Duke Lane

The problem here is identifying who really did kill Tippit. To my knowlege no one has ever nominated a plausible suspect. Lee Oswald certainly is not one, no matter what the New York Times says.How about this: The way to reopen the case is to concentrate on the murder of Lee Oswald, a human being who was murdered on November 24th, 1963, while under the care, custody and control of the Dallas police dept. (Duke Lane's heroes!). ... SShhhhhhhhhhhh! Everyone will know who I am now! Whatever Waggoner Carr said or meant back in 1963-64 has changed today, and the "Court of Inquiry" as established at that time was struck down by Warren's Supreme Court and recodified. If you do a search on "court of inquiry"+texas on google, you'll find a lot of interesting history and such, as well as the Rules of Procedure for the current Courts of Inquiry.

The Warren Commission made that allegation, though he was never charged with that by the DPD while he was alive. There is no consensus on this issue yet within the research community, but I for one believe this charge, like all the other charges against Lee Oswald, is completely false.Ray I don't doubt for a moment that a "snap" of a gun was heard, and a firing pin hit the primer of a .38 shell. In fact, McDonald went back to DPD HQ and says he later identified and put his mark on that shell and the gun that he never actually saw. By the time the WC had gotten the shells, however, the "scar" on the primer had "healed" and was no longer discernable, nor were McD's initials.This amounted to "attempted murder," and I'm surprised that more care wasn't given to preserve the evidence of this since it only made him look that much more guilty of everything. For the firing pin mark not to have been there raises doubts as to DPD's veracity in suggesting that he did try to shoot McD: it's not that he tried to but failed, it's that he apparently didn't even try! Of course, it didn't matter because he didn't live to see trial, and they already had two murders to try him for, even posthumously (oops: impossible to "try" him after death, but certainly he was "convicted" while residing below ground level). "Attempted murder" was a throw-away, used instead to show propensity to violence. What surprises me even more is that he or Nick McDonald walked out of that theater alive.

Trying to see things from Lee's point of view:If Lee had an idea of what was going down, perhaps he thought that being on the run is a foolish thing, he may have wanted to get arrested. Then the thing is to get arrested alive. Harold Weisberg wrote in the original Whitewash: "If he wanted to get arrested, why run?" Of course, that was based on the WR conclusion that he "had" to get arrested in order to be "triumphal" or whatever their notion was.I'd pose the same question to you: if he realized something was going down and thought that being on the run is a foolish thing, then why run? More in just a moment on that .... The other thing a movie theater offers at 1:00 on a Friday is a small crowd, ergo relatively few witnesses to anything anyone might want to do to you.A movie theater, being dark, also offers "cover" for the people who might want to do something to continue to set you up (or even kill you), presuming that they did know about eyes adjusting to the dark ... which didn't matter because they turned on the lights, and guess what? The operative hiding out in the dark is now semi-blinded. Major backfire there! Why would anyone assume that someone setting them up wouldn't be wise to the darkness issue? Why limit the search for you to being with a flashlight when they could just as easily have had the lights turned on, as they did. If this was his thought process, he clearly didn't think it through ... and it only gets worse. After all, my these measures, wouldn't he have been better off staying right where he was in DP so he was never "on the run" in the first place and had lots of people around him, including a few dozen who knew him? What's that thing about "safety in numbers?" You say that "the hand of the police is stayed." The "people who came looking for him" in the theater were cops, so are you saying the cops were setting him up? I think the "stalling with the cab" issue is not answered by this since, after "stalling" law enforcement, he apparently went home first, before going to the movie. You realize, of course, that all of this "stalling" and "setting up" you're talking about involves "people who were trying to set him up" and law enforcement personnel, suggesting that they're one and the same. Are they?

I tend to agree with you about shooting a cop: re-opening the Tippit murder might well be easier, and frankly, it seems like a much more reasonable approach than re-opening the whole can of worms. The difference between them is like a lunch at McDonalds (okay: Luby's, then) and a ten-course meal, and the list of suspects - or just those with motives - is substantially shorter.With 15 minutes, I guess I'd prefer to deal with something "digestible" than something completely satisfying in every regard. One would, as you say, dovetail into the next if the cases are related since, if someone else shot Tippit, it would certainly raise questions about everything else, wouldn't it. It's worth a thought.

It is a possibility, and it is obvious ... but seems sort of redundant, don't you think? I mean, it's not as if the cops would be hot on his trail, pulling the cab over a couple of blocks later and asking Whaley where he'd dropped off the fugitive, then having them race just a few blocks in the wrong direction ... all to what end? "Stalling" them for how long? Not very, it would seem to me.I can imagine that he didn't tell Whaley to turn around and bring him to where he wanted to go because that would have raised the cab fare ... and when you're making $1.25 an hour, even 5¢ is a fair shake of money when you could save it just by walking about the same amount of time that it would take you to earn that nickel! Why he would have passed it in the first place ... preoccupied with something? Counter-surveillence? Who's to say ...?

The people arrested at the Trade Mart (charged initially with "Investigation Conspiracy to Commit a Felony: To Wit Murder" and later downgraded to Trespassing) were: William Lee Cummings, age 17, 2502 Waldron Dr; Gary Dwayne Joiner, 2502 Waldrum, age 17; Bobby Savelle Joiner, 1725 Armstead, Grand Prairie, age 34; Gene Audra Guinn, 636 Lacwood, age 31; Roy Eugene Joiner, 2413 Christopher, Grand Prairie, age 17. The story behind the incident is that one man, not specified or named, was selling placards that read "Hurray for President Kennedy." Since he was selling these placards on the (private) Trade Mart property, he was asked to remove himself to public property across Industrial Boulevard, which he did. At about the same time, two men showed up on the property carrying anti-Kennedy placards. They too were advised that they were on private property (the manager of the Trade Mart stated his objection to their being there) and if they didn't leave, they would be trespassing. They, too, went across the street. After the news of the shooting, the latter two men and three others got into an argument with "spectators across the street." I don't know if that means "across the street from the Trade Mart," or "across the street from where they were" (i.e., back on Trade Mart property), but since it was a two-versus-three situation, my bet would be that it was Cummings and Guinn with the placards getting into an argument with the Joiners "across the street." Given the identical ages of the Joiner boys and the different addresses, my guess would be that they were cousins, not brothers. Bobby Joiner, twice their age, was either an uncle or older cousin to the other two, or possibly the father to one not living with his family. Hope this helps. (Source: HSCA rec no 180-10107-10137, file no 003019, "Chronological report of events. Box 71." Opened in full 05/18/93, 35 pp, page 18. The order of the names is as it appears in the report.)

Thanks for thanking me, Bill, but I don't know why you'd want to single me out from the crowd.I think the purpose to this exercise is not to provide a list of all the things that can't be proved or whose proof is in dispute (several people who are at least as expert as many of us here - and in many cases much more so - have, for example, provided seemingly sound rationales for why the SBT is at least possible, and the blowback out of the MC rifle that didn't show up on the paraffin tests of LHO's cheek may or may not "prove" that LHO didn't shoot that rifle that day, but exonerating LHO is not the name of the game here ... that will occur ipso facto if someone else is proved guilty), but rather to put together something significant enough that prosecutors will raise a very large eyebrow. Input from hundreds of people is not going to do it, and will likely confuse the issue if it achieves anything at all. Having 2500 signatures on a petition raising lots of issues is not going to carry any more weight than a single signature on a petition with just one or two soundly argued and well documented points that suggest a conspiracy. If LHO did not act alone (whether or not he acted at all), then there are people who haven't answered for it. Throwing spaghetti up against the wall - naming lots and lots of obscure names with tangential reasons for wanting Kennedy dead, or having "conspiratorial connections" or having done things that "might" have made them peripherally responsible or complicit - just to see what sticks is not going to fly either. My personal feeling is that people spend an awful lot of time talking about doing something than actually doing it. While I applaud your efforts to help people understand grand juries and how one might be utilized to reopen the case, it seems as if simply compiling that list of living witnesses, suspects, etc., would be a better use of time. The longer moving forward is delayed, the more of them will be dead. Likewise, waiting for the release of yet another series of documents can only lead to waiting for the release of more that the first batch suggests bear scrutiny. I'd think that there is enough evidence already released - and has been for years - to provide good cause for looking into this case more closely through legal proceedings. I grant you that it does not include the name(s) of anyone involved in authorizing, funding or planning the assassination, but clearly enough to prove that something beyond LHO's actions was involved, and possibly even who else was taking some sort of action that day to further the plot. If that were the case, then I'd be all over putting together something for the DA based on what I could show now if I thought it were significant enough. Joe West came reasonably close to making something happen by documenting how many shots people thought they'd heard and from which direction(s) (among other items), tho' eventually he got shot down. I doubt that West had a full understanding of the technicalities of how a grand jury operates, what it can and cannot do, and how it goes about doing it, and I don't think that that knowledge is an absolute necessity for the principals/petitioners, provided that whever they are have enlisted the assistance of someone who does. Earlier today, I posted a reply to the story of "Robert MacNeil and the Three Calm Men" that I think goes a long way toward showing the standard of proof (if you will) that would be necessary to capture prosecutors' attention: merely making a statement that shows something you consider "suspicious" is not a satisfactory avenue to pursue. I think the object of the game is to not invite ridicule and claims of frivolity to the detriment of anything truly substantive that may come along later. And there, again, is my two cents!!

I think Weston meant "libelous" (think "L-EYE-bel" which is written, seen with the EYE; slander is spoken), and I think he's right about why Jerry left that part out. Before making the serious charge that people had "foreknowledge of the assassination," were "complicit," "united in purpose" with something that "must have had something to do with the assassination," and were "link[ed] to the conspiracy," one really should do more homework and rely more on original material than anything quoted in a book (that is not the author's original work). Let me give some very fine examples:First, he cited a Commission Exhibit for the number of people who worked at the TSBD. If he had read the first page of CE1381 (at 22H331), which is a cover letter signed by J. Edgar Hoover and dated April 3, 1964, which states in part: "Enclosed for your assistance are two copies each of 73 signed statements obtained from those individuals known to have been in the Texas School Book Depository Building on November 22, 1963. ... Statements were not obtained from the following three [TSBD] employees as they were absent from work on November 22, 1963: Mrs Joseph A. (Vickie) Davis, Mr Franklin Kaiser, Mrs James L. (Dottie) Lovelady." Don't forget to add one more employee who was at work and obviously did not provide a statement: Lee Oswald. (In reality, two of the 73 statements were from TSBD personnel who worked at the North Houston warehouse and had not been to the 411 Elm location that day. That leaves 72 employees including Oswald.) That may be a minor point, but it is one obtainable by reading a mere two paragraphs of the original source document that you cited. An elementary mistake such as this necessarily leads one to wonder what other, more substantial mistakes there might be in the words ahead. There are many. He cited William Shelley's affidavit at 24H226, which does indeed mention his making a telephone call to his wife after the shooting, but it is certainly not detailed enough to even suggest when he made it. Notice that Shelley made two affidavits the same day; they are published as pages 59 and 60 of CD2003 and are, in fact, on the same page of Volume 24. If one were to read the second one to the exclusion of the first, one might get a totally different idea of what Shelley did and when. The first affidavit reads: Today [at] approximately 12:30 pm November 22, 1963 I was standing on the front steps at 411 Elm watching the President in the parade. The President's car was about half way from Houston Street to the Triple Underpass when I heard what sounded like three shots. I couldn't tell where they were coming from. I ran across the street to the corner of the park and ran into a girl crying and she said the President had been shot. This girl's name is Gloria Calvery who is an employee of this same building. I went back into the building and went inside and called my wife and told her what happened. I was on the first floor then and I stayed at the elevator and was told not to let anyone out of the elevator. I left the elevator and went with the police on up to the other floors. I left Jack Dougherty [sic] in charge of the elevator. Now, forget you read that, and read the second one, made the same day: Approximately October 10th or 12th, 1963 a man by the name of Lee Oswald w/m/21, came to work wher [sic] I do. I was put in charge of him by Mr. Truly to show him what to do. I have been working close with this man since he has been there. This man stayed by him-self [sic] most of the time, and would go for a walk at noon time. Lee would bring his lunch and usually eat with us in the lounge and read the paper. He would usually read about politics. Today I arrived for work about 8 am and went about my usual duties. Lee was already filling some orders just outside my office. I saw him periodically all morning with the exception of when we were on the sixth floor. At noon I started eating my lunch in my office and I went outside to see the President. XX [cross-out] After the Presidents [sic] accident, I started checking around and I'XX [cross-out] missed Lee. I ask [sic] Mr. Truly about him and He [sic] told me he had not seen him. I didn't see Lee until the Police brought him in to the Police Homicide Bureau. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX [cross-out] To read the second affidavit only, one could easily get the impression that (1) Oswald was not on the sixth floor at all that day ("I saw him periodically ... except when we were on the sixth floor"), and (2) that Shelley immediately started looking for Lee right after he'd seen the President's "accident." Since Weston cited CE1381 (where he had discerned - or not - the number of people working at the TSBD, quoted above), Bill Shelley also submitted a sworn statement on March 18, 1964, to the FBI regarding what occurred on November 22: ... On November 22, 1963, I left my office in the [TSBD] and walked just outside the front entrance of the building to watch the Presidential Motorcade pass. This was about 12:15 PM. I recall that as the Presidential Motorcade passed I was standing just outside the glass doors of the entrance. At the time President John F. Kennedy was shot I was standing at this same place. Bill N. Lovelady who works under my supervision [at] the [TSBD] was seated on the entrance steps just in front of me. I recall that Wesley Frazier, Mrs. Sarah Stanton and Mrs. Carolyn Arnold, all employees of the [TSBD], were also standing in this entrance way [sic] near me at the time Pres. Kennedy was shot. I did not see Lee Harvey Oswald at the time Pres. Kennedy was shot. ... Immediately following the shooting, Billy N. Lovelady and I accompanied some uniformed police officers to the railroad yards just west of the building and returned through the east side door of the building about ten minutes later [emphasis added]. I remained in the building until about 1:30 PM when I was asked to go to the Dallas Police Dept. to furnish an affidavit. I returned to the [TSBD] Building about 5 PM. I did not leave the building until about 7 PM that day. Lee Harvey Oswald worked under my supervision. He was at work when I arrived for work on November 22, 1963 at about 8 AM. I specifically recall seeing Oswald on the first floor about 11:50 AM this day. He was going about his regular duties filling orders at that time. I did not see Oswald again after this until I saw him at the Dallas Police Dept. I emphasized Shelley's statement that he and Lovelady went to the railroad yards with "some uniformed police officers" didn't go back into the building until "about ten minutes later" not only because the latter statement speaks directly to the theory that Shelley was the man MacNeil saw on the phone, but because this is the only mention of "accompanying" police officers to the railroad yards. Shelley also testified before the Warren Commission (6H327 et seq.). Before examining that testimony, let first look briefly at what Billy Lovelady and Buell Frazier said in their own affidavits and statements: LOVELADY Lovelady said in his November 22 affidavit that he was working on the sixth floor along with Danny Arce, Jack Dougherty, Bill Shelley and Charles Givens, and that when the motorcade came by, he was standing with Bill Shelley on the steps in front of the building. After the shooting, he said, "we" (presumably meaning him and Shelley) went back into the building and then he took some police officers up to search the building. In his March 19 statement he recalled that Shelley and Sarah Stanton were standing next to him. After the shooting, he ran "toward the spot where President Kennedy's car had stopped," and that he and Shelley stayed in that area for "approximately five minutes" before going into the TSBD via the west doors. Several minutes later, a cop asked them to remain in the building, and at about 1:45 he and several other employees accompanied an officer to City Hall for questioning. He returned at 4:30 to pick up his coat and went home. Without referring to the other information available, one could get the idea from reading Lovelady's affidavit only that the shots rang out and "we" turned around and went inside, then took police upstairs. Reading his statement alone, he appears to have run down Elm Street toward the Triple Underpass and gone inside a few minutes later. In one account, he doesn't go anywhere but helps cops search the building, and in the other he runs into the plaza and then the only role he plays with the cops is to provide a statement at headquarters. FRAZIER Frazier's November 22 affidavit talks a lot about driving Oswald to work; as far as what happened in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the final paragraph (only) says that he was stading on the front steps, that he heard three shots after JFK "had got out of my sight," and that he then stood there a while, then turned and went back into the building to get his lunch. He last saw Lee at about 11:00 a.m. when they were both working on the first floor. His March 18 statement says only that he was standing on the front steps with Shelley and Lovelady, did not see LHO during the parade and shooting, and left the TSBD "sometime between 1:00 PM and 2:00 PM and went directly home. (For their parts, the people mentioned by these guys - and by each other - were pretty consistent as to who was with them.) Both Shelley and Lovelady stated that they went to the railroad yards (Shelley alone having first crossed the Elm Street Extension, the dead-end street directly in front of TSBD), and then into the TSBD via the west entrance. While their affidavits read as if they went directly back into TSBD after the shooting, both said in their later statements that they were in the railroad yards for a few minutes ("about ten" for Shelley and "about five" for Lovelady). This discrepancy in timing will remain in all instances. As for their testimonies: SHELLEY (April 7, 1964) Shelley said (6H328) he heard three shots. Asked "Then what happened?" by Joseph Ball, he said "Gloria Calvary from South-Western Publishing Co. ran back up there crying and said 'The President has been shot' and Billy Lovelady and myself took off across the street to that little, old island and we stopped there for a minute." By the "island," he was referring to the strip of land that is the eastern end of Dealey Plaza between Elm Street and the Elm Street Extension. He estimated that it was about "3 or 4 minutes" after the shooting before he and Lovelady crossed the street "because this girl [Gloria Calvery] that ran back up there was down near where the car was when the President was hit." Asked later how long they had been on the divider "island" (6H331), he said it "wasn't very long ... maybe a minute or two." They "ran out on the island while some of the people that were out watching it from our building were walking back and we turned around and we saw an officer [M.L. Baker] and [Roy] Truly [who] were at the first step like they were fixin' to go in ... they were moving," he said, but wouldn't swear to them running (6H329-30). When Truly and Baker were headed into the building, soon thereafter to encounter Oswald in the domino room, Shelley and Lovelady were still out front, across the extension at the corner of the plaza. Shelley confirmed this again (6H331). After stopping at the corner of the plaza for a minute, the two then "walked on down to the first railroad track there on the dead-end street and stood there and watched them searching cars down there in the parking lots for a little while, and then we came in through our parking lot at the west end [of the building]" (6H330). Again, Ball sought to confirm what Shelley was saying. He asked how long they were actually in the railroad yards before going back to the buidling, and Shelley responded, "not very long ... I wouldn't say over a minute and a half," (it had been ten before!) and that they took their "good old easy time more or less" walking back to the building (6H331). LOVELADY (April 7, 1964) Lovelady (6H338) said he thought he heard firecrackers and that "it didn't occur to me what had happened until this Gloria [Calvery] came running up to us and told us that the President had been shot." Ball asked him what he did then: Well, I asked who told her. She said he had been shot so we asked her was she for certain or just had she seen the shot hit him or — she said yes, she had been right close to it to see and she had saw the blood and knew he had been hit but didn't know how serious it was and so the crowd had started towards the railroad tracks back, you know, behind our building there and we run towards that little, old island and kind of down there in that little street. We went as far as the first tracks and everybody was hollering and crying and policemen started running out that way and we said we better get back into the building, so we went back into the west entrance on the back dock had that low ramp and went into the back dock back inside the building. Lovelady said that it was "approximately 3 minutes, I would say" before Calvery came up to them, which Ball commented "is a long time," to which Lovelady replied "Yes, it's — I say approximately; I can't say because I don't have a watch; it could." He did confirm that he left the steps with Shelley, that they didn't leave the steps until Calvery had come running up to them, and stated "I would say we were at least 15. maybe 25. steps away from the building [when] I looked back and I saw him [Truly] and the policeman [baker] running into the building." Asked how long they were in the railroad yards, Lovelady replied, "Oh, just a minute, maybe minute and a half" (6H339). There's that old time discrepancy again. FRAZIER Buell Wesley Frazier first testified before the Commission on March 11, 1964 (2H210-245). In it, he indicates that he had been working at TSBD only since September, 1963, and that he had obtained the job after moving up from Huntsville, a small city about 50 miles north of Houston (now most famous for housing Texas' Death Row) because his father was ill, and that he was referred to it by an employment agency after a fruitless job search on his own ... a heck of a way for a "conspirator" to get a job! Given his association with Oswald and his driving him into work that day, quite a bit of his testimony is devoted to the ride to and from Dallas and Irving, the "curtain rods" parcel, and what Oswald was wearing. He did note, however - this being important only to Weston's later attribution of suspicion to Frazier's going into the basement - that he had gone "like I did every morning, I went down in the basement there and hung up my coat and put up my lunch" in a refrigerator kept there for that purpose. He later notes that, after the parade had gone by, he realized that he'd only had ten minutes left for lunch - lunchtime was from 12:00 noon until 12:45 each day, so Frazier noticed the time at approximately 12:35 ... at about the same time as it's estimated that MacNeil came into the building - and so had gone down to hurry to eat his two sandwiches and an apple. Frazier went outside shortly after noon and stood on the steps with Shelley and Lovelady until the parade came by, also noticing "Sarah something" (2H233), a "heavy-set lady who works upstairs ... I don't know her last name" standing nearby. He heard sounds he thought were backfires - first one, then two more - and when he saw people "running everywhere, and falling down and screaming," he concluded that "somebody else, somebody was shooting at somebody and I figured it was [the President]." Frazier stood still. He explained why: "I figured it was somebody shooting at President Kennedy because people were running and hollering so I just stood still. I have always been taught when something like that happened or anywhere as far as that it is always best to stand still because if you run that makes you look guilty sure enough." Effectively, he froze: he hardly noticed anything that went on around him. He "believed [that] Billy [Lovelady] and them went down toward that direction," and as for cops entering the building while he was still standing there, he said "Not that I know. They could walk by the way and I was standing there talking to somebody else and didn't see it" (2H234). Then he went inside and stood around on the first floor for a few minutes before thinking about lunch: he had two sandwiches and an apple downstairs, and only ten minutes left to eat them. So he went downstairs, wolfed down the sandwiches and came back upstairs, re-joining "the guys" who he'd been talking with before. Most of the rest of Frazier's testimony - including this deposition at Dallas on July 24 (7H531) - dealt more with Oswald than with himself or anything he had done, seen or experienced (his incident with the DPD over his ownership of an Enfield rifle was never discussed, for example), the latter exchange being wholly about the "package" Frazier had seen Oswald with. We unfortunately - "unfortunately" mostly on account of the accusation leveled against him by Weston - learn little about his movements through his testimony, statements or affidavits, which all centered mostly on Oswald due to Frazier's familiarity with and proximity to him. OTHERS Roy Truly (who, incidentally, rated LHO to be "a bit above average" as a worker, who "kept working and talked little to anybody else. He just kept moving. And did a good day's work" - 3H216) testified before the Commission on March 24, 1964. In his testimony, he said there was "an explosion ... nothing happened at this first explosion. Everything was frozen. And immediately after, two more explosions ... I heard a policeman in this area along here [where he was standing] make a remark, 'Oh, goddam,' or something like that. I just remember that. It wasn't a motorcycle policeman. ... just moments later I saw a young motorcycle policeman run up to the building, up the steps to the entrance of our building. He ran right by me. And he was pushing people out of the way. He pushed a number of people out of the way before he got to me. I saw him coming through, I believe. As he ran up the stairway--I mean up the steps, I was almost to the steps, I ran up and caught up with him. I believe I caught up with him inside the lobby of the building, or possibly the front steps. I don't remember that close. ... I ran in with him." In this portion of his testimony (Truly was also deposed at Dallas on May 14), he mentions Shelley once in the context not of telling him to guard the elevators, but to ask him if he'd seen Oswald anywhere (3H230), and a couple of times in telling of the finding of Oswald's clipboard on December 2 (3H234 et seq.). Truly said he'd "noticed" Shelley standing among a group of "boys" - which is not pejorative for blacks, if you follow everyone's testimony; it is merely a colloquialism). Marrion Baker, the police officer who encountered LHO on the second floor, also testified before the Commission (and was later deposed in Dallas) the morning after Roy Truly did. He noted that the Presidential limo was turning onto Elm Street just as he, Baker, was turning onto Houston from Main. They were going quite slow - he estimated at "5 or 6 or 7 miles an hour because you can't hardly travel under that and, you know, keep your balance." He had, in fact, nearly lost his balance when he'd made that turn because of a stiff northerly wind, but managed to correct himself. About "some 20, 30 feet, something like that" (3H245) or "60 to 80 feet there, north of the north curbline of Main on Houston" ((3H246) is when he heard the first shot; when he heard the "two extra shots," he revved the motorcycle up and sped the remaining 180-200 feet (3H247) to the northwest corner of Elm and Houston where he parked his bike. From this point, we know that it took Baker from one minute and 15 seconds (1:15) to one minute and eighteen seconds (1:18) to reach the second floor. Their original intent was to ride one of the elevators to the top floor, but neither elevator was on the first floor, so Baker suggested taking the stairs after Truly had yelled up for the elevators twice. After the encounter in the domino room, he and Truly ascended to the fifth floor by stairs, then took the east elevator to the sixth floor and continued up to the 7th floor and the roof. Baker estimated ((3H261) that they'd been on the roof "a little over five minutes." They then descended again to the sixth floor and rode the elevator to the ground floor and got off. Baker then went out of the building "immediately" (3H262) . He makes no remarks at all about Shelley, or about Truly's having anyone guard the elevator. Truly mentioned Shelley in connection with Warren Caster's bringing his guns to the TSBD a few days before (Shelley was there - see 7H382), and again in wondering if he'd seen Oswald (7H383). There was much use of the word "elevator" in his testimony, but it was not in connection to anyone guarding it. We therefore cannot state with any certainty when - or, absolutely, even if Truly told Shelley to guard the elevator except that we have no real reason to doubt Shelley. What we can discern, however, is that Truly did not tell Shelley to guard the elevator immediately after the shooting because: 1. There was no elevator at the bottom floor when Truly and Baker first entered the building for him to tell anyone to guard; 2. Truly was upstairs for at least five minutes before he and Baker came down, so even if the west elevator was downstairs, Truly wasn't there to tell anyone to guard it; 3. Shelley and Lovelady both stated that they had walked into the railroad yards and remained there for anywhere from a minute and a half to five minutes before coming inside; 4. A minute and a half after the shooting, Truly was already starting upstairs inside the TSBD, and would not have been down by the time Shelley came inside via the west doors; 5. Truly testified that he saw Shelley after he and Baker reached the ground floor. Insofar as Weston's article goes about proving that MacNeil was not the "Secret Service" man seen by Oswald, and showing the time that he had actually been inside the Depositor, I think he did a creditable (and credible) job. But insofar as identifying the "three calm men," he is clearly far afield - actually, from all accounts, it seems as if there were many "calm" men hanging around on the first floor even if they weren't as "excessively calm" as to draw MacNeil's notice - and has done a disservice to the three men he identified those "three calm men" as being, especially insofar as their having "prior knowledge of the assassination" and being "complicit" in any way. It is easy to understand why Jerry Rose excised this portion of the article from The Fourth Decade. While we are on the road toward almost totally demolishing this scenario (Jack White, are you paying close attention to my "disinformation?" My "mentor Dave Perry" would be proud if you did, and tickled pink if you called it that!), let's visit a few other items. Weston notes that, at 12:25 "electrical power goes out," citing 6H1395, Geneva Hine's testimony. He says that the two elevators are "stuck at the fifth floor." If one reads Hine's testimony (6H395), one finds that she had seen Kennedy up close before and offered to answer phones while the other girls went outside to see him because she had been the phone receptionist before the TSBD company had moved to 411 Elm. Her actual words in this regard were in response to Joe Ball's questions about what she was doing before the shooting. She describes the phone system saying that they had "three incoming lines, then we have a warehouse line and we have an intercom system." They did not have a switchboard system as they had in the previous location. Geneva was alone in the office after her boss, Otis Williams, decided to go outside "for five minutes" as he expected the motorcade would be along soon. Then: "I was alone until all the lights went out and the phones became dead because the motorcade was coming near us and no one was calling." Why did the phones go dead? She said it: "no one was calling." What lights went out? For that answer, let's return to the cited MacNeil account: I was inside [looking for a phone] and asked the second man, who pointed to an office at one side. I found a telephone on the desk. Two of the Lucite buttons were lit up. I punched another, got long distance and was through to the NBC News Radio desk in about ten seconds. Get it? They had three lines on one of those old black phones with clear "Lucite buttons" on it that indicated which lines were in use. MacNeil saw that two were lit up; the one he punched was "out," that is, not in use. Hine said: "... until all the [Lucite] lights went out and the phones became dead because ... no one was calling." This is clearly a reference to the lights on the phone, not the lights in the building. If the building lights had gone out all at once and the phone was really "dead" (i.e., no dial tone, calls cut off, etc.), clearly this would have elicited more excited commentary from her. I mean, c'mon: the President's coming so the utilities are all cut off? Give me a break! No, give her a break and credit her with just a little more brains than that! (To find out more about possible power outages, check a sheriff's deputy's testimony about riding up on an elevator a few minutes after the shooting and seeing "a plain clothes officer like me" coming down the stairs with a rifle.) We have already visited the issue of how many people were working in the TSBD building, including those who didn't work for the TSBD company: Weston reported "On the 22nd of November there were sixty-nine people who came to work that day," (see below) while J. Edgar Hoover, in the same cited CE1381 (beginning at 22H331) discussed the seventy-three people "known to have been in the Texas School Book Depository Building on November 22, 1963," two of whom were not in that building (but were employed by the TSBD company at their warehouse a few blocks away on Houston Street), and not (obviously) including Lee Oswald. Someone else (and I apologize to the author for not remembering at the moment who he is!) pointed out the obvious error in math that "of that sixty-nine, thirty-six were women and twenty-three were men," which adds up (36+23=59) to ten less than cited, which is again at least four less than stated by Hoover (not including Oswald) and three less than the actual (?) number of people who were employed in that building. In the "process of elimination," Weston tells us that "Of the twenty-four men who came to work, nine had gone outside to watch the motorcade. The other fifteen were either the inside the building at the time of the shooting or had gone inside immediately afterwards." From that, we can reasonably discern that only nine men had gone outside, or that of the remaining 15, some unspecified number had gone outside(!) and "gone inside immediately afterwards." So ... how many of these men (whose numbers don't add up to either 69 or 72 or 74) "went outside" or "went outside" AND "gone back inside immediately afterwards?" The correct answers are: Total number who gave statements: 73 Females: 47 Males: 26 White: 17 Black: 9 Total: 73 Not at TSBD: 5 Worked at Houston St warehouse: 3 (Aiken, Shields and Webster) Day off: 1 (Palmer) Out of town: 1 (Caster) Workers present at TSBD who stayed inside: 19 Females: 11 Black Males: 6 White Males: 2 Workers who went outside: 49 Females: 35 Black Males: 2 White Males: 12 Couldn't or didn't get back in: 14 Females: 11 Black Males: 1 White Males: 2 Came back inside: 33 Females: 22 Black Males: 1 White Males: 10 Return is unclear: 2 (females) Total: 73 NOTE: All of the females were white except one who stated she was "Indian" (don't know if is Native American "Indian" or "from India"). Thus, assuming that all of the men inside the building were in fact employees (in their statement, all but one employee noted that they did NOT see any strangers inside the building, the sole exception being an 80-year-old "elderly" gentleman who asked to use the bathroom, noted by Danny Arce), there were a total of seven black men and and 12 white men, for a total of 19 men. Since two (Jones and Junker) didn't return from lunch until 1:00, we can reduce that number to 17 for the purposes of determining who MacNeil may have been referring to as "excessively calm" when he was in TSBD. Note that throughout most of their statements, affidavits and testimony, the race of various people was seldom mentioned by these Southern people: "guys," "boys" and "men" were not often distinguished according to race ("boys" not being a pejorative description of black men). If Southerners did not often distinguish, we cannot automatically assume that because MacNeil - a Yankee who may well not have paid as much attention as Southerners to color - did not say "black men" does not necessarily mean that they were white men, and it is even less likely that if the men he referred to were of mixed races he would have made such a distinction (e.g., "two white men and a black man"), thus we cannot "eliminate" black men as being among the three "excessively calm" men ... or that they could not all have been black. With respect to MacNeil's observations of "where the shots came from," Weston tells us that his "report adds more weight to the evidence that a gunman was shooting at the President from a front-facing position" because he filed a statement saying: Shots were fired as President Kennedy's motorcade passed through downtown Dallas. People screamed and lay down on the grass as three shots rang out. Police chased an unknown gunman up a grassy hill. It is not known if the shots were directed at the President. Repeat. It is not known if the shots were directed at the President. This is Robert MacNeil, NBC News in Dallas. [4] Presumably, these are the comments that MacNeil made in his phone call to the New York news desk and were recorded by them. Weston seemingly ignores the fact that MacNeil was on the press bus and was not, therefore, in a position to determine what direction the shots had come from other than "from outside the bus." They were not to his left or to his right or directly ahead of him, they were merely "outside the bus." MacNeil himself said that his "instincts" led him to follow the people who were racing up the grassy knoll, which is basically to say that he reacted to what other people were doing, not to what he, himself, heard. It does not in any way, shape or form indicate MacNeil's own observation of where the shots came from, which in turn lends no weight to anything at all. While Weston clearly put some energy and thought into this account, by not searching just a little farther into original sources, he has arrived at an unsupportable conclusion, once certainly not strong enough to paint Shelley, Lovelady and Frazier as "conspirators" who were "complicit" and had "prior knowledge of the assassination plot." One can only hope that his other articles, including that upcoming, do not rest on this faulty study to draw further conclusions ... and that he'll use these forum pages to apologize (posthumously, in two cases) to those he's wrongly accused.

It is he, no question. See his rather lengthy statement of 3/18/64 beginning here.

I don't know these answers yet, but one question in return is: why would anyone at all be interested in any venue that has "no real risk of prosecution? That seems like an exercise only in satisfying curiosity, which doesn't seem likely for any number of reasons.

Hmmm ... an interesting theory that someone would drive LHO into work, provide testimony that would not tend to incriminate LHO (i.e., the bag LHO was carrying was shorter than what was shown him), but actually, Frazier himself was part of the conspiracy and was tending to exonerate LHO to keep suspicion from himself? I'm not sure how that follows. Is it possible to be suspicious of too many people?

Bill,If you stand any chance of having this petition be successful and not laughed out of court (so to speak), might I suggest that you supress some of the more ridiculous comments that people have added, and that you stick to a very narrow script such that you don't end up tying the JFK assassination to everything that's come along since, from the Vietnam War to the high price of gasoline? I wonder, even, at the wisdom of trying to get a large number of signatories to the petition since many will want, most likely, to make some contribution to what eventually finds its way to a DA, which would include each's pet theory on how the mob/CIA/right wing/USSS/FBI/USSR/Cuba/Jim Files/Roscoe White did it ... to the point where there'd be so many directions to look that there wouldn't be any direction to go ... or half the world would be indicted! If you wonder why nobody has been willing to act, perhaps it's because of all the nutty theories out there ... and the nuts who propound them! Be careful whom you associate with this and what you allow them to say, and keep the superfluous comments to a bare, bare minimum. As if you asked for - or I'm allowed to give - any advice!!

Gerry,You had written to the effect that there are very limited ROE for USSS in Presidential Protection Details with respect to using guns: This has always sort of confused me: why even have guns if you're not going to be able to use them unless a shooter was "right on top of" the protectee? Photos of JFK's limo on Stemmons Freeway clearly show USSS in the follow-up car with automatic rifles held at the ready ... for what?As to #5, that almost seems an outgrowth of the Lincoln assassination where Secy of State Seward and others were also (missed) targets. One wonders why this wasn't already in place in 1963, and why LBJ was travelling in the same motorcade as his "predecessor" (who was only his boss at that point, but presumably his predecessor if something happened to him): it seems several other countries have had this safeguard in place, such as the crown prince never travelling with the king kind-of-thing. Was it mere complacency, there not having been an attempt on the life of the CinC since Truman? Incidentally, as I'm sure you well know, this is an often-cited example of what USSS "didn't do" for the JFK parade (along with having a gazillion agents inside every tall building along the route, and the too-sharp-of-a-curve deal turning onto Elm Street from Houston): since the USSS didn't detail what they "normally" do or what they did or didn't do in this case, how does anyone know whether manholes were or weren't welded? I'm sure that the welding would only be "spot" welding since, as soon as a motorcade's gone by, they've got to be able to be used again for "regular" purposes, so if they weren't welded shut even a day later ...?As you detailed, the likelihood of someone being able to effectively utilize a gambit such as this is pretty slim, it surprises that this would be a "routine" procedure while so many other, seemingly much more obvious problems weren't taken into consideration and acted upon. One in particular would seem to be why Lawson didn't insist upon taking the full and complete motorcade route rather than being satisfied with a description of where it went as he and DPD turned left onto Houston at the bottom of Main rather than right and 120° left onto Elm into an "ambush." A second would be why the on-the-ground DPD "security" was not scrutinized more closely for who was on the ground in DP and in what configuration (i.e., not mounted, on foot only). This seems more a "given" than "20/20 hindsight" ....? Sorry about the "Depends" issue, but they tend not to look as flattering on the lower torso as kevlar does on the upper!As to the question of RFK's "exit routing," a similar question could reasonably be asked with respect to JFK's route into DP. A lot of people have raised the questions (a) why they didn't continue down Main St and hop the curb (or put "temporary ramps" on either side of it to make the "jump" easier on all concerned); and ( why they didn't continue down Main all the way to Industrial. There were two other possibilities, of course, that nobody seems to pay much notice to: (a) they could have turned on any large intersection along Main a mere 90° and 90° again onto Elm, thus proceeding straight across Elm past the TSBD and avoiding the 120° turn; or ( they could have turned one block earlier off of Harwood and onto Elm, avoiding Main St altogether, and accomplished the same thing as above. It seems as if any one of these options would have been something that Lawson and/or Grant would have picked up on if they'd ridden the entire proposed route. (There was, of course, also the secondary route that avoided downtown altogether, but that would have fairly well precluded a parade!)

Interesting ... tho' I'm not sure what she meant by "I didn't know him personally." Does that mean she didn't work there herself when JDT supposedly did (i.e., "I didn't know him myself"), or merely that she didn't attend parties at his house? If the former, then she could well be mistaken, or have overheard something someone had said afterward ... or perhaps even the Stevens Theater (or whatever it was named) might've been owned by the same people? Even still, "years ago" would have been before LHO's time in Oak Cliff ... and again, what "link" would exist in such a situation that LHO would want to "sever?" It doesn't make sense to me ....

I'm thinking that a diversion would be a part of an E&E plan ... no?Of course, your avenues rest on the assumption that LHO was the shooter. If you take him out of the picture and think any shooter(s) planning an event like this, then what? As for Tippit's security job, as I best recall, that was at a theater other than the Texas Theater (I'm thinking Stevens Theater?). That being the case, we don't have prior association, so you're left with point 1. Even if it was the case, why "eliminate the link to the association" when the only association was LHO having been a patron in the theater where JDT worked. What's to eliminate?

My friend is not going to run for DA ... as far as I know, anyway. The currently declared candidates are: Republicans Vickers Cunningham - former State District Judge Toby Shook - currently a prosecutor Democrats Craig Watkins - (don't know) Undeclared (but probable) Dan Wyde - criminal court judge I've sent an email to the Dallas Morning News reporter that has been covering this to see if I can get their emails.

Interestingly, long-time Dallas DA Bill Hill has decided not to seek (a shoo-in) re-election, and several candidates are beginning to emerge for next year's election, including one or two judges. More will undoubtedly file in coming months. I have a friend who is a former Dallas prosecutor, and he and I will be having lunch in the course of the next couple of weeks. Any questions, comments or suggestions that would be beneficial to pursuing this avenue of thought?

I know that for quite a while, my browser wouldn't log me in automatically, even when responding to email notices, so I was an "anonymous user" for quite a while until, for whatever reason, I now get automatically logged in. Remember: just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you!!

Gerry, I'll get to the specifics later, but first let me ask the question that I'd asked you before, in the event you hadn't seen it (you are something of a celebrity here, eh? ), and that is: How would you rate the killing of a cop as an E&E tactic? I might as well ask, too, "how would you set it up" if you thought it was a good maneuver? More later.

Let's do specifics, then: 1. You stated that "USSS relies heavily upon local LE for security," but you have downplayed "local LE's" responsibility for "security" as really being nothing more than crowd and traffic control. This is to explain why "local LE" presence was drastically reduced once the motorcade reached this "ideal kill zone" because crowd and traffic control - vice security - was no longer expected to be much of an issue. Which is it: "local LE" is "relie(d) upon heavily" for security, for mere traffic and crowd control (and not security), or really not much at all for anything except to keep USSS from playing traffic cop? (Note Mayor Earle Cabell's statement that "all possible security precautions were taken between the Dallas Police and the Secret Service." This statement was echoed exactly by newscaster Bill Lord prior to the "abortive transfer" with respect to that operation: "all possible security precautions have been taken ... Extreme precautions have been taken." DPD themselves said in a statement that Kennedy was afforded "the most stringent security precautions in the city's history." None of these comments reflect "traffic and crowd control only.") 2. You cite the logistical impossibility of USSS watching each and every window along a parade route, especially through a downtown area with lots of tall buildings. It is likewise true that DPD was not told by USSS to watch windows either. You also noted that USSS, in a moving motorcade, depends upon the ability to accelerate out of a situation for security. Since they don't keep people on the ground, and if they don't really "rel(y) heavily on local LE for security," are you suggesting that this is the only means of actual security afforded a dignitary-protectee in a motorcade? It seems to me that you first laid claim that local police acted as the "eyes and ears on the ground" (i.e., security), but when I pointed out that this "security" seems to have been lacking once Kennedy reached Dealey Plaza, you "defended" DPD by backpedaling and saying that really, they were only there for traffic and crowd control, not to provide any real security function, hence it's perfectly plausible why there were no longer any men on the ground (rather than atop bridges) or mounted officers capable of speeds greater than running (other than the motorcade escorts, who were told not to break formation "no matter what happens" ... meaning that they, too, were not intended to act as any kind of "security" either). (The actual quote is: "Why was there insufficient numbers of DPD throughout Dealey Plaza? Because once they made their turn onto Elm, the crowds were significantly minimal and closed off, so the need for ground security was minimal if not altogether not needed.") You stated that you "have been a grunt in motorcade route security, airport detail security, site arrival and site stating security, and motorcycle security where (you) have been a scout and lead car driver (and) been in charge of airport security and motorcade security," all of which belies your thesis that DPD was only to have provided crowd and traffic control ... or are you really saying that you've directed traffic and held back the crowd at all of these locations? Somehow I don't think so. Your further statement that "DP was an excellent killing zone not for the fact that it made the hit fairly easy, but it accomodated the plan of success and allowing all assassins to walk away" suggests that nobody recognized this about the place (well, apparently somebody did ... just not on the "security" side of the equation!). Does this equate with the idea that DPD was for crowd control only, and that nobody did or was supposed to evaluate the route from that perspective? You've also not explained your reference to "the history of incidents that plagued these type of visits" (in conjunction with the Adlai Stevenson problem). Can you expand on that? I appreciate that you have earned your "status through getting dirty and trying to educate and add to forum issues," but you seem to be requiring that people ask the right questions first (and in the proper manner) before you can respond, and so far what responses you've made seem to be contradictory to your original assertions. You seem to "defend" DPD by saying that they really weren't supposed to do all the things that they seemingly should have and even claim to have done! Can you please clear up the muddle so we can all understand what it is you're really trying to say?

"Colonel" D. Harold Byrd has been mentioned in several threads on this forum, both as an owner of 411 Elm St (the former Texas School Book Depository) and as a "founder or co-founder" of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP): Dillard Photo vs. Re-enactment; Mac Wallace fingerprint? in particular Alan Kent's post; Pure Speculation; LBJ Tapes: The Key Evidence?; David Ferrie: Where was he the morning of 11/22/63; Allegations of Homosexuality & JFK Assn; The "Confederate" Air Force; Who Was R. G. Storey; Fred Korth; DIXIECRATS/aka States Rights Party; What's a TSBD? (extensive mentions); JFK Lancer Conference; and Police Uniform. In the last, I had indicated that I'd emailed some folks at CAP Headquarters (Maxwell AFB, Montgomery, Alabama) to see if I could get some information about Byrd. I wrote: Dear Sir, I am a "long"-ago (1960s-70s) CAP cadet; my father had been founder and commander of the Gen. Curtis E. LeMay Cadet Squadron (06054) and later Chief of Staff of the Connecticut Wing. I was also stationed at Maxwell AFB back in the late '70s and had a lot of contact with CAPHQ personnel back then (I worked officer outbound at the old CBPO). Consequently, I have always thought that I'd had a fairly clear idea of CAP history and what the organization was all about. Lately, I have come across a couple of articles and books which have claimed that, in addition to Gil Robb Wilson and Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, one Colonel D. Harold Byrd of Texas (a relative to Admiral Byrd of South Pole fame) was either "the founder" or a "co-founder" of the Civil Air Patrol. I'd never heard this before. I am trying to determine the veracity of this claim, as well as any other role(s) that Col. Byrd may have played with CAP, either on a local, regional or national basis. I do not know if the "Colonel" is CAP-related, or comes from his military service, or is merely one of those "honorific" Southern titles. One of the articles that discussed Byrd also called the Civil Air Patrol "a paramilitary recruiting ground," which is totally news to me! (Byrd apparently also had connections with the John Birch Society and the Minutemen.) The context of the claim is related to his ownership of the Dallas building which has become known as the Texas School Book Depository, from which Lee Harvey Oswald is alleged to have shot President John F. Kennedy. That relationship is considered "ominous" because Oswald had once been a member of a New Orleans squadron, as had been (supposedly) one David Ferrie who likewise has been alleged to have a role in Kennedy's assassination. (The story I seem to remember hearing from the Louisiana Wing(?) historian some years ago about that is that "nobody wants to discuss" Oswald or Ferrie, and that all records of their associations with CAP were apparently destroyed out of embarassment for what they'd been accused of. I don't remember if Senior Member records were kept at Maxwell - or before that at Ellsworth, if memory serves - so don't know if the same disposition applied there. It may even have been someone at National who told me that the records were gone; it's been some years ago that I'd asked!) Any information you can provide on Colonel Byrd is greatly appreciated, and any other comments you may have are welcome! Thanks in advance for taking the time to respond to this probably rather strange and unusual request! Sincerely, (etc) Today I received a call from Colonel Len Blascovich, the CAP National Historian, in response to the above (and some additional comments from him on 12/14, shown below in red). Col. Blascovich's perspective on this topic is unique in that he has been a member of CAP since 1952, and had occasion to meet the "colorful" Byrd, who, he noted, was often known as "Dry-Hole Byrd" for his "wildcat" oil explorations. If "the Colonel" (actually, he had attained the rank of Brigadier General, and those who knew him called him "General," not "Colonel") did nothing else, he amassed quite a bit of money and political influence in his life. This is a synopsis of his role with the Civil Air Patrol, as related to me by Col. Blascovich, along with a little history of the CAP itself: The idea of a "civilian air patrol" was conceived by Gil Robb Wilson, aviation editor of the New York Herald Tribune, in 1938. He proposed using civilian aircraft to aid in the impending war effort. The initial plan was approved by General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold and the Civil Aeronautics Authority. Later, Thomas Beck, chairman of the Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, supported by Guy Gannett, the owner of a Maine newspaper chain, approached President Franklin Roosevelt with an outline that would eventually lead to the formation of the nation's civilian air power. The CAP was established on December 1, 1941, less than a week before Pearl Harbor, under the Office of Civil Defense, headed by former New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. Gil Robb Wilson was appointed as the first executive officer of the CAP; its first national commander was Major General John F. Curry, USAAC. It is Wilson and LaGuardia who are considered the "founders" of the Civil Air Patrol. In April of 1943, it was transferred to the War Department, and subsequently assigned to the Commanding General of the US Army Air Force (AAF) and designated as a branch of AAF Technical Services. In 1945, it was established as the official auxiliary of the AAF and in 1946, President Harry Truman signed Public Law 476 establishing the CAP as a non-profit benevolent organization. Public Law 557 of 1948 made it the official civilian auxiliary of the new United States Air Force. Among the first orders of business of the newly-formed CAP was the appointment of statewide Wing Commanders: David Harold Byrd was commander of the Texas Wing of the Civil Air Patrol from December 1, 1941 through May 25, 1948, making him one of CAP's first members. He was initially given the rank of major, and rose to the rank of colonel in 1946. He was later the Regional Coordinator (later Regional Commander) for CAP's Southwest Region (comprised of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Louisiana, Arkansas and Arizona) and in 1949 became the Vice Chairman of the National CAP Board under General Carl A. "Tooey" Spaatz, the retired first Chief of Staff of the Air Force, who was then CAP's National Chairman. Byrd later succeeded Spaatz as Chairman. To the extent that Byrd was one of the first commanding officers of the CAP, he can be loosely considered a "founder or co-founder" of that organization (a "charter member" may be more accurate). In addition, following WWII, when there was talk of disbanding the CAP, Byrd's political influence was instrumental in the organization's incorporation under Public Law 476, and he was one of the Wing Commanders - who comprised the national board of the CAP - who were the signatories to that law. Technically, that makes him one of the incorporators of CAP, but again, not one of its "founders or co-founders." (That distinction belongs to Gil Robb Wilson and Fiorello LaGuardia alone.) Byrd was promoted to brigadier general retroactively in 1970 for his services as National Chairman from April 28, 1959 to April 27, 1960. During his tenure as chairman, he was instrumental in moving the headquarters of the CAP from Washington DC to Ellington Air Force Base outside San Antonio, Texas, in August 1959 closer to his home (it was subsequently moved to Maxwell AFB, Alabama in June 1967, where it remains today). General Byrd remained active with the Civil Air Patrol until the early 1970s when Alzheimer's Disease began affecting his life. He was a longtime supporter of the University of Texas Longhorn Band (which correctly recognizes his general's rank), and was photographed at a UT football game in 1973 with former President Lyndon Baines Johnson. General Byrd died in 1986 at age 86. Following the Kennedy assassination, TSBD owner General Byrd apparently had the so-called "sniper's nest" window removed from the building and replaced with a replica, but may have actually had the wrong window removed. You can read more about this on the Dallas Observer website. (Thanks to Gary Mack for this amended reference!) This clearly is but a small part of the biography of General Byrd, who has been described as "one of the wealthiest men in Dallas." It nevertheless dispels the notion that he "co-founded" the official civilian auxiliary of the United States Air Force, and not only provides the correct information, but also his correct rank as well. Colonel Blascovich may expand upon these personal observations in writing (and perhaps correct a few, as my notes were pretty sketchy ... tho' I started on this immediately after his call, I may have overlooked something or gotten it wrong), in which case I'll post his changes and/or expansions here later in the thread (which he did, and I have!).

See page 149 of the ARRB Final Report: In January 1995, the Secret Service destroyed presidential protection survey reports for some of President Kennedy's trips in the fall of 1963. The Review Board learned of the destruction approximately one week after the Secret Service destroyed them." The report continues on to say that USSS explained their rationale for this destruction both in writing and by oral briefing to the Board. I haven't seen this, so can't comment on it.

I dunno. I can't read it!

Actually, Gerry, that is exactly what he purports to be doing! See the quote of his post to me at the beginning of this thread: I will ... respond in defense of the the Dallas PD from security prior to and during the assassination, the aftermath of the assassination and scene security, and the execution of Oswald. (Ahem!) Should we be mindful of their reputations and integrity as well? Just for curiosity, how would you rate the effectiveness of killing a cop being part of an E&E plan? While I agree that "no assist by law enforcement (nor Intel) is necessary," that hardly precludes its happening ... and being welcomed!

Why is it so difficult to engage in "debate" with someone who was so eager to do so over my "spouting long enough?" RE (from two previous posts): "It was the planning of the exposure of the motorcade that allowed the assassination to happen. It is obvious. ... Do not look at this in hindsight, but instead consider what they feared after the Stevenson incident and the history of incidents that plagued these type of visits. ... You are all looking at this after-the-fact .... Even with [the use of the flying wedge with the motorcycle escort in Tampa], the elevation of the shooters would not have been effected [sic] by the motorcycle escorts if they would have been present as they were in Tampa and Berlin. The sharp turn from Houston to Elm was covered as far as normal security was considered as there were ample uniformed officers in the vicinity and the follow-up USSS car was in close proximity to challenge any ground attacks. ... Dealey Plaza was an ideal kill zone if one was looking for a military sniper hit. Nobody was in November of '63. If they were, then the route would have been changed ... There were no inconsistencies in DP from the previous security on the motorcade route. ... Once the limo entered DP, they could have added twenty more motorcycles and an additional fifty officers on the ground, the hit would still have went off if that was what they wanted. Trust me, it was not that difficult under the circumstances. The most difficult part was fleeing the scene undetected." I always worry when someone says "trust me!" A "history" of incidents that "plagued" visits of this "type?" Could you expand on that beyond the Adlai Stevenson visit? Was there a similar occurence when, for example, Kennedy came to Dallas to visit House Speaker Sam Rayburn at Baylor Hospital? What other incidents do you mean? One would think that if there was indeed such a "history," everyone including both DPD and USSS would be on heightened, not diminished alert. Violence "plagued" the visits of dignitaries, so everyone "feared" spitballs and rotten tomatoes? More on this "plague," please. At the very least, USSS was fully aware of the Miami and Chicago deals and could have easily led DPD to "beef it up a little" without telling them the specifics. Advance men Lawson and Grant were part of the White House Detail, not field agents: it might be understandable, in light of past "communications failures" (as Al so quaintly put it), that maybe Dallas SAIC Sorrels wasn't appraised of the other cities' problems, but to suggest that WHD had "no idea" (and didn't want to "alarm" their "primary ground security" with that information!) sounds pretty implausible. You will also recall that Lawson was fairly high up on the USSS food chain and in the "need to know" bracket. USSS also participated in briefings with DPD officials, including on the night of November 21 at DPD HQ. Presumably, security arrangements were discussed and, if found lacking, either Lawson and/or Grant spoke up about it or they didn't. If they did call any laxities to DPD's attention, then DPD apparently ignored it; if they didn't, then there is either a larger problem involving USSS, or collusion between the two. According both to the Lunday/Lawrence report and the testimonies of both Lawrence and Chief Curry, DPD had planned on putting more solo motorcycles around the limousine, but were told by Lawson and Grant that Kennedy "didn't want" such tight security, and that they, themselves, felt that just four motorcycles - two at the front and two at the rear, both outboard of the front and rear wheels, leaving the passenger compartment fully exposed - was "adequate." As has been pointed out already, what "Kennedy wanted" didn't hold sway in Fort Worth earlier in the day, i.e., after USSS told DPD what wasn't going to happen. As far as "normal security" in DP and any "inconsistencies from previous security" elsewhere on the motorcade route, Al you're just plain flat-out wrong. I covered this in my original post: at every single intersection coming down Main, there was one man on foot and one man mounted (solo or 3-wheel motorcycle). The officers in DP were only on foot; the only motorcycles were in the escort, and they only supplemented previous duty stations, they did not take the place of it. From Elm & Houston onward to the Trade Mart, "security" was only on top of bridges and catwalks, and could not react to - much less prevent - anything going on at ground level. That an "additional fifty officers on the ground" wouldn't have made any difference is highly debatable. Would the additional manpower have been able to more adequately cover the parking lot and other areas of the plaza? One would certainly think they could have! Throughout the rest of the parade route, part of the consideration was officers' ability to respond to any threats, real or perceived; once the motorcade entered DP, that consideration seems to have vanished since, as I and others have already pointed out, officers on foot and on top of bridges were effectively hamstrung in their ability to respond to anything at ground level. Likewise, so few of them (two, one not even facing DP) could hardly have covered as much ground as there is above the roadway. As to what the security considerations were in 1963 ("Dealey Plaza was an ideal kill zone if one was looking for a military sniper hit. Nobody was in November of '63"), how would you know? I sincerely doubt that was part of any of your training ("okay, now that we've told you how to deal with the USSS during a presidential visit, let's now cover what we were looking for in 1963 and 1948 and 1980, too"). As others have pointed out, sniper attacks were not uncommon at that time (DeGaulle, et al.); you're saying that PRS dismissed the possibility and didn't do anything to counter them? (Maybe they happened only in Europe ... like conspiracies only happen in "banana republics!") That the route wasn't changed is far from "proof" of this theory of yours. Even so, this sounds more like an excuse than a reality. In fact, this whole business of everybody doing their best but, gee whiz, their best just wasn't good enough and who should have expected it to be (I mean, who could've known? Who might've expected? There was nothing anybody could have done. Nobody could realistically have expected them to have stopped it. It was a done deal, it was going to happen no matter what) sounds much more like a batch of excuses than any kind of "defense." You've effectively moved your position from "USSS relies heavily on local LE for security" to "USSS needs traffic cops when in town." (Incidentally, as an aside, I think that the use of the term "third-stringers" is improper at best: that Kellerman was the third in charge does not make him lesser player, merely outranked by (just) two people. This also put him "above" scores of others. Being third in charge doesn't make you "third-rate," you're still pretty damned good! This isn't a sports team, folks! You cannot always have "the boss" being in charge as that would tend to exhaust him (or her) and never give subordinates - who would at some point presumably become "the boss" - any experience. That the HMFIC's weren't "in charge" that weekend is only significant because of what happened.)