not too difficult then to get him to stop at Fort Worth “to mend political fences” and accept the plaudits and the backslaps and thee promises of votes from the millionaires and the billionaires at General Dynamics who had just bought off the tremendous $6.5 billion contract for the TFX, a plane that hasn’t flown very well even yet. And, of course, no good politician would go to Fort Worth and skip Dallas. All the conspirators had to do after that was to let the right “mechanics” know that the President would be there, when he would be there, what time he would be there and, most importantly, that the usual precautions would not have been made and that escape would be facilitated.

[bK - ALSO PLEASE NOTE: ]

This is the greatest single key to that assassination: Who had the power to call off or drastically reduce the usual security precautions that are always in effect – by law – whenever a President travels? The answer to this question is more important to me than a genealogy of Lee Harvey Oswald or the people on the grassy knoll.

Thanks to Florida Frog for passing this on, however belatedly, july 18, 2005, from Victoria Alexander's The Devil's Hammer - entertainment tidbits

JFK IN NEVERLAND

Las Vegas: Satan Vacations Here July 18, 2005 JFK Conspiracy, Tibet (Part 1) and Who's Your Daddy?.....

Right before I left Las Vegas for Tibet, our good friend Gordon Novel called about his March meeting with Michael Jackson. Gordon, notoriously misidentified as “The Second Oswald” and “The Umbrella Man” in a famous assassination (regardless of what conspiracy theorists claim, Gordon denies being in Dallas that day. He was on an arms dealer’s yacht), had come forward as a torch blower in the Michael Jackson Child Molestation case. (In Shigatse, Tibet we heard via text messaging that MJ had been found “Not Guilty” on all charges.) So it is now deemed socially okay for grown men to masturbate in bed sleeping next to other people’s sons. In Vanity Fair’s July issue Maureen Orth threw a lightning bolt into the case by interviewing Gordon.

Gordon is one of our dearest friends and I teased him mercilessly about meeting with MJ and giving him “grooming tips.” (Photo of Gordon (left) with John Alexander in Las Vegas.)From Maureen Orth’s Vanity Fair article:“Take General Maximo Overkill, for instance. That’s his soldier of fortune’s nom de guerre. His real name is Gordon Novel, and he moves in those spooky circles which he calls “high strange,” where conspiracies flourish and cloak-and-dagger investigations overlap. He cut his teeth working for former New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison on the J.F.K. assassination, and he boasts that he served as former attorney general Ramsey Clark’s “Doberman” at Waco.”But the shocker comes with the following declarations by Gordon:“The general was blunt with Jackson. “I told him, ‘Get rid of the weird persona. You look like the weird pedophile. I’m talking about the hair, lipstick, eyebrows. Just be yourself, and say why you’re doing it. Say that’s your show-biz personality. It’s just what you do to sell LPs.’ He said, ‘No. I just want to be me.’” The general also told him to find a female lover. “He didn’t want to go with girls, do the romance thing either. He didn’t want to come to Jesus; he thinks he’s already religious. I said, ‘Why didn’t you stop fooling around with kids?’ He said, ‘I didn’t want to.’”We had lunch with the General on July 3 in Las Vegas. After much discussion about what went on during the General’s private meeting with MJ at Neverland (and not revealed to Orth), the General talked about the car crash hit on Princess Diana.

In other J.F.K. assassination news, Las Vegas entertainer Breck Wall also called me before our Tibet trek. Breck’s topless afternoon burlesque revue, “Bottom’s Up,” recently closed at the Flamingo Hotel & Casino after a four-year run. It has been a fixture on the Las Vegas scene on and off since 1964. Breck entered the J.F.K. Assassination Conspiracy cabal because he was Jack Ruby’s roommate and best friend! He is now ready to go on the lecture circuit. He can be contacted at 702-735-0093 or by emailing him at breckbu@aol.com. (See jfkassassination.net or any other JFK assassination website.)

WHERE WILL IT ALL END?

BOTTOMS UP? ON LECTURE TOUR? MAYBE SOME STUDENTS CAN GET CREDIT FOR SEEING THE SHOW?

IF ANYONE MAKES CONTACT WITH EITHER OF THESE SUSPICIOUS SUSPECTS, PLEASE LET ME KNOW HOW IT GOES

- bk

Perhaps we could get one of the regional broadband consortia to be a sponsor. They have a mission to provide services and content to English schools.

Andy,

I would think that any kind of pay to play, read or post would not be good.

Besides ads, and educational sponsors, I would suggest that a philanthropic non profit, tax deductable foundation that supports edication projects would fit the bill.

Bill Kelly

Something to consider in the event any evidence is found: the murder of John Kennedy was and remains a state felony, it was not and is not a federal crime. The law enacted that made presidential assassinations a federal offense could not be applied retroactively, so the only "authorities" that exist are here in the State of Texas. We have already seen with the Roscoe White affair (among others) that the Texas AG takes these things fairly seriously ... if there's anything of substance to them.

...

Yo! Duke, and hello Deb,

If we have to wait on the State of Texas for justice, it'll never happend.

Duke, the murder of John Kennedy was and remains a conspiracy, and thus falls into federal jurisdiction. It was not a federal crime if there was not a conspiracy, but since there is multible evidence of conspiracy, it was and is a federal crime.

In addition, homicide is not the only crime involved in this case, but there are many others - and once a grand jury is conviened, and witnesses and suspects questioned under oath - perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, conspiracy, treason, the Pinkerton doctrine comes into play and what's the crime they applied to the commies in "I Led Three Lives" ?

I will be leading a Grand Jury Project Seminar on this topic and related issues soon.

For more information on grand juries, see Susan Brenner's web site at the University of Dayton School of Law.

Bill Kelly

bkjfk3@yahoo.com

[quote name='William Kelly' date='Nov 27 2005, 12:29 AM' post='46563']

John Abt: Wasn't that the name of the attorney LHO keep requesting to speak with, or have represent him?

Yes, that is who he asked for. I spent years trying to find him in the early 70's thru mid 80's. Called ACLU all over, including NY where he was allededly out of. But never could find him. I wanted to ask HIM why he thought Lee was asking for him, if he ever learned this, and what his response whould have been.

Anyone here ever manage to track him down and ask those questions?

Dawn

Hello Dawn,

John Abt did testify before the Warren Commission, one of the shortest testimonies on record, quick hello, who are you, why are you here? Okay, Goodbye, perfunctory interviews, just to say that they did it.

More important is the book I Led Three Lives, which gets into the types of cases that Abt handled, at least the cases Oswald was familiar with. I hope somebody got to Abt and asked him the right questions because I think he's dead, though I could be wrong on that count.

And Dawn, I wanted to say that I think the topic of this thread is probably the most important one on topic at this point in time, and hope we can get back to it sometime.

Bill Kelly

Thanx Bill. I just now thought of something. I read someplace last week that Dallas DA Bill Hill is not running for re-election. Wouldn't it be terrific is someone who gives a xxxx ran, got elected and convened a Grand Jury there, while there are people still living TO indict??? Justa thought....

Dawn

New Orleans DA Harry Connick, Sr. also has been replaced, so there is some new blood in the ranks, who could conceiveably at least read a grand jury petition and consider it.

I think it will be easier to convince an asst. Federal DA to take the evidence to his boss - a Federal District Attorney - like Fitzpatrick - and get them to empanal a special grand jury, and once that happens, the folks in Dallas and New Orleans will try to claim jurisdiction and do their own, though after what happend to Garrison, it won't be an easy sell.

BK

Would love to hear your views on the Nosenko matter, sir.

AGREED.

Mr. Wallace - what a great name - am also interested in Nosekno matter. I wonder why mad max never brings him up?

Have read the cia report on the five different studies of Nosekno and how each approached the problem differently, and arrived at their conclusions.

And now we have Mitrokin.

Bill Kelly

bkjfk3@yahoo.com

Based on what's been said here and on the JFK Lancer forum, I don't think I know enough about Greg Jackson, et al. to risk a $119.95 annual subscription. We don't really know what kind of track record these guys have. However, if one is intrigued, it may not be too risky to go for the month by month ($9.99) option.

Roger

ROGER THAT,

OKAY, I TALKED TO GARY ON THE PHONE AND AS SUSPECTED, HE HASN'T BEEN 'HIRED' BY THESE GUYS. HE'S A MEDICAL PRO, AND NOT WORKING FOR ANY MAG, THOUGH HE SAID HE DID TALK TO THEM AND AGREED TO CONTRIBUTE ARTICLES, WITHOUT COMPENSATION.

I THINK GARY IS RIGHT THERE IN SAN FRAN WITH YOU ROGER.

BK

Pat, Bill (etc)

......Mailer was still a good guy. He threw a huge fundraiser at his NY home and all the critics were invited. Carl Oglesby was the guest of honor. It was guite the evening. The next day Mailer had us- (the Assassination INformation Bureau and girlfriends of)- over for lunch and he was most gracious and adament about the innocence of LHO. .....Dawn

Yea, I watched Mailer get sloshed after a talk at school. He's a bad but interesting drunk who wrote an entire book about what it was like to sleep in Oswald's bed in Minsk, which he chalked off as 'research.'

Dawn, is there an official organization of the Girlfriends of the Assassinations Informaiton Bureau - that would be the GAIB?

Is that when the AIB was near Dupont Circle in DC or when in Boston?

BK

Yes, Bill, it's almost a twenty-four hour job! (By "job" I do not, of course, infer I am on anyone's payroll. I was, but they read John's post about my effectiveness and fired me!)

FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN THE CONTINUING DEVELOPMENTS ON THE MLK RECORDS ACT, THE BILL, AS INTRODUCED IN THE HOUSE BY REP. MCKINNEY, IS GETTING MORE AND MORE CO-SPONSORS AND SUPPORT IN THE HOUSE, BUT HAS YET TO BE INTRODUCED IN THE SENATE.

I INTRODUCED JOHN JUDGE - THE BILL'S PRINCIPAL AUTHOR, TO MY SENATOR JOHN CORZINE WHEN WE MET IN THE CONGRESSIONAL CORRIDORS - CORZINE WAS RECENTLY ELECTED GOVERNOR OF NJ, AND, AS WE DO THINGS HERE IN JERSEY - HE GETS TO CHOOSE HIS REPLACEMENT IN THE SENATE - AND MAY TAP STATE SENATOR NIA GILL, A BLACK WOMEN, WHO WOULD BE THE SIXTH BLACK PERSON AND SECOND BLACK WOMEN IN THE SENATE.

LETS SEE HOW THIS PLAYS OUT.

BK

Bill wrote:

I think Shirley Martin is a major character in the pulp paperback book The Scavangers and Critics of the Warren Report by Lawrence Schiller - I'm probabaly spelling his name wrong, but like Posner, he's not so much a hired-gun writer as a journalsitic whore - who has also done jobs on Lenny Bruce, O.J. and other hot topics

According to Belli's memoirs, Schiller helped persuade Belli to represent Ruby. According to Joan Mellen's book, Schiller also assisted Lawrence Howard during the Garrison probe.

Schiller also did substantial research for Norman Mailer's books, "Harlot's Ghost" and "Oswald's Tale" (or at least one of them.

I think he is a competent rearcher and a good writer (several books to his credit) so characterizing him as a "whore" may not be fair to the man.

Yea, Tim, did you read Mailer's books? Mailer paid Schiller as much as he paid alimony to his ex-wives, and Mel Bell did Ruby no favors. And if he assisted Larry Howard, he probably obstructed justice. Schiller was paid well for trashing independent researchers in Scavingers, his mission is not the truth, he walks like a whore, he talks like a whore, he writes like a whore, so you want to call him a duck? The Schil's a schill. Why be fair to someone who wasn't fair to Shirley Martin, Mae Brussell, Sylvia Meagher, Mary Ferrell or Oswald?

BK

I was interested to read Joan Mellen's footnotes about Max Holland's role in trying to poison the well of the Italian independent communist newpaper as soviet inkwell. What stuck out for me was that Holland was on the editorial board of the nation.

Has anyone read the book The CIA and Culture by Francis Stoner Saunders? (New Press, 2000). She primarily focusses on a cold war left liberal magazine called Encounter. This was a CIA created mag, that was targetted to the social democratic, academic types in the U.S., with the goal of keeping this SMALL BUT STRATEGICALLY IMPORTANT part of the political spectrum sufficiently anti-soviet or anti-'neautralist' in their foreign policy. She points out that the CIA was no oaf as far as propagandizing to this audience:....Why is Holland writing in The Nation? Is it playing a similar firewall role (targetting those readers on the left who might most likely be suspicious of the cia) that Encounter played for a similar, small but strategically important audience between 1954 and 1963?

This is of course speculative. I don't have a shred of evidence proving that Holland is an asset. (Although Mellen writes that his writing has appeared on the CIA's websight).....

Okay Nate, I have a shred of evidence.

Back when the CIA was first established (1947), Frank Wisner came up with the idea of getting wealthy, patriotic people to establish philanthropic non-profit foundations - orgs., that would be used as a tax write off and a means to funnell money to covert CIA operations. David Wise and Thomas Ross, in thier groundbreaking book The Invisible Government, identified some of these orgs, including, in a footnote, the Philadelphia based Catherwood Foundation.

Among the CIA's ops funded by the Catherwood Foundation was a special project with the International Division of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism [see: Catherwood Foundation ], and a special journalism award The Columbia-Catherwood Award.

Since Catherwood's CIA ties were exposed, his name was taken off the award, tough the CIA continued their association with Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, which also administers the Pulitzer Prize. Two such prizes [one for Common Ground] were awared to J. Anthony Lucas, an exceptional journalist whose last assignment, before he committed suicide, was to write a book [big Trouble : A Murder in a Small Western Town - Simon & Schuster, 1997] about the 1905 political assassination of former Idaho governor FranK Steunenberg. The trial [ http://www. hunterbear.org ].

Well now the J. Anthony Lucas Foundation has replaced the Catherwood Foundation in the issuing of such awards, and when Max Holland's Guggenheim and Miller Center money ran out, the J. Anthony Lucas Foundation awarded Max a $45 grand works-in-progress grant to finish his book - a beatification of the Warren Commission.

There's a little sub-sponsor in Holland's Lucas award, from Hunter-Douglas, a real shaddy company that makes venitian blinds - that was founded by Henry Sonnenberg in 1919 in Germany, but moved to USA in 1940, when Sonnenberg merged with Joe Hunter and changed his name to Douglas - picking the name at random from a phone book - creating Hunter-Douglas. At some point they sold their US assets and moved their HQ operatons to the Netherlands, and then bought back their US business.

I'm not making any accuastions here, just pointing out the fact that Max Holland's money comes from 1) Miller Center; 2) Guggehneim; 3) J. Tony Lucas and 4) Hunter-Douglas.

Just to set the record straight, back in 1992, I received a $3,000 grant from the Fund For Constitutional Government Investigative Journalism Project, to research "the latest leads" in the assassination of President Kenendy, which I used to buy a round trip, cross country train ticket, stopping in Philadelphia, Chicago, New Orleans, Houston, Dallas and San Diego, visiting and interviewing researchers, witnesses and suspects.

In return they only asked that upon publication that I metion the contribution from their organization. I'm sure my $3 grand went a lot further and I got a lot more out of it than Max's is getting out of his $45 grand, though in the end he might prove me wrong.

I've considered applying for a grant from the Catherwood Foundation to research and investigate the CIA's funding of covert operations by ostensibly philanthropic organizations, figuring that if they support my reseach they'll also get to read the results.

BK

Just wanted to say that in Mark Lane's comments - the transcription reads that he calls the entire TSBD-knoll area "hollowed grown". He must have said "hallowed ground" - a much more powerful and cogent description... although, a case could be made for a "hollow groan"...

JL,

That's my misspelling in typing the transcript. It was late at night and I was tired, though it was hollow ground if there was a shooter in the sewer.

BK

In the early day's of the JFK saga, after the release of the Warren Report was met with skepticism, most individuals who are familiar with the history of those who were not buying the Warren Reports assertions, are familiar with names like Bertrand Russell, Mark Lane, Sylvia Meagher, William Turner - Ramparts, Harold Weisberg, and Penn Jones Jr. We all are indebted to them in one way or the other.

However, there was a woman in Oklahoma named Shirley Martin whom until recently, I was not familiar with. But I am sure I would like, she would take her kids and come to Dallas to augment the work of what was known as The Housewife Investigator's or something like that; the others I am not too familiar with I know one was in New York and one on the West Coast (Sylvia Meagher?).

Anyway, is Shirley Martin still "with us," I am not privy to her age. If she is still around does anyone know how to reach her or in the event of her passing, next of kin?

Robert,

I think Shirley Martin is a major character in the pulp paperback book The Scavangers and Critics of the Warren Report by Lawrence Schiller - I'm probabaly spelling his name wrong, but like Posner, he's not so much a hired-gun writer as a journalsitic whore - who has also done jobs on Lenny Bruce, O.J. and other hot topics. Among the scavangers and critics is the Housewives Underground, which gives profiles of Shirley Martin, Sylvia Meagher, Mae Brussell, Mary Ferrell, et. al. His lame attempts to discredit them actually makes them look like real American heroes.

Syliva was in New York, Mae on the West Coast. j

Don't know if she is dead or alive.

BK