Gene Kelly

Jim Perhaps a loaded question, but how does this added corroboration - of knowing the coverup started within 90 minutes (and clear cut intimidation of Dr. Perry - lend credence to the various suppositions about body alteration and autopsy irregularities? And if it becomes more clear that films and photographers were being collected and controlled early-on, would this also lend more credence to Zapruder alteration? John Butler's points above, and the experiences of Robert Croft, certainly support that likelihood. I know you've remained somewhat 'agnostic' on these aspects of the JFK story, but I'd be interested if any of this changes your view. Gene PS. Elmer Moore is a traitor and should've been prosecuted (along with many others) ... what he did is reprehensible

Agreed. Don't know too much about Harkness, but he was onto something. None of this ever showed up in the Warren Report records. The FBI investigation was weak (almost nonexistent). The only reason they recorded something is because they received the July 1964 allegation (which they couldn't ignore) ... but that affidavit is inaccurate and incomplete. Jerry Rose believed that both DPD and FBI did investigate Belknap earlier, but no records can be found. DPD and FBI weren't exactly Ozzie and Harriet. Here is what Jerry Rose wrote about Harkness: Even Sergeant Harkness seems to have had such a suspicion; at 12:48 he radioed a different dispatcher to inform him that the episode preceded the assassination and to direct that a squad car be sent to Parkland to investigate. Either the dispatcher ignored this instruction or else the dispatched squad (and Patrolman Barnes as well) failed to do the investigation, or to report on the results thereof. Nor does an examination of the log of patients received in the emergency room at Parkland on Nov. 22 show any record of a patient admitted with any such "complaint." In fact nothing about the episode beyond the radio log entries appears in either the Warren Report or its twenty six volumes of Hearings. Incredible as it may seem, there is no indication in Warren Commission documents that the FBI investigated the incident at any time before May of 1964. Even this belated investigation is contained only in a document withheld from publication in the twenty six volumes: Commission Document 1245.

Tony I found this in the Jerry Rose article: According to DPD radio logs, at 12:18 P.M., Sergeant D.V. Harkness (at that time in charge of traffic control in the TSBD area) radioed the dispatcher to report the incident and ask for an ambulance at the scene. Subsequently, the radio logs show, ambulance 606 was dispatched there; its driver picked up the victim and reported himself "enroute" to Parkland Hospital at 12:24 P.M. Also, in one version of the radio log, a DPD patrolman, apparently one Bill Barnes, was directed to "meet" the ambulance at Parkland . Here is a footnote to this aspect of the story: The "official" versions of the DPD radio logs that appear in the Warren Commission exhibits include the ambulance driver's request for a police car to meet him at Parkland but no indication of the dispatching of such a car. Judith Bonner's (Investigation of a Homicide) "unauthorized" version of the logs, presumably based on her close access to DPD records, includes an entry directing the squad car assigned to Barnes to meet the ambulance at Parkland. Since Bonner's book strikes me as essentially a would-be whitewash of official investigations, I cannot believe that she fabricated this entry; rather I assume that the instructions to Barnes was on the tape and that both the DPD and FBI compilers emitted it to give themselves an excuse for not having questioned Barnes on the matter.

Ron In the November 21, 1983 Jerry Rose interview, Belknap confirmed much of the story he told the FBI in June 1964, with a few contradictions and some intriguing additional details. Contrary to his FBI statement, Belknap told the interviewers that he did lose consciousness; he stepped back from the crowd and the "next thing he knew" a policeman was standing over him (but he was not an epileptic). More interesting, Jerry Rose didn't believe the story and felt that it was "manufactured" (similar to the Steve Witt umbrella man explanation) ... and he doubted that Belknap was the man picked up by the ambulance. Here is an excerpt from Rose's article found in a January 1984 edition of Penn Jones' "The Continuing Inquiry" (accessed via Baylor). Rose felt that there was police collusion, and that Belknap was possibly "coached" or groomed: Belknap may not have been the "epileptic seizure" at all but---as has been suggested of Steve Witt as the self-confirmed "umbrella m11n"---he may have been "invented" after the fact to provide an explanation for A seemingly sinister coincidence. There is no doubt that a man was removed by ambulance at Elm and Houston shortly before the assassination; a number of witnesses comment on having seen the event. If the "victim" was a conspirator his role was presumably satisfied when the commotion was created and - assuming the collusion of the ambulance driver and attendant - was dropped at some point after he was safely removed from the scene. The best evidence for this interpretation is the utter silence of any and all Parkland employees concerning the arrival of a seizure victim. If Jerry Belknap had been at Parkland at tha.t time, somebody must have been dealing with him (such as those who supposedly told him to "lay down" on the short table) and yet nobody, to my knowledge, has remembered such a detail of his or his activity at that time. This fact, plus the incredibility of Belknap's version of his treatment at Parkland and his departure therefrom, leads to a grave doubt that an epileptic seizure victim arrived at Parkland on that afternoon. Jerry Rose's reason for doubt was based on a reflection that Belknap was prone to seizures as a result of a childhood accident: he had been apparently hit by an automobile as he got off a school bus. If this was a precisely-timed "seizure" at a given place, a plotter would not use a person prone to actual seizures, lest the person have a real seizure at an inopportune moment. Rose believed that there was police complicity in the assassination, so they could easily have gone (before or after the assassination) to police files of accident reports to find a person who could be groomed as an investigatory stand-in for the man removed by ambulance. Gene

Tony I have no way of answering your questions. The evidence and testimony about this incident are sparse. The DPD statements are in a Jessie Curry letter and Officer Smith's Warren testimony. The ambulance driver (Rike) was accessible and interviewed some 30 years later (by Walt Brown) but not asked this question (he died in 2010). An O'Neal Funeral Home employee (Dan Dawson) who received the police request for the ambulance made a phone call to the FBI in July 1964, and made the allegation that this was all a diversion. The story trail ended there, and was generally ignored for the next twenty years. Gene

Thanks Ron ... Belknap interested me a few years back (March-April 2008), and the EF thread subsequently contained input from many experienced researchers (Jack White, Greg Parker, Larry Hancock, Bill Kelly, Steve Thomas, James Richards, Michael Crane, Ty Carpenter, Paul Brancato, Tom Hume, Roger Fong ... just to name a few). That's a considerable list of talent and JFK knowledge, so Belknap's story was thoroughly rung-out. That said, it remains remarkably coincidental, and far too enigmatic to be dismissed (imho), prompting many unanswered questions. What is nagging me is the fact that no one ever talked with Belknap (other than the FBI) and he disappeared into oblivion for 23 years. If one buys into a military-style operation in play, then it fits into a classic blocking/diversion strategy. Larry Hancock's opinion was that the ambulance was timed to be in the intersection to slow or block the motorcade at a critical point (i.e. the kill zone). Greg Parker's research established the following: In a letter from Jesse Curry to the Warren Commission dated July 17 1964, he advised that at 12:19 on Nov 22 1963 an ambulance was requested for the 100 block of North Houston to pick someone up who had suffered an epileptic seizure. The ambulance departed just prior to 12:25. Only two of the four officers who went to aid Belknap testified to the Warren Commission, and of the two, only Joe Marshall Smith talked about the incident. Smith gave the time of the seizure as 11:50 or 12 noon (i.e., it took at least 19 minutes to call for an ambulance). This episode was ignored until May 12, 1964, when one Dan Dawson, a former employee of O’Neal Funeral Parlor (who operated the ambulance service) phoned the FBI. Dawson advised that he had been the telephone operator who took the call to pick up the epileptic in Dealey Plaza on Nov 22nd, and stated that the person “disappeared” while in the process of being registered for admission to Parkland Hospital. Dawson furnished the information because he thought it possible the whole incident was planned as a diversion. The Presidential motorcade was due to pass the TSBD very close to when Belknap and the ambulance were blocking progress down Elm Street. Even though the motorcade was running late, it stopped twice; once for the President to shake some hands, and once for the President to get out and interact with a nun and some children. Belknap had allegedly neglected to take his medication that morning and, shortly after arriving at noon, stated he "felt a fainting spell coming on" while waiting for the motorcade; he then fainted and fell backward on the sidewalk (but apparently never lost consciousness). Within about ten minutes, the ambulance appeared on the scene. Rike's ambulance (#606) was not at the funeral home when called, but at a car dealership at the corner of Harwood and Cedar Springs (along the motorcade route), one mile from Dealey Plaza. The timing questions are interesting, as the Trade Mart luncheon was advertised to start at 12 noon (as printed on the invitation) with a speech to follow at at 1pm. Air Force 1 was scheduled to arrive at 11:30 and reach the Trade Mart approximately 45 min later. On November 18th, Agents Sorrels and Lawson drove over the selected route with police officers, verifying that it could be traversed within 45 minutes. Ar Force-1 did not land at 11:30 nor did JFK leave Love field at 11:30 - but rather at 11:55 - pushing the parade route timing out. Consider the testimony of Lee Bowers who observed activity from his rail tower north of the Texas Book Depository Building: " ... about 11:55 am I saw a dirty 1959 Oldsmobile Station Wagon come down the street toward my building. This street dead ends in the railroad yard. This car had out of state license plats with white background and black numbers, no letters. It also had a Goldwater for "64" sticker in the rear window. This car just drove around slowly and left the area. It was occupied by a middle aged white man partly grey hair. At about 12:15 pm another car came into the area with a white man about 25 to 35 years old driving. This car was a 1957 Ford, Black, 2 door with Texas license. This man appeared to have a mike or telephone in the car. Just a few minutes after this car left at 12:20 pm another car pulled in. This car was a 1961 Chevrolet, Impala, 4 door, am not sure that this was a 4 door, color white and dirty up to the windows. This car also had a Goldwater for "64" sticker. This car was driven by a white male about 25 to 35 years old with long blond hair. He stayed in the area longer than the others. This car also had the same type license plates as the 1959 Oldsmobile. He left this area about 12:25 pm. About 8 or 10 minutes after he left I heard at least 3 shots very close together. Just after the shots the area became crowded with people coming from Elm Street and the slope just north of Elm". Lee Forman noted in 2008 that the ambulance incident happened almost directly across from the Records Building. The inference being that there were 'spotters' in the building to notify employees of the arrival of the motorcade, and there may have been a method to the madness of the timing of Belknap's seizure as a diversion to gain access to the building. Some speculate that the Belknap incident occurred ahead of schedule, timed wrongly to coincide with the motorcade's expected entrance into Dealey, which was delayed. And that the ambulance activity was intended to distract police or draw attention away from shooters ... a diversion, drawing attention away from shooters (and others) and allowing them to get into place. Just as the alleged shooting from and activities at the TSBD were a diversion. It also served as a signal of sorts, letting the ambush teams know that's its almost time (i.e. a two-minute warning). By taking him to Parkland, it perhaps also alerted those who would be stationed and positioned at the hospital (as contingencies); somehow, it seems associated with clearing a path to the hospital. This makes sense as there are allegations (by Aubrey Rike) that the ambulance ride to Parkland was timed previously. One wonders what would be critical (to someone) about how long that ride takes. The Belknap incident somehow establishes the timing for events that follow. Aubrey Rike remained accessible and was interviewed several times. In 1961 he went to work for the O’Neal Funeral Home & Ambulance Service. He was at Parkland Memorial Hospital when President Kennedy was brought in after being shot and was the attendant who placed the President’s body into the casket while in the Trauma Room. Rike later became a police officer, and retired from the Highland Park Police Department as a Detective Sergeant after 26 years of service. The following is from a post by Don Roberdeau in 2015: In 1992, Aubrey Rike (the ambulance driver) spoke at the Assassination Symposium about Kennedy and stated that he knew of, at least, eight phony telephone calls that had each requested an ambulance go to Dealey Plaza in the three weeks leading up to the assassination. Rike suggested that the calls were made with a deliberate purposes to determine exactly how much time it took an ambulance to reach Dealey Plaza after being called. He also suggested that another possible purpose of the phony calls was to time the assassination shots to occur simultaneously with the loud siren of his ambulance was still within hearing distance of Dealey Plaza, so to try and confuse witnesses and/or drown out the assassination shots noises. Rike's ambulance departed Dealey Plaza at 12:22-12:23 pm (Dallas newspapers had previously printed that the President would enter the plaza at 12:25 pm) Twenty years later, more questions were posed (and some reconciled) by the respected researcher Dr. Jerry Rose and his associate, Keith Freedman. On November 21, 1983, they visited with Belknap who was still living with his father and mother on Ross Drive in Irving TX. Belknap contradicted some of the earlier statements found in the transcript of his 1964 FBI interview: he denied that he took one of his "regular medications" before he left Parkland; rather, a male attendant offered him a glass of water and an aspirin. He explained how - because he didn't receive prompt medical attention - he walked out without registering, and then caught a city bus back to Dealey Plaza and the Dallas News. Only when he was back downtown did he learn of the President's shooting. The interviewers didn't notice anything unusual or uncooperative about Belknap (although his mother appeared nervous and protective of her son). Two years later, Belknap was dead at age 45 (cause unspecified). Gene

Keyvan: There is an older EF thread on this topic begun in November 2007 called "The Epileptic Seizure". It contains information about Jerry Belknap, and speculation about the incident. Belknap didn't have epilepsy, but had purportedly been in a car accident years earlier and suffered a head injury which caused him to have fainting spells. He took medication (unspecified) least three times a day. His FBI interview (the only one ever recorded) reveals that, due to the excitement of JFK's visit, he had forgotten to take his medication, and had subsequently fainted shortly after arriving at Elm and Houston, an auspicious location in Dealey Plaza. Belknap's fainting at 12:10 pm that day was one of several coincidences in the Plaza in the hour preceding the motorcade. There was never any real background investigation of Belknap, except an FBI interview in June 1964, with the incident prompts many unanswered questions: An ambulance arriving within 5 minutes seems like a world record; who called it, and how/why did it arrive so promptly? There is no record of Belknap's admittance to Parkland Hospital. Belknap (and his records) seems to have too easily 'escaped' Parkland Hospital. Why would the ER allow someone who had such an episode - especially one where an ambulance ride is warranted - to simply walk away? Belknap's Dallas Morning News part-time job, in which he didn’t stay too long (he was soon employed elsewhere ) While he described feeling "much better" (to a Parkland nurse) after taking his medication - which he had in his pocket - why had he not taken it that morning? No anticonvulsant medication will give an instant feeling of well-being (plus side effects aren't pleasant). Unfortunately, he was not asked to name the medication. How could he have not suspected something sinister, after the fact? Surely, he must have known that something strange had played out, that he was part of. Belknap was a young man (23-24) about the same age as Lee Oswald, with another 'part-time' job across the street. Some have theorized that the ambulance was timed to be in the intersection to slow/block the motorcade at a critical point, in what would be considered the kill zone. The motorcade was slowed only minimally, as you can actually see the ambulance leaving in the Bronson film taken from the motorcade. The same plan was probably in play for the pickup that was stalled under the overpass and diverted police attention for a good while before it two was taken away before the motorcade arrives. Diversion and blocking are basic military/paramilitary practices in ambush. Others speculate that the distraction was aimed at occupying the ambulance from Parkland, so none would be available (for JFK) in the next half hour. The same could be said for the stalled pick up down by the overpass which diverted police before the motorcade arrived. Aubrey Rike was an ambulance/hearse driver for O'Neal Ambulance Service. In a 1997 interview by Walt Brown, Rike told of receiving several "bogus" ambulance calls during the days preceding the President's motorcade, and the location was usually the corner of Houston and Elm Streets. He expressed the possibility that perhaps the Belknap seizure was part of something bigger, and that his ambulance (cruising nearby) was supposed to have arrived a few minutes later ... he implied that the sound of its siren would have drowned out the sounds of the shots. At that time in Dallas, ambulances were attached to the funeral homes and not the hospitals. O'Neal's dispatcher Dan Dawson that suggested this may have been a diversion connected to the assassination (i.e. a personal feeling of his). If a similar event were to occur today during a presidential motorcade, the first responders would not be an EMT team ... Secret Service, and all other sorts of protective personnel (in the crowd) would be all over a guy writhing on the ground, just minutes away from POTUS arrival. Gene

Good points, Ron. When you read about him (I'm from Philadelphia, so there's plenty of articles) he was not a public person. Powerful and outspoken in the courtroom, but a low profile otherwise. In contrast, his contemporaries in the know - Vincent Salandria and R. E Sprague - were more vocal about the inequities of the HSCA investigation. I had a work acquaintance who was an investigator for HSCA, and he told me that it was literally impossible to get any information out of the CIA. Sprague was influential in state and city political and civic affairs, but played all sides of the fence. He led a relatively private life, as this profile in the Penn Law Journal points out: He has never Googled himself, Sprague said, and he seemed mildly surprised to learn that 29,900 listings pop up when a user types in his name and city into the search engine. “Except for my law work, I really am a private person,” Sprague said. “I’m not a joiner, not a hail-fellow-well-meet type of person. I’ve never joined fraternities or social groups. I really enjoy my privacy.” “I realized that ... when you’re in elected or appointed office, you are not quite a free soul. You’re subject to the whims of the electorate, or of those of the people who appointed you. Being in private practice makes me the most independent person in the world. You can’t tell the press to drop dead if you’ve been elected. You have some invasion of your personal life, and you can never forget that.” Sprague once gave a talk entitled “Murder Most Foul: My Most Famous and Interesting Murder Prosecutions” on March 23, 2009 at the University of Pennsylvania Law School that was described as a clinic on how to prosecute a murder case ... and quite the interesting title. His list of clients during private practice included list of clients included basketball star Allen Iverson, former Mayor Frank Rizzo, former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo, famed defense attorney F. Lee Bailey, John DuPont and the late Inquirer owners, Lewis Katz and H.F. Gerry Lenfest. He also had plenty of hobbies: visiting New York’s Metropolitan Opera House listening to his beloved Wagner and Puccini, dumping old clothes in his car and driving to the Blue Ridge Mountains for an afternoon of antiquing and visiting Civil War sites, an amateur photographer, avid tennis player and a fanatical chess player. He remained active up to his passing at 95 years old, as his son (and legal partner) explained: “He had such incredible curiosity about so many things,” his son said. “He would love to read about anything from astronomy to science, and before 6:30 on most mornings for many, many years, he had already read all of these newspapers and sent around press clippings from the New York Times and other publications to a whole list of family and friends.” Gene

If a rational (and intelligent) person were to piece this all together, how can they not conclude that HSCA was sabotaged and flawed? That someone (high up) had something to hide? And that Blakey was compromised and disingenuous? What does surprise me - thinking about the next 50 years - is that Dick Sprague didn't come back at this, and expose the government. He historically took on all comers ... good/bad, big/small, popular or not. Maybe he knew it was a lose-lose proposition.

Sprague remained loyal to Arlen, until his death. I don't think the Baron's passing and Sprague's exit were coincidental. In reading the R. E. Sprague - the other Sprague, a photographic specialist also from Philadelphia - account of the HSCA: The idea (in undercutting the HSCA) was to use Gonzalez to fire Sprague and the key staff members, first blocking their access to important files and witnesses. The PCG would then have been in a position to either fold up the Committee by March 31st, or to direct its efforts toward finding a Castro-did-it conspiracy in JFK’s case and no conspiracy in the King case. By the time Gonzalez became chairman, the other eleven members of the Committee and its staff had begun to smell a rat. They noted with curiosity all of the strange coincidences that occurred. During the floor debate on February 2, 1977 over continuing the Committee, Representatives Devine, Preyer, Burke and Fauntroy let the rest of the House know that they believed something peculiar was happening. The appearance of the Justice Department report on that same day disturbed them very much, as did the attacks on Sprague . The staff were even more disturbed. A substantial reduction in the proposed budget , reduced to 2.8 million for the remainder of 1977, is what saved the Committee. The House finally voted to continue the Committee by a very narrow margin, with a swing of 25 votes determining the result. The final weapon used to obtain a vote to continue the Committee on March 30th was the resignation of Dick Sprague.

Jim What do you make of Dick Sprague remining such a close friend of Arlen Specter? While I don't doubt Sprague's sincerity in getting the HSCA rolling, he must've known that it might ultimately reflect poorly on his friend and mentor. As Sprague was not shy about being direct and controversial, I would've loved to have been a 3rd party to some of their candid discussions. In contrast, Vincent Salandria was not so kind towards Specter's legacy. Nonetheless, Specter mentored many prominent Philadelphian's, giving career starts in the legal profession to Ed Rendell and a slew of high profile judges, prosecutors and private practitioners. But Specter’s first assistant district attorney was Richard Sprague , who called Specter "the best district attorney Philadelphia has ever seen" and who is credited with transforming the office from an entity consumed by cronyism into a professional office. Specter was also the first DA to hire women and ethnic minorities in great numbers, and was later praised by his colleagues: “He made sure women took a proper role within the office ... he hired a group of women and made sure they all had the same opportunities as the men. Same with minorities. You just had to be qualified and then he worked your tail off. You didn’t have to be the smartest person in the room but everyone was accountable.” All of his proteges (including Sprague) kept in touch with Specter over the years, and maintained that admiration even though some were disappointed with his grilling of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings in 1991. Sprague himself was praised by no less than F. Lee Bailey, who stated: “If I were in serious trouble of any kind, or if I needed advice or help on a matter of great importance, Dick Sprague is the guy I would call. He is, and has been for many years, one of the greatest courtroom lawyers in America. There are very, very few real trial lawyers that I would rank with him.” One thing that I never realized was - the day that Sprague resigned from the HSCA - was the same day that George De Mohrenschildt was found dead. The night before the Committee vote, they sent an investigator to serve him a subpoena but that same night he received the subpoena from the Committee, he was found dead. I have no doubt the HSCA would've turned out very differently, had Sprague been allowed to say on. Sprague's legal passion is best summed up by the following quote from the Penn Law Journal: “I don’t take a case for the money — I take it if the legal aspects interest me, or the people. I’m looking for really good legal issues. As a result, a lot of the cases I wind up handling are better known. The way to judge a society is not by how it treats its saints, but how it treats its sinners. The federal courts used to be very good at protecting the the constitutional and privacy rights of anyone who appeared before them. That has dropped, probably because of 9/11, with putting national security ahead of personal rights. In general today, there’s a greater interest in protecting government against the individual. But government is very strong; it’s the individual who needs to have his rights protected". Gene

Noguchi was set up by an Englishman named Donald Stuart, who appeared on the LA scene just after the shooting. Stuart "volunteered" to be Noguchi's deputy three weeks after RFK's murder. He was obviously inserted by the plotters to monitor the Coroner's work and eventually discredit Noguchi. Noguchi’s autopsy showed that Kennedy was hit two other times from behind, and a fourth shot fired from behind went through his suit coat without hitting him. Dr. Donald Stuart had been hired as Deputy medical examiner for Coroner Noguchi, and he later testified that Noguchi used amphetamines, that he rejoiced at RFKs death (because it would make him famous) and that he acted mentally unstable. Three years later Stuart was arrested, as he was a fake with phony medical degrees. Noguchi was later run out of office for his unorthodoxy. Noguchi’s high visibility and the high level of criticism prompted the county board to force him from office twice ... in 1969 and 1982. In both cases he fought back, regaining his post the first time but losing it the second, despite a five-year battle that he took all the way to the state Supreme Court. He was accused of mismanagement, using the office to promote his personal projects and indiscretion for his public disclosures about the deaths of several Hollywood stars. The “fighting coroner,” as he had come to be known, was banished to County-USC Medical Center as a pathologist and teacher. He retired in 1999 but continues to teach at USC. He is currently 94 years old.

Just curious, but does anyone find it ironic that Dick Sprague's mentor was Arlen Specter, and that he was a pallbearer at Arlen's funeral? While Vince Salandria and Gaeton Fonzi (both Philly guys) opposed Specter later in life (Vince called him out as a "fraud"), Sprague was far more accommodating of their relative differences. However, I would also point out that Philadelphia is the City of Brotherly Love. Of course, Ruth Hyde Paine also spent time in Philadelphia after graduating from Antioch College in Ohio. She went to Philadelphia to become playground director and teacher of folk-dancing at Germantown Friends School. While there she met Michael Paine, and they married in 1957 and lived in suburban Media/Paoli, before moving to Irving, Texas in 1959. They had two children but separated in September 1962, divorcing in 1970. Ruth moved back to Philadelphia with her children in 1971, and took a job as the Principal of Greene Street Friends School (close to where I grew up). She lived there with her daughter and mother until 1975, when she moved to Florida and became a school psychologist.

Sprague was a Philadelphia legend ... he would've gotten to the bottom of the JFK case (no doubt) and it would've taken all the CIA could bring to the table to ultimately stop him. He was - in a word - relentless, and took on all comers. I once heard him speak, and he highly respected in legal circles. Richard Aurel Sprague - the middle name is short for Aurelius, as in Marcus - Penn Law ’53, son of a Jewish mother and stepson of a Quaker father, first tasted power when he joined the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office in 1958. He was an assistant to Philadelphia District Attorney Arlen Specter (his mentor) from 1966-1974 ... a Democrat in a Republican's office. During the 17 years he worked in the district attorney's office, he prosecuted more than 10,000 cases, and won 69 out of 70 first-degree murder trials. It was written that he so admired his boss (Specter) that he turned down an offer from Democratic leaders to run for DA; the Democrats then nominated F. Emmett Fitzpatrick, who trounced Specter in the election ... and later fired Sprague. Sprague was a pallbearer at Specter's funeral in 2012. I loved this quote: He represented heir and philanthropist John E. du Pont in his headline-grabbing 1996 murder case for the slaying of wrestler David Schultz, mounting an insanity defense. When prosecutors questioned how du Pont could be insane when he signed a contract agreeing to pay a $1 million retainer to his lawyer, Mr. Sprague responded: “That was his one moment of lucidity.”

I don't think Courtney Evans would be a credible source for an accurate perspective on RFK. Joan Mellen used him as an example of RFK's prodigious/illegal use of wiretapping (and the allegations that Bobby authorized the wiretaps on MLK). She also refers to Hebert J. Miller as a "Kennedy acolyte" which seems patently untrue ... Miller was CIA all the way, and feeding Garrison's information to Shaw's lawyers (see the 2013 William Davy article): By December 24, 1965, Courtney Evans had retired from the Bureau and joined the law firm of a Kennedy acolyte, Herbert J. Miller, Jr. Miller would serve as Walter Sheridan’s lawyer on more than one occasion. It was Herbert J. Miller, Jr. who extracted Walter Sheridan when he was indicted in Orleans Parish by Jim Garrison for petty bribery and intimidation of witnesses. Walter Sheridan died in 1995. During the period of the ARRB, the National Archives sought to obtain Sheridan’s papers as Kennedy assassination records. The papers had been deposited at the Kennedy Library ... Herbert J. Miller, Jr. then stepped in, seized Sheridan’s records from the Kennedy library, and removed them to the bosom of the Sheridan family, far from the prying eyes of historians. Miller’s taped interview with Jeremy Gunn of the ARRB is a masterpiece of obfuscation. On the subject of his deceased client Sheridan, and his behavior in New Orleans, Miller refused to answer a single question for the historical record. One day Courtney Evans, at Bureau headquarters, shared with two fellow FBI officers details of the contacts he had with Robert Kennedy. He had furnished written information to Kennedy “and other Justice Department officials” who had served under Kennedy, Evans revealed. The subject of the discussion was the FBI’s use of microphone surveillances. Then something odd occurred. After this meeting, Courtney Evans furnished Robert Kennedy with a letter denying that the two ever had any discussions about wire taps. Evans also lied and denied he had ever provided Bobby with written material about the FBI’s use of microphone wire taps. Confident that Evans’ lying letter would protect him, defending himself in the press against persistent charges that he had sanctioned wire taps, Robert Kennedy denied he knew anything about the FBI’s use of surveillance microphones. To demonstrate his veracity, Bobby released to the press the fraudulent letter that Evans had obligingly written for him. The letter is dated February 17, 1966. In it, Evans states, falsely, that he “did not discuss the use of microphones by the FBI with Robert Kennedy during his tenure as Attorney General.” Evans also denies he knew of any written material that was sent to Robert Kennedy “at any time” concerning microphone surveillances. Gene

Paul I know you want to hear from others, but I'm not sure who (specifically) started the assertion that Sheridan was sent to Garrison's investigation by RFK. I don't belive that Garrison ever accused RFK of anything. Sheridan dances around this, and states that NBC sent him. He is alleged to have been influenced by William Gurvich, who wasn't a friend of Garrison, nor what he at first appeared to be. Sheridan later inserted himself into RFK's presidential campaign through long-standing associates. I simply don't see much activity to qualify him as a close RFK associate from 65-68. Most of his close association is during the Hoffa ordeal, which stated when RFK was chief counsel for the Senate Rackets Committee on which JFK served, and gained intensity when JFK was elected president and appointed his brother as attorney general. This culminated in Hoffa's conviction in 1964 for jury tampering charges and then for defrauding a pension fund. Hoffa was paroled in 1971 by Richard Nixon, and disappeared four years later outside a restaurant (never to be seen again). I sense that Sheridan's friendship with the Kennedy's is overstated. Gene

Angleton and Company ... the same people who aways gave Maheu a green light. Those individuals might include Helms or maybe even Dulles, although he died in January 1969. The Garrison NBC special that Sheridan orchestrated was in June 1967 ... Bobby was killed one year later. Maheu celebrated with Donald Nixon (brother of Richard). Spirals up thru Howard Hughes.

The September 2013 article by William Davy in Kennedy's and King is an excellent read on Sheridan's background. Its difficult to paint an innocent or Here are some excerpts: The newly released CIA files present an interesting biography of "reporter" Sheridan. In 1955 Sheridan was security approved as an investigator for the CIA. A month later this was cancelled because Sheridan accepted a position at the ultra-secret National Security Agency. In 1956 he was security approved once again by the CIA so that he could attend their "Basic Orientation Course". After leaving the NSA, Sheridan went to work for Bobby Kennedy's Justice Department in the "Get Hoffa" squad, where his tactics in nailing Hoffa earned him a rebuke from none other than Chief Justice Earl Warren and paved the way for Hoffa's eventual release. With this background in the intelligence communities Sheridan was now apparently qualified to work for NBC as a reporter, despite having no previous journalism experience. However, documents reveal that Sheridan did not sever contact with the CIA. In early May of 1967 the Counter Intelligence office of the CIA issued a memorandum for the Deputy Director of Plans which stated: "Richard Lansdale, Associate General Counsel, has advised us that NBC plans to do a derogatory TV special on Garrison and his probe of the Kennedy assassination; that NBC regards Garrison as a menace to the country and means to destroy him. The program is to be presented within the next few weeks. Mr. Lansdale learned this information from Mr. Walter Sheridan of NBC." During Sheridan's tenure in New Orleans he enlisted the aid of Richard Townley from NBC's affiliate, WDSU-TV. Townley's loose tongue offered further proof that the NBC White Paper was no more than a deliberate attempt to sabotage the investigation and to ruin Jim Garrison. A recently released FBI memo reads: "A local FBI agent reported that Richard Townley, WDSU-TV, New Orleans, remarked to a special agent of the New Orleans office last evening that he had received instructions from NBC, New York, to prepare a one hour TV special on Jim Garrison with the instruction "shoot him down." NBC reporter Sheridan was providing intelligence on the Garrison investigation to a CIA lawyer (Herbert J. Miller), a situation that indicates certain sinister possibilities. While Sheridan's litigation was pending, Miller began doing double duty as a conduit between Shaw's lawyers and the CIA. In fact, recently declassified records show that Sheridan wasn't satisfied with solely presenting his own warped view of Garrison. A May 11th CIA memo reveals that Sheridan wanted to meet with the CIA "under any terms we propose" and that Sheridan desired to make the CIA's view of Garrison "a part of the background in the following NBC show." While Sheridan's litigation was pending, Miller began doing double duty as a conduit between Shaw's lawyers and the CIA. And here is the truly troubling revelation about the people and "insiders" surrounding Bobby Kennedy: What brings the Sheridan affair full circle is a friend of Sheridan's, one Carmine S. Bellino. Bellino was a former FBI agent and Kennedy insider who worked with Robert Kennedy on the McClellan Committee in the fifties and was brought on to Sheridan's "Get Hoffa" squad in the sixties. In 1954 Bellino actually shared his office with CIA/Mafia go-between, Robert Maheu. But what is troubling about the Bellino/Sheridan relationship is that Bellino once worked with none other than Guy Banister, performing background checks for the Remington Rand Corporation. In the seventies Bellino became an investigator on the Watergate Committee and did his best to steer the committee away from investigating any CIA involvement in the crime. I am convinced that Maheu orchestrated or facilitated RFK's murder. Gene

Paul: I don't know that it is (but its on the record). The Oral History interview was transcribed in June 1970. Its difficult to find out much about Sheridan (interestingly, he has a son who resides in my town of Lansdale PA). He wasn't a lawyer, although he attended Fordham University. Served time in the Navy, then a few years with FBI and NSA, before he becomes RFK's lead for the "Get Hoffa" project run out of the Justice Department. The Kennedy Library interviews aren't too informative or interesting ... his answers seem vague, and he hems/haws about his interactions with RFK (especially the Gurvich/Garrison aspect). He's not too forthcoming about his role in RFK's presidential campaign. Those 1970 interviews gave me the impression that he wasn't as close to RFK as is popularly reported. The 1981 LaRouche EIR website article asserts that he was an agent of PERMINDEX and a member of the FBI's Division 5 (not sure how much stock to put in those allegations). Here is what Garrison had to say about Sheridan in his October 1967 Playboy interview: According to Perry Russo, Sheridan added that both NBC and the CIA were out to scuttle my case. I think it’s significant that the chief investigator for this ostensibly objective broadcast starts telling people the day he arrives in town that he is going to “destroy Garrison” — this at the same time he is unctuously assuring me that NBC wanted only the truth and he had an entirely open mind on my case. Let me tell you something about Walter Sheridan’s background, and maybe you’ll understand his true role in all this. Sheridan was one of the bright, hard young investigators who entered the Justice Department under Bobby Kennedy. He was assigned to nail Jimmy Hoffa. Sheridan employed a wide variety of highly questionable tactics in the Justice Department’s relentless drive against Hoffa; he was recently subpoenaed to testify in connection with charges that he wire–tapped the offices of Hoffa’s associates and then played back incriminating tapes to them, warning that unless they testified for the Government, they would be destroyed along with Hoffa. A few years ago, Sheridan left the Justice Department — officially, at least — and went to work for NBC. No honest reporter out for a story would have so completely prejudged the situation and been willing to employ such tactics. I think it’s likely that in his zeal to destroy my case, he exceeded the authority granted him by NBC’s executives in New York. I get the impression that the majority of NBC executives probably thought Sheridan’s team came down here in an uncompromising search for the truth. When Sheridan overstepped himself and it became obvious that the broadcast was, to say the least, not objective, NBC realized it was in a touchy position. Cooler heads prevailed and I was allowed to present our case to the American people. For that, at least, I’m singularly grateful to Walter Sheridan. Gene

It sure seems that way. But the troubling part is that he also pulled the wool over RFK's eyes. He is portrayed as the faithful family loyalist ... but he betrayed the Kennedys. In a 1981 article entitled "Introducing NBC's dirty-tricks chief of " by Richard McGraw, In February 1967 Walter Sheridan went to work for the National Broadcasting Company (NBC-TV) as an investigative reporter for their "White Paper" documentary series. His assignment was to discredit Garrison, who was probing the role of Permindex and its board member businessman Clay Shaw, in the assassination . On July 7, 1967, Walter Sheridan was charged with four counts of bribery by Garrison's office in a case that involved flagrant attempts to tamper with Garrison's witnesses. I don't quite understand the job he took as a "journalist" with NBC: I left Bobby and the senate job on Washington’s [George Washington] birthday in 1965, and I think we’ve been through that going to NBC [National Broadcasting Company] business. So in the year 1965 I was—the first year at NBC—I was kind of floundering around because I was new to them and they were new to me. They didn’t have a producer, so I traveled a bit, but I was here quite a bit. So when I was here, I used to go over there probably once a week, and I’d just drop in and maybe talk to Frank Mankiewicz. Interviewer: Why don’t you begin by telling how often and on what kinds of occasions you usually saw Robert Kennedy between late ‘67 and the decision in 1968? SHERIDAN: Well, I was working for NBC, and I would just stop in his office fairly infrequently, maybe once every two weeks or something like that. There was no pattern to it at all. I had discussions with Adam Walinsky and Peter Edelman [Peter B. Edelman] more so than with him, as to his personal or potential involvement. But the first time I really discussed it with him was sometime in late 1967, December, I think. He called me at home, which he would do occasionally, and in the course of the conversation, he asked me whether I thought he ought to run. I don't think he was as close to RFK as generally believed. From 1965 to 1970, Sheridan was a NBC News special correspondent, producing documentaries on crime and gun control among other issues. In 1994, the AARB tried unsuccessfully to obtain Sheridan's records: In its effort to comply with the JFK Act, the John F. Kennedy Library reviewed its holdings for groups of records that could contain assassination records. Among others, it found the records of Walter Sheridan, an investigator who worked for Robert F. Kennedy and later for NBC. The library identified folders of materials, primarily notes, related to Sheridan's work as an investigative reporter for NBC covering the prosecution of Clay Shaw. In 1967, Sheridan produced an hour-long television special on the assassination. In 1994, the library informed Sheridan that it was processing his records and sending them to the JFK Collection at NARA. Sheridan requested that the library return the identified assassination records to him, and the library honored his request. Sheridan, however, died in January 1995. NBC then claimed it owns the rights to the Sheridan papers. The dispute is now pending.

Paul One last thought. I had never been able to find much about Sheridan previously. At the surface, he comes across as a nice Catholic guy, a Fordham graduate, and faithful Kennedy family loyalist. However, there is also something not quite right about him (imho) and it came to me when I read a 1970 interview in the Kennedy Library (Walter Sheridan Oral History Interview—RFK#6, 6/12/1970 Administrative Information Interviewer: Roberta Greene, June 12, 1970). Sheridan is being asked about the Garrison investigation, and he was quite sure that Garrison was "full of baloney" (based on input from William Gurvich): SHERIDAN: I just told him I was bringing Bill Gurvich [William H. Gurvich] up to see him and that Gurvich would tell him that Garrison was full of baloney. GREENE: How did you get involved in this, by the way? Was it on his behalf? Had he asked you to look into the Garrison thing? SHERIDAN: Oh, no, no. Garrison would have people think so, but he had nothing to do with it. I just went down for NBC and got involved. Then once I got involved, I saw that Garrison had nothing, and I’m sure I told him that somewhere along the line when I was back here. Then I just told him when I got Gurvich who was on the inside and who knew what Garrison had. I just wanted—both from Gurvich’s standpoint and from Bob’s standpoint—I thought they should talk about it. And they did. GREENE: Was he satisfied at the end of it? SHERIDAN: I think he was. I think he believed Gurvich that Garrison had nothing. I don’t know what he himself really thought about the whole thing. I was always reluctant to talk to him about it. I think his basic feeling was that John Kennedy was dead and it didn’t really matter. But one thing he said that was interesting was sometime during the Garrison thing, and I think it was about this time when I was bringing Gurvich up, because of course Garrison kept getting into the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] involvement. One time he said to me, he said, “You know, at the time I asked Dulles [Allen W. Dulles] if he killed my brother, or if they had killed my brother and I asked him in a way that he couldn’t lie to me, and they hadn’t.” It wasn’t quite that blunt but it was pretty blunt. What he was saying was that he had looked into that possibility and was satisfied himself that they weren’t involved. GREENE: In your own investigations down there, did you get any clear impression of what his motives were? SHERIDAN: Oh, yeah. He wants to be pope or king or emperor—he’s nuts! I mean, that’s the thing, he’s nuts. He’s absolutely psycho, very bright, very smart. He’s a liberal demagogue and just tremendously ambitious and very dangerous. He had absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. I don’t mean just a little bit. He has absolutely nothing—never did have—and that’s what we said and that’s why he charged me. It’s a very corrupt state. From 1965 to 1970, Sheridan was a "special correspondent" for NBC and his unit received a Peabody Award for a documentary on the 1967 Detroit riots ... not sure he was working for RFK at that point, nor was he a 'journalist' by training. For a guy who was an experienced and tenacious investigator, its difficult to imagine - in retrospect (and after how insightful the Garrison probe turned out to be) - that Sheridan would so adamantly state that Garrison had "absolutely nothing". He was, frankly, flat out wrong. That just doesn't pass today's smell test. And during this timeframe, Sheridan didn't exactly uncover anything that prevented Bobby from being killed (i.e. some friend). If Sheridan was so "connected" and influential, what did he miss? There is an excellent June-July EF Thread about Sheridan and Garrison, where Edward Haslam ("Dr. Mary's Monkey") makes the following comment: "I would like to point out something that I have not seen discussed in the conversation about Walter Sheridan and Jim Garrison. Sheridan was supposedly working as an NBC reporter and had come to New Orleans to investigate Garrison and his JFK claim. The first point is that the local NBC affiliate was WDSU-TV owned by Edgar Stern who also owned WDSU radio. Well, WDSU was the TV station that sent out the camera to film Oswald passing out leaflets in front of the Trade Mart, and WDSU was the radio station that broadcasted the Oswald debate. Does that sound like an objective editorial environment to you? Gene

Paul: I struggle with what to make of Walter Sheridan. He seemed loyal and close to all of the Kennedy's. It would be difficult and painful to conclude that he betrayed them. Many vilify Sheridan, especially his wiretapping of Otepka, the Hoffa/Partin prosecution, and finally Jim Garrison. As David Talbot once put it, Garrison and Sheridan were both "motivated by a deep and genuine desire to crack the case, but were both doomed to clash, considering their polar-opposite personalities and agendas". Much is made of Sheridan's 4 years with the FBI, and his 3-4 years with NSA (not a particularly long government career). I sense the hand of James Angleton in the Otepka story. Classic misdirection and counterespionage (Angleton's specialty). All the RFK bashing and smearing seems over the top ... and frankly, not credible. Its hard to ignore the fact that Otepka's biographer was married to a former Abwehr spy, with Operation Paperclip implications. There is an interesting 2019 article in D-State Analytics by Bill Taylor, entitled “Who was Edward Pierpont Morgan? Was Charles W. Lyons a CIA Cut Out? Did Otepka run across a poopoo Rat Line?” With Otepka's role and responsibilities, the author peculates that Otepka caught on to the process of rinsing poopoo’s into White Russians remains to be seen. It seems likely though, that the CIA did not need Otepka messing up their poopoo rat line. Otepka appears to be more than just a maligned whistleblower ... he seems a creature of the far right. Otepka aligns with many of the principals of the American Security Council, the group campaigning to oust Castro from Cuba, and escalate the war in Vietnam (and some of JFK's fiercest enemies and opponents). The hand of Robert J. Morris in this is also ominous. Morris was chosen as president of the University of Dallas in 1960, but his outspokenness on anti-Communism and other issues created conflict within the school, and he left in 1962. He formed the Defenders of American Liberties in the summer of 1962, intended to serves as a counterbalance to the American Civil Liberties Union, "but with emphasis on different positions" such as defending Edwin Walker ... Morris called Walker the "United States' first political prisoner", after Walker was denied bail and placed under psychiatric observation. In The Manchurian Candidate (1959), author Richard Condon referred to Robert J. Morris and several of his close associates to expose what Morris and his associates were planning for the future of America. Morris managed an unsuccessful City of New York mayoralty campaign for William F. Buckley, Jr. in 1965. Morris was one of the prominent leaders of The American Security Council along with Charles Willoughby, James Angleton and Ray Cline. Gene

I sense the hand of Angleton here ... a letter to Edward Epstein? Smearing and incriminating Bobby Kennedy. Otepka's biographer married to a former Abwehr spy. Operation Paperclip, implications. Otto wasn't just a maligned whistleblower ... he was aligned with all of JFK's enemies. The very people who had him assassinated.

The Otepka story is not what it seems ... the entire thing is "off" and smells of a smear strategy against RFK. I agree with previous assessments that Joan Mellen may have been taken-in by Otepka when she interviewed him, and that he is not as innocent or aggrieved as it appears. Mellen argues that Oswald was on RFK’s radar from early on because he was part of an RFK/JFK plan to eventually take out Castro ... with all that we now know, this is very difficult to believe. There is however speculation that Otepka caught on to the process of rinsing poopoo’s into White Russians, and that the CIA did not need Otepka revealing their poopoo rat line. In hindsight, that RFK put Walter Sheridan in charge of watching Otepka, makes it look like a CIA operation, since Sheridan was a CIA cut-out all along. That also seems to be the case with Charles W. Lyons ... years later, it would be Walter Sheridan that pushed the narrative that RFK and JFK were planning to kill Castro (with Oswald involved) and that the blow-back is what eventually caused Castro assassins to turn their guns on JFK instead. As many have pointed out, blaming RFK for his brother’s death was a good way for the CIA to deflect blame. Material later released shows Otepka as supplying information to Julian Sourwine, chief counsel for the Senate's Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS). William Gill's book, "The Ordeal of Otto Otepka" (and interesting title) alleges that the Kennedy administration maneuvered Otepka to the sidelines. Then, for good measure, Gill describes how Walter Rostow and Dean Rusk laid out JFK's goals for American foreign policy: unilateral disarmament and accommodation with Communism. Finally, Gill asserts that Rostow and Rusk engineered the Bay of Pigs disaster as well as the Vietnam War ... but (heroically) "one man stood in their way, Otto Otepka". Notably, Otepka's biographer (Gill) was married to a former poopoo Abwehr spy, Countess Mechtilde Podewils who spied in Spain in 1937 and was interrogated for her role in the July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler. She came to the U.S. under Operation Paperclip. A 1972 article by Peters & Branch describes Otepka as a right-wing martyr and the first whistleblower in the modern period. Peter Dale Scott's assessment pulls it all together: At least one of the key figures handling Oswald records, Otto Otepka in the State Department Office of Security, became in 1963, before the assassination, the focus of a major conflict between the Kennedy Administration and the more hawkish Senate Internal Security Subcommittee looking for subversives in the government. This conflict had arisen in 1959 over Cuba policy, but came to embrace Kennedy initiatives towards the Soviet Union and over Vietnam. This conflict inside Washington reflected a larger conflict in the country: between doves with civilian priorities seeking to modify Cold War strategies by accommodations with Khrushchev, and hawks with military priorities seeking a more aggressive strategy (and larger defense budget) to fight Communism. This larger conflict was particularly acute in the Kennedy years (as again under Nixon during Watergate). But it was only a phase in an enduring struggle between "America Firsters" and "New World Order" globalists, pitting, through nearly all of this century, the industry-oriented (e.g., the National Association of Manufacturers) against the financial oriented (e.g., the Council on Foreign Relations), two different sources of wealth. Then there is this revelation It was in June 1963, after the Lafayette incident, and after the Walker shooting, that Otepka’s files on Oswald were stolen from his safe. The culprits, Otepka wrote in a 1976 letter to author Edward J. Epstein at “Reader’s Digest” magazine, were his superiors, people close to Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Otepka’s crime had been his studying Oswald, as it had been his responsibility to do. Otepka was reportedly close to Julien Sourwine, Robert Morris, and Ray Rocca, and defended Willis Carto and Liberty Lobby. He was associated with Senators Dodd and Eastland ... all strange bedfellows. Previous EF threads point out that the American Defense Fund (a fund with the John Birch Society association) gave $22,000 to Otepka for his legal costs, and that Otepka allegedly spoke to gatherings at the homes of Birch Society activists. He also spoke at a large meeting in the auditorium of the Flick-Reedy Education Enterprises, an ultra-conservation organization. Last (but not least), he was a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

Here is how his wife and colleagues described Bethell's stay in New Orleans: “He made it to New Orleans on holidays and eventually moved there ... in New Orleans, Bethell had friends but he was kind of a lone wolf who stayed to himself when he was working ... I think he was something of a real night owl.” (Feb. 19, 2021 article by John Pope in New Orleans Times-Picayune) The Times-Picayune article states that Bethell came to New Orleans in the mid-1960s to (ostensibly) write about jazz, stayed for almost a decade, then moved to Washington, where he worked for a series of magazines. After working at a New Orleans magazine, Bethell then moved (back) to Washington in 1975, where he was an editor at The Washington Monthly, Harper’s magazine, and The American Spectator. He attacked Garrison and discredited his investigation. The jazz hobby seems like a convenient cover although he did finally publish a book ("George Lewis: A Jazzman from New Orleans") in 1977 ... but that was two years after he had left New Orleans: The steady paycheck from the Garrison inquiry enabled Bethell to stay in New Orleans and soak up as much as he could about jazz, to which he had first been exposed through vintage records while he was a student at the University of Oxford. His alleged love and passion for jazz seem to have disappeared after 1977 ... his writing became focused on economic and scientific issues, and attacking liberals. He turned to challenging AIDS-HIV theories, Evolution and Darwin, Einstein and Relativity, global warming ... even Shakespeare. What happened to that passion for jazz? Gene