Joseph Backes

This would be a great thing to research. How many editions of ( fill in the blank ) newspapers were there for 11/22/63, 11/23/63, 11/24/63, etc? Well for the NYT on 11/24/63 there were at least 2. A normal one and a Late City Edition. This was the Sunday edition so I don't think there would be many. I would imagine only section 1 would change. The Late City Edition would probably have something on Ruby shooting Oswald. Joe

This is indeed a large problem with no easy solution. It was quite common for many newspapers, the big national reach newspapers like the New York Times and local papers, to have several editions in one day for major events. And sadly when it comes time to microfilming they do not spend the money to microfilm all of their editions for that day. And it highlights perhaps a generational gap in younger people not knowing this. Back in the day, there was no internet. There were regular newscasts on TV and radio but even a 30 minute evening newscast by the then three major networks ( CBS, NBC and ABC) was a brand new thing that only started in September of 1963. Newspapers were in competition with with TV for the advertising dollars. One way to keep up with breaking news developing on TV was to put out another edition of the newspaper. So, one thing to do is to collect old newspapers where one can, especially ones that tell you they are an extra edition. Ebay is one way. In some cases you might find an extra edition of a newspaper, or at least an article from one might be in a JFK assassination file. But, this is not an easy thing to research as you can't search for newspaper clipping within a document. It's something you'll have to keep an eye out for and take note of as you make your way through the collection. It is worth your time to occasionally search "CIA crest," database and The Harold Weisberg Archive. Joe

I recall at one of the JFK Lancer conferences, I think it was 1998 or 1999, probably 1998, Deb Conway was going to give Gunn an award and Horne came forward and just roasted Gunn. I mean he excoriated him. It was brutal. And Gunn was present. The whole mood of the room changed. If you were in the room you'd remember it.

They were not going to take any testimony from the Parkland doctors at all. I played a small part in telling people and getting some public pressure on them to change their minds which they did. Doug Horne was kind enough to mention this in his "Inside the ARRB," 5 volume series. Gunn had left and was brought back to do this. They all knew ( they being the staff of the ARRB ) the thing was going to be over in 1998 so that last year everyone was doing everything to get a new job by October of 1998. Remember, the Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA, had this guy writing this phony article praising the hell out of Humes & Boswell. So, the ARRB was interested in challenging the claims made in JAMA as well as claims to the WC and then the HSCA. Joe

See -

Lola K Furlong. Do I have the last name right?

I'm trying Lola Lela Lyla K Furlong and getting nothing. I think this has something to do with E Howard Hunt's wife. I've seen a few docs about her trying to get a job in an embassy. But I can't zoom in much at all on the doc.

What is the name of the field contracting officer?

Let us know the RIF, please.

Washington Journal Jefferson Morley Discusses the Release of New JFK Assassination Records Veteran journalist, author, and JFK assassination researcher Jefferson Morley discusses the recent release of documents related to the former president’s murder.

From Morley on Twitter: Tomorrow morning I'll be on CSPAN's Washington Journal to talk about latest JFK developments. I'll explain why I think we could have decisive clarification of the JFK story--in 2023. @cspanwj @InfoMferrell #JFKassassination #RFKJr #RFKJr2024

Well, they had a partial victory. That any of this is going forward is a miracle. Stay tuned. Lots of work is going on. Joe

Try right here - https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=37#relPageId=71&search=Reuben_Efron

NBC - JFK's grandson denounces RFK jr. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/jfks-grandson-calls-rfk-jrs-presidential-candidacy-embarrassment-vanit-rcna95525

Lawrence O'Donnell: RFK Jr.'s lies as House GOP witness have a Trumpian echo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GifMr8xmmM

JFK's grandson denounces RFK. Jr. https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2023/07/21/schlossberg-jfk-grandson-rfk-jr-instagram-campaign-statement-cnntm-vpx.cnn

Reuben Efron is a guy Jeff Morley has been writing about and was in a recent NYT article. He was reading LHO's mail. We did not know the name Reuben Efron as someone who was reading LHO's mail. So, his name is new. We know very little about him. That Efron was with Sen. Richard Russell on a train in Russia when Russell saw a UFO is an odd coincidence. The CIA put LHO on their mail intercept program known as HTLINGUAL. They took him off of it and then put him back on it. John Newman wrote about that in his book "Oswald and the CIA." Joe

The doc giving us the name Reuben Efron is RIF#104-10418-10302. See - https://www.maryferrell.org/search.html?q=104-10418-10302&index=mffnara&term=recno You want to click on the red title, then you'll see a blue font submenu for multiple matches, you want 234516, the most recent release. Joe

This doc is worth a read: Reel 44, Folder H - HTLINGUAL PROJECT (SOFT FILE) Next to HTLINGUAL was this - 61GlOAK. in the doc giving us the name Reuben Efron. And on page 36 ( of 173 ) we see it's really 61 G 10 AK. So, that number was given to one item intercepted in the mail. One of six items given to Sam Papich on Sat, 11/23/63. Joe

See - https://enigmalabs.io/library/d91d6eb7-37f6-485a-9fbe-f208ce218a16 Efron was with Senator Richard Russell when Russell saw a UFO while traveling by train in Russia. ( I am not making this up. - Joe ) In the early evening October 4, 1955, Senator Richard Russell of Georgia was traveling by train in the Soviet Union when he and two companions saw two unconventional aircraft “resembling flying discs or flying saucers” in the Transcaucasus region. As chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Russell was widely respected in the U.S. military. When Russell reached Prague a week later, the three men reported the sighting to the U.S Air Force attaché, Col Timothy Ryan. “I doubt if you are going to believe this, but we all saw it,” Hathaway told Ryan. “Senator Russell was the first to see this flying disc. We've been told for years that there isn’t such a thing, but all of us saw it.” Ryan deemed the three men “reliable observers.”¹ Two weeks later, Russell’s report was included in the CIA’s Daily Intelligence Bulletin, which was circulated to senior U.S. officials.² “Disc aircraft ascended near dusk with outer surface revolving to the right slowly and with two lights stationery on top near middle part,” the Air Force reported in its summary of Russell’s account . “Sparks or flame seen coming from aircraft which passed over the observers train. Both flying disc aircraft ascended relatively slowly to about 6,000 [feet] then speed increased sharply in horizontal flight both on northerly heading.” Russell and company said they saw two searchlights “pointing almost vertical” about one to two miles south of the rail line. “After the sighting,” they reported, “Soviet train men became excited and lowered curtain and refused permission to look out windows.” Russell, Efron, and Hathaway “firmly believe these conventional aircraft are flying saucer or disc aircraft,” the Air Force reported. The CIA reaction was more skeptical. Herbert ("Pete") Scoville, Jr., assistant director for scientific intelligence at CIA, worried that Russell had been a victim of a Soviet hoax, designed either to convince the American group that some sort of launch site existed in the area, or to make them think they had seen a Soviet saucer, as unlikely as that might be. Scoville questioned Russell and concluded that Hathaway and Ryan's version of the story, which had alarmed the Agency, was inflated in many respects -- biased toward an image of a vehicle unwarranted by the observations. For example, Russell said the Soviet men on the train closed the curtains 10 minutes after the incident and that he did not think they were trying to hide anything. SCOVILLE’S CONCLUSION: “The testimony of [Senator Russell's party] does not in my opinion support the theory that the Russians have developed saucer-like or unconventional aircraft. It is quite possible that the objects seen were the exhausts of normal jet aircraft in a steep climb. The fact that none were seen on the ground might indicate that the aircraft were in a dive followed by a sharp pull-up in such a way that nothing was seen until the exhausts were visible to the observers on the train. However, it is possible that the aircraft were indeed of the short or almost vertical take-off variety.” When a reporter for the Los Angeles Examiner asked for details, Russell said only, "I have discussed this matter with the affected agencies and they are of the opinion that it is not wise to publicize this matter at this time."⁴ Three years before, Russell, as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, had asked the Secretary of the Air Force, Thomas Finletter for an “evaluation of recent news articles concerning the observation of ‘flying saucers’ by combat airmen in the Far East.” Finletter replied with details from a UAP report filed by two experienced B-29 crews flying over Korea on January 30, 1952.⁵ Project Blue Book, the Air Force office responsible for evaluating reports of unidentified aerial phenomena, was apparently never informed of Russell’s sighting. The Air Force report on his story was not declassified until 1985.⁶ Resources 1. “Senior US senator’s report of seeing ‘TWO UFO’s’ was ‘covered up,’ secret documents show,” Express (U.K.), October 13, 2016, (https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/578055/Senior-US-senator-s-report-TWO-UFOs-covered-up-secret-documents) 2. “Reported Sighting of Unusual Aircraft in USSR,” Current Intelligence Bulletin, October 15, 1955 http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/5829/CIA-RDP79T00975A002200380001-5.pdf 3. “Bomber Gap, Missile Gap … Saucer Gap?” http://ufxufo.org/russell/release14.htm 4. “Senator Russell Sees a UFO," How Stuff Works: https://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/senator-russell-ufo.htm. 5. Project 1947 UFO Documents Korea- 1952 http://www.project1947.com/fig/korea52a.htm#russell 6. “Senator Russell Sees a UFO, How Stuff Works https://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/senator-russell-ufo.htm. See also Scoville, memorandum for the record, "Interview with Senator Richard B. Russell," 27 October 1955. https://sgp.fas.org/library/ciaufo.html#ft42

1. JOURNAL OFFICE OF LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL THURSDAY 20 OCTOBER 1955 Efron and Senator Russell went to Russia 2.) (EST PUB DATE) CIA'S ROLE IN THE STUDY OF UFO'S, 1947-90, BY GERALD K. HAINES And, of course, this one is about UFOs Joe

The White House denounces RFK, Jr. Claims made by RFK Jr on Covid 'vile' – White House Joanna Walters - The Guardian. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has taken the chance to condemn remarks made by presidential hopeful Robert F Kennedy Jr after a video surfaced of him making false claims that Covid-19 was “ethnically targeted” to attack certain ethnic groups. Kennedy, the infamous conspiracy theorist, famous scion and rogue candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination hit the headlines at the weekend after it emerged that he said at a press event in New York City last week that the coronavirus is a genetically engineered bioweapon that may have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people, the New York Post reported at the weekend. Kennedy is garnering loud and swift criticism, including from members of his own family. The White House was asked about it during the press briefing today and Jean-Pierry called Kennedy’s remarks not just “false” but also “vile”.

WASHINGTON — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. drew strong criticism from several members of his own family on Monday for remarks he made suggesting COVID-19 was “ethnically targeted.” The pushback began over the weekend, when video surfaced of him claiming that the COVID virus is “ethnically targeted” to attack “certain races disproportionately” — namely, white and Black people — while “the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” Ashkenazi Jews are Jewish people of specifically northern and eastern European descent. The remarks, captured by the New York Post at a private event, contained multiple false claims and reference common antisemitic tropes about global conspiracies that benefit Jewish people. They sparked quick condemnation from prominent Jewish groups and others. That outpouring of criticism included two of Kennedy’s siblings. Kennedy’s sister Kerry Kennedy, distanced her brother from the nonprofit named for their father, the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights foundation. “I strongly condemn my brother’s deplorable and untruthful remarks last week about Covid being engineered for ethnic targeting,” Kerry Kennedy said in a statement as president of the organization. “His statements do not represent what I believe or what Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights stand for, with our 50 [plus]-year track record of protecting rights and standing against racism and all forms of discrimination.” Another of their siblings, Joseph Kennedy II, also criticized the remarks. He is a former congressman and chair of Citizens Energy. “Bobby’s comments are morally and factually wrong,” he said in a statement provided to The Globe. “They play on antisemitic myths and stoke mistrust of the Chinese. His remarks in no way reflect the words and actions of our father, Robert F. Kennedy.” Former Massachusetts Representative Joseph Kennedy III also weighed in. “My uncle’s comments were hurtful and wrong. I unequivocally condemn what he said,” he tweeted from a personal account. Kennedy III is also serving as President Biden’s envoy to Northern Ireland. It is not the first time his family has distanced themselves from Kennedy’s conspiracy-laden and often-debunked views, which include misleading and false statements about vaccines, that anti-depressants are linked to school shootings, and that the CIA is responsible for the assassination of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy. Last year, multiple family members, including his own wife, actress Cheryl Hines, spoke out against him after he implied that people who oppose the COVID-19 vaccine are being persecuted more severely than Anne Frank, who died in a Nazi concentration camp. Kerry Kennedy also did so in April, when his campaign launched. Kennedy himself tweeted numerous defenses of his comments, including that they were intended to be off the record, misconstrued, and referencing a scientific paper that analyzed theoretical genetic susceptibilities to COVID. “This cynical maneuver is consistent with the mainstream media playbook to discredit me as a crank — and by association, to discredit revelations of genuine corruption and collusion,” Kennedy said. Pandemic data has shown significant racial disparities in infection and death rates, primarily worse for Black, Hispanic and Native American groups—disparities that are largely attributed to socio-economic factors and gaps. Debate remains about COVID’s specific origin, with many scientists believing it jumped from animals to humans, but some assessments pointing to an accident in a virology lab. Still, virtually all who studied it have concluded the virus is not engineered.

Biden’s ‘Final’ Order on Kennedy Files Leaves Some Still Wanting More The president has finished a review first mandated by law in 1992, and while a vast majority of papers related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy have been released, some remain redacted. By Peter Baker On June 22, 1962, an intelligence official drafted a memo summarizing a letter intercepted between Lee Harvey Oswald and his mother. The memo was made public long ago. But for 60 years, the name of the letter opener was kept secret. Now it can finally be told: According to an unredacted copy of the memo released recently by the government, the official who intercepted Oswald’s mail for the C.I.A. in the months before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated was named Reuben Efron. And that means — what, exactly? A tantalizing clue to unraveling a complicated conspiracy that the government has sought to cover up for decades? Additional proof that the C.I.A. knew more about Oswald than initially acknowledged? Or a minor detail withheld all this time because of bureaucratic imperatives irrelevant to the question of whether Oswald was the lone gunman on the fateful day? The mystery of Reuben Efron, who has been dead for three decades, may never be resolved to the satisfaction of some of those dedicated to studying the assassination. Thirty years after Congress ordered that papers related to the killing be made public with limited exceptions, President Biden has declared that he has made his “final certification” of files to be released, even though 4,684 documents remain withheld in whole or in part. Going forward, agencies will decide any future disclosures that may be warranted by the passage of time. The president’s certification, issued at 6:36 p.m. on the Friday before the long Fourth of July holiday weekend, when it would not draw much attention, has frustrated researchers and historians still focused on the most sensational American murder of the 20th century. But they suffered a setback on Friday when a federal judge refused to block Mr. Biden’s order. Jefferson Morley, the editor of the blog JFK Facts and the author of several books on the C.I.A., said the belated identification of Efron indicated that intelligence agencies still had something to keep from the American public. “If they hid this guy’s name for 61 years and they’re still hiding other stuff, I would say they’re still hiding sources and methods around Oswald,” Mr. Morley said. “Why else did the name remain secret for 61 years? The C.I.A. is trying to slam the door now, and Biden’s gone along with this.” From the other side of the spectrum, Gerald Posner, the author of “Case Closed,” a 1993 book concluding that Oswald killed Kennedy on his own, said he doubted there was a smoking gun in the remaining files. “Everyone is focused on the C.I.A. documents still withheld,” he said. “What we have learned from the C.I.A. files released this year is that they either have nothing to do with the assassination, or are only tangentially related.” While he and Mr. Morley diverge on the historical evidence, Mr. Posner agreed that Mr. Biden’s decision was “an abrogation of responsibility under the 1992 law” mandating release of the documents. Trust in the government being what it is, he said, the public will never accept official reassurances that there is no stunning revelation in the papers. “I don’t think that’s there,” he said, “but you’ll only know when you have all the files available.” The intense interest in Kennedy conspiracy theories prompted Congress to pass the 1992 law mandating that documents related to the assassination be released within 25 years except those that could do “identifiable harm” to national security that outweighs the value of disclosure. When the deadline arrived in 2017, President Donald J. Trump, who has dabbled in conspiracy theories about the assassination himself, bowed to pressure from intelligence agencies to grant more time. After taking office, Mr. Biden signed two memos doing the same. Of roughly 320,000 documents reviewed since the law passed, 99 percent have been disclosed, according to the National Archives and Records Administration. But 2,140 documents remain fully or partially withheld as a result of Mr. Biden’s action, officials said, while another 2,502 remain withheld for reasons outside the president’s purview, like court-ordered seals, grand jury secrecy rules, tax privacy limits or restrictions imposed by people who donated papers, and 42 for a mix of both. A vast majority of excluded documents have actually been released but with certain parts redacted, officials said, including names of people still living, addresses, telephone or Social Security numbers, or locations of intelligence facilities. Officials said they were confident that none of the withheld information would change the essential understanding of the assassination. While Mr. Biden’s June 30 order means he is done, the archives and agencies have set up “transparency plans” so remaining redactions can be lifted in the future, such as upon the death of someone whose identity was protected. The Mary Ferrell Foundation, an organization already suing the government over the files, sought an injunction against Mr. Biden after his latest order. But Judge Richard Seeborg of the Federal District Court in Northern California rejected it on Friday night and dismissed other parts of the original lawsuit, though he allowed some claims to proceed. Lawrence Schnapf, a lawyer for the foundation, denounced Mr. Biden’s action. “It is simply unfathomable to me that a man who has a bust of R.F.K. in his office and who voted for the law would cave in to the incredulous claims of the national security bureaucracy that 60-year-old records pose such a risk to national security that they cannot be released,” he said. The Justice Department declined to comment but maintained in its filings that the government had complied with the law. The C.I.A. did not respond to requests for comment. “This completes the review of records required by Congress and fulfills the president’s commitment to maximizing transparency related to President Kennedy’s assassination,” said Adam Hodge, a spokesman for the White House. The assassination still has enormous power to arouse suspicion. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has embraced conspiracy theories on vaccines and other matters and is now challenging Mr. Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination, said recently that the government had orchestrated a “60-year cover-up” in his uncle’s killing. “There’s overwhelming evidence that the C.I.A. was involved in his murder,” he told the radio host John Catsimatidis in May. “I think it’s beyond a reasonable doubt at this point.” Mr. Trump, for his part, vowed to do in a second term what he did not in his first. “I released a lot, as you know. And I will release everything else,” said in an interview in May with The Messenger, a new online news site. The final 1,103 documents released days before Mr. Biden’s order and those made public in preceding months offered new information that hardly seemed worth keeping cloaked so long. In April, for instance, a file was released with names of employees in the C.I.A.’s Mexico City station, mostly secretaries and translators. Another document listed 27 previously unreleased C.I.A. staff members’ names; for whatever it is worth, the C.I.A. director John McCone’s secretaries were named Marguerite Beard, Betty Davis and June Irish. Whether any of the withheld documents would shed more light on Reuben Efron is unknown. His name on the mail intercept memo intrigued Mr. Morley. The memo was sent to Betty Egerter at a C.I.A. unit known as “the office that spied on spies.” On the day of the assassination, Egerter’s boss told the F.B.I. that the C.I.A. had no information on Oswald, who in fact had been monitored when he moved to the Soviet Union. A document released long ago showed that the agency opened Oswald’s correspondence from Nov. 11, 1959, to May 1, 1960, and again from July 1, 1961, to May 25, 1962. Curiously, Efron was previously listed as being in the room when the Warren Commission interviewed Marina Oswald, his Russian-born widow, in February 1964 — the only one present whose title and role were not explained. Mr. Morley suspects Efron was monitoring the commission’s investigation for James Angleton, the legendary C.I.A. official, essentially his “eyes and ears inside the room.” Efron was born in Lithuania in 1911 as Ruvelis Effronas and arrived in the United States via Cuba in 1939, according to immigration papers that described him as a 5-foot-3, 135-pound “merchant-salesman.” In addition to English, he spoke Russian, Lithuanian, Hebrew, Yiddish and German, and served in the Air Force during World War II as an interpreter. His obituary said that after the war he was “a specialist on the Soviet Union and consultant on foreign affairs” without saying for whom. In a harmonic convergence of conspiracy, Efron reported seeing a U.F.O. in 1955. He was traveling with Senator Richard Russell, Democrat of Georgia, and an Army colonel on a train trip through the Soviet Union when all three spotted what a C.I.A. report called two “flying saucers.” Skeptics later suggested they were Soviet aircraft. Russell was among the Warren Commission members in the room for the Marina Oswald interview that Efron attended in 1964. As it happened, Efron died on Nov. 22, 1993 — the 30th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. His wife has died too, and he had no known children. Efforts to reach other family members were unsuccessful. “People say there’s nothing significant in these files?” Mr. Morley said. “Bingo! Here’s the guy who was reading Oswald’s mail, a detail they failed to share until now. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to think it’s suspicious.” Mr. Posner finds it less suspicious but understands why others might. “Many of us have made up our minds,” he said. “Some of us have made up our minds that there was a conspiracy, and some of us have made up our minds that it was Oswald. “But in the end, we all want to see these files.”

What is the RIF of the doc Morley is talking about? Is it this, 104-10418-10302?