Bill Simpich

Richard, no, I don’t want to attack you, I want to appeal to your sense of humor and collegiality.

i didn’t mean to spread “disinformation” about downloading.

Can’t you copy and paste the content on the screen?

 

 

Richard - I wrote both of my books up there for researchers, and I put them up there for free.  

You get several free click throughs a day, and you can download everything you click on.

Disinformation artists?  Or challenging your beliefs?

Annoying?  Maybe, if your belief system is challenged.

Sadistic?  Maybe, if you read too much JFK material.

I would respectfully suggest not including de Mohrenschildt for the reasons stated and more.  The facts are contested.
 

I think if you limit it to six people or something like to start with - Koethe, Hunter, Kilgallen, Pritchett Smith, Giancana and Rosselli - you will obtain a very positive result.

Silvia Duran was impersonated as well as Oswald on 9/28/63.   She has repearedly denied ever seeing Oswald after 9/27/63, despite the CIA transcript documenting that she and Duran were together at the Cuban consulate on 9/28 about noon time.   Did the American agencies provide a reaction to this impersonation?

Immediately after the Oswald-Duran impersonation, a strong thread of evidence emerges on 10/2/63 about the CIA's concern about the "danger that the FBI's field office in Mexico City had been penetrated".  See the cryptonym LAROB, and this in particular:

10/3/63 cable from HQ to Mexico City, DIR 73144 PBRAMPART:  "Urgent.  Private meeting (illegible)."  Next page:  "On October 2, a memo went out from CIA headquarters discussing the danger that the FBI's field office in Mexico City had been penetrated. "Re coordination of FBI (oper?)ations in MEXI, -__ in liaison with ODENVY (note: FBI) is still delicate matter which ___ AMDEAD at HDQS 0-- directives foresee that certain types of operations may be coordinated at HDQS rather than in the field. on the whole our relations with FBI on world-wide and PBPRIME and CE (note: US and counter-espionage) matters are extremely productive and still improving and we do not wish at present time to raise new issues in Mexico...FBI has agreed and has instructed its MEXI rep to discuss with you pertinent details of such Russian CE ops as LAROB case."

Here's my analysis of the LAROB evidence in Chapter 5:  

Keep in mind that right after the calls of Sept 28 and Oct 1, the station had immediately responded with a report to HQ admitting its fear that the local FBI field office had been penetrated.

On October 1, Bill Bright’s defection target Valentin Bakulin – who was handling the double agents LAROB and LINEB-1 for the Soviets, as seen in Chapter 3 - was seen talking to Yatskov outside the Soviet Embassy.[ 18 ] Yatskov was the consul assumed to be in close communication with Oswald, as seen in a contact sheet for Oswald. This referenced list of contacts makes it clear that the CIA was convinced by October 1st that “Y talked to O” on September 28.[ 19 ]

At this point, CIA complaints surface about the FBI’s operation. I believe the concern was that someone from the LAROB or the LINEB-1 operations might have obtained access to LIENVOY, and impersonated Oswald and Duran on the telephone (note:  after the Oswald figure spoke in person with Yatskov earlier that day)

Bakulin and LINEB-1 met on October 1. Bakulin told LINEB-1 he had no money for him that day. Things had heated up. After the meeting, Bakulin was put on continuous physical surveillance by the CIA’s Mexico City station unit known as LIEMBRACE.[ 20 ]

The next day, October 2, a memo went out from CIA headquarters discussing the danger that the FBI's field office in Mexico City had been penetrated, and that any coordination with that FBI office was "a delicate matter" that should be dealt with at the headquarters level rather than in the field.

The memo also said that the FBI leadership “instructed its Mexi rep to discuss with you pertinent details of such Russian CE ops (note: counter-espionage operations) as LAROB case”. LAROB was a double agent handled by both Soviet officer Valentin Bakulin and the FBI in Mexico City. Bill Bright had been tracking this story, as discussed in Chapter 3. Although there was a danger that the FBI's relationship with LAROB might have compromised its own security, HQ valued its relationship with the FBI and told the Mexico City station that "we do not wish at present time to raise new issues in Mexico."[ 21 ]

On October 5, the Mexico City station reported that “HQs was deferring discussion of the high level of penetration, but would take it up after hearing results of closer liaison between (the Mexico City station and the FBI) in Mexico City."[ 22 ]

On October 7, twenty sets of reports about double agent LAROB were sent from the FBI to the Mexico City station and Headquarters.[ 23 ] Why were they sent? Because both the Station and Headquarters were worried that LAROB was insecure. This double agent or his contacts could have impersonated Duran and Oswald on September 28 and October 1. LAROB and his contacts were logical suspects.

If the local FBI field office had been subjected to a high level of penetration, then the Mexico City station could have been penetrated as well. The station itself had to be treated as a suspect in the molehunt.

 

 

David, my belief is that the 10/10/63 memos were a ploy to smoke out the Oswald imposters of 9/28 and 10/1.

It's not impossible that these memos are part of an ongoing hunt for a Soviet bloc mole as well - but I would need evidence of that - which I haven't seen.

Paul and Jean, I do have an update on LITAMIL-3.  New releases show that LITAMIL-3 is 201-290894, and that 201-290894 is Ricardo Vidal Dominguez.  We have created a pseudonym page for him at MFF.   He was an informant within the Cuban diplomatic corps.

Jean, I am moving more towards the belief that Oswald was at least trying to get himself in the FBI's orbit in the last three months of his life.  I can't get over the .way he sought out FBI agent John Quigley after his New Orleans arrest of 8/9/63 and put himself out there as a source of information.  Oswald then seemed to pick up on Jim Hosty's 9/10/63 report about Oswald's long-distance mail relationship with the CPUSA and the FPCC, and then the Oswald figure shows up in the Cuban consulate later that month brandishing membership cards in both the CPUSA and the FPCC.   I believe that Oswald himself wrote the Nov. 9 letter to the Soviet embassy complaining about the FBI (and knowing the FBI would intercept it!) and appeared at the Dallas FBI office in mid-November with a note complaining about Jim Hosty "bothering his wife".

Matt, I agree that Fedora and Golitsyn are very important personages - Mary Ferrell created a decent index on Fedora and we created a good page on Golitsyn based on his cryptonyms DS-2137 and AELADLE - but I haven't seen any indication that Fedora or Golitsyn were involved in the Mexico City events of Sept-Oct. 1963.

Following up on my previous post...Here's my take on why Oswald was taken off the security watch list the day before the 10/10/63 memos went out.  From Chapter 5 of State Secret:

The day before the 10/10 twin memos were created, Gheesling took Oswald off the security watch list after talking with Lambert Anderson. Both Gheesling and Anderson had signed off on a watch list document placed in Oswald’s file on August 13 after Oswald was arrested in New Orleans for breach of the peace while leafleting for the FPCC. Gheesling wrote that once he learned that Oswald was arrested, he told Anderson that Oswald should be taken off the security watch list because he had inadvertently forgot to remove his name after Oswald’s return from the Soviet Union.[ 38 ] Anderson confirmed that someone had told him that the security flash had been removed because it was no longer necessary once Oswald had returned to the United States.

One immediate problem with both of their stories is that their boss Bill Branigan wrote on 11/22/63 that the very reason Oswald was put on the watch list was to ensure that “any subsequent arrest in the U.S. was brought to our attention”. So why take him off the list after he was arrested?

An even more intriguing problem, with Gheesling’s story in particular, is that he wrote that he removed Oswald’s name from the security watch list on October 9 right after he learned about Oswald’s arrest. Gheesling’s explanation flies in the face of the aforementioned watch list document showing that both Gheesling and Anderson knew about Oswald’s arrest around August 13. Gheesling’s name and initials “wmg” are also on other memos discussing Oswald and his arrest dated August 21 and August 23.

The probable solution is that Anderson got wind of a tip. On October 8 Anderson received a Sept. 24 report of Oswald’s arrest, which revealed Oswald’s request to speak with an FBI agent and share quite a bit of information while in jail.[ 39 ] My conclusion is that on the 9th the two men came to some kind of mutual understanding that Oswald was helpful to the FBI, and saw no reason to keep him on the security watch list. “Anderson” of “Nat. Int.” is written on the watch list file, underneath the date of October 10. As a result, no alarms went off at the FBI when the 10/8/63 memo about Oswald being in Mexico City and trying to contact Kostikov arrived on the 10th. Any alarm that might have sounded about Oswald being a security risk appears to have been deliberately turned off by Gheesling and Anderson.

The intriguing question is whether Gheesling and Anderson took Oswald off the security watch list based solely on the report about Oswald's cooperation with the FBI, or whether they had also been tipped off that a molehunt was about to begin with Oswald's file.

It's not impossible that both factors may have been in play - but my current thinking is that FBI men Gheesling and Anderson didn't know about the CIA's molehunt.

Jean and Gerry, take a look at what happened when the security flash was still on in September, 1963...

Hosty’s observations about Oswald in Dallas turned into membership cards in Mexico City

"Keep in mind that (FBI agent Jim Hosty, in charge of Oswald's file) told (Lambert Anderson of the FBI's Nationalities Intelligence division) on September 13 that Oswald had a subscription to the newspaper of the Communist Party, USA, and that he had a background of leafleting on behalf of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.

We see the follow-up three days later, on September 16, when John Tilton of the CIA’s Cuban operations at JMWAVE in Miami asked Anderson to put together a joint agency operation designed to “plant deceptive information which might embarrass the (FPCC) in areas where it does have some support”.[ 3 ]

We will see that Oswald planted some deceptive information in Mexico City - he showed both his authentic FPCC membership card and his fake Communist Party card to Cuban consulate secretary Silvia Duran.

On the 16th, FBI records indicate that Oswald’s security flash file with the FBI's Identification Division was reviewed, with Anderson’s name written alongside.[ 4 ] On the 16th, Anderson’s name is written on Oswald’s security flash – although no document entered the file, it appears to be related to Tilton’s request for help that same day. Tilton had been involved with the DRE just days earlier and may have heard from Anderson about Oswald’s arrest.

On the 26th, Anderson confirmed that the anti-FPCC project was going forward, with plans to distribute “propaganda in the name of the committee”. This joint agency operation was launched right during the Cuba division’s project to recruit Cuban consul Azcue in Mexico City. As Azcue seemed sympathetic to Cuban exiles, he seemed like he might be ripe for recruitment. The problem was that Azcue was due to return to Cuba in a matter of days."   

What happened the next day, on Sept. 27, is that the "Oswald figure" appeared before Azcue and tried to get him to bend the rules to give him an "instant visa" to Cuba, similar to his successful attempt at getting an "instant visa" from consul Richard Snyder at the American embassy in Moscow back in 1959.   I believe that the "Oswald figure" showed his FPCC credentials to Azcue in an effort to provoke Azcue to see how he would respond - keep in mind that LITAMIL-3, an American agent, had just tried days earlier to convince Azcue to defect to the Americans.  I believe one objective was to get the Cubans to talk over their phone lines and in their offices that were bugged by the Americans.

The bigger objective may have been to assist Tilton and Anderson in their "joint agency operation designed to “plant deceptive information which might embarrass the (FPCC) in areas where it does have some support”.  Or maybe someone got wind of the anti-FPCC operation and piggy-backed a new operation on top of it that included the impersonation of Oswald.

What "areas" did the FPCC have "some support"?  Here, among the Cubans in Mexico.  The Oswald figure's provocative behavior with Azcue, which got him thrown out of the office, had to give the FPCC a black eye in the eyes of the employees at the Cuban consulate.

The Oswald figure was an attractive prospect – he represented a very rare re-defector, hoping to go to Cuba and then return once again to the Soviet Union.  His activities and contacts were a counterintelligence bonanza.

So Tilton and Anderson have got a deceptive anti-FPCC operation going, which appears to have been piggy-backed on top of the events that brought the Oswald figure down to Mexico.  Doesn't it make sense that if Tilton and Anderson wanted to keep their deceptive anti-FPCC operation going, they may have wanted to dim the attention on Oswald?   

Gheesling was a major supervisor, one of a handful that answered directly to Hoover.   Gheesling had the power to turn off the flash, which he OK'd with Anderson on October 9.   Gheesling was suspended by Hoover after 11/22 for turning off the flash.  But why did he do it?  I will offer my thinking in the next post.

 

Matt, I appreciate you engaging me on the topic, but I have to ask - have you read my book State Secret?  Chapter 5 centers on what I call the Mexico City molehunt of 1963, chapters 3 and 4 set the context, and the last two chapters touch on the aftermath.   I would ask you to at least read Chapters 3-5.  

I do want feedback!  If you've read it, great, but I don't think there's anything "oblique" about what I wrote.

Also, I'm very sensitive to not taking over other people's threads.  Jean and Sandy's instincts are good about setting up a new thread on the setting up and removal of the FBI flash, which arguably is related to the molehunt but deserves its own analysis.

McCord also deserves his own thread.  John Newman has not finished his analysis of McCord, has written almost nothing on the subject, and I think it's best not to speculate on his views until he weighs in on the topic.

 

I should add that the molehunt was conducted after Oswald was impersonated on 9/28 and 10/1.  Silvia Duran was also impersonated on 9/28 in the same taped phone conversation as "Oswald", which supposedly happened at the Cuban consulate, which was closed on Saturday, 9/28.   

Duran made it clear that she never saw Oswald after 9/27.   

There would naturally be a big reaction after the impersonation of Oswald and Duran.  Note the absence of any notes about Oswald until October 8 and then the twin messages of 10/10, both filled with different descriptions of Oswald guaranteed to get people talking.

What happened in the interim between 9/28 and 10/8? 

Once the station found out that the man who made the 9/28 call and the 10/1 calls identified himself as Lee Oswald, Phillips needed to know about it. The station would not want to leave a paper trail regarding this sensitive penetration matter that might be read by a CIA penetrator. On the night of October 1, a pouch was sent to Phillips at Headquarters. The CIA procedure at the time was that these pouched transmittals left no paper trail, other than to say that the items had been sent from point A to point B.

The pouch probably contained a transcript of the October 1 calls from the man calling himself Oswald. You have to wonder if it also contained a copy of the tape.

Many years later, Phillips told a very elaborate lie, claiming that he was in Mexico City working with the Soviet desk in preparing the draft of a response to the October 1 phone calls. He also claimed that the Soviet desk officer was lazy. That didn’t happen – even Goodpasture said Phillips’ story was not true. It is well-documented that Phillips was away from the Mexico City station at CIA HQ in Washington and then JMWAVE station in Miami between September 30 to October 9.

On October 7, Phillips consulted with key people from the CIA's forward base on Cuba office like John Tilton, who triggered this whole situation as the architect of a joint agency anti-FPCC operation aimed at Mexico in September 1963.

The molehunt was a direct result of the impersonation of Oswald and Duran.  The CIA needed to see if it could smoke out how these fake phone calls were set up.

When this documentation was brought to light, Phillips was forced to backtrack and fall back to a weak excuse that his memory was mistaken, and that he had not played any role in preparing this draft memo that was issued on October 8.

The October 8 memo set the stage for the October 10 twin memos.

 

The whole point was to create a paper trail entangling CIA, FBI, ONI, and State Dept with a lot of knowledge about Oswald shortly before 11/22.

Then, after the assassination, the employees of these agencies would go into a reflexive cover-up to protect their agencies, their careers, and the paycheck that takes care of their families.

How much of the actual Mexico City documents made it to the Warren Commission?   Very few of them.  What they got were paraphrases.  The actual documents were not made public until after the JFK Records Act forced them out in the 90s - and the JFK Records Act would never have passed without Oliver Stone's movie JFK!

 

Greg Doudna wrote:  "In that interpretation that Givens was a real witness to a 6th floor shooter at the time of the shots, at 12:30 pm, how and when in that interpretation does Givens make his exit from the TSBD without anyone seeing him? At the point the building was sealed by officers minutes later Givens is not in the building."

Greg, look at TSBD employee Edward Shields' testimony to the Warren Commission:   "Did you see the motorcade?"  "I sure did."  "Where were you when you saw it?"  "I was just standing right around there at Mullendorf's Cafe."  "At what address?"  "At Record and Main."  "Who was with you?"  "Givens".  "Did you hear the shots?"  "Yes, I heard the shots."

Shields said that Givens had been there with him since about noon time that day.  Givens' story matched with Shields.

 

 

Richard, 

Thayer Waldo is an extremely strong case about a journalist who was driven out of the USA - you ignored his case because you wanted to tout your case about Eddie Piper and the girl on the stairs, an important story that belongs on another thread.  Even though you wrote that you agreed with me about Charles Givens, you used this thread to make your case about Eddie Piper.  I was reluctant to join this thread because I wanted to avoid hijacking this thread.  William is protective of his thread and I understand that.  I suggest that we treat each other with respect and agree to disagree.

William,

My apologies if I came across the wrong way, let alone giving Pat the plaudits instead of you.  No one has ever accused me of being sagacious, and I don't like anyone who acts like a big shot.

I didn't want to hijack your thread, and almost started my own. I am a big fan of Belzer, and I was avoiding being critical of his book or your thread.

My thinking is that it is best to lead with 5-10 strong and illustrative cases.   Most of us cannot track more than 10 stories. 

I agree with what Pat said at the beginning of this thread - citing a few strong cases is far better than stringing together a lot of uncertain ones.   I would put George deM's "suicide" in the uncertain category as well as many of the cases in Belzer's book even though most of them appeal to me emotionally.

I think the manner of the journalist deaths between 1963-1965 offers strong evidence.  Similarly, I think the Giancana and Rosselli deaths are strong evidence because of the manner of their deaths and the events surrounding it.

My two cents:  If we analyzed the other 40 cases in Belzer's book on this thread, we would sink into a sea of uncertainty simply because of the weight of the details. 

Each of these cases has to be analyzed on its own merits, and that takes a long time.    Reasonable people disagree on the weight of evidence.   I suggest a path that reduces the number of ambiguities.  If you want to convince someone, lead with your strongest approach.

 

I think the journalists like Koethe, Hunter, Waldo, Kilgallen and Smith who were effectively "taken out" of this case deserve the highest level of scrutiny.   

Disagreeing about the importance of witnesses is inevitable, and this is where Belzer's book "Hit LIst" encounters the greatest difficulty - in achieving even a rough consensus about the important witnesses that were taken out of the JFK case.

Besides the focus on journalists, Belzer's list offers a second valuable thread when it focuses on witnesses who were violently killed when they were about to testify - as Pat Speer pointed out at the beginning of this thread, people like Sam Giancana and Johnny Rosselli.   I would add Gary Underhill and Bill Sullivan to this list - I don't think anyone ever looked at the killing of Sullivan hard enough - it would be interesting to interview the young boy who shot Sullivan at this late date if he is still alive.

Pat mentioned that he heard Senator Gary Hart "speak on the assassination.... he stressed the point that the members of the Church Committee were on the fence as to whether JFK's death was a conspiracy until their witnesses started dying. And then they knew.  So, in short, a mysterious deaths list is interesting, and potentially valuable, but only to the extent it's been edited."

These two threads - journalists that have been "taken out" of the JFK case, and witnesses who die violent deaths at the verge of providing testimony - appear to be the most valuable paths to make a major priority.

Richard - all the African American witnesses such as Charles Givens and Eddie Piper were treated brutally by the authorities and leaned on to change their stories. 

And, yes, Waldo's story does refer to a "Negro janitor", a minor nit in a sea of disinformation thrust upon him by Mike and Pat Howard.

But there's no question that the story told to Thayer Waldo was designed to incriminate Givens, who had a history of gambling and problems with the law - so much os that there was an APB out for Givens an hour after the assassination.

Other than the words "Negro janitor", what did Piper have to do with the story?  Nothing.

Piper never claimed that Oswald was on the sixth floor during the lunch hour.  Only Givens did.

Go back and read the history.  The entire saga of Thayer Waldo and the Howard brothers revolved around Charles Givens. Not Piper.   Givens' November aiibi for Oswald had to be reversed.  After the February story broke, Givens buckled and changed his story.  And the Warren Commission adopted it as key evidence incriminating Oswald.   Givens wasn't even allowed to testify before the Warren Commission. 

And rest assured that the Howard brothers never did, even though the Warren Commission knew all about their story and knew that Waldo was furious at them.

Don't rely on a tiny item like "Negro janitor" in a made-up story that ruined Waldo's career.   Look at the rich detail provided by Don Thomas in the previous post.

 

 

Richard, Yes, but the focus was on a particular "Negro" who had been picked up previously for gambling - Charles Givens, the only man alleged to have seen Oswald on the sixth floor during lunch hour.  

Let Don Thomas set the stage, and a long look at Roy Truly, Charles Givens and Mike Howard in particular.   I have highlighted in bold below the most important phrases for the busy reader:

To place this incident in proper perspective it is necessary to understand that there were two lunchrooms in the Book Depository. Texas was a part of the deep south and even the Mayor of Dallas acknowledged that the city had a reputation as the “Hate capitol of Dixie.” (WR41) The building superintendent, Roy Truly, told writer William Manchester (Manchester, pp. 132-133),

Truly further stated that he disliked John F. Kennedy because he was a “race-mixer” (Manchester, pp. 49, 132-133). The main lunch room on the second floor had soft drink and snack machines. The first floor lunch room was used by the minority employees: blacks, Mexican-Americans, a mentally handicapped man, and the depository’s one Marxist, Lee Harvey Oswald. Along with unionization, the civil rights movement was a major issue for the American Communist Party in the 1960’s. Because he ate there regularly and because there were only a handful of minority employees in the Book Depository, it would have been easy for Oswald to guess who had eaten lunch there. But on the other hand it would also have been easy for the Warren Commission to determine who actually had or had not eaten their lunch in the Domino room that day and by the process of elimination test Oswald’s alibi. But the Warren Commission knew that such a test was problematic for the official version. That is because another black employee, Charles L. Givens, had seen Oswald eating his lunch there. In a statement given to the FBI a few hours after the assassination, Givens recounted that he had seen Oswald eating his lunch by himself, reading a newspaper, in the first floor lunchroom (CD 5, p. 329 - see also Meagher [1971] for discussion).

Among the false claims made by Bugliosi in his effort to convince us that Oswald shot Kennedy is that he was the only employee to “flee” the Texas School Book Depository following the shooting. The truth is that several employees left the building (affidavits in CE 1381), including the aforementioned Charles Givens. In fact, the Dallas police put out an APB to have Givens picked up for questioning about the shooting.

Givens was the Warren Commission’s star witness. He alone, among all of the witnesses, is supposed to have seen Oswald on the sixth floor of the Book Depository during the lunch hour. But the truth is, contrary to Bugliosi’s account, Givens never testified to the Warren Commission. The Warren Commission flew ninety-four Dallas witnesses to Washington D.C. to testify before them. Yet, Givens, the only witness who could positively identify Oswald and place him at the scene of the crime at or near the time of the shooting, was not among them. Givens was deposed in private in Dallas by a single Warren Commission lawyer.

The problem with Givens’ deposition was spelled out in an article published in the Texas Observer by researcher Sylvia Meagher (Meagher in Texas Observer, 13 August 1971. The issue also contains a rebuttal of sorts by David Belin). Givens did indeed state in April 1964 that he had seen Oswald on the sixth floor at lunchtime on the day of the assassination. Hence, Givens gave two accounts of Oswald’s whereabouts, one in November that tended to corroborate Oswald’s alibi, and a second in April that tended to incriminate him. Yet his statement in November contained no mention of Oswald on the sixth floor, while the statement in April contains a denial that he had seen Oswald elsewhere. It is in that light that the special handling of Givens by the Warren Commission staff is seen as manipulative; that and the fact that the Warren Report contains no mention of Givens’ statement to the FBI. Meagher thus concluded that Givens’ April deposition was false, to which Bugliosi retorts,

But of course they do expressly say. Meagher pointed out that because of his troubles with the law, reportedly charges of gambling and drug use, Givens, an ex-convict, a black man in a southern town, was vulnerable to pressure from the authorities to support, or at least not contradict, the official line. Moreover, police Lieutenant Jack Revill told the FBI that Givens would change his story for money (CD 735, pp. 296-297).   (Note:  See Mike Howard's story about the unknown African American man, who had been picked up for gambling.)

Bugliosi (Reclaiming History, pp. 822-823) dismisses the account in the FBI report as one that Givens “supposedly” told, implying that the FBI agents report was false. But why would the FBI make up such a story? What could be in it for them? Bugliosi doesn’t expressly say, only arguing that their account must have been “garbled.” But it is Bugliosi’s account of events that is garbled. To contradict the FBI report Bugliosi states,

Aside from the fact that Givens never gave any testimony to the Warren Commission is the fact that Givens stated in his deposition that the encounter with Oswald on the fifth floor took place around 11:30 (CD 5 p. 329), not 11:50. Thus, there is no time contradiction among the accounts, only to Bugliosi’s version of events. Bugliosi exploits the differing time estimates to garble the accounts when it is the sequence of events that is important. In Givens’ accounts, he saw Oswald three separate times over a span of about 25 minutes.

Junior Jarman, Oswald’s direct supervisor, told the FBI that he saw Oswald leave the first floor, boarding one of the freight elevators with his order pad in hand, presumably to fill an order for books, at approximately 11:30 (CD 5, p. 334). Charles Givens was part of a four (not six) man work crew that was laying plywood flooring on the sixth floor that morning. The crew broke for lunch early because the President’s motorcade was expected to pass the building during the noon hour. Although the four varied widely in their guesstimates as to the actual time that they broke for lunch, all four men recounted seeing Oswald on the fifth floor on their way down in the freight elevators, some recalling that Oswald had shouted to them to send one of the elevators back up. This was the last undisputed sighting of Oswald prior to the assassination. The estimated time of this event differed among the work crew from close to 11:30 to close to 12:00, but all agreed that it was before noon. Junior Jarman recalled that the four man crew arrived on the first floor for lunch at 11:45 (police report reprinted in Bonner, p. 286). Bugliosi estimates 11:50.

The obvious question is, did Oswald then go up to the sixth floor in accordance with the official mythology, or did he go down to the first floor to eat lunch in accordance with his alibi. Givens was only one of four witnesses who stated that they saw Oswald on the first floor during lunchtime. William Shelley, the supervisor of the floor laying crew testified "I do remember seeing him when I came down to eat lunch about 10 to 12." (6WH328), as did the building's janitor Eddie Piper who said he saw Oswald "just at 12 o'clock." Bugliosi dismisses their accounts by saying that they may have seen Oswald on the first floor but it was probably earlier in the day, ignoring Piper’s statement that he had actually spoken to Oswald about eating lunch (6WH383)! Another important witness was Carolyn Arnold who told the FBI on November 26 that she left the building around 12:15 to go out to lunch with some of the other secretaries. Arriving on the sidewalk in front of the building they found a crowd gathering to await the President. The secretaries decided to join the crowd. While awaiting the President’s passage, Arnold recounted that she looked back through the glass door of the building and saw Oswald. This would have been around five or ten minutes before the assassination. When asked if she was absolutely certain that it was Oswald, she could only respond that she felt it was (CD 5, p. 41) [2]. Subsequently however, Arnold would claim that the FBI had misquoted her and that she had actually seen Oswald on the second floor, not the first (Summers, p.60). It seems more likely that time had eroded her memory and it was she not the FBI agents who had mis-remembered. Psychological studies on eyewitness accounts demonstrate that they become less reliable over time and that witnesses will often revise their accounts to bring them in accord with the accounts of others as if it were their own memories [3]. Hence, the accounts closest to the event before a witness can compare their memories to others that are the most reliable....

...

The Warren Commission could not allow Williams to admit that he was in the snipers nest and still use Givens' deposition to place Oswald at the scene of the crime, and there is a further problem. How did Williams and Givens fail to run into one another, and to the assassin whoever he was, during their time on the sixth floor if the Warren Commission’s version is true - and when exactly was Givens on the sixth floor?

Central to this issue is Givens' concept of time. In the interview with FBI agents Griffen and Odum on the late afternoon of the assassination Givens maintained that the work crew left the sixth floor at about 11:30 to go to lunch (CD 5, p. 329). The other work crew members estimated the time as much later: Lovelady said 11:50; (CD 5, p. 332) Arce thought "5 to twelve;" (6WH364). Williams testified that the crew normally knocked off for lunch about five minutes before noon but on this day because of the motorcade they left about 5 to 10 minutes earlier than usual (3WH167). What is at issue is the time of Givens' return to the sixth floor. Givens' testified,

Commission counsel David Belin cut Given's off before he could explain why he thought it was 5 minutes to 12. Givens claimed that he ate his lunch on the sidewalk out in front of the Book Depository along with Junior Jarman and the other work crew members. Givens said,

Furthermore, Givens also testified that before lunch he visited the restroom. If Givens ate his lunch out front before he went up to the sixth floor, then it would seem to have been much later than 11:55 when he went back up into the building. This reconstruction receives corroboration in the statements made to the police by Junior Jarman.

The Spanish boy was Danny Arce and he also testified that Givens was with them on the sidewalk out front at noontime. (6WH365)

It is further significant that the other black employees, Jarman and Norman, on finishing their lunches decided that they would have a better view of the motorcade from the upper floors of the building and went up to the fifth floor. Was this when Givens also went upstairs, going to the sixth floor to retrieve his cigarettes? In any event, the weight of the evidence is that it was some time after noon that Givens went up to the sixth floor. It is in this context that one must consider the APB for Givens and the resulting questioning by the police and FBI.

The Dallas Police had learned within about an hour of the shooting that Charles Givens had seen the assassin. Inspector Herbert Sawyer put out the APB and is heard to say over the police radio at 1:46 PM,

In his testimony, Inspector Sawyer explained the reason for the APB thusly,

Sawyer’s testimony contains a glaring contradiction. Did the mystery witness really tell Sawyer that Givens had seen Oswald on the floor, or did the witness only say that Givens had seen the assassin? Sawyer's testimony that someone had told him that Givens had seen "Oswald" on the floor is an anachronism if it is supposed to refer to Givens seeing Oswald puttering around on the sixth floor at noon or any other time. Oswald’s job required him to fetch books from the storage on the sixth floor and thus his presence there around noon would not be a cause for suspicion – certainly not justification for Givens to infer that Oswald was the shooter. At the time of Sawyer's broadcast Oswald was not yet connected to the shooting and therefore the fact that someone had seen him on the sixth floor was not yet of significance, as far as anyone knew. Sawyer's inclusion of Oswald's name in his statement renders his testimony as totally inconsistent with the time frame of the radio call. Because of this inconsistency, respected researcher Sylvia Meagher concluded that Sawyer was just plain lying. Oswald became a suspect in the assassination when he was captured at the Texas Movie Theatre at 1:50 p.m. and subsequently identified as an employee of the Book Depository. None of this was established until considerably after Sawyer's radio call, and of course, Sawyer must have been told about Givens some time considerably before he made the APB. But the contradiction disappears if one simply assumes that by the time Sawyer gave his testimony in 1964 he undoubtedly believed that Oswald and the assassin were one and the same, and therefore was speaking the truth as he knew it. But the question remains – did Givens see the assassin, as the mystery witness reported, and if so was it Oswald?

When Givens was subsequently questioned by the police he apparently told them that he did see the assassin. According to the testimony of Lt. Jack Revill,

Did Givens actually say it was "Mr. Lee" at the window, or like Sawyer, did Revill confound Givens' statement? What exactly did Givens say to the police? A witness to Given’s statement was a secret service agent named Mike Howard. Howard related his account to Fort Worth Star Telegram reporter, Thayer Waldo, on 9 February 1964, apparently unaware that Waldo was a newsman. According to Waldo,

Waldo quotes Agent Howard as saying,

None of this may be a problem for Mr. Bugliosi, but for those of us who insist on a reliable account of the events that day, the implications are horrendous. If Charles Givens saw Lee Harvey Oswald shoot the president, then why on earth would he not tell the FBI and the Warren Commission? Or if he did not see Lee Harvey Oswald shoot the President why did he claim that he did? Was Givens a pathological liar? If so, then none of his statements should be used as evidence. Alternatively, were Inspector Sawyer, Lt. Revill and Agent Howard lying? In May 1964 the FBI interviewed Agent Howard (CE 2578) who adamantly denied that he had ever told Waldo that Givens had seen the assassin. The FBI then interviewed Waldo (CE 2579) who was equally adamant that Howard had said exactly that. Mark Lane, on retainer with the Oswald family, complained in a letter to the Secret Service that Howard had made up the story and planted it with the press in order to falsely incriminate his client’s son. The larger concern is not that any of these officers were lying – but that they might have been telling the truth. The problem is that Waldo’s version of Howard’s story meshes with the accounts by Revill and Sawyer.

Givens’ deposition is full of holes. He states that after retrieving his jacket he left the building and walked to a parking lot at the corner of Main and Record and was there when the President went by. He further states that he was walking in front of the Record Building when he heard gunfire [6 WCH 351]. At some point he decided to return to work and tried to reenter the book depository but was refused entry by the DPD who by this time had locked down the building. Meanwhile, inside the building the occupants were lined up and questioned by police until, according to Junior Jarman,

If Givens’ account as given in the deposition is true, then who among the buildings occupants knew that Givens had witnessed anything - and informed Inspector Sawyer of such before 1:46 p.m., the time of the APB?

Inspector Sawyer’s testimony that he was told that Givens had seen the assassin is supported by the physical evidence – the radio tapes. The account by Police Lt. Revill further strongly suggests that Givens did claim to have seen the assassin. One does not have to assume, as did Sylvia Meagher, that Sawyer, Howard and Revill were outright lying. In their minds Oswald and the assassin were one and the same. Thus, when Givens told the FBI that he had seen Oswald in the first floor lunch room and not on the sixth floor, there was no contradiction. Did Givens also tell the FBI that he saw the assassin shooting at the President, but that it wasn’t Oswald – and did the FBI then leave the latter assertion out of their report – just as they left Rowland’s assertion about the black man in the window out of those reports? Or if it was in their report, it would not have been the only instance where the Warren Commission redacted an FBI report before publishing it in their exhibits. The manner in which the Warren Commission’s staff handled the issue is troubling. Givens was deposed in private in an apparent effort to control the record. No effort was made to identify the mystery witness who reported to Sawyer even though it was almost certainly one of the book depository employees and most probably one of Givens’ friends (Bonnie Ray ?). Secret Service Agent Mike Howard was never called to testify. Thayer Waldo did testify to the commission but was not asked about his conversation with Howard.

One further important evidentiary detail is noteworthy. Charles Givens testified that his reason for returning to the sixth floor was to retrieve his cigarettes. Reporters recall that Captain Fritz announced to the press on the night of the assassination that along with the chicken bones and soda bottle, there was a cigarette package next to the sniper's nest window (Sauvage, p. 35; Meagher, p. 39). The report is corroborated by photographs of police Detective Marvin Johnson leaving the Book Depository carrying the lunch bag, the Dr. Pepper Bottle and, a cigarette package [5]. Lee Harvey Oswald did not smoke (9WH244) [6].

 

Technically, you are right.  But they described a "Negro" that clearly appeared to be Givens.   And Givens changed his story after Waldo's story came out.

Let me address the journalist death cases that are not as strong as Koethe-Hunter-Kilgallen but had a big impact on journalists and many other people.   (I may follow up with a separate thread on journalists and their impact on the JFK case - I believe that at least one journalist was in on the cover-up and a possible perpetrator)

Florence Pritchett Smith, mentioned earlier as the journalist who aided Dorothy Kilgallen as the safekeeper of her JFK notes after meeting her on What's My Line:  Even back in the early 40s, Pritchett Smith was the fashion editor of New York Journal American, a journal owned by William Randolph Hearst and one of the biggest papers in New York City.

On Pritchett Smith's cause of death at age 45 allegedly due to leukemia complications, one writer offers an analysis that deserves further research:

It is alleged that Smith died of a cerebellar hemorrhage a few weeks after suffering from leukemia. This is highly unlikely, since it is quite rare (0.5%) of cases of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). If Smith had another type of leukemia other than that of AML, then the chances of her dying from a cerebral hemorrhage would have even been less than 0.5% chance.

Yet another questionable death of a journalist is the fate of Gary Underhill, who died on 5/8/64, found in bed with a bullet wound behind his left ear.  Jim D. stated in Destiny Betrayed that Underhill was right-handed.  Nonetheless, sources have always quarreled about whether it was suicide or murder.  Wikipedia:  "For five years he was a military correspondent for Life magazine and helped to make their Foreign News Department one of the most knowledgeable centers of military intelligence in the world."   The CIA always said:  "He's not our guy." 

John Simkin provides this quote:  

Underhill told his friend, Charlene Fitsimmons, that he was convinced that he had been killed by members of the CIA. He also said: "Oswald is a patsy. They set him up. It's too much. The bastards have done something outrageous. They've killed the President! I've been listening and hearing things. I couldn't believe they'd get away with it, but they did!"

Underhill believed there was a connection between Executive Action, Fidel Castro and the death of Kennedy: "They tried it in Cuba and they couldn't get away with it. Right after the Bay of Pigs. But Kennedy wouldn't let them do it. And now he'd gotten wind of this and he was really going to blow the whistle on them. And they killed him!"

Underhill told friends that he feared for his life: "I know who they are. That's the problem. They know I know. That's why I'm here. I can't stay in New York."

Ron, I'm with you - I can't ignore Karyn Kupcinet was killed on 11/30/63. 

I generally don't like speculative theories, especially about such a gruesome death, but Karyn's immediate family is now deceased.   She was strangled while naked and defenseless.   The Dallas journalist Jim Koethe died in the same fashion a few months later when stepping out of the shower - some say he was strangled as well.   One message emerges from a strangulation death:  Don't talk.

And there was a very simple second message to Karyn's father Irv, who had the biggest audience in Chicago with his decades-long Sun-Times column packed with celebrities, nightlife, and gossip.  As the man with the megaphone - I'm sure he got the very simple message loud and clear by the timing of Karyn's death and the inevitable rumors that it was tied to the death of JFK - don't talk about Jack Ruby and his pals in Chicago.   Irv did know Ruby from his time in Chicago in the 40s.

 

 

Matt,

Here's one analysis of the Soviets' concern of a right-wing takeover, from none other than Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as recently as 2017:

While the FBI was investigating possible involvement of the Soviet Union in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Soviet authorities were voicing suspicions that U.S. right-wing groups -- and even Kennedy's own vice president -- were behind the killing, newly released documents show.

The Soviet KGB claimed it had information tying Lyndon B. Johnson, who became president as a result of the assassination, to the killing, according to a 1966 letter to a presidential assistant from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover that was released for the first time late on October 26.

The letter is among 2,800 previously classified Kennedy assassination documents that were released this week following an order by U.S. President Donald Trump. According to White House officials, Trump said in a memorandum that he had "no choice" but to keep some files secret because of national security concerns raised by the FBI and CIA.

The documents capture the frantic days after the November 22, 1963, assassination, during which federal agents madly chased after tips and sifted through leads worldwide.

But Kennedy scholars say the thousands of documents do not appear to contain any bombshell revelations about the killing that shocked the world.

The claim was contained in instructions from Moscow to the KGB residency in New York "to develop information" on Johnson, Hoover said in the letter, which cited an "FBI source" that had "furnished reliable information in the past."

Johnson has long been a focus of some conspiracy theorists, but no credible information has ever linked him to the assassination.

The documents show that the FBI's own chief suspect right after the assassination was the Soviet Union, with much attention given to assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's contact with "a member of the Soviet KGB Assassination Department" at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico, documents showed.

But Moscow believed Oswald was a "neurotic maniac" whose goal was to further a right-wing conspiracy trying to poison U.S.-Soviet relations, according to a just-released U.S. intelligence report issued days after the assassination.

Later, in May 1964, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev met influential Washington newspaper columnist Drew Pearson in Cairo, Egypt, and told him that he thought a right-wing conspiracy was behind the killing, according to another intelligence report.

Khrushchev told Pearson he could not believe the conclusion investigators had reached at that time: that both Oswald and Jack Ruby, the nightclub owner who fatally shot Oswald, had acted alone.

"He did not believe that the American security services were this inept," according to a CIA report of the discussion.

Pearson "got the impression that Chairman Khrushchev had some dark thoughts about the American right-wing being behind this conspiracy" and rejected all arguments to the contrary, the report said.

Finally, here's John Simkin on Dorothy Kilgallen's "aide" Florence Pritchett Smith - it turns out she was one of JFK's most passionate lovers and the wife of Cuban ambassador Earl Smith who was involved with the machinations that put Castro in power!

Furthermore - Kilgallen entrusted her notes to Florence Pritchett Smith because of what happened to Koethe and Hunter!

Florence Pritchett was born in 1920. After leaving school she worked as a model for John Robert Powers and appeared in Life Magazine. In 1940 she met and married Richard Canning. Soon afterwards she became fashion editor of New York Journal American, a journal owned by William Randolph Hearst.

In 1943 Florence divorced Canning. The following year she met John F. Kennedy. The couple spent a lot of time together. Betty Spalding said that for Kennedy, "Over a long period of time, it was probably the closest relationship with a woman I know of." However, because Kennedy was a Roman Catholic, marriage was out of the question.

In 1947 Florence married Earl E. T. Smith, member of the New York Stock Exchange. The couple had three children. In June, 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Smith as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Cuba. FBI files reveal that over the next two years John F. Kennedy made more than a dozen visits to Cuba in order to meet Florence. Florence also met Kennedy in Miami and Palm Beach, where their homes were conveniently adjoined.

According to one account: "JFK would elude the Secret Service on occasion in order to have trysts with women. He did this in Palm Beach when he hopped a fence to swim with Flo Smith. The Secret Service agents couldn't find him and called in the FBI. They finally turned to Palm Beach Police Chief Homer Large, a trusted Kennedy family associate. The Police Chief knew exactly where to find Jack - next door in Earl E. T. Smith's swimming pool. Jack and Flo were alone, and as Homer put it, "They weren't doing the Australian crawl."

John Kennedy and Florence Pritchett at the Stork Club (Feburary 1944)

Earl E. T. Smith remained Ambassador to Cuba until 20th January, 1959. Afterwards he wrote about his experiences in his book, The Fourth Floor (1962). This included an account of the Fidel Castro revolution in Cuba.

Florence continued working as a journalist. She also became a television personality and appeared on programmes such as What's My Line? It was during this time she became friendly with the journalist Dorothy Kilgallen.

Florence Pritchett

In 1965 Dorothy Kilgallen managed to obtain a private interview with Jack Ruby. She told friends that she had information that would "break the case wide open". Aware of what had happened to Bill Hunter and Jim Koethe, Kilgallen handed her interview notes to Florence Smith. She told friends that she had obtained information that Ruby and J. D. Tippit were friends and that David Ferrie was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

On 8th November, 1965, Dorothy Kilgallen, was found dead in her New York apartment. She was fully dressed and sitting upright in her bed. The police reported that she had died from taking a cocktail of alcohol and barbiturates. The notes of her interview with Jack Ruby and the article she was writing on the case had disappeared. Florence Smith, died two days later of a cerebral hemorrhage. Her son, Earl Smith III, said that she had been suffering from leukemia.

So my suggestion is that we focus on the deaths and injuries heaped on the journalists - Dorothy Kilgallen and her aide Florence Smith, Jim Koethe, Bill Hunter, Thayer Waldo (whose career was sabotage, not killed) - and other investigators who were initially trying to solve the JFK case, like Jim Garrison, whose career as a DA was sabotaged by the government repeatedly between 1967-1973.

What happened to early truth-tellers like the authors Joachim Joesten and Thomas Buchanan?  I know that Joesten feared for his life.  

I think there is a powerful story to be told about the people who tried to solve this case in the first few years of the case, especially the first couple of years.  Even Jim Garrison came to the case pretty late, after his initial decision not to pursue it in late November-December 1963.

 

 

And here's some sources on the murder of Jim Koethe, including new information about an Ed Johnson working with Koethe and Waldo - obtained at https://jfk.boards.net/thread/121/erasing-past-protect-fairytale?page=22&scrollTo=2039

The body of the young Dallas reporter was found swathed in a blanket on the floor of his bachelor apartment
on September 21, 1964. Police said the cause of death was asphyxiation from a broken bone at the base of
the neck - apparently the result of a karate chop.

Robbery appeared to be the motive, although Koethe's parents believe he was killed for other reasons. Whoever
ransacked his apartment, they point out, was careful to remove his notes for a book he was preparing, in
collaboration with two other journalists, on the Kennedy assassination.

(David Welsh, Ramparts  November, 1966)




KOETHE, JAMES F., suspicious death; staff writer, Dallas Times
Herald. Along with two other reporters, Koethe attended a meeting in
Ruby's apartment with Ruby roommate George Senator during the evening
of November 24. All three of the journalists died soon after the meeting.
Koethe was murdered in his Dallas apartment on September 21, 1964,
reportedly just as he had stepped out of the shower. According to A. L.
Goodhart in the Law Quarterly Review (January 1967), " ... Koethe was a
beer-drinking bully who liked to hang out with thugs; he had been
strangled, not 'karate chopped,' (as some reports have said) and police
suggested that homosexuality may have been a motive."

(Who's who in the JFK assassination)

There is another strange coincidence. Ruby's roommate, George Senator, when he heard Ruby had shot Oswald,
immediately went to see an attorney friend, James Martin. Martin turns up again as Marina Oswald's manager,
chosen for her by the Secret Service. In a city of one million people, we are to believe that a friend of Ruby is
accidentally picked by the Secret Service to aid the wife of Ruby's victim*. Martin didn't act as Ruby's lawyer.
The first man who took that job was Constine Alfred Droby, President of the Criminal Bar Association of Dallas
who was interviewed by Jean Campbell for the London Evening Standard of October 7, 1964:

    "I said I would defend Jack," he told me . . . "but I had to
    give it up before I really started, as my wife's life was
    threatened by anonymous phone calls and we were told our
    house was to be blown up by dynamite." However Droby
    told me that as Ruby's attorney he had rushed around to
    Ruby's apartment soon after the shooting with Jim Koethe,
    a Dallas news reporter.

    "The place was in chaos. I think we were the first people
    to see it."

    "You remember anything especially?" I said.

    "No, just chaos and newspapers," Droby answered. "I wonder
    if Jim Koethe saw anything?" I asked.

    Mr. Droby folded his hands and leaned forward: "Koethe's
    murdered," he said. "He was choked to death the Monday
    before last."

(Joachim Joesten, Oswald, Assassin or Fall Guy, 1964)

* Joesten here mixes up two different James / Jim Martin's. 
The lawyer is Wilford James Martin. The Marina-manager is James Herbert Martin.
(Thank you Gerald Campeau for clearing this up.) Both of them are not to be confused
with Guy Banister-associate Jack Martin or General Walker-associate John 'Jack' Martin.
(More on John Martin: click HERE)

Waldo told the Warren Commission that he had an important informant in the Dallas Police. His name was
Lieutenant George Butler. According to Michael Benson, Butler was an associate of Haroldson L. Hunt. Butler
was also the man in charge of Oswald's transfer when he was killed by Jack Ruby.

(Spartacus Education)



Also since Vol. I, we have discovered that Jim Koethe, a Dallas Times Herald reporter, was working
on a book about the assassination in conjunction with two other writers. In view of what happened
to his two associates, we now feel that his specific assignment on the book was at the root of his
murder. Koethe's associates on the book were Thayer Waldo and Ed Johnson, both men working
for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram at that time. All three men covered the Presidential visit for their
papers, and all three covered the assassination and the Ruby trial.

Koethe's task for the book was an in depth study of the leaders in Dallas. This, in our opinion,
was what caused his murder. Thayer Waldo, a newsman o f 23 years experience, was the first of the three
to find himself in trouble. Although he was not fired by the StarTelegram, it was convenient for him to seek
employment elsewhere after his big scoop turned out to be false.

At the request of Mark Lane, Waldo had accompanied Mrs. Marguerite Oswald and two
officers, Pat and Mike Howard, to Love Field. Mrs. Oswald had requested of Lane that she have
someone in addition to the officers escort her to the airport. Mrs. Oswald was going to Washington
to testify before the Warren Commission, and of course, to say that her son was innocent.

Mike Howard was a Secret Service Agent, while his brother was a Tarrant County Deputy Sheriff.
After the trio saw Mrs. Oswald on her plane, the two officers and the reporter went for a cup of coffee.
Both officers told newsman Waldo that they felt pity for Mrs. Oswald, but said there was a
prisoner in jail who saw her son kill President Kennedy. If such was the case and the story was
printed, Mrs. Oswald's testimony w o u I d be completely buried by the new development.
At the conclusion of their story, however, the lawmen added: "But we are not supposed to talk
about the prisoner." On the way back to Fort Worth, the lawmen repeated their report of the
prisoner, but again added the information was top secret. Waldo begged to be allowed to use the
news without giving the source of the information.

This was agreed to by the brothers Howard. Why repeat such a tale to a newsman twice,
if you do not want him to use it?

Waldo reported the news to his editor and the circumstances surrounding it. The editors and the
top brass of the Star-Telegram had a conference and decided to run the news which became an 8
column banner on page one. Next day, however, things were different. The Dallas District Attorney
denied the story. The Sheriff and Police Chief and the FBI denied that there was such a prisoner.
Only the Secret Service remained quiet - of course they had not been involved. In print, anyway.

The pressure on Thayer Waldo for his false lead continued and he soon found a job with the
University of the Americas in Mexico City.

Ed Johnson also left the Fort Worth paper for a better position with the Carpenter News Agency
of Washington, D.C. which is owned by Leslie Carpenter of Texas-the husband of Elizabeth
Carpenter, who is Press Secretary to Mrs. Lyndon Johnson.

(Penn Jones, Forgive my Grief II)

Within a week a 22-year-old ex-con from Alabama named Larry Earl Reno was picked up selling Koethe's
personal effects and held on suspicion of murder.



Reno's lawyers were Mike Barclay and the ubiquitous Jim Martin, both friends of Ruby roomie George
Senator. Martin and Senator, one recalls, were with Koethe at that enigmatic meeting on November 24,
1963. When the Reno case came before the grand jury, District Attorney Henry Wade secretly
instructed the jurors not to indict - an extraordinary move for a chief prosecuting officer with as
strong a case as he had. The grand jury returned a no-bill.

Reno, however, remained in jail on a previous charge. When they finally sprang him, in January 1965, he was
re-arrested within a month for the robbery of a hotel. This time the prosecution, led by a one-time law
partner of Martin's had no qualms about getting an indictment, and a conviction. Reno was sentenced to life
for the hotel robbery. At the trial his lawyers called no witnesses in his defense.

(David Welsh, Ramparts, November, 1966)

Here's Jim D. on the Kilgallen case

Prior to Shaw’s book, there had been three major sources about Kilgallen’s life and (quite) puzzling death.
The first was Lee Israel’s biography titled Kilgallen. Published in hardcover in 1979, it went on to be a 
New York Times bestseller in paperback. As we shall later see, although Israel raised some questions
about Kilgallen’s death in regards to the JFK case, she held back on some important details she
discovered. In 2007, Sara Jordan wrote a long, fascinating essay for the publication Midwest Today
Magazine. Entitled “Who Killed Dorothy Kilgallen?”, Jordan built upon some of Israel’s work, but was much
more explicit about certain sources, and much more descriptive about the very odd crime scene. For
instance, the autopsy report on Kilgallen says she died of acute ethanol and barbiturate intoxication. But
it also says that the circumstances of that intoxication were “undetermined”. Jordan appropriately adds,
“for some reason the police never bothered to determine them. They closed the case without talking to
crucial witnesses.” (Jordan, p. 22) A year later, in the fall of 2008, prolific author and journalist Paul
Alexander had his book on the subject optioned for film rights. The manuscript was entitled Good Night,
Dorothy Kilgallen. Reportedly, one focus of Alexander’s volume was how the JFK details Kilgallen wrote
about in her upcoming book, Murder One, were cut from the version posthumously published by Random
House. Neither Alexander’s book, nor the film, has yet to be produced. Which is a shame, since the
available facts would produce an intriguing film.

(Jim DiEugenio, Was Dorothy Kilgallen Murdered over the JFK Case?, 30 January 2017)

I think it is really important to look at people who were trying to solve the JFK case from the very beginning.

Let's focus - for a minute - on the journalists studying the JFK assassination and who died within a couple years after 11/22/63.

For a number of reasons, most journalists steered away from trying to solve the case.  Journalists have little control over their lives.  Their main function is to follow the story and move on.

But four journalists tried to solve the case in 1964.  I believe the fate of these journalists chilled other Dallas reporters from taking a hard look at the evidence.   Most of them were content to go along.

Three of those journalists in Dallas were Jim Koethe, Bill Hunter and Thayer Waldo.   I went through Marguerite Oswald's files last week at TCU in Fort Worth - and found out that Waldo was working with Koethe and Hunter.   I did not know that before, and I had been studying all three of these men for years.

Thayer Waldo was in the police basement on 11/24 and identified Lt. George Butler (unlike other sources) as the man who was really in charge of security at the time of Oswald's transfer.   He observed how nervous Butler was in the final moments before Oswald was shot.   Penn Jones reported that Butler was the head of the KKK in Dallas, many of the Dallas police were Klan members - he even tried to recruit Penn Jones into the Klan  Butler was H.L. Hunt's driver.  To this day, the Dallas Police Administration building is named after George Butler.  You can find it right outside the Lorenzo Hotel in Dallas.

Waldo testified to the Warren Commission in 1964.   He was the victim of a dirty trick by Secret Service man Mike Howard and his local police brother Pat Howard.  Mike was the local SS man - assigned to Jackie Kennedy - he escorted the Kennedys to their rooms In Fort Worth the night of 11/21/63.

The Howard brothers told Waldo that Charles Givens - the African American janitor who had provided alibi evidence stating that LHO was not on the sixth floor at noon - had actually seen Oswald shooting at JFK from the sixth floor window.  Waldo printed the story in the Dallas Morning News. 

This caused Givens to change his story - now saying that he didn't see LHO shooting but that he did remember LHO staying up at the sixth floor at noon.  Givens was used as the principal witness against Oswald even though he had changed his story.   I believe Don Thomas writes about this in his book Hear No Evil, and I have researched it myself.

Mark Lane got Waldo to tell him that his source was the Howard brothers.  Lane immediately outed the Howard brothers at Waldo's source in the National Guardian during May 1964.   Unfortunately, it was a one-minute scandal.  The Howard brothers were questioned - they said that Waldo and Lane were lying - and that was the end of any official investigation of the Howard brothers.  But the Givens story was used by the Warren Commission and others to seal the tale of Oswald's guilt.

Waldo's career in Texas was destroyed.  He returned to working in Latin America, where he continued to study the case and aided Garrison during 1967.

Koethe and Hunter returned to working on their book.  In late 1964, Koethe was killed in his home by someone, allegedly with a karate chop as he was exiting from the shower.  All of his notes to the book were missing.

The District Attorney Henry Wade actually indicted a local bad-guy named Larry Reno for the killing of Koethe.

Long-time Dallas researcher Betty Windsor has been working on this case for the last 60 years.  What got her involved was that she and her husband were good friends with Jim Koethe.  She told me that the reason Wade indicted Reno was because the uproar in the journalism communities was so great that "he had to pick up somebody".

In a very unusual circumstance, the grand jury refused to indict Reno.  In 99.9999% of all cases, the prosecutor can get the jury to indict a ham sandwich.  Why didn't it happen here.

Betty told me why.  She said that she interviewed one of the grand jurors after the dismissal.  She said the grand juror told her that Henry Wade told the grand jury after the completion of the presentation of the evidence and told them not to indict the defendant Larry Reno.   He told them that it was his belief that Larry Reno had nothing to do with it.

Betty told me that she agreed with Wade - that Reno had nothing to do with it.  The DA had to pick up somebody.  They picked up Reno.  Reno was arrested a few months later for another burglary, and did significant time.  Reno was just a fall guy, to get the journalistic community to back away.

Bill Hunter moved to Long Beach, California.  A few months later, two cope were horsing around with their weapons while Hunter was conducting an interview in the police station..  One of them had an "accidental" misfire that killed Hunter.  The officer had a brother in the Dallas Police Department.  The offending officers got a slap on the wrist.  I don't know if Hunter had any notes left to steal.

One other journalist comes to mind - Dorothy Kilgallen of New York City. She had exclusive interviews with Jack Ruby.  She was working hard on the case and believed that she had cracked it.   The circumstances of her death are so suspicious as to border on the absurd - Mark Shaw has written good books on the subject.     No one could find her notes, either.  The notes were believed to be in the possession of her colleague Mrs. Earl Smith.  Smith died two days after Dorothy.