Gene Kelly

3 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

The prosecution did not buy your innocent explanation of Ruby's phone call. You left out the fact that Ken Dowe said that Ruby asked him when Oswald would be transferred:

          Ken Dowe, a KLIF announcer, to whom Ruby made at least two telephone calls within a short span of time Saturday afternoon, confirmed that he was probably the person to whom Hallmark and Brown overheard Ruby speaking. In one call to Dowe, Ruby asked whether the station knew when Oswald would be moved. . . . (WCR, p. 346)

Now, gee, why was Ruby asking about the time of Oswald's transfer?

Shall we talk about Ruby's numerous calls to Mafia figures in the weeks before the assassination? Or how about the fact that we learned in 1967, from a note written by Ruby himself, that Ruby's professed motive for shooting Oswald was really just a legal ploy suggested by his first attorney (HSCA Report, p. 158)?

And, yes, the phone call was in the afternoon, not the evening.

I notice you said nothing about the HSCA's demolition of the myth that Ruby entered the basement via the Main Street ramp.

Let's not forget that a psychiatrist named Louis Jolyon West visited Jack Ruby in his isolation cell in a Dallas jail in April 1964. West found that Jack Ruby was ‘technically insane’ and in need of immediate psychiatric hospitalization. Prior to this, Ruby seemed perfectly sane to the people who knew him. But Louis Jolyon West pronounced him crazy.  West was working for the CIA at the time, as an expert on mind control in the infamous MKUltra program in which powerful psychiatric drugs were being administered to patients without their knowledge. 

West tried to insert himself into the Ruby trial proceedings by petitioning Judge Joe Brown to examine Ruby for the court, but he was rebuffed.  Three times West referred to being told to do this, but never identified by whom.  When Ruby was convicted of murder, he fired his attorney's and hired one of their team for the appeal, Hubert Winston Smith, a psychiatrist with a law degree. One of his first actions was to bring in Jolly West for a reexamination of Ruby.

Strange bedfellows ... to say the least.

Gene

Gil and Joe:

David's excellent paper points out that there was a door on the Main St. side of the parking garage which led to the sub-basement, and two doors that opened into passenger elevators in the central part of the garage. Reserve Officer Alvin Brock was assigned to guard the doors and elevators but was re-assigned to traffic detail (about an hour or so before Ruby arrived). There was a second reservist (G.E. Worley, Jr.) guarding that area ... but, after Officer Brock left, he too was reassigned to traffic duty and left the building.  So, twenty minutes before Oswald was brought to the basement, there were no police officers guarding the parking area. This is where Croy enters the scene ... and Ruby arrives in the basement within 1-2 minutes of Oswald's transfer (thanks to Westbrook, Fritz and Harry Holmes), blending in with the news media and knowing exactly where to stand (next to Croy).  And it's clear that he didn't come down the ramp, as the Warren Commission (and Officer Patrick Dean) wanted us to believe.

Nothing coincidental or spontaneous about any of this. 

Gene

21 hours ago, David Josephs said:

Hi Michael...

John Armstrong and I recently finished a paper about that in detail https://harveyandlee.net/Oswald_Killed/Oswald_Killed.html

Yes, the HSCA concluded that the side door was the most likely but did not get deeper into it

We do... and it's quite interesting...  Hope you enjoy

David:

Excellent paper and very informative read.

Another myth in this Ruby story involves Karen Lynn Bennett Carlin, aka “Little Lynn”, who worked as a stripper at Ruby’s Carousel Club. She later served as Ruby’s alibi after he shot Oswald. She allegedly phoned Ruby on the morning of November 24th, 1963, and asked him to wire her $25 for rent and groceries. While this was what she had testified to, her husband Bruce stated:

"I do not know for sure that the $25 that we asked for went for rent at that time or whether we kept it and paid it when it was due, or whether it went for groceries or medicine, which we both needed … had she not phoned, Ruby would not have been in downtown Dallas that Sunday morning and almost certainly would not have shot Oswald”.

Karen said that she called Ruby about 10:00 am on Sunday morning and Jack said that he would go downtown and send it Western Union ... but she and Bruce didn't pick it up until 3:20 pm that afternoon. Carlin was arrested in December 1963, during Ruby’s trial, for carrying a pistol into the courtroom in her purse. After the assassination, Carlin turned up on the lists of "mysterious deaths" although there was no evidence as such. In 1992, Karen Carlin came back from the dead, and contacted Gary Shaw after living under an assumed identity for 30 years and told him she knew of a plot to kill Oswald, that Ruby told her to phone him Sunday morning and would telegraph her $25 just before shooting Oswald, to establish his alibi as an impulsive act of revenge.

According to a 1993 news article by Peter Kendall, Karen spent much of 1964 changing residences in Fort Worth and made her last appearance as an exotic dancer at the Skyliner Ballroom where she was arrested by Fort Worth police for indecent exposure on Labor Day ... she pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, paid a fine and disappeared. Apparently, Penn Jones met with Carlin and an unknown man in Houston in 1966, where they allegedly asked Jones to report Carlin’s death so that she could go into witness protection. Karen lived under the name Karen Block in Detroit; her son alleged that he and his mother moved around and lived in multiple states while he was growing up. Karen passed away in July 2010. (Reference: 11/22/2013 article by Matt Smith, “This just in: Little Lynn still dead”, The Cleburne Times-Review).

Gene 

5 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

After writing extensively about what was credible in regard to RCN and his story (including the admitted CIA names in his notebook) in SWHT as well as publishing a situational study of his changing remarks over the years from his time in jail to his death (via CD including documents - which is unfortunately no longer available from Lancer but may soon go up on the Weisberg archives) and carrying that on to blog posts on his documented (and strangely not investigated) effort to defect to an adversary nation in Mexico City as well as the very likely possibility that the CIA officer contacting him in Mexico City was Henry Hecksher I think I've done as much as I can to paint the full Nagell story as best we can know it at this distance in time.

Given how much time I've spent on it I've no interest in participating in a long winded forum dialog but I would advise there is a great more to Nagell than what is presented to challenge his stability - which certainly is a caution.  The real challenge is to map his claims to what was going on at given points in his life and then make your own estimate of his remarks at any given point in time.

I would also say that when you boil it all down, its unlikely he knew anything about Dallas - what he did know was that anti-Castro Cubans had approached Oswald to begin manipulating him in New Orleans.  Anti-Castro Cubans representing themselves as Cuban agants.  He just could not understand why Oswald would not break off from them - but of course that's another story entirely.  But in the end, his warnings and remarks about Oswald were simply that Oswald was being manipulated by other people and not a lone actor, a story which definitely needed to be suppressed at the time. 

Personally I think Dick captured it all in his conversation with Nagell's lawyer who said he would have made a totally different defense of Nagell if only he could have proved he had been in Mexico City - something we now know without a doubt.

Thanks Larry. 

I too am conflicted about Nagell's story.  In my recent posts, I have tried to summarize some key information (from a variety of sources) and also wanted to see what the experts like yourself, and David Boylan think.  Nagell is exasperating to understand, and I do agree with Matt and Ben (and others) that a lot of the "evidence" is word of mouth, interviews, and convoluted stories. The word "situational" is a wise caution here, in interpreting his story.  However, he did seem to have a lot of insider information, which would be very dangerous to know/have at the time.  One thing that struck me is your analysis that the CIA officer contacting him in Mexico City was Henry Hecksher ... that would give me some pause. 

Gene 

14 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Gene - I just read up a little on Judge Thornberry. Is there evidence that he left the House specifically for the Nagell trial? Also, calling the Judge a friend of LBJ is almost an understatement, since LBJ later nominated him to associate Justice of the Supreme Court, a nomination he withdrew when Abe Fortas, whose position Thornberry was nominated to fill, ran into Congressional opposition when LBJ tried to promote him from associate Justice to the Supreme Court. And it also turns out that Thornberry won LBJ’s congressional seat when LBJ became a Senator. What any of this has to do with Nagell I don’t know, but it’s peculiar. 

Paul

Thornberry became a protege of Sam Rayburn. In 1963, LBJ persuaded Kennedy to appoint Homer to the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas.  This trusted friend stayed at LBJ’s side during the hours after Kennedy’s assassination (according to his biography). In 1965, Johnson named him to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, where he advanced the cause of civil rights. When LBJ nominated Abe Fortas in 1968 to replace Earl Warren as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, he put forward Thornberry for Fortas’ seat, but Fortas withdrew from consideration so Thornberry remained on the Court of Appeals until his death in 1995.  Attached is a 1965 photo of Thornberry sworn in as Judge at the LBJ Ranch in Texas.

Gene

9 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Gene - I just read up a little on Judge Thornberry. Is there evidence that he left the House specifically for the Nagell trial? Also, calling the Judge a friend of LBJ is almost an understatement, since LBJ later nominated him to associate Justice of the Supreme Court, a nomination he withdrew when Abe Fortas, whose position Thornberry was nominated to fill, ran into Congressional opposition when LBJ tried to promote him from associate Justice to the Supreme Court. And it also turns out that Thornberry won LBJ’s congressional seat when LBJ became a Senator. What any of this has to do with Nagell I don’t know, but it’s peculiar. 

Paul:

Nagell's claims regarding the assassination boil down to observing Cuban exiles representing themselves as Castro agents meeting with Oswald to manipulate him and maneuver him into some action in Washington DC - Baltimore area in September.  All that he ever alleged was that Oswald was part of a conspiracy to murder Kennedy (not necessarily the assassin) which he thought would take place in late September of 1963.  Jim DiEugenio's Kennedys and King article speculates that this is why Nagell acted out in El Paso on September 20th. 

This is where the plot thickened ... as I understand the story (reading Russell's work), Nagell was working counterintelligence for CIA by 1962 - as part of the Domestic Operations Branch - when he got wind of the plot. He was communicating through a Mexico City contact up to Tracy Barnes. While in Mexico, his CIA contact stopped meeting meet him; his only communication about the plot was now with the KGB, who allegedly told him to try and separate Oswald from the conspirators by telling him he was being duped (or eliminate him).  By then Russell and others believe that the CIA was freezing Nagell out (he got no reply from an attempted communication with Desmond Fitzgerald). Russell speculates that Nagell had been duped into thinking that he was working on this mission for both sides.

When he appeared before the court on November 4, 1963, Nagell told the judge, "I had a motive for doing what I did. But my motive was not to hold up the bank. I do not intend to disclose my motive at this time." Author Dick Russell went to El Paso in 1975 and discovered that - even though two FBI agents were in on his arrest, and the Bureau confiscated his belongings - no FBI representative testified at his trial. Yet in a newspaper story of 1/24/64, Nagell revealed that the FBI had asked him about Oswald's activities. Nagell was sent to Springfield prison and was part of their behavior modification program (as was Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden). Nagell's sister's widower later told Dick Russell that Nagell's mission was to eliminate Oswald before the assassination. He also told Russell that the FBI visited them in 1965 to see some of the papers Nagell had sent to them; while they were on vacation, someone later broke into their home and stole the documents.

To address your question about Homer Thornberry, the first judge at Nagell's trial retired before the trial began. He was replaced by Thornberry, on a recommendation by then Texas attorney Leon Jaworski. After his conviction and sentencing, Nagell was dragged from the courtroom screaming that "the FBI had allowed Kennedy to be shot" and that they had questioned him about Oswald before the murder. While in jail, he was warned not to talk about Oswald and later transferred to Leavenworth where he was allegedly tortured (and during trips back to El Paso for appeal hearings, beaten up). Nagell's 1967 prison letter to Arthur Greenstein (aka "Arturo Verdestein") characterized Oswald as a patsy and an apparent pawn of David Ferrie. 

To gain his release from prison, Nagell's attorney, Joseph Calamia, got his client to cooperate with the government in a psychological ruse. According to Jim DiEugenio, Thornberry and the FBI apparently brokered a deal with the defendant: a chance to go free if you go along with our discreditation of you as a witness. Urged on by Calamia, Nagell went along with this ploy, but reluctantly. Eventually this is how Nagell was finally released. DiEugenio writes that "Calamia made a deal with the devil to get his client out of jail" ... Nagell got out in April of 1968. 

Gene

On 1/14/2023 at 3:41 PM, Matt Allison said:

Yes, this conversation doesn't sound real to me. Police officers aren't inclined to have casual conversations with inmates inside a courtroom. Or, frankly, to give a damn about what comes out of an alleged bank robber's mouth.

Matt

I don't think Russell would misrepresent Bundren's comments, and he told him quite a few things.  Hard to imagine that Russell would've related it, if he didn't think Bundren was credible.  Here is what Russell wrote:

When Kennedy was assassinated, the full impact of Nagell's prediction did not hit Bundren … but when Jack Ruby shot Oswald, it did. Bundren exclaimed to himself, "How the hell would he have previous knowledge of it? How would he know what was coming down in Dallas?"  When Bundren went to the FBI to try and talk about Nagell's stunning prognostication, the agent he knew there told him he was not at liberty to discuss it. Bundren concluded from the experience that "Nagell know a lot more about the assassination then he let on, or that the government let on. It bothered me ever since." Indicating Bundren was right about what the government knew, Russell notes at this point that one of the notebooks seized from Nagell that day was not returned to him for eleven years. The other notebook was not returned at all. 

Nagell ended up serving more than four years in federal prisons, after two trials presided over by Judge Homer Thornberry, a friend of LBJ, who resigned a congressional seat to take over the Nagell case in 1964. Following Nagell’s release from Leavenworth in April 1968, he obtained a passport, quickly left the country, and traveled to East Germany.  That's quite a long incarceration for Nagel's "crime" in that El Paso bank.

Gene

On 1/12/2023 at 10:44 PM, Matt Allison said:

I bought TMWKTM back when it was first published, and read it countless times.

I never believed Bundren's statement referenced here. Not then, not now.

It sounded overly dramatic, not real, and it didn't make sense with the chronology. To me, it sounded like yet another of the Texas tall tales that various people have verbalized over the years that have done nothing but make JFKA research look foolish. Madeline Brown, Beverly Oliver, etc

Matt

According to Dick Rusell's book, "On the Trail of the JFK Assassins", Nagell first went to a nearby post office before entering the bank, where he mailed five-hundred-dollar bills to an address in Mexico. He then mailed two letters to the CIA (one was apparently addressed to Desmond Fitzgerald). From the post office, Nagell walked over to the State National Bank where he approached a teller and asked for a hundred dollars in American Express traveler's checks. But before Nagell could retrieve the checks, he turned and fired two shots into a wall right under the ceiling.

An interesting read is "Evidence and the Big Easy III", Carmine Savastano's TPAKK blog, dated January 09, 2019.  Carmine cites an El Paso Police Department Supplementary Offense Report ("Attempted Robbery of State National Bank", Ref: Richard Case Nagell, September 21, 1963).  Based on evidence from the El Paso police, Nagell did not fire shots, walk to his car, and calmly await the police ... he tried to escape and surrendered a distance from the bank. Unknown to many was the presence of police officer J. Bundren assigned to guard a Treasury Department currency display in the west lobby, which Carmine surmises might have been what attracted Nagell. Following the sound of shots in the east lobby, the officer rushed to the area where he learned Nagell had fled running out the side door.  The police officer "ran out the door of the bank chasing the subject to the corner of Oregon and Overland and then west on Overland" and Nagell's trail led to a local alleyway where he emerged in a vehicle but now faced the pursuing officer pointing a gun at him and stated "All-right, I give up".  After some questioning Nagell was taken into custody, and his vehicle was impounded.

When Bundren searched Nagell, one thing found on him was a mimeographed newsletter from the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. When Bundren notified the FBI, Nagell asked them to get the machine gun out of the trunk of his car (but there was no machine gun).  However, there was a suitcase, two briefcases filled with documents, two tourist cards for entry into Mexico (one in the name of Aleksei Hidel), a small Minolta camera, and a miniature film development lab. And according to Russell, on the way to the El Paso Federal Building, Nagell issued a statement to the FBI: "I would rather be arrested than commit murder and treason."  According to Jim DiEugenio's article in Kennedys and King ("The Most Important Witness, Part 2", June 2009), Officer Bundren later told Dick Russell that, at a preliminary hearing for Nagell, the defendant shared that he wanted to be caught. To which Bundren replied that he knew Nagell was not out to rob the bank, and following statements were made:

Nagell: Well, I'm glad you caught me. I really don't want to be in Dallas.  Bundren: What do you mean by that?  Nagell: You'll see soon enough. 

When Bundren later went to the FBI to try and talk about Nagell's prediction, the agent he (Bundren) knew there told him he was not at liberty to discuss it.  I doubt that Bundren would misrepresent all of this to Dick Russell years later ... there seems no reason for that.

Gene

23 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

But Gene---Nagell's explanation for shooting up a bank is totally nutty. In fact, in prison, lacking any food or water other than that served by authorities, how safe is anybody? Jack Ruby comes to mind. 

In addition, surely in prison there are people who could be induced to put a shiv in any particular prisoner. 

On the other hand, back in 1963 anyone could enter Mexico, and stay at a low-cost villa 50 miles south of Ensenada. 

Nagell appears to have been deeply troubled. 

A thought occurs to me...intel agencies might actually prefer to use mentally troubled individuals for certain assignments. Then later, even if the "crazy" person tells the truth in court, they are easily discredited by all the other nutty commentary they make. 

The CIA may have actually dangled Nagell in front of Garrison. But Garrison did not bite. 

Just a thought. 

 

Ben

What comes to mind for me about the bank robbery is, it's an FBI matter (not just local police) ... Nagell wanted to get the FBI's attention (imho).  Plus, I think that the "Cubans" were onto him ... the violent anti-Castro crowd that were cultivating Oswald and had operational roles in Dealey Plaza.  He sought federal protection, from both the KGB and CIA (i.e., any port in a storm).  Just my two cents.  

Gene

A January 2018 article in Who/What/Why by Dick Russell, "How to Get the CIA’s Attention: Threaten a JFK Assassination Reveal" has some interesting points about why Nagell never testified at the Shaw trial for Garrison. His outreach to Garrison was aborted because Nagell suspected that Garrison's investigation had been penetrated by the CIA (which was true) and anything he said would be compromised: 

On April 3, 1968, while Nagell was in Leavenworth Penitentiary serving a ten-year sentence for “attempted bank robbery,” the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit handed down a decision that “the evidence introduced by the Government is not sufficient to maintain [Nagell’s] conviction. Upon his release, Nagell flew to New York and met twice with Jim Garrison in Central Park. [Garrison verified the get-togethers in interviews with Russell]. Issued a new passport, Nagell soon flew to Zurich, Switzerland. According to an earlier released 1969 Secret Service report, Nagell stated that the Garrison trial [of Clay Shaw] was getting ready to open in New Orleans and that ‘certain interests’ wanted him out of the country so that he could not be subpoenaed to appear.” A CIA cable describes what happened when, in early June 1968: Nagell walked into the American consulate in Zurich, met with a “political officer” and announced he’d been interviewed by Garrison “in connection ‘CIA and Pres Kennedy assassination.’” It goes on to say “Subj[ect] claims Garrison told him he in danger being killed. Therefore wants ‘inform CIA he in Zurich.’”

Russell points out in the 2018 article that individuals long involved in the CIA’s Oswald paper trail - including Jane Roman, Bruce Solie, and David Murphy - overlapped with that of the Nagell saga ... at a minimum, the Agency wanted to keep up with where he was and what he might be saying to whom.  Larry Hancock's blog lends credence to the Nagell story, and explains why he (Nagell) left New Orleans and ended up in an El Paso bank:

Nagell gives us word of a potential action involving the East Coast, but then relates that his own visibility to the Cubans forced him to flee New Orleans pursued by the Cubans. In order to escape their attention, he was decided to commit a fake bank robbery in El Paso, Texas. In doing so he was arrested and remained in jail beginning in September and through November 22.  That provided protection from the people who had been pursing him. 

Richard Sprague wrote that Dick Russell had obtained an agreement from Nagell to meet with the HSCA, but no contact had been made up to April 1978. Nagell was apparently hiding in fear of his children's lives (not so much his own life). Russell was the only person who knew where Nagell was, and a recommendation was given to Chairman Stokes that the committee contact Nagell through Russell. Stokes referred the Nagell matter to Robert Blakey for follow-up, but Blakey never mentioned it by telephone or by letter.  By September 1978, when the public hearings had begun, there was no indication that Blakey was going to call Nagell, who was standing by but had not been contacted.

Gene

Ron/Ben/David:

Kris Milligan, publisher of the Oregon-based Trinday books, did do most of the talking in the Podcast.  When he started to expound upon JVB, it turned me off.   Nagell is a tough nut to crack ... lots of tantalizing stories and connections, some of which are difficult to ignore.  Surely the policeman who arrested him in El Paso can attest to what Nagell said about what was coming in Dallas ... that part seems to be corroborated and hard to ignore.  Then he is incarcerated for several years - taken out of the picture (like Abraham Bolden) - and reappears to convince Garrison of his bona fides.  While Nagell is eccentric and an enigma, it does seem that he played games with the story up until his death.  Tapes and documents that are allegedly stolen, but never show up or become revealed ... letters purportedly sent to Congressmen, FBI and others, but undated and no longer available.  Just quite sure what to think about him ... and what was he doing a year earlier (in 1962) with Oswald in Mexico?  However, he has all of these interesting artifacts of Oswald's, and he does single-out Carlos Quiroga and another Cuban as his companions that summer. 

Gene 

David

I would be interested in your take on Nagell.  His story is a bit difficult to believe (i.e., almost too good to be true). It's not easy to validate much of it, as a lot derives from 2nd-hand sources like Professor Richard Popkin and others (Bill Turner, Dick Russell).   It's reassuring that Jim Garrison believed in Nagell's story, and some of the evidence and anecdotes are hard to ignore.  It is unclear who he was working for/with in the early 60's ... his military intelligence career ended in 1959, and he had some controversial experiences in the early 60's in California.  There are also documents out there that indicate he experienced brain trauma, and he is characterized as unsteady by many who encountered him.  It also doesn't seem that his marriage and family life were sound.  

Gene

23 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

The Hench report is an interview with Nagell; of Nagell making claims, not the interviewer making a statement of facts about Nagell.

IOW, it doesn't prove any claim made to be true. So its value is next to nothing.

Matt

Not sure how you feel about Nagell, as his story almost seems incredulous, but he is difficult for me to ignore or dismiss.  Author Dick Russell would likely vouch for Nagell's credibility.  Also, his death was equally intriguing ... when the Assassination Records Review Board decided to contact Nagell. The ARRB sent a registered letter on October 31, 1995. One day after the letter was mailed, Nagell was found dead in his apartment, victim of an apparent heart attack.

Gene

13 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Jim-

Let me get back to you on these questions. 

As for the Selective Service card...how did LHO make his phony card? He drafted it up in a graphics shop. 

There were graphics shops in those days, and white-out.  

On the Hench memo, see comments above. 

Side note: Has anyone seem the actual Nagell-Oswald selective service card? I have looked online without avail....

 

 

Ben

The Military Intelligence report was written in May 1969 by special agent Thomas Hench ... it's not the September 1963 warning letter to the FBI.  It isn't yet clear to me how that Hench report was subsequently discredited.

Gene

7 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Of course, you guys do know that Oswald denied going to Mexico City in the DPD interrogation report, and in one of the FBI reports he said he'd been to Mexico only once, and that was to visit Tijuana.

(My apologies if you've already discussed this. It seems clear to me that Holmes was simply in error on this point.)

 

Sandy and David:

Not sure how you feel about Nagell's credibility in this case, but several years after the assassination, Nagell allegedly told a military friend (John Margain) that he had visited Mexico with Oswald (not sure specifically when).  Also, a Military Intelligence report written in May 1969 by special agent Thomas Hench states that Nagell had been conducting "inquiries" into Marina and Lee Oswald from April - September 1963.  Since Nagell was arrested on September 20, 1963, in El Paso, he was out of the picture during the alleged Consulate and Embassy visits.  But if we put stock in some of Nagell's stories, he seemed to know quite a bit about LHO, and some of that interaction apparently occurred in Mexico. 

Nagell's allegations about his Mexico adventures with Oswald have always muddied the waters for me about Mexico City.  

Gene

5 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

I’m not sure you’re really appreciating how insane and blatantly suspicious it is that Marina was not asked a single question about the post office box or the rifle order - but it’s way worse than that. 

Marina almost certainly did visit the Dallas post office at least once, the day she left Irving for New Orleans with Ruth Paine and filed her own change of address from P.O. Box 2915. That CoA form and every subsequent CoA form that could be traced back to it were buried, including a CoA in Oswald’s name that was the very first clue that Oswald had spent time in New Orleans after the assassination - which allowed the Postal Inspection Service to get a jump on the FBI before the FBI realized who they were dealing with. 

The WC had a report from Harry Holmes stating that Oswald claimed in his final interrogation that he lent Marina one of the two keys to the box on occasion to pick up the mail.

The WC also had the Walker note, which if it actually had anything to do with the Walker shooting implies that Oswald believed Marina didn’t know how to get to the Post Office as of the first week of April. 

The WC had zero evidence that Oswald actually picked up the rifle from the Post Office. 

So we have a provable case of disappearing evidence linking Marina to P.O. Box 2915, and the deliberate complete avoidance by the WC of a topic with Marina they had every imaginable reason to question her about in depth.

This thread’s on MC so I’ll stop there - but I recommend you read my essay if you’re curious at all about Marina and the Post Office. It needs an update/addendum, and I’ve changed my opinion on a few things since I wrote it - but you can read it in that google drive link or here: 

https://gregrparker.com/rethinking-oswalds-mail/

I only use the drive link because Greg’s pdf reader threw some of the formatting out of whack for some reason. 

Makes better sense now Tom.  I will read the essay and dig deeper on this.  I do certainly have suspicions about Marina, although it's difficult to put much stock in her testimony.  Perhaps she wasn't asked any questions by the WC about how the rifle got from the PO to Lee's possession and/or Ruth's house, because they were afraid of what she might say. Also, I wouldn't put much stock in any Harry Holmes report about Oswald's interrogation. However, I don't doubt that he may have lent Marina one of the two keys to the box on occasion to pick up the mail.  And the record of someone (anyone) picking up that rifle is nonexistent ... its provenance is highly suspect.

Gene    

On 1/2/2023 at 10:06 PM, Tom Gram said:

I'd defer to Steve Thomas on this topic - but I'd suggest you read my essay on Oswald's mail to get an idea of why I think Marina was likely involved in ordering the rifle:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XvkmfIq44G8B-B_RV4L90f5AoXYdRTN4/view

The WC and FBI deliberately avoided the topic of the post office box and rifle order with Marina like it was Ebola, despite a mountain of evidence that she had access to the box - some of which vanished very early in the investigation - and her repeated contradictory statements about both the rifle and the Hidell alias. 

This was a very simple issue to clear up - and not at all suggestive of Oswald's innocence. Oswald the controlling, abusive husband supposedly forced Marina to sign the name Hidell on his behalf at least once; he allegedly said in his interrogations that he gave Marina one of the two keys to the box on occasion to pick up his mail; and not a single postal worker could remember handing over a large package to Oswald, despite so-called "exhaustive inquires" by the Postal Inspection Service. Marina received all her mail in P.O. Box 2915, the box remained open when Oswald went to New Orleans, and Marina filed her own change of address from the box to Ruth Paine's house on May 10th - the same day she drove to New Orleans with Paine. 

If you were an investigator in this situation, what would you do? You'd do the following: 1) ask Marina if she ever picked up any packages for Oswald at the Post Office; 2) show Marina the rifle purchase documents to see if she remembered/knew anything about them; 3) ask Marina if she knew how Oswald had acquired the rifle; 4) ask postal workers if they remembered Marina, who as an attractive young Russian woman would have been about the most memorable human being in Dallas; 5) ask both Marina and Ruth Paine about stopping at the Post Office on May 10th; 6) compare Marina's signature to the Hidell signature on the money order; 7) ask Marina if she'd ever been to the Post Office at all; etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. 

Guess how many of these things the FBI and WC actually did? Zero. The May 10th change of address disappeared and was never entered into evidence, despite crystal clear documentation of its discovery on the day of the assassination; Marina was never shown the rifle order documents - she was actually shown the pistol order form while David Belin misrepresented it as the form used to order the rifle; not a single postal worker was asked about Marina; and Marina was not asked a single question about the post office box or about how Oswald obtained the rifle.

It's actually much worse than that - but I think you get the picture. This doesn't mean that Marina was some mastermind conspirator out to frame Oswald, but it does suggest that the WC wanted to distance Marina, a Soviet citizen, as much as humanly possible from that P.O. Box and the rifle - even if she was just an unwitting participant on behalf of her husband - at the expense of conducting an an honest and thorough investigation. They didn't even give her a chance to deny that she knew anything or had anything to do with it. 

EDIT: Here is Steve’s excellent thread on this topic too: 

 

Steve

I find Steve's logic difficult to follow ... it's not clear cut.  Just because Marina wasn't questioned about this, doesn't make it possible.   I simply cannot envision her going to the PO box and retrieving the contents.  Plus, my perception is that Ruth Paine had her under intense scrutiny at this point. 

Gene

Gene

19 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

SL---

I am not contesting that the CIA gins up fake evidence, or that the FBI may destroy evidence. People can be bribed, threatened or even murdered (LHO for example). 

I am leery of deciding which evidence is fake or real to fit a favored narrative. 

Why is something Nagell claimed to have done (send a letter to Hoover warning of the pending JFKA, but with zero evidence thereof) taken to be a true fact, but when three KGB agents are filmed on camera stating they met the real LHO in MC, that is dismissed?

Yes, it could be Nagell really did send the letter, and the KGB agents are all lying. 

It could be vice-versa, no? 

 

 

Ben

I am having a difficult time following your logic ... what id the point here?

Gene

12 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

The problem with the idea that Oswald wasn't in Mexico at all is that they then have to hide him for a week somewhere else, forge copious amounts of evidence, and get a lot of people to lie about seeing him.

Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just send him to Mexico? The impersonation at the embassy would still be entirely doable.

Matt

Perhaps it was the visit to Robert McKeown, or the Clinton-Jackson incident, or the Odio visit.   There are several Oswald sightings in and around this time, many of which are not fixed with a precise date, but rather characterized as happening in "late September".   LHO is being shepherded around by his exile handlers. 

Gene

1 hour ago, Matt Allison said:

Oh of course!  I know that, Gene. I certainly didn't mean to infer otherwise in any way; I should have phrased my post better.

No worries, Matt ... 

20 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

As you know, I agree with Steve and think Marina is the most likely candidate for both mailing the money order and picking the rifle up from the post office. Her testimony and statements on the rifle and the Hidell alias are sketchy as all hell, and the WC did not ask her a single question about P.O. Box 2915, how Oswald acquired the rifle, or even just how Oswald received his mail in Dallas, which is just insane.

Marina obviously didn’t have a car, but on March 12th she did have access to a ride to the Post Office because she was hanging out with Ruth Paine that day. 

One troubling implication of Marina ordering the rifle - if she really did - is the Walker note. The Walker note implies that as of the first week of April, Oswald thought that Marina had never been to the Post Office. The WC never followed up on this and avoided the topic of the Dallas Post Office with Marina like the plague, which considering the Walker note, Harry Holmes’ 12/17/63 report which stated that Oswald admitted he’d given Marina one of the keys to the box on occasion to pick up the mail, and the fact that Marina filed her own CoA from Box 2915 (that was never entered into evidence), is pretty telling, IMO. 

Both WC questioned document examiners did give the opinion that the handwriting on the money order was Oswald’s - except for the Hidell signature. A rarely discussed yet very interesting fact IMO is that neither Alwyn Cole nor James Cadigan gave any testimony whatsoever on the money order Hidell signature under oath. 

To tie this in to your question about Holmes, I think it’s very possible that Kelley and Holmes wanted to interrogate Oswald separately from the FBI and DPD. The cooperation between the SS and Postal Inspection Service in the first few days of the assassination is remarkably suspicious - all the missing postal records on Oswald and Marina that were provably discovered by Holmes and other Postal Inspectors look to have disappeared in Secret Service custody. 

That said, the evidence suggests that Holmes was perfectly willing to perjure himself to the point of turning over an almost certainly altered document to the WC - so I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to think that he’d make up the bit about Oswald admitting to being in MC.

Again, I have no problem with Oswald being in MC, or even with Oswald admitting to it. I just don’t think Holmes is credible enough of a sole source to use as evidence on this without some sort of corroboration. 

I’ll end with a bit of self-indulgence. If Marina had a hand in ordering the rifle, how should we interpret her first-day affidavit? What does the affidavit actually say? 

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth338563/m1/1/

Of course, Marina later claimed that she initially lied, and, through a clusterf$!?* of contradictory statements, that Oswald owned a rifle throughout 1963. She even let slip in a Feb ‘64 FBI report that Oswald received the rifle through the mail - but there was no follow-up whatsoever on how she knew that by the FBI or WC. 

Tom

I can't see where Marina ordered the rifle or picked it up ... the same people who did the revolver (at the same time) orchestrated this entire weapons purchase, imho (under an alias, Hidell).   I don't think that a young Russian bride could/would be capable of that.  What makes you think she did this?

Gene

12 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

Fidel Castro is dead and the country of Cuba is a non-entity politically. If Russo says he has evidence Castro effected the JFKA, then let's f*cking see it.

Matt

For the record, I don't believe any of this. Gus Russo is not a credible source or researcher.   He has been involved in a number of prominent disinformation projects, and ranks up there with Gerald Posner, Phillip Shenon and other purveyors of bad information ... defenders of the Warren Commission and proponents of the ludicrous Castro-did-it theme. 

Gene  

Lance ... so Oswald did all of this without any help or encouragement ... all on his lonesome, his own volition?   And he was leaving his wife, to go to Cuba as a "hero of the revolution", even with a 2nd baby on the way?   And the rifle that he "went and got" was one he hadn't used since it arrived by mail order in March ... under an alias (Hidell) later used to incriminate him at the Tippit murder scene? 

23 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Got that one right Sandy.

Their so called bottom line about him being there, the visa application and photo, has been vitiated by David Josephs.

I have a problem with a show that features Carlos Bringuier, Ed Butler and Dick Helms. And does not inform the reader about the whole Duran story.  And culminates in that dog and pony show about the trigger guard print that Pat Speer did such a nice expose on.

Bottom line:  When Tony Summers asks to have his name taken off,  that is saying something.

I will be doing an essay on Gus Russo soon.

Jim

Russo seems like a scoundrel, and I wouldn't characterize him as a "foremost expert" on the assassination. Russo is apparently a member of The Mob Museum’s Advisory Council, and claims he was co-lead reporter for the 1993 documentary Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald? for PBS.  His November 2021 article in the blog MobMuseum.com is quite the piece of disinformation, and posits a Cuban-driven plot: 

Gus Russo, one of the foremost experts on the JFK assassination, says Cuban officials were aware of Lee Harvey Oswald’s intention to kill Kennedy and encouraged him.

Russo has a simple explanation for the Mexico City charade:

"Oswald was there for six days in Mexico City ... but the witnesses that we’ve uncovered say that he was meeting for lunches and dinners and going to Communist get-togethers. He was meeting with Castro’s intelligence officers, and they were encouraging him. One officer told us that, ‘We offered him money, but he wasn’t interested in money. It was all ideological for him.’ So [the Cuban agents] gave him a few dollars to go to the bullfights and to walk around Mexico City"

In the article, Russo also defames Mark Lane 

"Lane’s work turned out to be “completely inaccurate, there were a lot of falsehoods in it . . . it was a total fiction,” Russo said. In fact, Vasili Mitrokhin, who for years had been the Russian KGB archivist, claimed in a 1999 book he co-authored, The Sword and the Shield, that the KGB spy agency clandestinely fed disinformation on the JFK killing to an undercover KGB source in America, a faux journalist named Genrikh Borovik. Mitrokhin contended that Lane (unawares) trusted and used this disinformation to write his book, falsely alleging CIA involvement, meant to discredit the U.S. government in the eyes of Americans. It proved effective in doing that. 

Then Russo slanders Oliver Stone and Jim Garrison:

"Oliver Stone’s movie JFK. (Russo initially consulted for the project but withdrew after he read the script ... movies are powerful,” Russo said, “and especially in an era when young people aren’t reading. Movies are their main influence, and it’s terrible that that movie JFK got the last word, so to speak, on what happened for a generation who doesn’t read. I’m always hoping that someday the other movie will come out, the true story, and I try and get that done because that’s the only way we can get to young people.”

Jim Garrison was another really crazy guy,” Russo said. “And when he decided that he was going to go after the assassination theory, [arguing] that the CIA killed Kennedy and Oswald was some innocent patsy, he was influenced by Mark Lane [who] was part of his counsel, his inner circle telling him all these things."

Apparently, we were all being fed disinformation by the "KGB psychological warfare division" according to Russo ... further in the article, Russo perpetuates all of the various Oswald myths:

"In no way a hero, Oswald, Russo said, continually beat his wife, Marina, tried to kill General Edwin Walker – with the same rifle he used to shoot Kennedy – earlier in 1963, murdered President Kennedy and Officer Tippit, and finally tried to shoot a second Dallas officer while resisting arrest.  He was “a serial murderer wannabe and a violent sociopath, not exactly the kind of guy the CIA would hire as an officer or asset,” Russo said.

Oswald was a good shot in the Marines. He had a sharpshooter’s rating. He hit 48 out of 50 rapid-fire bullseyes from 200 yards, with a bolt-action weapon. Kennedy was much closer than that in Dealey Plaza, and Oswald had been practicing rapid-fire bolt action shooting all summer. 

Last, he then uses LBJ as a rationale for his Cuba-did-it story:

According to assassination expert Gus Russo, President Lyndon Johnson decided to cover up intelligence reports of the Cuban connection to Oswald in order to prevent war with Cuba and its ally, the Soviet Union.  McCone, after reviewing his agency’s secret statements, had come to a conclusion about the assassination. “It was the Castro connection,” he told the new president. Johnson also spoke by phone with his own longtime sources in the Mexican government, as well as CIA and FBI officers stationed in Mexico City. Thus, Johnson knew the troubling story within only hours of Kennedy’s death, the connections Cuban intelligence and Cuban leader Fidel Castro had to Oswald.  

Russo addresses (and distorts) all of the major tenets of the assassination story with deceptive sophistry.  He bases his Cuban-driven theory "not only on interviews, but on documentary evidence from the American, Russian, Mexican and other governments, many unclassified and released since the 1990s."

I've come to believe that - when "they" (i.e., critics like Russo) attack someone - it's usually a sign that those being attacked are onto the real story and truth.   And he discounts Mark Lane, Oliver Stone and Jim Garrison ... three very credible individuals.  You simply can't make a story like Russo's up ... I look forward to your essay. 

Gene

18 hours ago, Bob Ness said:

Of course. Thanks for the previous response.

Bob

Not sure of how much stock we can put in Dean Andrews' testimony.  From everything that I've read, he was pretty scared, and had been warned (and possibly threatened) about talking.  My read - based on Garrison's later investigatory work - is that Dean (a well-informed lawyer) was too close to the "fire" and knew something sinister was afoot in New Orleans with Shaw, Ferrie, Bannister, et al.  By the time the Warren Commission deposed him in July 1964, he was telling them whatever they wanted to hear.  And he seems to have been backing away from his previous FBI interviews, that were likely too close to the truth:  

LIEBELER. Do you remember telling the FBI that he told you that he was being paid $25 a day for handing out these leaflets?   

ANDREWS. I could have told them that. I know I reminded him of the $25. I may have it confused, the $25. What I do recall, he said it was a job. I guess I asked him how much he was making.

But obviously, someone was paying Oswald for the FPCC charade.

Gene