James Richards

That Tony Izquierdo guy on the left in your image, my impression when i first saw him was that he looked like a railway worker in those clothes and cap. ? (Robin Unger)

He is certainly dressed down compared to the suits alongside of him.

Given that the main image could be anywhere up to 3 minutes after the shooting, Could the Izquierdo possible have departed the Dal-Tex (second floor), quickly made his way toward the corner of Main and Houston where Robertson was located, the gathering group realizing that the bulk of the spectators had made a bee-line for the fence area behind the knoll and decided to take a look for themselves just to make sure the gunman positioned there made his escape?

Speculation of course.

James

John,

Lou Russell on the left below.

James

Some food for thought.

James

How do you do it, James? Who is the first image sitting up in the chair. That certainly doesn't match the others. (Pat Speer)

Pat,

It is supposed to be DeMohrenschildt. You are right, it doesn't match the others.

Bizarre.

James

For those who are interested, here is an index file showing photographs taken at the scene.

James

I've posted these images before but given the subject of this thread, I think it is worthwhile to revisit.

Interesting death scene. Obvious question is why was the body moved?

Also, it seems that there was very little damage done with a shotgun blast to the head. Gruesome subject I know, but important none-the-less.

James

Does this guy crossing Elm Street look like anybody we know of? (Hint: I thought he was one of the tramps!) And why is he all bundled up like that? Gotta be some kind of spook.

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Ron,

If you go back to the image Robin posted at the corner of Main and Houston with the infamous Conein look-a-like, you can see this guy positioned behind the motorcycle cop. He looks quite tall given the perspectives. Hunt is not a big man by any stretch.

Some more food for thought.

James

Sensational photos. Most I hadn't seen before. James's photo resemblance of the guy in the photo acquired from E-Bay is a very close match. Could he have been a shooter/spotter? (Mark Stapleton)

I guess he could have been, Mark.

Having said that, like most of the people in this image, he seems to have come from the direction of Houston and Main. I'm not sure if any shooter positions were located in that vicinity. Then again, he may have emerged from the South Knoll and blended with the crowd moving toward the infamous grassy knoll.

All speculation of course.

James

I wonder if James or someone has a photo of Harry? (John Dolva)

John,

Images of Holmes are few and far between. I tried to track one down via the Dallas Morning News once and came up empty.

Sorry.

James

John,

Here are the indulged fops from 1947. As you view the image, GHWB is on the left hand side of the clock.

James

At another point he mentions our favorite Dealey plaza witness, Rip Robertson, and notes that Robertson worked with a team including Grayston Lynch and Mickey Kappes. (Does anyone know what became of Kappes?) He also notes that Robertson's team leaders were surviving vets from the BOP. Does this fit in with our theory that Julio Garcia was his team leader? Was Garcia a BOP vet? (Pat Speer)

Pat,

Mickey Kappes was supposedly a participant of Operation Tilt. He and James Arthur Lewis appeared late on the scene and went along for the ride. I also have some unconfirmed information that Kappes, Lewis and a guy named Ralph Schlafter found themselves mixed up in this treasure hunting business where they were dealing in Mayan artefacts. Lewis died in a diving accident in 1970, I do not know what happened to Kappes.

I have been through the Brigade 2506 members and Garcia's name is not there. The various published lists do have names missing so I guess we can't rule it out. The fact that Garcia was present at the Menoyo run camp suggests that he was not just a walk-in.

James

Thanks to everyone who has responded in this thread. I appreciate the links and information.

Cheers,

James

Autumn looks very Cuban. Was her mother from Cuba?

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John,

Autumn's mother may prove to be a curious individual. Still working on that one.

That aside and going on memory here, Sturgis also has a son named Ronnie (illegitimate) who would have been about 20 at the time of the assassination. In the early 1950's, Sturgis married a woman named Betty who was shot and killed by a woman the FBI described as a prostitute. I don't think Betty's reputation was much better.

Sturgis then married Juanita in 1956 divorcing her in the early 1960's. I don't have any solid details regarding his relationships after that only rumors which I have not been able to confirm - one of them being the mother of Autumn.

The photo below shows Sturgis, his father Angelo and Juanita.

James

The loving father below. It makes being handled very easy.

James

Thanks, guys.

Capehart is certainly interesting. Getting information on his background has proved most difficult. Finding associations with CIA even more so. If he was involved with the assassination, I guess a good place to start would be past working relationships with JM/WAVE or as an asset of covert operations.

Given that he worked on the Hughes' owned Glomar Explorer, then he may also have been associated with Hughes' Tool Company on Cay Sal and hence have been known to C. Osment Moody.

Tom Moody (C. Osment Moody's son) has recently joined us here at the forum so hopefully he will read this and be able to offer a comment.

Leads for this aspect are few and far between.

James

Pat and James,

There are many factors that should be considered in determining the significance and reliability of Norman, Williams and Jarman's testimony in regards to the sounds over their heads. A reinactment of the event to prove that one can hear the bolt work and shell casings hit the floor and compare it to what the three wits below heard as being reliable and consistent is questionable to say the least. In a reinactment, those tested are prepared for the sounds and will focus closely on what is going on overhead. In real time and in a case of surprise or startle reaction as we would find with the three wits, there is an issue of auditory block where the much higher level of decibles of gunshots would override the immediately followed working of the bolt and shell casings hitting the floor overhead. It is highly unlikely they would hear these lighter sounds and even more unlikely they would recall hearing them. There testimony in regards to this is too convenient IMHO.

Considering there was no subfloor, the sounds would easily travel through, but the other factors I just mentioned would override the likelihood of this being reasonable. It is also interesting to note that none of the three heard footsteps overhead of the shooter fleeing the sniper's nest. These sounds would be much more audible than the sound of the bolt in action and the shell casings hitting the floor, both for the reason of the loudness of it and the fact that it would have been in the aftermath of the shots, where they could have been easily defined.

I am not saying that shots were not fired over their heads, but their precise recall and ability to depict such low level sounds overhead between gunshots is beyond being amazing. It gave the government an added earwitness to the shots on top of the physical evidence found. In other words a consistent timeline of the event to override a challenge of the planting of evidence. The three wits were simple minding and therefore easily comprimised in their testimony and recall. (Al Carrier)

Thanks, Al.

I guess that is what I was getting at. There were plenty of distractions at the time and specifically remembering shells hitting the floor does seem a bit too neat. (IMO)

The footsteps is a good point also.

Cheers,

James

The following story appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on July the 5th, 1995.

One thing though, it says Capehart claimed to have worked on Howard Hughes' Glomar Explorer which raised a Soviet sub in 1968. The sub actually went down in 1968 but wasn't raised until 1974 - which was Project Jennifer.

Also, in the comparison which follows the story, the man on the right was being sought for questioning by HSCA investigators and his image was published in various newspapers. The man on the left was photographed in Dealey Plaza (right in front of the TSBD) after the shooting.

Is the man on the right Capehart?

Some food for thought?

James

**********************************

Judge Sues Over JFK Information

He wants CIA to Answer Questions on Mystery Man

It was the kind of case any hard-boiled DA or cop might look at skeptically -- a Central Valley woman believes her mysterious boyfriend was in a CIA conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy, and she fears for her life.

The boyfriend tells her that Lee Harvey Oswald, the reputed assassin, was just an innocent bystander and that others fired the fatal shots. Top-secret government codes are found on papers in his house. Evidence about the man's possible complicity in the assassination is given to congressional investigators and then disappears during a burglary in Washington. The CIA refuses to talk about it.

And then, years later, the boyfriend dies of a heart attack just hours before he is to be interviewed by the district attorney and a sheriff's detective.

Oliver Stone, where are you?

This may sound like the kind of farfetched tale concocted by wild- eyed conspiracy theorists, but in fact it is the stuff of a lawsuit filed in federal court in Fresno by a respected Madera County judge acting as a private citizen, one who does not like it when the CIA tells him to get off its case.

The judge, who was the district attorney at the time, is David Minier, 61 -- and he now sits on the Municipal Court bench in Chowchilla. He gained a certain fame in the 1970s for prosecuting three young men who had kidnapped 26 Chowchilla schoolchildren and their bus driver.

Two years ago, using the Freedom of Information Act, he sued the CIA after the agency refused to tell Minier whether Claude Barnes Capehart had ever been employed by the CIA and whether Capehart was in Dallas in November 1963, when Kennedy was assassinated.

A federal judge dismissed Minier's suit, but Minier, who is doing all the legal work himself, is appealing the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

The judge may be tilting at windmills -- thousands of books and articles over the past 33 years have failed to come up with a definitive solution to Kennedy's death, the Warren Commission's report notwithstanding. But Minier says he is suing the CIA to release the Kennedy assassination documents as a way to preserve this ``historical research'' on the public record for generations to come.

``I wanted to get it into some form of permanent record,'' he said earlier this week, ``so that if there's any validity to this thing, then the information will be there as a resource. Anything you file in court is there for all time. And someone may come along who has a lot more ability in doing research than I do, and the material will still be there.''

Minier's odd quest about the Kennedy assassination started nearly 20 years ago, when Capehart moved to Chowchilla and opened a well-drilling business. Soon Capehart came to the county sheriff's office and said some men had been sent from ``back East'' to kill him. Sergeant Dale Fore said he would look into it. But after scouring the dusty Central Valley town (population: 6,000), he could find no assassins.

But Capehart seemed like an interesting guy to Fore, and soon he was confiding to the sergeant that he had done some work for the CIA. After a while, Fore called a friend at the FBI and asked about Capehart. Both men concluded that Capehart was a fake, but Minier and Fore were later told by a retired FBI agent that Capehart had been employed by the CIA.

Capehart had told his female friend that he once worked on industrialist Howard Hughes' Glomar Explorer, a deep-sea research vessel that, under CIA sponsorship, raised a Soviet submarine from the floor of the Pacific Ocean in 1968.

In 1978, Kennedy assassination theories were at such a full boil in the United States that Congress formed the House Select Committee on Assassinations and began digging into the tons of muck raked up over the preceding 15 years by dozens of investigators.

Back in Chowchilla, Capehart's female friend, who had seen newspaper photographs of possible assassination conspirators being sought by the committee's investigators, came to Fore and said Capehart's face was in one of the pictures.

The woman, who still fears retribution and declines to be publicly identified even years after Capehart's death, said Capehart told her he was ``in the (Texas School Book) Depository when the president was shot, and Oswald wasn't the only one involved at that time,'' Fore wrote in his police report, which ended up as part of Minier's lawsuit.

She also reportedly said: ``Oswald was not the person who shot the president. Capehart showed (her) a handgun with a silencer, automatic firearms, a cyanide pistol, and passports under an assumed name.'' Capehart, apparently disturbed by the publicity of the congressional investigation, moved to Pahrump, Nev., to lie low.

Then the woman brought Fore a sheet filled with what appeared to be ciphers. She said she had found it in Capehart's papers. Fore added it to his file.

In early 1979, while the House assassinations committee was in full-bore operation, Fore traveled to Washington to attend an FBI training course, a routine career assignment for many local law enforcement officers. While there, he called up committee staffers and told them his tale. They seemed interested and took his information, including the cipher sheet.

When he finished his training course several weeks later, Fore stopped by and asked to have his evidence back. The FBI agents who had interviewed him at the time gave him some of it, but kept the code sheet, saying the ciphers were ``classified government codes.'' When Fore got back to Madera County, he heard that the committee office he had visited had been burglarized, and the evidence he had given the committee's investigators had been stolen.

In July 1979, the assassinations committee concluded that conspiracies were ``likely'' in Kennedy's death. But 17 years later, no government agency has confirmed or refuted that conclusion.

In 1989, Fore and Minier prepared to interview Capehart at his home in Nevada. A few hours before they were to meet him, Capehart, 64, dropped dead of a heart attack.

``After he died,'' Minier said, ``things kind of dried up, in terms of information, and so there was nothing else to do but ask the CIA about it.''

So far, the CIA is saying nothing about Claude Capehart.

I thought forum members might find this article which was published in the February 2005 issue of Vietnam magazine interesting.

James

*****************************

JFK's Early Indecisions

President John F. Kennedy's tentative response to the report by General Maxwell Taylor had unintended consequences for the course of the war.

By Peter Kross

Shortly after being sworn in as the 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy held a routine Oval Office meeting with his national security adviser, Walt Whitman Rostow. The two men were discussing the important national security issues that faced the new administration. Among the hot international topics that the Kennedy team inherited from the outgoing Dwight D. Eisenhower administration were the ever-deteriorating situation in Laos, the tensions in Berlin between the Soviets and the United States, and the situation in Cuba. Kennedy then turned to Rostow and said: "This is the worst one we've got. You know, Eisenhower never mentioned it. He talked at length about Laos, but never uttered the word Vietnam."

What prompted the two men to discuss events in a country that not many Americans had ever heard of was a report written by Edward Lansdale, a veteran of the paramilitary wars of the 1950s, a specialist in counterinsurgency warfare and a man whose word was not taken lightly around Washington. Commenting on the report, the president told Rostow that Lansdale's narrative was "an extremely vivid and well-written account of a place that was going to hell in a hack."

Kennedy was describing events that were going on in Vietnam in 1961, well before the major influx of troops that he, and later Lyndon B. Johnson, would send to that beleaguered country.

Soon after Kennedy assumed the presidency, Lansdale returned from a fact-finding trip to Vietnam. He described a situation where the Communists were making impressive gains in their covert war against the regime of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, who ruled that country with an iron fist. Lansdale said that despite Diem's control over Saigon, the Viet Cong had effective command over the rest of the country, "from the jungled foothills of the high plateau north of Saigon, all the way down south to the Gulf of Siam." He added that if Vietnam fell, all of Southeast Asia would be "easy pickings for our enemy," and advised the new administration to beef up its military presence in South Vietnam and make changes at the American Embassy in Saigon.

Kennedy took Lansdale's study under advisement and decided to remove the U.S. envoy to Vietnam, Elbridge Durbrow. Even that early in the new administration, the president's advisers were deeply divided on what position the United States should take in Vietnam.

For the next 10 months, the situation in Southeast Asia went from bad to worse. With Laos at the center of his troubles, Kennedy set in motion a series of events that would culminate in a fateful trip to South Vietnam in October 1961, led by General Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow. That mission became one of the most decisive events of the Kennedy administration.

Kennedy's decision-making on Vietnam had evolved over many years. In the late 1950s, he was a member of a group of influential Americans called the Friends of Vietnam, a body that included journalists and academicians. The Friends of Vietnam were mostly liberal in their politics, and their basic objective was to ensure that the government of South Vietnam would remain one, not reuniting with the Communist government in the North as mandated by the Geneva Accords of 1954 that had ended the First Indochina War. Kennedy traveled to Asia early in his congressional career and met with many of the influential leaders as well as dissident members of the various governments in the region. It was then that he became convinced that the Viet Minh would ultimately force the French to grant independence to Vietnam.

On April 6, 1954, Kennedy stated in a passionate speech before the Senate: "To pour men, material and money into the jungles of Indo-China without at least a remote prospect of victory would be dangerously futile…no amount of American military assistance in Indo-China can conquer an enemy which is everywhere…which had the sympathy and the covert support of the people." Nevertheless, a majority of the Congress sided with the current American position, and the United States refused to back the provision in the Geneva Accords that called for new elections in 1956.

When Kennedy entered the White House he began to mold America's Vietnam policy ever so slowly. The new commander in chief was a firm believer in unconventional warfare tactics that could be used against the large guerrilla bands then harassing the South Vietnamese military. In a policy switch that rattled the most hardened bureaucrats in Washington, Kennedy transferred responsibility for paramilitary actions from the CIA to the Pentagon. He also reinstated the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, with James Killian as its head and Maxwell Taylor as an adviser.

Under Kennedy's guidelines, U.S. Army Special Forces trained in counterinsurgency tactics at Fort Bragg, N.C., while the U.S. Air Force initiated Operation Farm Gate to furnish air support for jun-gle conflicts. In another new approach, "Jungle Jim" units of the 4400th Combat Crew Training Squadron prepared highly trained commando teams for intense jungle fighting. The U.S. Navy developed a plan using amphibious and underwater demolition teams, along with Vietnamese fishing junks, to attack VC supply lines.

As 1961 progressed, it became obvious to the Kennedy team that the VC in South Vietnam were getting increasing amounts of war materiel from the North, most of it coming over the jungle trails along the border with Laos. Adding to this hot mix, many local villagers who lived in the South were ardent Communist supporters who continually fought the ARVN in a running guerrilla campaign.

Kennedy's early Vietnam policy was neither retreat nor full-scale commitment of American ground forces. He sought a middle ground while the situation developed further. In the spring of 1961, a Kennedy-directed task force of individuals from State, Defense, CIA, U.S. Information Agency (USIA) and the White House produced its report on Vietnam policy. The recommendations it made to the president included the introduction of American combat troops into South Vietnam. Kennedy refused to commit combat troops, but he did increase the number of American advisers to work with the South Vietnamese forces at both the battalion and regimental levels. The advisers, however, would now be allowed to train ARVN troops in conventional combat techniques, as well an unconventional warfare. More training was also provided for the South Vietnamese regional and self-defense forces.

Kennedy's focus on Vietnam was temporarily sidetracked by the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in April. The rout of the CIA-trained Cuban exiles only hardened the president's determination not to allow the same thing to happen in South Vietnam. He therefore tasked his special adviser, Roswell Gilpatrick, to develop new recommendations on Vietnam policy. The president's instructions were to "appraise the Communist drive to dominate South Vietnam and recommend a series of actions (military, political or economic, overt and or covert), which, in your opinion, will prevent Communist domination of that country."

Before Kennedy could study the Gilpatrick report, events in neighboring Laos took center stage. With the war there threatening to spill over into Vietnam, and the threat of an all-out Communist invasion of that country, the United States began preparations to send combat forces into Laos. A force of 250 American soldiers was considered for deployment along the Vietnamese-Laotian border to discourage any Communist attack. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, however, concluded that the plan was not feasible. The JCS also rejected a plan to position U.S. troops along the 17th parallel dividing North and South Vietnam.

The JCS came up with a much larger concept called Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) Plan 5, an ambitious operation that would cut the supply lines in Laos, preventing North Vietnamese troops from entering the South. When Kennedy rejected that plan, the chiefs went to work on a proposal that recommended the deployment of up to 12,000 troops to the Central Highlands of South Vietnam, adjacent to the Communist infiltration routes. Another scheme designed by U. Alexis Johnson, the deputy undersecretary of state, would have deployed up to 22,000 troops in the Central Highlands.

The president rejected all these recommendations but initiated limited steps to aid the South Vietnamese government. Along with an increase in the MACV contingent, Operation Farm Gate and the commitment of Jungle Jim units, the president introduced a large-scale American military aid package: Project Beefup, which called for a big infusion of military aid to save the government of President Diem, who was suffering not only from the advance of the VC but also from the repressive measures he was inflicting upon his own populace.

The initial military commitment called for the introduction into South Vietnam of armored personnel carriers and up to 300 aircraft, including helicopters. From a modest force of 3,205 U.S. military personnel in Vietnam at the end of 1961, the number of troops and advisers swelled to more than 9,000 by the end of 1962. By the time of Diem's--and Kennedy's--assassinations in 1963, more than 16,000 U.S. personnel, many of them going on combat missions alongside the ARVN, would be in-country.

The man in charge of the Beefup operation was General Paul D. Harkins, commander of MACV. Harkins had served under General George S. Patton in World War II. Harkins butted heads with Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, who said he was "not worth a damn." (On the other hand, McNamara also described him as "an imaginative officer.")

When Harkins arrived in South Vietnam, he was plunged right into the middle of political intrigue in Saigon, greeted by an aerial attack on President Diem's palace by two dissident South Vietnamese pilots. Harkins met with Maj. Gen. Tran Van Don, a future participant in coup plans to overthrow Diem. Harkins knew the limitations of the ARVN, yet tried with all his power to increase their fighting efficiency. He urged harder ARVN attacks on VC strongholds, and exhorted ARVN officers to take the fight into enemy-held territory. Speaking about the trustworthiness of the ARVN soldiers, Harkins once said: "If they captured an officer of the Viet Cong, they'd leave their post and bring him back to Saigon. They wanted to show Diem and get a pat on the back or maybe a promotion."

In his meetings with Diem, Harkins stunned the South Vietnamese leader by predicting that total American victory could be achieved in one year. He dubbed his program "the explosion plan," because he wanted to take the war to all parts of the country. He also told Diem that there were only 20,000 hardcore VC in the entire country, not the thousands upon thousands who were actually hidden among the population.

By the middle of 1961, Kennedy took other steps to increase America's covert and overt roles in South Vietnam. He secretly ordered the dispatch of covert agents to infiltrate into North Vietnam for intelligence gathering, the infiltration of teams under civilian cover to southeast Laos to locate and attack Vietnamese Communist bases and lines of communications, the training of ARVN units in ranger tactics, and the targeting of individual North Vietnamese units inside the South. The president also used the services of a South Vietnamese unit called the 1st Observation Group, which was made up of civilian aircrews, including Americans, to take the war into both North and South Vietnam.

As a last effort to formulate Vietnam policy, in May Kennedy sent Vice President Lyndon Johnson to Saigon to meet with President Diem. Johnson did not want to make the trip, and only found out about the assignment while listening to the radio during a speaking engagement trip to New York. After a blustery talk with the president, Johnson reluctantly left for Saigon, still bristling over how he had been treated.

Upon landing, Johnson was given a copy of a secret memo from the JCS to Defense Secretary McNamara recommending that Diem should be "encouraged to request" U.S. combat troops. Johnson handed Diem a letter from Kennedy that suggested an increase in the number of raids against Communist forces, as well as an increase of the ARVN by 20,000. Diem responded that he did not have the money to equip such a new force. Johnson also discussed the Kennedy administration's demand that Diem allow more open dissent in the country and give more freedoms to the people. But at no point in their conversation did Johnson mention the commitment of American combat troops. He did give Diem assurances that the administration would commit helicopters and the necessary equipment for Diem's projected 20,000-man force. Taken in by Johnson's folksy style, Diem agreed to Kennedy's requests.

A few days later Diem and Johnson had a second, more contentious meeting. Diem insisted that South Vietnam needed 120,000 more troops--over and above the 150,000 he already had--and further stated that he could not afford it. Johnson countered by asking if Diem would accept U.S. combat troops. Diem said that he would only accept U.S. combat troops if his country was attacked, but he did ask for more American personnel to train the ARVN.

With Johnson in the meeting was Lt. Gen. Lionel C. McGarr, the Military Assistance Advisory Group chief in Saigon. Unexpectedly, McGarr asked Diem if he would accept American combat troops "for direct training purposes." Diem instantly agreed. Thus, Johnson and McGarr had negotiated American policy without Kennedy's authorization. Johnson's freelancing only hardened Kennedy's resolve not to be stampeded into formulating American policy toward Vietnam. As a direct result, Kennedy sent General Taylor to Saigon in October as his personal representative.

Taylor, one of the rising stars in the Kennedy administration, had a distinguished military career in World War II as commander of the 101st Airborne Division. In the postwar years he served as commandant of West Point and as Army chief of staff. He was a proponent of the doctrine called the "New Look Strategy," which emphasized nuclear weapons over conventional forces. He was also an advocate of "flexible response," which incorporated the entire range of American military capabilities based on the situation at hand. As a member of the Joint Chiefs, Taylor's various proposals often had been voted down, and he eventually retired from the Army.

In 1959 Taylor wrote a book titled An Uncertain Trumpet, which attacked the miliary priorities of the Eisenhower administration. The book caught the attention of Kennedy, who was then running for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination. After Kennedy was elected, he asked Taylor to become a staff member in the White House. Taylor reported for work in April 1961 and was immediately given a heavy-duty assignment: write a no-holds-barred report on the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion that had just handed the Kennedy administration its first foreign policy setback. The Taylor report exposed the military and political flaws that had doomed the invasion even before it began. Taylor's superb handling of the report made him an instant hit with the Kennedy brothers. He was rewarded with the new position of military adviser to the president.

President Kennedy had all but decided to send a personal representative to Saigon to make a fact-finding trip to assess the military and political situation on the ground. Needing a man he could trust as his eyes and ears, he selected Taylor. Like the president, Taylor had reservations about sending American combat troops to Vietnam, and that was a factor in Kennedy's decision to send him.

Throughout the summer of 1961, the administration made detailed preparations for Taylor's mission, giving him elaborate instructions. In a letter to the general shortly before he left Washington, the president wrote: "Bear in mind that the initial responsibility for the effective maintenance of the independence of South Vietnam rests with the people and government of that country....While the military part of the problem is of great importance in South Vietnam, its political, social, and economic elements are equally significant, and I shall expect your appraisal and your recommendations to take full account of them."

The unstated theme of the president's remarks was that he did not want Taylor to come home with the recommendation that U.S. combat troops were needed. In an additional bit of subterfuge, it has been suggested that the president himself leaked a story to The New York Times, which read, in part: "...military leaders at the Pentagon, no less than General "Taylor himself, are understood to be reluctant to send organized U.S. combat units into Southeast Asia. Pentagon plans for this area stress the importance of countering Communist guerrillas with troops from the affected countries, perhaps trained and equipped by the U.S., but not supplanted by U.S. troops."

On October 15, 1961, Taylor brought together the members of his team for one last brainstorming session. He told them that it was his trip, that he would write the final report, but that all dissenting views would be noted. Among those going on the mission were Lansdale, Rostow, and military and civilian experts such as political advisers Sterling Cottrell and William Jorden, Maj. Gen. William Craig, Admiral Luther Heinz and others. They left Washington on October 17 with a stop in Honolulu for discussions with Admiral Harry D. Felt, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific.

The issues that Taylor and his team intended to address included the requirement for American combat troops, the rapid buildup of VC forces in the South, the security of the peasants living in rural areas in the South and Diem's increasingly authoritarian style of government. The mission got off to a rocky start when Lansdale left the party and had a one-on-one meeting with his old friend, President Diem. Lansdale was greeted with the news that Diem had recently declared a state of national emergency, and that a series of incessant rains had caused enormous floods in the Mekong Delta. The news of the floods would soon play an unexpected role in Taylor's mission.

The next day, Taylor and Rostow met with Diem in the presidential palace. During a four-hour session, Diem discussed the entire range of American-Vietnamese issues. He told his visitors that he could not understand why the United States had not offered a formal commitment to his country, saying that he feared that at some point the United States would abandon South Vietnam. To the astonishment of Taylor and Rostow, at no time during their talk did Diem ever bring up a request for American combat troops. When Taylor asked Diem if he wanted the Kennedy administration to send such forces, Diem hedged, but said that if that happened, he expected the United States to remain in Vietnam for the long haul.

Taylor also had a meeting with Maj. Gen. Duong Van Minh, an officer who had no love for President Diem. (In 1963 "Big" Minh would be one of the coup leaders who removed Diem from office.) Taylor and Rostow also took a helicopter tour of the Mekong Delta to see firsthand the consequences of flood damage.

Before departing, Taylor and Rostow had a final meeting with Diem. In a bold move, Taylor asked Diem if he would accept a large force of American troops to act as a "flood relief task force," to be made up of medical, communications and engineering personnel, as well as a certain number of combat troops for their security. This was a way of fudging any request on Diem's part for combat troops. Taylor further said that once their job was done the troops would leave. Taylor then sent a cable to President Kennedy recommending 6,000 to 8,000 troops for such a force. Diem, for his part, agreed to Taylor's proposals. Taylor wrote that the requested troops would assure "Diem of our readiness to join him in a military showdown...." Taylor also noted: "As the task is a specific one, we can extricate our troops when it is done if we so desire. Alternatively, we can phase them into other activities if we wish to remain longer." He concluded: "This kind of task force will exercise little direct influence on the campaign against the VC. It will, however, give a much needed shot in the arm to national morale."

On November 1, on the way back home from his temporary base at Baguio in the Philippines, Taylor wrote to the president urging a commitment of American forces to Vietnam. He called for a "massive joint effort" with the South Vietnamese to cope with the Mekong floods, as well as to stem the flow of Communist aggression in the South. Taylor called American troops "essential" to stop a Communist takeover of South Vietnam.

Taylor later sent a second message to the White House saying that American troops would not get bogged down in a land war in Asia, but should be allowed to protect themselves if fired upon. He also said that a major American bombing campaign against the North should be considered.

The formal Taylor report, submitted to the president on November 3, called for a significant increase in American participation in the war, including a "hard commitment on the ground," and an increase in the role of MAAG. Commenting on Diem's repressive regime, Taylor suggested that he was the best the United States could hope for. Two members of the mission, Cottrell and Jorden, dissented from the report and lambasted the ARVN as sloppy and corrupt.

At about the same time that Taylor submitted his report, Kennedy received a classified national intelligence estimate projecting that any massive American combat aid to the South would be met with an increase in overt military aid by Hanoi to the Viet Cong, thereby escalating the conflict.

When Secretary of State Dean Rusk received Taylor's report, he told the president that the United States should make no military commitment until President Diem instituted political reforms at home. Rusk said that if Diem was not willing to settle his own house, no amount of American troops could do the job. He didn't want to see American prestige committed to a "losing horse."

Taylor's report, however, was backed up by Defense Secretary McNamara, Deputy Secretary Gilpatrick and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. While endorsing the report, the JCS warned that the 8,000-man force "probably will not tip the scales decisively, and we would be almost certain to get increasingly mired down in an inconclusive struggle."

Speaking with presidential adviser George Ball, who opposed a commitment of U.S. troops, Kennedy reacted sharply when Ball said that if the Joint Chiefs got their way, a total of 300,000 American troops would have to be sent to Vietnam. The president responded by saying: "George, you're just crazier than hell. That just isn't going to happen."

Knowing that Kennedy would not approve combat troops, Secretaries Rusk and McNamara wrote a second memorandum dated November 11. In this memo they recommended that no decision be made on sending combat troops to Vietnam, but called for a strong increase in American aid, including helicopters, more advisers, equipment for the ARVN and reforms by the Diem regime.

On November 11, 1961, President Kennedy made the following decisions: (1) No U.S. combat troops would be sent to Vietnam; (2) the United States and South Vietnam would establish a partnership in which the decision-making would be shared equally; and (3) Washington would recognize the importance of South Vietnam for the future of freedom in Southeast Asia and would take more active measures if future conditions warranted.

The tentative decisions made by President Kennedy in November 1961 were to have larger consequences for the rest of his presidency. By allowing the status quo to remain in place, the president did not take the strong measures necessary to blunt the ever-growing Viet Cong gains in the South. By 1963, U.S. forces totaled 16,000 and were taking casualties daily. On November 2 of that same year, President Diem was ousted in a coup and subsequently killed. President Kennedy's own assassination on November 22 handed the quagmire of Vietnam to his successors. It was up to Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon to greatly expand the scope of the war throughout Southeast Asia, and eventually commit 500,000 U.S. troops to the region.

Great info, Jim. Thanks for that.

Max Taylor and Westmoreland below.

James

Perhaps I should explain. None of the three men directly below the sniper's nest heard a first shot miss. They all reported activity in the car after the first shot and/or the last two shots coming right on top of each other. That the Posnerites continue to cite their testimony as proof Oswald acted alone, and get away with it, is annoying as heck. (Pat Speer)

Thanks, Pat.

Given that the last two shots were reported as being on top of each other, do you consider that there were two guns firing from the 6th floor?

FWIW, my personal opinion is that there was.

James

Good stuff, Harry. Thanks for sharing.

These guys below were some of the Cuban contingent for the tractor negotiation.

James

I believe it was only Norman who heard the shells. I also believe the WC tested whether or not someone could hear the shells hit the floor from his position and found they could.

I've studied Norman's, Williams' and Jarman's testimony, and not only found them credible, but a convincing argument for conspiracy. (Pat Speer)

Given the noise of the crowd and the buzz of the moment, I found it hard to believe that one could hear and determine that shells were hitting the floor.

That aside, it's an interesting aspect for sure.

James

James,

I don't have a copy of The Men on the Sixth Floor, and a quick Google turns up nothing on a Maria del Carmen related to the assassination. Who was she and what was her alleged role if there was one?

Ron

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Hi Ron,

Del Carmen was a Cuban woman in her mid twenties who supposedly knew Richard Nagell in Mexico City. She held a job with the Mexican government - Treasury Department I believe but I may be wrong there.

Intelligence man Barney Hidalgo also knew Del Carmen and considered she was a member of the Communist Party in Mexico. I think he may also have thought she may have been an Agency mole into the Communist Party who also had connections into Cuban Intelligence.

Nagell did not think she was connected to the CIA but of course what else is he going to say? There was some speculation in Dick Russell's TMWKTM that in the late summer of 1963 in Mexico City, Del Carmen was at a meeting which also included Nagell and Oswald.

This is all going on memory but I believe Larry knows some more about this.

James

Wasn't Ruth Ann an alias for Maria del Carmen?

James

You almost certainly know this, but the fifth floor window was where Harold Norman and Bonnie Ray Williams were crouching. Dillard caught them in his picture immediately after the shots. Nothing happened there.

If you're trying to track down whether the fifth floor was pointed out as disinfo, in order to blame the black guys and let the sixth floor men escape, it might be important that Hoover told Johnson that the shots came from the fifth floor.  I wonder if he forgot which lie he was supposed to be telling.

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Thanks, Pat.

Here is the photo you cite showing Norman and Williams. Their recollections of hearing a bolt action being worked and shells hitting the floor seemed highly unlikely to me.

James