Larry Hancock

Dawn, I had heard some discussion that the Austin channel was closed but what about what Darby had to work from and what Sample got? If Darby had something to do the first comparison from can't that be given to someone else - and what about what Glen has?

Could you please give me a reference on the Caddy thing, I'd like to add that to my paper but I need a source for it - with an old experienced Caddy in Texas and a young, novice Caddy described by the Watergate guys I was hesitant to insert it but if you have a confirmed source that would be a great addition.

- thanks, Larry

Hi Dawn, yes indeed we need the affidavits or notorized statements of those two individuals. Both of them were interviewed by William Remond but that seems to have taken them into isolation and neither William's Estes book, the related video or any documents supporting it are available in the US (or even English). Unfortunately that seems to have had the effect of locking up what had seemed to be a hot trail a year ago.

Worse yet, there have been no published reports of fingerprint experts either corroborating or rejecting Darby's work on the purported Wallace print. There are rumors of both positive and negative reports but absolutely nothing has surfaced in the two or more years since the Darby identification (I don't recall forget the actual date on that).

It's a little amazing that something which seems to have as much potential for resolution one way or another has seemingly gone nowhere.

On another note though, while I also initially thought that the Douglas Caddy sent out to aid the Watergate guys was Estes former lawyer, my reading of some of the books from Watergate participants I got the impression that the DC Caddy was a young fellow who was picked to respond to the call to the law firm based on his lack of experience and visiblity. I don't know if anyone has really confirmed that link or not but it may be a coincidence (although that would be a heck of a coincidence).

-- Larry

Malcolm Wallace: Part 2

Introduction

When Billie Sol Estes testified to the 1984 grand jury, he named Malcolm Wallace as the actual murderer of Henry Marshall and gave a detailed description of the incident as described to him by Wallace himself. He also named Wallace as either the murderer or an accessory to the murder of President Kennedy, with apparently much less detail and that by way of conversation with Cliff Carter. Estes’ testimony in regard to Malcolm Wallace was supported by statements from U.S. Marshall Clint Peoples.

Peoples had good reason to know that Wallace was capable of murder because he himself had played a lead investigative role in support of the prosecution and conviction of Malcolm Wallace for murder in 1951. Certainly an examination of Malcolm Wallace’s capability for murder as well as his known practices in regard to actually performing a murder are very relevant to an evaluation of his possible role in both the Marshall and Kennedy deaths. Fortunately, we know a good deal about both from the investigations in 1951 and Peoples’ follow-on involvement and interest in the death of Henry Marshall.

However, a broader exploration of Wallace shows that there are actually two other sets of research – both of which point to Malcolm Wallace as being directly involved in the Kennedy assassination. One line of research actually uses forensic evidence obtained in the Texas School Book Depository during the original crime scene investigation on November 22, 1963. The other involves private research of a purported first hand witness, based on that witnesses remarks made in 1971 – over a decade before Estes ever named Malcolm Wallace or Wallace’s name appeared in the press as a suspect.

One thing that quickly becomes evident is that Malcolm Wallace was neither a “hired killer” nor much of a professional. It would be one thing to use Malcolm Wallace to kill Henry Marshall in a pasture in West Texas; it would be quite another for the Vice President to select him as a tool for the assassination of a President. And such a selection wold be even more dangerous if Malcolm Wallace himself or his first murder could in any way be associated with Lyndon Johnson. All of which takes us to a very strange murder trial in Austin, Texas.

October 25, 1951, Austin, Texas

On that date, Malcolm Wallace was bound over to a grand jury and charged with the slaying of Douglas Kinser. Kinser was the owner and manager of an Austin pitch and putt golf course which he had recently opened after coming there from New York City. During business hours, Kinser had been shot several times with a small caliber handgun.

The attack had been in view of witnesses, who had seen the attacker flee the golf course in his car. Kinser and his attacker had struggled during the shooting; however, the attacker had chased Kinser continuing to shoot six times.

Wallace was charged with the murder based on extensive circumstantial evidence. But, according to news media reports, at the time of the first hearing and throughout the trial and summation, the prosecution never introduced any connection between Kinser and Wallace nor any motive for Wallace. This lack of connection was especially significant since at the time, Wallace was employed as an Economist with the Department of Agriculture in Washington D.C., was not living in Austin and was driving a car with Virginia plates when arrested. (1)

Indeed, most of the newspaper coverage of the trial dealt with either the evidence, the search for a motive, or with Wallace himself. Wallace was a very well known figure in the Austin and especially within the University of Texas community where he had been student body president and extremely active in campus activities.

The Crime

The attacker parked his car adjacent to the course clubhouse, walked around the building passing people in an outside area and went directly to Kinser who was standing behind a cash register. He fired one shot at that point, followed Kinser into a pantry shooting him both in the entrance and inside the pantry itself. The attacker apparently got blood on himself and may have also cut his hand somehow as blood stains showed that he fled back out the entry door and around to his car in which he fled. Several shell hulls were found at the crime scene.

Circumstantial Evidence

When arrested, Wallace’s car was found to contain a bloodstained shirt and handkerchief; the tag and laundry marks were torn out of the shirt and the laundry mark was torn off the handkerchief, apparently with the thought of eliminating the ability of tracing them once discarded. (2)

A witness, Pete Edgar, gave police a general description of the man and of his car along with that of a car tag. In all, three witnesses described the car and the man and all descriptions matched Wallace. It was the witness’s description of the car and tag which led officers to stop and question him. The police gave Wallace a paraffin test which showed he had recently fired a gun. Wallace refused a polygraph test and refused to give a blood sample for matching to the crime scene or evidence. Later, blood from the crime scene was matched by general type to the blood on the clothing. The Court overruled defense counsel objection to the bloody clothing, the paraffin test and to a photo of Wallace’s car. (3)

Additional evidence included a shell found in Wallace’s pocket after his arrest, which was similar to those at the crime scene, and the fact that Wallace’s left index finger had been bleeding (per his own admission) while persons at the golf course described seeing the attacker slinging his hand as if it was hurt and blood was found on a metal chair outside the club house on the attacker’s exit route. (4)

Finally, the prosecution investigation had discovered that a friend had given Wallace a Schmeisser automatic pistol, the type a ballistics expert said was the most likely to have been used in the Kinser murder. (5)

The prosecution focused solely on evidence in its closing arguments while the defense emphasized that at no point in the trial had the prosecution presented any indication of motive. (6)

In fact, all the media summation of the case and the verdict expressed two primary issues. First, “No motive for the slaying of 33-year old Kinser was ever established by the prosecution. Second, “No information has been raised, said Cofer, that Wallace ever knew Kinser.” (7)

The Missing Motive

The press and jury were both mystified by the prosecution’s failure to present either a motive or any indication of a connection between Wallace and Kinser. This was noted in the defense’s closing arguments and universally in media coverage of the trial. Kinser’s sister was quoted years later as stating “The prosecution never told us the motive for my brother’s death.”

However, years later, former D.A. Long would talk as if the prosecution had introduced a motive and state that his assistant of the time, later a Judge, had presented in motivation in cross examination and in closing. Given that the defense’s summary remarks were reported and spoke of no motive, the memories of Long and his assistant seem questionable. The question also arises as to how the issue of motive would have come up in cross-examination since neither Wallace, his wife, his wife’s mother nor any of the prosecution’s investigators dealing with Wallace’s background offered testimony?

We now have access to records which show that the prosecution’s own investigators as well as Austin Detectives were equally mystified and frustrated since they had developed extensive evidence of both motive and association which the prosecution failed to introduce in court. The media had picked up only a minor indication of this in covering the fact that there had been marital trouble in the Wallace family and that the defense was extremely concerned about the appearance on the stand of Wallace’s wife and perhaps more importantly, of Wallace’s mother-in-law. Both were sworn in as witnesses, the wife by the defense and the mother-in-law by the prosecution.

However, the wife’s introduction was limited by the defense (and not challenged by prosecution) to that of character witness and if she had been called the prosecution was limited to cross examination only on points raised with her by the defense. In addition, after both were sworn in, defense requested and was granted a private conference with the mother-in-law. In the end, neither relative was called to the stand nor was Malcolm Wallace himself. (8)

As we will see, this legal maneuvering was actually extremely significant and reflected the fact that both legal teams knew very well not only what the Wallace-Kinser association and motive was, they also knew a good deal more about the implications of it being raised in the court room.

We know this only because of the availability of a Naval Intelligence security investigation conducted over ten years later in 1961. In an extremely thorough effort, the Naval Intelligence investigators contacted the two prosecution investigators, Ranger Clint Peoples, the prosecutor himself and other sources including Malcolm Wallace’s wife Andre, who confirmed her sexual relationship with Douglas Kinser. The prosecutor himself also disclosed an association between Kinser and Josefa Johnson, Lyndon’s sister.

The Investigation – Motive and Connections

A key piece of background developed by Naval Intelligence was something that must have been available to the prosecution and something that may well explain the reported behavior of Andre Wallace during the trial - a part of the reason she was not brought to the stand. As reported only in the local papers but disclosed to the jury, the Wallace’s had a significant history of marital problems. (9)

They had been married in Austin in 1947 when Malcolm was completing his work at the University of Texas. However, in August, 1950, one week after the birth of their second child, Andre filed for divorce in Dallas, Texas. In her filing, she stated that since 1949, her husband had subjected her to three years of cruelty, had become an obsessive drinker and had seriously affected her health.

Court records show that Malcolm accepted her filing however in November of 1950, Andre asked for the petition for divorce to be removed. We know that Wallace apparently taught economics and industrial management at North Carolina State College in 1948-49, we do not know whether Andre lived with him at that time. We also know that in 1949, the FBI conducted a background check on Wallace as an “economist appointee” with the Department of Agriculture and that he was working in an Agriculture Department Bureau of Finance position in Washington D.C. at the time of the Kinser murder. Apparently his wife and family was not living with him at the time and Andre and their children had been staying with her mother for some time at that point.

During the first two days of the February 1952 trial, Andre and their small boy were seated by Malcolm Wallace. However, the prosecution had solid evidence that Andre’s apparent cooperation was very possibly coerced - based in a November 9, 1951 Austin police report which reflectsed a traffic stop of Andre Wallace by Officer Gerald Cooper at 10:43 that morning. When questioned about her speeding, Andre stated that she was the wife of Malcolm Wallace and that “he was after her and that was the reason for her driving in this manner”.

Naval intelligence actually made contact with the following individuals actively involved in the original Kinser murder investigation, T.S. Weaver of the Austin Police, Onis Doherty the Chief Investigator, Billy Wilder and Richard Advent the assistant District Attorneys and Ranger Captain Clint Peoples. They also interviewed the District Attorney and prosecutor Bob Long and obtained Wallace’s “voluminous dossier” from the Travis County Attorney’s office. The following picture emerges from the comments and material summarized in the Naval Intelligence report:

(1) Andre Wallace was bisexual, a fact that became known to Malcolm shortly after their marriage and which was confirmed in an admission by Andre herself. Her lesbianism and a history of “deviant” sexual activities with both women and men were documented in great detail by Onis Doherty and Clint Peoples. A memo in the files describes the fact that Malcolm found out about Andre’s “perversions” just prior to their actual marriage and had her consulted with a Dr. White at the University of Texas. However, it also recounts that she practiced sexual “perversions” as well as regular sex with Malcolm himself after marriage.

(2) Malcolm Wallace was violently opposed to Andre’s first pregnancy and tried to force her into an abortion. At that point she left New York, where they had been living while he did graduate work at Columbia University and returned to Austin to stay with her mother.

(3) In the summer of 1950, she separated from Malcolm when she became pregnant for the second time and returned to live with her mother in Austin. While she was staying in Austin, she met Douglas Kinser through Grace Hewitt and did some work for him at the gold course as he was opening it.

(4) Andre Wallace submitted a statement and testimony to the District Attorney wherein she denied being sexually intimate with Kinser. However, in a 1961 interview with the Naval investigator, she admitted having a sexual relationship with Kinser and lying about it during the murder trial.

(5) Andre’s mother gave a detailed description of a visit from Malcolm Wallace upon his arrival in Austin from Washington immediately before the murder of Kinser. She described Wallace referring to Andre being a sexual pervert, of having slept with men and women both since their marriage, of continually embarrassing him and of having had an affair with a man the previous summer. There is a statement and testimony worksheet of Mrs. Robert Barton, the mother-in-law, which states, “On the night that Mac came from Washington he was raving at Andre and told me that Andre did not know it but that he was through with her. That she had dragged his good name in the dust long enough. That was on October 11, 1951. About a week after Mac was released from jail, he came by my house at about 11 p.m. and talked to me until 1 a.m. During the course of this entire conversation, Mac was talking about Andre being a homosexual and about the homosexual joints she had been seen in. I told Mac repeatedly during this conversation that everything he said about Andre was a lie.”

(6) District Attorney Bob Long related that the investigation had actually located an individual at the University of Texas who had apparently tried to establish a relationship with Andre and when rejected, had written to Malcolm Wallace in D.C. relating her affair with a local man in Austin.

Authors note: Other memoranda from Onis Doherty are even more specific and revealing. One describes an incident apparently between Andre and Malcolm. It appears to describe Wallace telling Andre that he wanted her to take him to the golf course and point out Kinser so he could “bash his face in” – this was in 1950 while she was living in Austin. Wallace then told her he would forget about the episode. Andre returned to Virginia to live with Malcolm, but while there he beat her, sending her to the hospital.

In light of this information, it is understandable that the investigators were extremely puzzled as to why neither motive nor association was introduced by D.A. Long during the trial and why the mother-in-law was never called to testify on motive. In fact, the investigators took the time to pass on rumors to the Naval investigators that there were “strange aspects” in the case, that there were political ramifications and that there was suspicion that someone had gotten to District Attorney Long and convinced (or bribed) him to keep information out of the trial and away from the media. To some extent this mystery is exacerbated by other items in the file, one of them being a letter written from Bob Long to a Mr. Kaplan in New York City stating that, “I did not prove a motive for the killing. I would like someday to know the true motive for the killing to my satisfaction and that is the only reason for this letter”. The letter was written immediately following the close of the trial and the verdict and was directed to Mr. Kaplan who Long tells was referred to him because he might know of some association between Wallace and Kinser!

Authors note: Among the rumors at the time of the trial, was one which related that Andre Wallace had met Doug Kinser in New York where they were both involved in amateur theatrical activities.

The letter from Long becomes even more confusing when compared to a separate interview of Bob Long in 1972. During the interview, Long was asked about the Wallace case and described how it had lost him re-election. He also goes into great length to how the defense planted a “sinker” on the jury which led to the suspended sentence awarded to Wallace.

However, in that interview, Long describes knowing the full story of the relationship between Andre and Kinser having witnesses and being able to offer the full motive for the murder – a motive which would have raised sexual deviation issues far beyond a simple insanely jealous husband. (10)

However, this interview did bring out the issue that may have been at the crux of the affair, something rumored during the trial but not making even a media mention at the time, something that was well documented in the investigation – an association between Douglas Kinser and Josefa Johnson.

The Johnson Connection

Former District Attorney Long knew at the time of the trial that if the personal associations of Kinser, Andre Wallace and Malcolm Wallace were introduced, it would very probably lead to the association of Douglas Kinser with Josefa Johnson. He knew that because he had heard directly from a man who knew that Kinser and Josefa had dated in Washington D.C. and he had an investigator interview Josefa and confirm the association. In his interview, Long makes it very clear that he understood the potential political impact on Johnson and implies he took great care to keep the information from coming out. e.g.: “And of course, the anti-Johnson people here. Boy, in twenty-four hours it’d have been everywhere.”

Long had been personally told by an Air Force dentist that if he would look into Josefa Johnson, he would find her “involved in this thing.”

Authors note: Long did not apparently explore what “this thing” implied, although at least one source has stated that at one time, Malcolm Wallace had dated Josefa Johnson himself. (11)

Long dispatched an investigator to Washington to talk with the FBI man they had determined had originally given Wallace a pistol which matched the caliber weapon used in the murder (he did get the confirmation). The investigator interviewed Josefa as well and was told that Josefa had indeed met Kinser, had been at a “beer joint over on the East side” in Austin and had met him there and gone out with him later. She had even gone to his mother and fathers house a time or two a year before the Kinser murder when Josefa had been working in Washington D.C.

Apparently, Josefa’s story had been that she eventually determined that Kinser was only seeing her because he wanted to use her influence with Lyndon to get a Small Business Loan for his pitch and putt. She told the investigator she broke off with Kinser and that “Lyndon wouldn’t listen to me anyway.” In the interview, Long seems less curious about the Kinser-Josefa association than about the fact that a Dentist that had been dating Josefa had known about it. He also goes to great lengths to mention that he had never discussed nor had any contact with the Johnson family in regard to the case, regardless of rumors to the contrary.

So, it seems that based on all the information gained at the time of the trial and made available to us ten years later courtesy of Naval Intelligence, certain “mysteries of the trial” may be less mysterious. First, there was a very clear motive for Malcolm Wallace to kill Douglas Kinser, a combination of jealousy aggravated by his concern about Andre’s ongoing practice of sexual perversions and the effect it would have on his own reputation and career – especially given his position in Washington D.C. in a Federal department (and possibly with career opportunities beyond that, to be explored shortly). This motive was so clear in fact that the Security Board reviewing Wallace’s clearance would determine that they did not have to consider his act of murder as a security concern since it was so obviously a normal act for an injured husband. (12)

The prosecution could certainly have introduced Wallace’s mother-in-law who would have testified both to his anger, his accusations and his knowledge that his wife had been having an affair with a local man. However, any testimony from her on Malcolm’s remarks and accusations would have raised the issues of sex and perversion leading to an exploration of both Josefa’s and Kinser’s personal lives and associations with the potential for introducing Long’s informant on Josefa Johnson, not to mention Josefa herself. District Attorney Long had the motive, the associations and extensive information to support both. He failed to introduce any of it in court, totally failed to present anything beyond the circumstantial physical evidence and failed to bring any of his potential witnesses including Malcolm’s mother-in-law to the stand. In doing so, he allowed a violent and brutal murderer to walk out of the courtroom with only a five year sentence for murder, a sentence that was suspended as of the time of sentencing without even probation.

Working for Mr. Johnson?

It seems clear, that for whatever reason, both the prosecution and defense made concerted efforts to ensure that the Wallace murder trial was limited in scope and testimony, that it did not delve into the associations of the two men which would have provided both motive and very likely brought the Johnson name into the trial and media. However, in 1984, when Estes introduced the name of Wallace into the Marshall murder, Texas reporters revisited the Kinser murder trial with questions about any possible relationship between Wallace and Johnson. They found much more than just the rumors about Wallace dating Josefa (they didn’t find the Kinser–Josefa link because the Naval Intelligence report was not available to them).

First they found that both of Wallace’s lawyers had a long legal association with LBJ himself. Lead counsel Cofer had represented Johnson well in the Box 13 election scandal and would later represent Billie Sol Estes (even over Estes’ objections and effort fire him) and do an impressive job of limiting testimony during the Estes fraud trial - including keeping Estes off the stand at that time.

More importantly perhaps, they interviewed Detective Lee, formerly with the Austin Police Department, who reported that when Wallace was arrested he told the investigators that “he was working for Mr. Johnson and (that’s why) he had to get back to Washington.” (13)

Although Wallace’s relatives in Dallas denied any knowledge of Malcolm even knowing LBJ, Wallace’s ex-wife Virginia Ledgerwood described Wallace talking about knowing both Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson. Even more importantly, the reporters found Horace Busby, a long time aide and speech writer to Lyndon Johnson. Busby said that he only knew that Malcolm Wallace was introduced to Lyndon Johnson by Clifford Carter, that Carter had taken him to the Johnson home in Washington and that one time Wallace had dated Lyndon’s sister Josefa. (14) (15)

To understand the significance of Busby’s comments, it is necessary to spend some time understanding his background and in the process understanding where and how Lyndon Johnson searched for bright young Texans to bring into his Washington clique. Fortunately, Horace Busby participated in an extensive oral history project with the Johnson library which is extremely illuminating in that regard. In addition, we have records from the University of Texas which reflect the association of classmates Busby and Wallace, and make it quite clear that Busby would very much have known who he was talking about in regard to any remarks about Malcolm Wallace.

Horace Busby and Malcolm Wallace were not just schoolmates at UT; they were campus leaders, leaders allied in the same sorts of causes. Busby was the editor of the “Daily Texan”, UT student newspaper, and a strong proponent of the liberal (for Texas in the 1940’s) President of UT, Doctor Homer Rainey. At the same time, Malcolm Wallace was Student Body President and an equally strong supporter of Doctor Rainey. Both Horace and Malcolm shared the same politics – Wallace’s Naval Security investigation describes him as an “individual of security interest as a result of suspected Communist Party associations.” This seems to have meant that there were Party members in a couple of the more liberal campus clubs/organizations which Wallace had also joined.

Busby also seems to have come in touch with the same few people at UT and according to Eric Goldman in The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, “Horace Busby was considered so much the campus heretic that the campus’ miniscule Communist cell tried to recruit him.” When President Rainey was dismissed by the Board of Regents for his liberal persuasions, Busby used the Daily Texan to organize a campus rally for Rainy. At this rally, the student body president, Malcolm Wallace, led a march to the state capital and then led a small group of students to the Governor’s office, forcing the Governor to leave town for a time. (16)

Authors note: When initially contacted by reporters in 1984, Busby spoke of knowing Wallace and gave information about his association with the Johnson family. By 1988, in the Johnson Library history, we find no mention of Mac Wallace - not even in Busby’s detailed description of the Rainy incident protest demonstration. 17 Busby does mention the student body president leading the march; he simply does not give a name. Busby also mentions that Lyndon Johnson always followed UT campus activities closely and paid special attention to the Rainy events and the student protest, especially since Wallace’s students had driven Governor Coke Stevenson out of his office in the capital.

In addition to their political and campus activities, Busby and Wallace also shared being fraternity brothers in an extremely exclusive campus organization. The Friars Society at the University of Texas is one of the most exclusive organizations on campus, only taking four pledges a year from Junior and Senior men who demonstrate extensive campus activity and to service organization activities. Malcolm Wallace was inducted into the Friars Society in 1944 and Horace Busby joined him in 1945.

According to Horace Busby, Lyndon Johnson paid a great deal of attention to activities and especially students at the University of Texas. Basically, he monitored UT student leadership and newspaper staff for talent.

Busby relates that Johnson was always on the lookout for very bright but quiet aides that he could bring to Washington. Some of these UT graduates such as John Connolly became highly visible; others like Jake Pickle, Walter Jenkins and Busby himself were used as a “shadow” talent pool. Johnson arranged to initially place them not on his staff but in other government jobs where he could use them as capital intelligence sources without having them highly visible as “Johnson men”. In this, Johnson seems to have shown a preference for student body presidents such as Connally and Lloyd Hand or campus newspaper editors (Busby talks about Johnson writing a number of letters to him when he was Daily Texan editor). As Busby describes it, at least when they initially came to Washington, almost none of the recruits came on Johnson’s payroll or attached to his office staff.

However, it was made clear to them that they worked for Congressman Johnson or later Senator Johnson and that their jobs and careers were tied to his success.

These remarks from Busby may give us a good deal of insight into Malcolm Wallace’s words to the Austin Detective that he “worked for Mr. Johnson and had to get back to Washington”. They may also explain his extreme concern over his wife’s activities damaging his name, not in Austin but in Washington.

When combined with Busby’s 1984 remarks about Wallace and some relevant dates they may reveal even more:

* Johnson monitored the University of Texas for talent and future aides – showed a history of recruiting student body presidents and campus newspaper editors during the 40’s and early 50’s

* Wallace and Busby were UT classmates, fellow liberals, campus activists and both were widely networked on campus – both members of exclusive Friars Society.

* Busby was recruited as a “Johnson man” in 1948 and went to Washington; Wallace did graduate work at Columbia in 1947 then taught at North Carolina State in 1948.

* Cliff Carter joined the Johnson campaign staff in Texas during the 1958 successful Johnson campaign. Busby describes Cliff Carter bringing Malcolm Wallace to Washington D.C. and a social introduction at the Johnson home; no date is given but 1948/49 seems consistent.

* In 1949, Wallace was an Agriculture Department appointee, passed an FBI background check and assumed a staff position. It would be consistent to speculate that Wallace received his appointment through Lyndon Johnson and was serving in Agriculture as a typical “Johnson man” to be developed as part of Johnson’s network in D.C.

* Josefa Johnson was working in Washington D.C. in 1950 dated Douglas Kinser whom she had first met in Austin, Texas.

* In November, 1950, Andre Wallace filed for divorce; Andre was living in Texas at the time and working in Austin. Investigation reports suggest that during 1950 she established a relationship with Douglas Kinser. A divorce petition was removed in November, 1950. Busby describes Malcolm Wallace as having dated Josefa Johnson (newspapers state unnamed Johnson family friends on the same thing); no date was given but 1950 seems consistent since both Josefa and Wallace were in D.C. and Malcolm was separated at the time.

* October, 1951, Wallace was still living in D.C.; he received gossip from Dallas that Andre had/has an affair and is continuing bisexual relations. He took a leave of absence, returned to Austin to seek custody of the children but instead ended up murdering Douglas Kinser.

Given this possible course of events, Wallace’s remark on working for Mr. Johnson seems understandable as does the fact that his defense team consisted of high profile, high dollar Texas lawyers with a history of legal service to Lyndon Johnson. It would also explain the widespread gossip of political influence being applied to the trial, the lack of introduction of a motive for Wallace or the introduction of the true relationship between Kinser and Wallace. It also appears to justify the comments of the actual investigators (if not the prosecuting attorneys) including Ranger Clint Peoples, that politics was the key to the mysteries of the Wallace trial and suspended sentence.

Wallace and the Marshall murder

It is hard not to reach the conclusion that Malcolm Wallace owed his freedom and very likely his life to the intervention of Lyndon Johnson. It is virtually impossible to avoid the conclusion that when Estes introduced the names of Johnson, Carter and Wallace he was giving the names of men who knew each other, who had a “history” and in one case a history involving murder. It is also clear why Malcolm Wallace was on Clint Peoples’ suspect list for the Henry Marshall murder. However, Wallace was long dead at the time he was named by Estes in 1984 and the D.A. passed on initiating a criminal investigation.

There is no doubt now that Henry Marshall was killed and the scene of his murder bore a great resemblance to the death scene of Douglas Kinser – evidence scattered all around, signs of a struggle, blood smears in many places, multiple gun shot wounds (in both cases the killer fired every round available in the gun), indications that the murderer hurriedly tried to eliminate evidence during his escape (tags torn out of clothing in Austin and a partially buried plastic bag away from the scene at the Marshall murder scene).

Beyond that, Peoples had a composite drawing of a suspicious man asking directions for Marshall on the day of his death, a drawing which is a very good match to photographs of Malcolm Wallace. (18)

We have the statements of Billie Sol Estes and Kyle Brown that Cliff Carter described Wallace as the murderer and we have Estes and Tom Bowden stating that the same information is contained on tape from separate conversations.

We also have the interesting circumstance that Malcolm Wallace was arrested in Dallas, Texas in January 1961, the same month that he was supposedly told by Lyndon Johnson he would have to eliminate Henry Marshall. He was arrested for being extremely drunk and disorderly and later tried to hide the arrest by not listing it on his Security survey. In February, following the drinking incident, Malcolm Wallace left his job and was unemployed during the period of the Marshall murder. He then took a new job with an associated company and moved to California before the end of the year - a move which conveniently removed him from the scene in the event that there had been a criminal investigation of Marshall’s death (or perhaps others such as Estes’ accountant who died mysteriously during the same period).

Summary

Lyndon Johnson was implicated as an accessory in the murder of Henry Wallace, President Kennedy and others by Billie Sol Estes in statement under oath to both a 1984 grand jury and in legal representations to the United States Justice Department. In doing so, Estes identified Clifford Carter as an additional accessory and Malcolm Wallace as the man directly involved in the murders. Estes’ explanation of the motivation for the murder of Marshall seems reasonable enough seeing that for Estes himself; Henry Marshall was only a minor problem and one that he had neutralized through his political connections. Marshall’s potential testimony about cotton allotments, process and very possibly who had ordered him to approve the initial set of Estes allotments was another story entirely and one that would seem to have led to Cliff Carter, Lyndon Johnson and the sale of Washington political influence in Texas.

From this distance in time, there is little doubt that Estes was connected to Carter and Johnson in the manner he describes. It also seems believable that both Carter and Johnson had a connection to Malcolm Wallace. In fact, Johnson very likely had a large claim to leverage over Malcolm Wallace and that leverage may have become became especially useful in 1961. Before that time, exposing Wallace would have led to Josefa Johnson and Lyndon’s political affairs. However, Josefa Johnson died at the close of 1961.

Of course we can never be certain Malcolm Wallace killed Henry Marshall. There were no witnesses at the scene of the crime; there was no criminal investigation, no fingerprints taken, to evidence analyzed. We are left with circumstance and speculation.

Notes

1. Mac Wallace Bound Over; Bond Placed at $10,000, Austin American, Oct. 25, 1951.

2. Ibid.

3. Court Overrules Wallace in Challenge of Evidence, Austin American, February 21, 1952

4. State Rests Testimony, Austin American, February 25, 1952

5. Verdict Probable Today in Mac Wallace’s Trial, Austin-American Statesman, February 27, 1952

6. Ibid.

7. Wallace Convicted, Sentence Suspended, Austin American, February 27, 1952

8. Wallace Trial Lines Up Kin On Opposite Sides, Austin American, February 21, 1952

9. Unless otherwise information, the information in the investigation and background section is taken from U.S. Naval Intelligence Memorandum, 19 pages, 20 July, 1961, Exhibit 24-1

10. Joe B. Frantz interview with Bob Long, April 19 1972, sourced from LBJ A Closer Look, copy 110 of 200, Lyle Sardie, Exhibit 24-2

11. Files on Wallace missing officials say, Dallas Morning News, May 13, 1984

12. Memorandum for the Director of Naval Intelligence, September 18, 1964. “In the matter of the Applicant’s conviction for the murder of Kinser, certain doubts about the case have been raised which tend to lessen the security significance thereof. These doubts are based on the fact, although she denied it to police during the trial, Applicant’s wife admitted to the investigator that she had sexual relations with Kinser.”

13. Retired officer links Estes “gunman” to LBJ, Dallas Times Herald, April 6, 1964

14. Files on Wallace missing, officials say, Dallas Morning News, May 13, 1984.

15. The Men on the Sixth Floor, Sample and Collom, p. 120

16. Horace Busby Oral History, 1988, Johnson Library (available online)

17. Wallace’s participation in the march is described in the Dallas Morning News, March 29, 1984 – the source appears to be Jerry Wallace, Malcolm’s brother.

18. The Killing of Henry Marshall, The Texas Observer, November 7, 1986

Malcolm Wallace: Part 1

Introduction

Billie Sol Estes’ statements to the Marshall 1984 grand jury were ground breaking in some respects and an old story in others. Certainly offering Lyndon Johnson as a suspect in the Kennedy murder was not a novel suggestion. Those looking for a more tangible motive had turned to Johnson early on; from a perspective of pure motive and gain it was hard to avoid Johnson. And with the huge publicity of the Baker scandal of 1963 and the related Congressional investigations and testimony Johnson had been and was receiving considerable media attention up to the point of the evaporation of those investigations after his succession to the Presidency. And, although Johnson was never treated as a suspect by either the FBI or Warren Commission, according to a recently circulated document he and the FBI were both well aware of the popular speculation to that effect. The document appears to be a record of a request from Johnson’s office to investigate and deal with a “reputable” individual (Megill) who was circulating word that Johnson himself was an FBI suspect. Interestingly, Walter Jenkins (Johnson's personal aide) requested the FBI to act in a manner so as not to disclose their activities to the White House staff member (Pierre Salinger) who initially surfaced the remarks. 20 Exhibit 23-1

Estes’ contention that he had waited until after Johnson’s death to talk because of the danger to himself is not difficult to accept given the well known political/legal power and influence of the “Johnson group” in Texas. For many individuals this power translated into raw, long term fear. In a minor illustration of this power, when Caro began work on his first Johnson biography in the early 1980’s, he found many of Johnson’s college class mates (both the ones who had given favorable interviews for the Johnson Library and the others who were not invited) were still quite frightened about expressing their true feelings on Johnson from five decades earlier. No names, no quotes…because of the power still wielded by the Johnson group in Texas. (1)

However, Estes’ specific identification of Cliff Carter and Malcolm Wallace as being involved in the Marshall, Kennedy and other murders did send reporters running for background files since those names had never before surfaced in such a context. Cliff Carter was relatively well known from the initial Estes scandal, from his exchange of letters with Estes, offers of service and Estes’ phone calls to him.

It is these names which give us our first acid test of whether Estes’ direction really contributed anything new to an investigation of the Kennedy conspiracy. Is it really conceivable that Cliff Carter was an accessory to a Johnson conspiracy, that he knew enough about such an affair to communicate it to Estes, that there is reason to suspect Carter – not least why we would think that Carter would confide in Estes? Is there anything to demonstrate Malcolm Wallace was connected in any way with Cliff Carter or Lyndon Johnson, anything about Wallace would lead us to Henry Marshall’s death or the murder of President Johnson? Is there anything that indicates that Estes was not simply coming up with these names out of spite, in regard to Cliff Carter, or out of whole cloth in regard to Wallace?

The District Attorney involved in the 1984 grand jury felt that he lacked corroboration for Estes. He also felt that it was not possible to effectively revisit a crime committed 20 years before. The grand jury did find Estes and Peoples convincing enough to change Marshall’s death to murder but the D.A. left the murder as an unsolved case. Did the DA give up too easily?

30 Years with Lyndon Johnson

Cliff Carter began his association with Lyndon Johnson at the age of 18, volunteering to work in Johnson’s 1937 congressional campaign. (2) Carter was first personally introduced to Johnson in 1946 by Ed Clark, former Texas assistant Attorney General from 1935-37, personal advisor to Texas Governor Allred and Texas Secretary of State in 1937. Cliff Carter and Ed Clark had both been in the same Army reserve unit and had served together in WWII.

In the early 1940’s, Clark went on business retainer for Brown and Root and also became a long time political and legal advisor to LBJ. Clark’s specialty was knowing how to place money where it would do the most good in Texas politics and in over the years of all the men Johnson met in Austin, Clark would acquire and hold the most power. (3)

Over the years, Cliff Carter would become Johnson’s lead man for actually doing the leg work of collecting and disbursing the money in Texas and later in Washington D.C.

“He was a very sharp operator, Lyndon could trust him to pick up the money and keep his mouth shut.” (Ralph Yarborough quoted in The Killing of Henry Marshall by Bill Taylor)

After Carter served as an unpaid volunteer for a second time in 1946 (while Carter was operating and managing a 7-Up bottling company), Johnson personally contacted Carter in 1948 to join his campaign staff for Johnson’s Senatorial campaign. He served as Johnson’s campaign manager in the 6th Congressional District. After Johnson’s election, Johnson obtained a Presidential nomination and Congressional confirmation for Cliff Carter as United States Marshall in the Southern District of Texas. This was obviously a real commitment by Johnson to Carter since it represented a serious piece of Texas patronage; it also shows Johnson’s estimate of Carter’s value – especially given that Carter had absolutely no law enforcement experience or goals. Carter served as a U.S. Marshall for nearly five years, from 1949 to April of 1954 and left that job to go to work on Johnson’s 1954 campaign.

In 1954, Carter moved up to running Johnson’s campaign affairs for five districts in south-east Texas. After Johnson’s victory, Carter was invited to Johnson’s ranch and was offered a part time job heading up Johnson’s full twenty-one district political organization in Texas. Carter also moved into the role of handling all Johnson’s political appearances and by 1959, served as advance man for 70 different trips/appearances.

While serving as Johnson’s Texas Administrative Assistant, Carter describes traveling three weeks a month for four years, into all 270 counties in Texas. Part of his job was to leverage and promote every federal project or appointment made in Texas and to coordinate announcements between Johnson’s Senate office and each Congressman’s office. These activities ranged from postmaster appointments to major Federal project awards

After Johnson’s election to Vice President in 1960, Carter moved to Washington D.C. (according to Carter, Johnson “no longer needed an office in Texas or someone to do the work there”, p. 9 Carter oral history). Carter had continued to operate his bottling company during his work for Johnson and had expanded it into two other locations in Waco and Temple; however, he no longer managed the bottling operations himself.

Authors note: Cliff Carter’s Austin American obituary of September 23, 1971, states that he was President of the American Bottlers Organization, a very significant post. No date or length of tenure in the office was given.

Interestingly enough, Carter said nothing for his oral history about his actual duties in Washington for Vice President Johnson other than stating that when he first went to work there, Johnson had the Army recall Carter to active duty as a Lt. Colonel (Johnson’s secretary Juanita Roberts was recalled as a WAC Major) and assigned to the Vice President’s offices for something like three months before he was discharged and put on the federal payroll. He did state that he handled many duties in conjunction with the Presidential inauguration.

Authors note: It is worth recalling that, as reported in Texas newspapers, whenever a Texan received an invitation to the inauguration to or contacted Johnson’s office; they received a call back from Billie Sol Estes within minutes offering them a ride to Washington in Carter’s private plane.

Because we have so little data on Carter’s role in Washington before the assassination, it may be helpful to get a better idea of his use and importance to Lyndon Johnson based on what we can see of Carter’s activities after Johnson became President. In that regard, an article from the Washington Evening Star seems especially important. In 1964, Cliff Carter was described in a Washington Evening Star article as “Mr. Johnson’s Man” and the “man to see” in the Johnson administration. The article describes a visit by Carter to New York and his visit with the deposed chairman of the Suffolk Country Democratic Organization.

The former chairman (Adrian Mason) had been ousted by a reform group backed by among others, Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Mason, Carter’s guide to New York was indicted by a county grand jury that charged him with attempted extortion, larceny and conspiracy. He was also alleged to have demanded kickbacks on Water Board projects (he was a Board member). The Washington Star article describes Cliff Carter as Johnson’s personal representative to the Democratic National Committee and goes on to take Carter’s associations as a “possible sign that the new President intends to abandon the efforts made while John Kennedy was alive to differentiate between the honest politicians and the less honest ones”; it also speculates that the Democrats will once more become regarded as “good fellows”. (4)

Johnson had indeed moved Carter over to the Democratic National Committee as his representative - replacing Bobby Baker who had been forced out in 1963 due to his wide spread influence peddling. Baker offered access to Johnson as well as to various agencies including the Department of Agriculture; he also associated widely with lobbyists of various stripes and had strong contacts with lobbyists in the aerospace industries.

The fact that both Baker and then Cliff Carter served Johnson as his representative on and Secretary for the Democratic National Committee is another strong suggestion of the strength of Carter’s association with LBJ. The DNC was Johnson’s second major campaign fund raising vehicle (as illustrated with Brown and Root, the quid pro quo of offering income producing services in return for contributions was the first) and its power and productivity was largely a creation of Johnson himself.

As Caro describes it, “One fact of Lyndon Johnson’s political genius was already obvious by 1940; his ability to look at an organization and see in it political potentialities that no one else saw, to transform that organization into a political force and to reap from that transformation personal advantage.” (5)

One of Johnson’s most notable successes in this regard was his transformation of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the predecessor to the Democratic National Committee. Caro takes two full chapters in Johnson’s biography to describe the process by which Johnson transformed a basically ineffectual (and weak) organization into one which generated huge amounts of money. More importantly for Johnson, the revitalized Committee was also restructured to allow money to be distributed in such a fashion as to provide a measure of control and influence over Democratic politicians.

To a certain extent, Johnson’s success in this effort was due to the fact that there was a new source of riches in America by 1940 and the newly rich “had a deep interest in national politics”. The new riches were based in oil; the rich were to a large extent in Texas and included names such as Richardson, Murchison and Hunt. The oil men enjoyed and needed federal favors such as the oil depletion allowance. Lyndon Johnson saw the potential and although Johnson always had a need to separate his campaign politics from the oilmen, the Democratic Campaign Committee seemed heaven sent as a vehicle to deliver cash with the direct taint of oil contributions.

In October of 1940, Johnson with the good offices of his mentor Sam Rayburn, had managed to bring in $45,000 from Murchison, Richardson and others. In a note from Johnson to Rayburn’s aide, Johnson reported that “We have sent them (Texas congressmen) more money in the last three days than Congressmen have received from any committee in the last eight years” and it was Johnson who had coordinated the distribution of checks from the committee by asking donors like George Brown to send a letter with their contribution stating who they wanted the money to assist. “Since the committee would hardly dare to disobey such specific instructions from the doners, it was Johnson rather than Drewry or Harding (or anyone else) who was determining who would get Texas money and how much.”

However, that was not enough for Johnson; he also immediately sent each Congressman receiving money a telegram with his signature stating, “As Result My Visit To Congressional Committee Few Minutes Ago, You Should Receive Airmail Special Deliver Letter From Them Which Is To Be Mailed Tonight.” This made it clear whose efforts were bringing new money into the Texas Congressional campaigns. (6)

By October 14, 1940, Lyndon Johnson had also obtained additional permission to “assist” the Congressional Campaign Committee. Johnson immediately proceeded to analyze 1938 vote totals and percentages by district throughout the country finding the Congressmen who were in the most danger and to the astonishment of many a Congressmen, they began to receive money from the Campaign Committee.

As Caro describes it, “all at once, Democratic candidates who had given up hope of obtaining assistance from Washington were receiving help for which they had not even asked. Suddenly, Democratic candidates all across the country realized there was someone in Washington they could turn to, someone they could ask not only for money but other types of aid.” (7)

There is little doubt that the National Campaign Committees were one of the key elements in Lyndon’s Johnson’s rise to political power and to his eventual pinnacle of Senate Majority Leader. In 1955, Johnson had Bobby Baker nominated to the position of Secretary for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Baker described his role there as a “bag man”, “the official bag man for my party.” It was my job to solicit, collect, and distribute funds among deserving senatorial Democrats; I can guarantee you that very few disinterested parties go around giving money away to politicians. The assumptions of the quid pro quo, something for something, are there and make no mistake about it.” (8)

Baker’s role also involved treasurer duties and Johnson’s control through Baker can be seen in his ability to order Baker to pay for all airline tickets and the $100 Stetson hats that Johnson gave to notables who visited his Texas ranch. The recipients of course viewed these as coming personally from Johnson, not paid for from funds collected for senators’ campaigns or for Johnson’s personal whims. (9)

In 1964, this key behind-the-scenes position was given to Cliff Carter and if anything, Carter’s role was expanded. Johnson began to use Carter as his point man to stop the “Bobby for VP” movement in New Hampshire and then to purge Kennedy’s supporters from the Committee. (10)

Authors note: Johnson used his relationship with J. Edgar Hoover to provide ammunition for this effort, “Cliff Carter at the DNC bragged of a file seven inches thick” on one targeted RFK supporter’s un-American activities and background. (11)

As RFK’s political fortunes continued to improve though, Johnson dropped the budget ax on the committee in addition to purging Kennedy men. A week after the 1966 campaign a journalist pronounced the committee as a farce, isolated from the White House. As Shesol describes the situation in Mutual Contempt, “A weak national committee was no help to anyone and Johnson preferred it that way.” (12)

In the interim, Carter had developed a new mechanism for providing Johnson himself with money. Carter established the “President’s Club” and for donations of $1,000, individuals were assured that they would have direct access to the President. Actually in Carter’s own words donor/members “are assured of a direct relationship with President Johnson.” One prominent member of the club was Ling-Temco-Vought of Dallas – a corporation doing very well at the time with government contracts. Ling-Temco (the employer of Malcolm Wallace, the other name given by Estes to the Marshall grand jury) contributed $25,000 to the President’s club under the name “Citizens for Good Government”. (13)

In his oral history, Carter describes Johnson telling him “that he wanted me to plan on moving over to the Democratic National Committee to represent his interests over there.” In Carter typical fashion this seems a rather serious understatement of affairs for the man who Johnson had earlier selected to run his entire Texas political organization – an understatement in the same order of the Dallas Morning News referring to Cliff Carter as merely another Johnson “aide” in its October 28, 1962, article, “LBJ Aide Confirms Estes Call”.

Carter, described as an “assistant” to Vice-President Johnson, had confirmed that Estes had called him at Carter’s home in Washington the day prior to Estes’ arrest by the FBI. The article also stated that Carter “who handles many Texas matters for the Vice-President” had also received three other calls from Estes as well as an office visit in January of 1962. Carter responded to the press that the office visit was purely social and the telephone calls simply requests for help – to which Carter supposedly never responded.

The Dallas Morning News and the rest of the Texas media seem not to have realized that Cliff Carter was a bit more than a low level staff assistant or secretary to Vice-President Johnson. In the context of what we know about Carter’s history and roles with Johnson, it’s also seems likely that the Estes–Carter contacts were far more significant than Carter might have wanted to discuss with the press. (14)

If also seems clear that when Estes introduced the name “Cliff Carter”, he was identifying the specific individual who managed Johnson’s political network in Texas, who administered both patronage and politics (in his oral history Carter identifies his primary responsibilities for the Vice President as the political and patronage areas) and it is clear that Estes’ affairs crossed both these areas.

If Johnson had to rely on anyone for damage control of any sort it seems likely that it would indeed have been Cliff Carter and it is clear even from the limited and managed investigation that was done, Cliff Carter was right in the middle of Estes’ affairs as far as they involved trading political support for aid and assistance in Washington D.C.

Clearly there is a tie between Carter and the Estes scandal, the question is whether or not there is anything at all that corroborates Estes’ contention that the tie went as far as them being accessories to murder. Anything, for example, which corroborates that Cliff Carter even knew Malcolm Wallace and of course anything that suggests Cliff Carter might have had reason to know or suspect that Johnson was somehow involved in a conspiracy related to the murder of President Kennedy. We will explore the connection to Malcolm Wallace and his introduction to Lyndon Johnson by Cliff Carter in the next chapter.

Before we go there, it seems we should go further with Carter’s history and examine his connections and activities to the November Texas trip; we will also examine Carter’s own remarks in his oral history and to William Manchester to see if there is any reason to suspect that Carter might have “guilty knowledge” in regard to the events of the assassination.

Fall 1963, Carter goes back to Texas

Carter remained in Washington until August of 1963 when Johnson sent him back to Texas to begin preparations for the 1964 campaign – ostensibly the Presidential campaign. Carter provides no details on those preparations and Johnson’s call record shows no routine communication with Carter except in regard to trips within the United States, trips in which the advance work was done by Carter.

These included a Miami trip in July, a trip to Los Angeles in late August and trips to Ohio and Beaumont Texas in September. Carter also seems to have been involved with Johnson’s trip to Fort Worth earlier in the week of November 22 in which Johnson addressed the Bottler’s Convention which was in progress that week.

In regard to the Kennedy Texas Trip, Carter relates in his oral history that the Democratic National Committee had sent Jerry Bruno to Texas to do all the advance work and that Carter went along with Bruno to San Antonio, Houston, Fort Worth and to Dallas. He also mentions having daily coordination meetings with Governor Connally’s people. (15)

Although this leads the reader to believe that Carter did the Dallas advance work for the Kennedy visit that is not strictly true. The actual field advance man for Dallas was Jack Puterbaugh, described by Winston Lawson as a “civilian political advance man for the Democratic National Committee.” In his summary report to the HSCA, Lawson also stated that it was Jack Puterbaugh who “recommended the Trade Mart” for the noon-time Kennedy luncheon.

Lawson elaborated that Puterbaugh attended many of the Dallas Police and Secret Service planning meetings and was also “in charge of the protocol of the motorcade, the arranging of seating and vehicle sequence for Congressmen and other dignitaries. The motorcade was the primary focus of such protocol.” He also remarks that Puterbaugh was in touch with Washington and was also possibly getting instructions from Betty Harris who was the primary local contact. (16)

Authors note: In his report, Lawson does confirm that his comparison of the planned and actual vehicle sequence indicates that the intended sequence of vehicles was changed, noting the forward movement of the number 1 Congressional car to a slot immediately behind the Vice Presidential Secret Service follow-up car. It may be worthwhile noting that Cliff Carter was riding in the Johnson follow-on security car. In an interview conducted by researcher Vince Palamara, one of the two police motorcycle riders who moved from the rear of the President’s vehicle to much further back in the motorcade stated that the instructions for the move were given at the last minute at Love field and came from one of the Vice President’s security people.

The HSCA interviewed Jack Puterbaugh in 1978. His name had been given to them by Jerry Bruno, White House advance man. Puterbaugh stated that he had previously done one other advance for the President, in Minnesota during September 1963. In 1963, Puterbaugh was Assistant to the Deputy Administrator of State and County Operations of Agricultural Stabilization and Consumer Service (the same division of the Agriculture Department as Henry Marshall’s). Puterbaugh described being briefed by Jerry Bruno and outlined the problems which had risen to divide the three political factions in Texas. Puterbaugh described meeting Forest Sorrels and driving alternative motorcade routes with him (Lawson makes no mention of driving alternative routes or of Puterbaugh accompanying him and Sorrels during their drive of the route).

Puterbaugh “described himself as a foot soldier that only carried out orders.” (17) The origin of all the orders and instructions Puterbaugh received is left to question, Cliff Carter made no mention of Puterbaugh at all in discussing the advance work for Dallas and Puterbaugh made no mention of any of Carter’s advance work in Dallas.

.

November 22, 1963, Cliff Carter goes to Dallas

Carter joined the Johnson entourage in San Antonio where they had gathered to meet President Kennedy arriving in Air Force One. (18) They were also joined by Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr and by Governor Connally who had flown in at the last minute in a private Jetstar aircraft, borrowed from a friendly oil millionaire. (19)

Carter traveled with the Johnson group on Air Force Two to Houston and then on to Forth Worth for a late night 11:07 PM arrival. Upon arrival, the Kennedy’s would retire to bed while Johnson’s group met five floors above them in Johnson’s more spacious suite for some even later night (early morning) entertainment.

The next day, for the Dallas motorcade, Carter rode with Johnson’s Secret Service detachment in the security car behind Johnson’s limousine. After the shooting, he continued with Johnson and Lady Bird to Parkland and stayed with them and Federal Judge Homer Thornberry. They were in the area immediately adjacent to the emergency room entrance and entrance corridor. (20)

During their time there, Carter and Congressman Gonzalez were both given bags containing Governor Connally’s clothing and according to Carter’s interview with Manchester, he left his bag with the nurse upon departure. (21)

Authors note: This seems to conflict with Carter’s oral history remarks where he describes handing his bag of clothes to Henry Gonzalez and asking him to keep them. Parkland nurse Ruth Standidge testified to the Warren Commission that she gave the clothes to Cliff Carter; Carter’s own Commission statement makes no mention at all of clothes. This issue is of some interest since Connally’s clothes were dry cleaned before being entered into evidence, destroying all forensics opportunity to use them as a reference in determining issues of bullets and trajectories in the shooting.

Once on Air Force One, Carter assumed a position of control for Johnson, dictating Johnson’s minute by minute diary and passing orders from Johnson to Rusk, McNamara and Bundy. (22)

Authors note: Manchester comments in his book that he requested permission to reference the audio tapes of message traffic on Air Force One for the sake of historical accuracy. Johnson withheld permission at first and when Manchester finally received a version of the tape he found it had been edited. (23)

Upon arrival at Andrews, Carter went by a second helicopter behind President Johnson to the White House and then on to the second floor of the Executive Office Building to Johnson’s offices.

According to his interview there was no further contact between he and Johnson until Johnson, Carter, Bill Moyers, Jack Valenti and Judge Thornberry left later that evening for Johnson’s home at the Elms. Upon arrival they found Horace Busby and his wife as well as Doctor Wearst already there. (24)

Carter, Valenti, Thornberry and Moyers all stayed with Johnson that night, meeting with Johnson in his bedroom until around 3AM while he discussed political agendas and programs. In fact, Carter stayed at the Johnson home for several days afterwards.

Authors note: In neither the Manchester interview nor his oral history did Carter mention the series of telephone calls that he made to Dallas the evening of November 22; calls with Johnson’s orders to quash any charges of conspiracy for Lee Oswald and any discussion of conspiracy in general, regardless of what evidence or indications of conspiracy that might be offered. If we are to take Carter’s remarks about his lack of contact with the new President at face value he would have had to receive instructions to make those calls either on Air Force One during the flight back or earlier.

There is no doubt that Cliff Carter was involved in the Kennedy Texas trip, doing advance work and as part of the Dallas trip, the motorcade, the transition of power to the new President and the events of the evening and following days. He was certainly the closest person to Johnson who participated in preparations as well as in the trip itself. If any of Johnson’s staff had the exposure to know or suspect Johnson’s involvement in a conspiracy, Carter would have been the person.

Issues with Carter as a historical source

If Cliff Carter was indeed involved as an accessory to conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination as charged by Billie Sol Estes, we might expect some effort on his part to “sanitize” his actions related to the Texas trip. Two indications of such actions are noted above in his handling of Governor Connally’s clothing and in his calls to Texas authorities the night of November 22, 1963. In addition, his oral history contains the following indications that Carter either withheld information from his interviewer or made questionable comments:

* Carter went to some length state that all the elements of the Dallas events and motorcade were planned entirely by Kennedy staff. Kennedy staff selected the Trade Mart and insisted on the motorcade, setting the route. This is in direct conflict with Jerry Bruno’s description of events in his book Advance Man, especially in regard to the selection of the Trade Mart for the luncheon.

* Carter stated that there were absolutely no reports that President Kennedy should not go to Dallas, that it was a hostile environment and that he certainly did not report any potential problems with Dallas himself. In fact, when asked if he had followed through on any reports of that nature, Carter quite specifically said “No, I didn’t have any reports of anything like that. I never heard anything like that. However, William Manchester quotes Barefoot Sanders as having said he told Cliff Carter personally that a visit by Kennedy to Dallas was “inadvisable”, obviously expecting that Carter would pass on the information. (25)

* Carter described that when the shooting started, one of the Secret Service men in the President’s security car pulled out an automatic weapon and pointed it towards the upper floor of the Texas School Book Depository because it was obvious that all the shooting was from there. He did not fire because he could not pick out exactly the right window in time to shoot. This is contradicted by all available films and Secret Service agent accounts.

* Carter stated that Johnson and Katzenbach decided that Johnson should stay in Texas until Johnson could take the oath of office. This is contradicted by numerous sources including Attorney General Kennedy.

* Carter stated that Kenny O’Donnell and Larry O’Brien determined that Johnson should return to Washington using the Presidential Air Force One aircraft. This is contradicted by numerous sources including O’Donnell and O’Brien.

Of course none of this is suggestive of conspiracy per se, it does however suggest that Cliff Carter could be expected to repeat the Johnson version of affairs in Dallas rather than serve as an independent historical source. Certainly he goes to great effort in his statements to support the “lone nut” version of the assassination. Which of course brings us back to Carter’s purported private remarks to Billie Sol Estes.

Testing Estes’ story

Billie Sol Estes claimed to have personally participated in discussions with Lyndon Johnson and Malcolm Wallace in which the possible need to eliminate Henry Marshall was discussed. He described these occurring in Washington D.C. while he was there for the Presidential inauguration. In addition, he described the killing of Marshall in great detail – detail supposedly obtained directly from Malcolm Wallace after the murder - including the description of the struggle in which Marshall received a series of injuries, the attempt to gas him using a plastic bag and Wallace’s panic at hearing what he thought was an approaching vehicle causing him to shoot Marshall and flee. The rest of Estes’ information about murders and most specifically about the Kennedy assassination came from Cliff Carter after the fact.

In 2003, William Reymond helped Estes produce a book and video tape documenting a variety of information from Billie Sol Estes and others. 26

In the video, Estes describes Johnson as frightened that Marshall would disclose to the Agriculture Department investigators that he had been pressured to approve Estes’ cotton allotments and that Marshall would identify Carter as the one applying the pressure and Johnson as the source. It was this fear that drove Johnson to order Wallace to eliminate Marshall. We do know that Marshall approved the first set of Estes’ allotments even though he was suspicious of them from the first and with Marshall’s death, there is no way to explore whether there was pressure or not.

It is clear that sort of exposure would have been far more dangerous to Johnson than anyone else. It is also clear that Johnson had good reason for fear that Attorney General Robert Kennedy might have aggressively used the Justice Department to probe a public scandal of the sort that eventually emerged.

Estes himself states that after the local newspaper reporting moved the scandals to a national forum, RFK later offered him a deal if he would provide information on Johnson’s involvement. There is no way to verify that offer, but former Texas Attorney General Will Wilson has stated that U.S. Attorney Barefoot Sanders was in constant communication with the Justice Department during the Estes hearings and trial. Wilson personally believed that Sanders was sent to monitor the possibility of any information emerging that would connect LBJ. (27)

One test for Estes hinges on his contention of a meeting between himself, Johnson, Wallace and Carter. At this point, there is no doubt at all that Estes was personally acquainted with Johnson and with Carter. In fact, the record shows he definitely was in Washington in January for the inauguration. Indeed he visited with Johnson who had written a letter thanking Estes for the holiday roses, closing with “It’s wonderful to have friends like you”, signed “Lyndon”. Estes definitely knew Cliff Carter, had written and called Carter at his home and according to the telephone company at an unlisted number.

As will be explored in much more detail in the following chapter, we do know that Malcolm Wallace knew Lyndon Johnson – he stated that he had worked for Johnson at one time. We know from Horace Busby, long time associate and speech writer for Lyndon Johnson that Cliff Carter had initially brought Malcolm Wallace to Washington D.C. and introduced him to Lyndon Johnson at Johnson’s home. (28)

We know from Lucianne Cummings Goldberg that Malcolm Wallace had been in Washington D.C. in the summer of 1960 during the Kennedy/Johnson campaign, that he had frequented the campaign headquarters and was seen at least three times at campaign functions accompanied by Cliff Carter. (29) Based on this background, it is certainly impossible to write off Estes’ story.

A second test is whether Estes himself knew Cliff Carter well enough for Carter to communicate with him about Marshall’s murder, other murders and most importantly President Kennedy’s murder. To that extent, as of 2004 we actually have a witness not only to that association but to an actual meeting in which Carter confessed his involvement in the murders as well as that of Wallace and Johnson.

The witness is Kyle Brown and he is on record and on video stating that as a young man he often carried cash between Estes and Carter – cash destined for Lyndon Johnson. The cash itself was a minor element of their much quid quo pro but did involve amounts from $50,000 to $100,000 dollars. Because of this history, Brown was a familiar element to Cliff Carter and when Estes invited him to an impromptu meeting with Carter in 1971. Brown simply went and listened – listened to Carter say that he regretted assisting Johnson in the criminal activities including murder. Brown describes Carter as remorseful, very sad, and very much “down”, apparently attempting to clear his conscious but also indirectly warning Estes that Johnson was becoming more and more paranoid.

In addition, Estes has long claimed that he actually had prepared tape recordings of some of his conversations with Carter and we now have a witness, Tom Bowden, who Estes has permitted to listen to one of the tapes. Bowden has not provided any detail on the tape other than to affirm it does contain what Estes has maintained and can be taken to implicate Lyndon Johnson as a murderer. (26 and 27 p. 120)

Authors note: Brown also confirms the existence of tapes and has listened to them to verify that they present the same story Estes relates. Actually, Kyle Brown was offered to the Justice Department in 1984 as a living witness who was present at Estes’ meeting with Cliff Carter and who would be willing to testify and corroborate Estes’ story. There is no indication that Justice ever approached Brown during their dialog with Estes.

Summary

Billie Sol Estes gave us a direction to individuals who were involved in deaths ranging from that of Henry Marshall in 1961 to President John Kennedy in 1963. He also gave us specific names and a sequence of events. To this point it seems that the direction and names are both worth serious investigation. There seems little doubt that Johnson and Estes were associated in a manner which traded access to Johnson and his leverage in return for political support, political donations and very possibly personal cash contributions as well. It also seems very possible that if Henry Marshall had not been killed, he might well have provided information pointing to pressure from Washington D.C. in Agriculture Department affairs.

In that regard it seems clear that Marshall’s death did not stop the Agricultural Department’s investigation of Estes but rather Estes’ political influence in Washington neutralized it. It was only the action of the local newspaper that revived matters and produced the nationally known Estes scandal. Marshall’s death did ensure that the cotton allotment side of the scandal could not be resolved and indeed Estes was never convicted for fraud in that arena. It was his fertilizer tank and other affairs that sent he and others to prison and after examining Estes confidential grand jury disclosures in detail, we do find a great number of things that the District Attorney missed by not moving for a criminal investigation.

We find that Cliff Carter was Johnson’s key man for handling Texas patronage and Texas money, a role perfectly consistent with Estes’ assertions. We find that Johnson had a well documented history for providing his services in a quid quo pro manner and then moving aggressively to cover up the matter when things went wrong as they had in the potentially explosive Brown/IRS tax fraud affair.

Perhaps more importantly, we find a variety of evidence that Malcolm Wallace was associated with Lyndon Johnson and with Cliff Carter in 1960/61 just as Estes maintained. Finally, we find that Billie Sol Estes does have corroboration for his information from Cliff Carter – corroboration he offered to the Justice Department in 1984 but kept to himself when he could not negotiate the deal and immunity he demanded.

Notes

1. The Path To Power, Robert A. Caro, p. 196, Alfred Knopf, New York, 1982

2. Unless otherwise noted, material on Cliff Carter’s history and background is taken from the Personal Statement of Clifton C Carter to the Johnson Library, October, 1968 – available from the Johnson Library.

3. The Path To Power, Caro, p. 362, p. 584 and p. 627.

4. New York Politics and Texans, Mr. Johnson’s “Man” Stirs Controversy, Charles

Bartlett, Washington Evening Star, February 1964.

5. The Path To Power, Caro, p. 607

6. Ibid, pp. 628-629.

7. Ibid, readers are referred to Chapters 31 and 32 of The Path To Power.

8. Wheeling and Dealing, Bobby Baker, p. 51, Norton, 1978.

9. Ibid., pp. 84-85

10. Mutual Contempt, Jeff Shesol, pp. 184-185, Norton, 1997.

11. Ibid, p. 188.

12. Ibid., pp. 409-410

13. The Men On The Sixth Floor, third edition, Sample and Collom, p. 200a, Garden Grove Ca. 2003 also The Accidental President.

14. LBJ Aide Confirms Estes Call, Dallas Morning News, October 28, 1962.

15. Johnson Library Clifford Carter Oral History, p. 23.

16. Lawson summary memorandum to HSCA, RIF 180-10074-10396, Jan 31, 1978

17. HSCA interview with Jack Puterbaugh, RIF 180-10080-10069, April 14, 1978.

18. Unless otherwise noted, all descriptions of activities the day of the assassination And the days immediately following are from The Death of a President, William Manchester, Harper and Row, New York, 1967 and Manchester’s personal interview of Clifford Carter.

19. Ibid. pp. 70-71.

20. Ibid. pp 229-230. and Parkland diagram at rear of book.

21. Ibid. p. 239

22. Ibid. pp. 344-345

23. Ibid. p. 371

24. Carter Oral History, p. 13 of Tape two

25. Death of a President, Manchester, p. 40.

26. The Last Remaining Witness, Estes and Reymond, 2003

27. The Men on the Sixth Floor, p. 126 Sample and Collum.

28. Ibid., p. 120

29. The Killing of Henry Marshall, p. 18, Bill Adler, The Texas Observer.

Ron, you can find the discussion of sources I mentioned on the Lancer

forum; it is on a thread titled:

George Wittenmeyer? (sp)

Still showing on the first page although down at the bottom... Larry

Hi Ron, yes I'm aware PDS has that but he doesn't give a primary source for the information. There is a long discussion of this on another current thread, possibly on the Lancer forum, at present and the folks looking at the various sources all find the sources to be conspiracy books - it looks like much of it goes back to Gary Shaw.

Unfortunately nobody can find anything that shows where the assertion originates or what primary source record says that. PDS is in Thiland at the moment or I would ask him; if you do run across a primary source I'll try to track down the other thread and share it.

-- Larry

Hi Greg, thanks for the kinds words. Actually though, if the ARRB had not done some very good homework on this subject it would probably still be a mystery. We can only wonder how much more we would know if they had done similar work on other areas as was done on the 112th and on some of the medical areas by Doug Horne.

One of the positive elements is that the ARRB actually tracked down and interviewed several Dallas 112th personnel including Powell - plus they interviewed Reich who is mentioned in the widespread "stand down" story about the 112th. Powell was of course in DP that day and had taken vacation to view the President's arrival, he used his own camera and when he got trapped in the TSBD they even sent an Army camera down for him to use officially. Powell was the mystery man who began an interview with Brennan also....not an SS person as Brennan thought. The interview was interrupted with Powell got a chance to to in on the TSBD search. One example of Jone's lack of knowledge and reliability is that in one of his interviews he even chides Powell for the lack of a report and not submitting his photos to HQ.....when we have a copy of Powells report to his superior in Dallas about the incident and his reference to taking photos which he had turned over to the FBI at their request.

As I recall there was another on duty member of the 112th in the area that day as he had been at the gun running meeting which was being held after the Masen bust and which was also attended by Hosty....his name escapes me this morning.

The Army officer in the lead car was not from the 112th which was active duty but rather an Army Reserve officer who happened to be a personal friend of Lumpkin (Larry Haapenan did the work on this); he asked his buddy if he could get him into the parade - afterwards it became an embarassment for them both as officially he should not have been there. He is sometimes described as an intelligence officer but that point is an open one and there seems to be no primary

reference for it that anyone has turned up yet. That is a point that could probably be researched in Austin if someone wanted to dig into the Texas Guard and Reserve units and see what Intel detachments/components show up - plus their personnel rosters circa 1963.

-- Larry

-- Larry

Tosh and Chris, let's see, if I recall Tosh made a post mentioning that people had questioned that Seiwell was a real person at all. Then there was a discussion of records being burned and missing.

I made a post indicating that Seiwell was a real person, had a real military career and stated where somebody could begin digging beyond the point I mentioned, that the last file I was awere of showed he had left the reserve in 1950. I suggested a place for researchers to go to take it from there.

I'm not sure exactly why you both seemed to respond as if that was some sort of attack or challenge.....? The challenge is to find further records that might exisit isn't it? Of course as I've told Tosh, my real interest is in his activities in 1963 and in Dallas and I've given him questions on that and promised not to pester him until he is comfortable with posting his own full story.

-- guess I'd best leave it at that. Larry

Tosh, the Texas State Adjutant-General's Office in Austin did find the

records of Captain Edward G. Seiwell. He enlisted in the Texas Forty-ninth

Calvalry Recon Squadron in 1947 was upgraded to second Lt and finally

transferred as a Captain to the National Guard's 49th Armored Division in February of 1950.

His records show he resigned from the National Guard a month later in 1950.

That might be a start for anybody who wants to pursue it with the

Adjutant Generals office.

-- Larry

Excellant Antti, right to the point - and of course one the FBI dodged totally and the WC let them get away with.

After all, this is only one of three photos supposeldy in Oswald's possession so

its not like it removes any evidence for Oswald at least doing photo surveillance on Walker. And it seems that if the car meant something in particular to Oswald he could just destroyed that picture totally if not all of them.

So, either the car tag did mean something to Oswald...suggesting something much more complex about the Walker thing than anybody wanted to investigate.

Or the car tag meant something to the officers involved and they scratched it off and were willing to comment perjury - something that sounds pretty stupid at this distance. Or just maybe he showed the photos to somebody else who told him in no uncertain terms to get the tag off there.

I wish I could come up with something that makes sense but unless multiple DPD officers lied about it, then to me it suggests that whatever Oswald was up to in regard to Walker, there is more going on with it than just Oswald by himself and that it may well have been a different 57 Chevy than the one owned by Walker's associate. The one thing we lack in the FBI report is a quote from the DPD that they verified with the supposed Chevy owner that it was his car on the date in question - and we know the FBI did not attempt to confirm that, or if they did there is no sign of it in their report.

-- Larry

Hi Antti, I hesitate to to post again on this as I did a lengthy one a couple of

weeks ago- but it was buried in a thread and you may not have seen it. Actually the WC requested the FBI to resolve the issue of the defaced plate and there is a lengthy report in the volumes on their reply. Basically it documents DPD officers who found the photo and swore it was defaced when collected with Oswald's belongings. Also the DPD did apparently investigate the place and identified the car's owner informing the FBI of it. It was a local Walker supporter in Fort Worth who apparently frequented Walkers house.

Of course having seen the FBI effort on covering up the Odio incident its always possible to question the FBI's work - but I did want to make sure you were aware that both the DPD and FBI did tackle the issue and at least put forth an ID. I had talked with Mary Ferrell about this long ago and she dug into it and was satisfied that the car had been identified. Of course all that certainly does not mean Vidal didn't drive a 57 Chevy to Dallas either.

-- Regards, Larry

Don Roberdeau 10.11.2004

from my notes:

10MAR63---latest date determined that OSWALD took pictures of WALKER home, street and area with his "Imperial Reflex" camera. One of the pictures shows a 1957 Chevy parked in WALKERS driveway. When MARINA was later shown this picture on 23NOV63 the license plate of the 57 was visible. Sometime after the assassination, when DPD confiscated the photo, the license plate area was torn out. In a photo on page 133 of CURRY's 1969 book "Personal Assassination Files" the license plate is seen still intact in the photo, which is laid out with other OSWALD belongings in a 23NOV63 DPD photo.

Great post Don Roberdeau!

Just a question that has been bothering me since I first heard the license plate had been scratched out from the photo:

How is it that Gen Walker could not identify the car or the owner of the car parked in his driveway?

The only explanation I can think of is, he didn't want to have it identified, becuase

there is something sinister about it.

Had the DPD wanted to identify the car, they could have done so.

Don Roberdeau: Very interestingly, FELIPE SANTIAGO knew Colonel HAROLD BISHOP, who also worked with the C.I.A., and, supposedly, drove FELIPE from Florida to Dallas several times.

Could this man Harold Bishop from the CIA, with ties to Cubans, actually be the man thought to have been Maurice Bishop a.k.a. David A. Phillips?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

John, thank you for looking it up - its pretty amazing to me that he would make such a bold statement, essentially quote a former President on conspiracy and not even provide a specific source or reference - I'd be embarassed.

Perhaps someone else can see a tie to Ford in the source material you listed, I'm familiar with most of the oral histories and its certainly not in any of that. But I'm no Ford expert so something pertinent may be in there somewhere. Knowing you, you will probably find out if this author is living and where he is so perhaps we can gently ask him for his source...grin.

I'll be the first to admit I was not even aware of his book.

-- Larry

Hi Tosh, thanks for the post. I do think its important that somebody try to some up with the source what you described in regard to C. David Heymann’s book, RFK: A Candid Biography of Robert F. Kennedy (1998). Hopefully somebody can come up with a copy and let us know - that would be a heck of a bombshell for a writer to throw into a book and not cite a source for it.

As many forum members know, I certainly belive that Roselli aided and abetted the conspiracy as one of the organizers of the attack - not only that but there is evidence to suggest that he was directly involved not only into bringing Ruby into the plot and perhaps more importantly in covering up Ruby's associations and actually managing Belli's defense of Ruby in a manner to take Ruby out of circulation and get him convicted. There are also some very specific holes in the FBI surveillance and records on Roselli.

My goal for some time now has been to point them out and get others involved in trying to run down the specific holes that we do know about.

I appreciate your taking time on the questions I sent and I won't pester you on any of them until you are ready - I have been investigating the Texas Military Intelligence leads you provided with little luck so far. We actually do have pretty solid documentation on Fourth Army and the MI units attached to it because of all the background work the ARRB did but so far no luck in turning up the specific detachements or individuals you referenced.

-- Larry

If anyone can identify some specific documents pertaining to Roselli that are still being held confidential until some future date I would love to see the list so we can try to get them via FOIA.

Roselli's testimony to the Committees is released and available, it is extremely lengthy though. In addition you can find literally thousands of pages of FBI documents on Roselli on the WEB including surveillance documents. These documents pretty well detail the FBI's position on Roselli - unfortunately large portions pertaining to his business contacts and associates was redacted by the FBI. The documents in this release came from a FOIA and cover a period of some 20 years.

There is a hole in the documents as far as the FBI surveillance goes and that hole is from the September - November time frame in 1963; a related hole appears to be the lack of any reports from SAC Miami on Roselli.

Beyond that, there are a host of CIA IG, Church committee and State Department documents that detail his part in the Castro assassination plot - including correspondance between the FBI and CIA on his role. Most of this is on the CIA segregated CD's available from the ARRC - I mention that because it is a huge amount of paper and the CD's are definitely the easiest way to get it. Also these documents contain all the details of the FBI and Dade country investigation of his murder.

-- Larry

David, I've posted the speakers here before so I won't repeat that. The conference is a mix of i) new research ii) presentations on new resources for research and on working at NARA iii) exposure to people with first hand information such as Aubry Rike, James Teague, the manager at the Cellar and Richard Caine's brother (who is a researcher himself) plus a couple of general items for newcomers including a guided walking tour of the Plaza (and there are still necomers to this subject such as our student researcher of the year).

There is a good deal of new information, much of it coming out of documents released from the work of the ARRB but also some from primary research.

Examples include new first hand chemical tests and evaluation of the WC NAAA findings (and comparison to the released internal documents on that), new interviews with Bethusda staff and especially with the FBI agents at the autopsy, a new presentation on the internal medical reports at Parkland. A combination of new documents and primary research is in my presentation on an apparent NSA station intercept of gossip about the planned attack on JFK a month before the assassination. Rex Bradford will be presenting an analysis of what we now know fo the very strange handling and disposal of the JFK coffin.... well one of them at least. Jeff Morley and Lamar Waldron will be presenting topics related to Cuba, the Kennedy administration and the CIA, both presentations are directions to more work that needs to be done - both or either may eventually turn out to be explosive but for right now it's just basic research on things we didn't even know a couple of years ago.

I wish I could tell you there were a host of "explosive" items on the agenda but based on my experience it doesn't work that way most of the time; however I can say that some of the most active current day researchers working on new areas of research will be in Dallas and it's a great way to network with them and get the newest information that may take some time to get into print or even online.

-- Larry

Dave, I would have a hard time thinking that was Martino for a variety

of reasons - I do know there are a number of interviews relating to who

Sylvia was contacting to try to buy guns for Rey and Jure. She was far

more active in that early in 63 than is picked up in most discussion and even

met with Rey's people about during a visit to some of her relatives that

year (either Puerto Rico or the DR, forget which without looking it up).

I would more likely think that it was a contact through some of those

people than Martino, hard to think that Sylvia's sister who attended

Martino's speech and told Sylvia bout their family being mentioned by

Martino would not know if Martino was a close friend in Dallas. Also I have

certainly turned up nothing that would indicate Martino driving to Dallas

in 1963, if he did his family didn't know about it and incidentally they

said he stayed at home most of the time except for his speeches and the

Tilt mission, not unusual for someone just out of a Castro prison.

....don't have an ID for you but doubt that it was Martino.

Greg, the sources for my remarks were Westin's research, published mostly

in the Third and Fourth Decade but also in some of his posts on the Lancer forum -

plus some primary research by Glen Sample in relationship to Loy Factor's

remarks about being in the TSBD.

I've done no primary work on it myself....

One thing to keep in mind though is that there were a series of Oswald

"sightings" where he was apparently being impersonated looking for

jobs or making inquiries about buildings and views on Main Street.

There is also a documented job application from Oswald out towards the

general area of the Trade Mart after he was in the job at the TSBD.

It seems likely that the plotters were creating optional backgrounds for

a varitey of possibly attack sites in case of a last minute route change.

Main street would have been a given in just about any case though.

Best wishes in your TSBD research, Larry

Tosh, I'm checking in with Gordon and will post any remarks he has about the logs and whether or not he has them or knows where they are...

-- Larry

Tim, I don't really play games with this subject - so no its not.

I have seen Roselli described as a Col. in a couple of places, Brad Ayars is one source for that. I think Hinckle and Turner may have described him as having a military rank too. However I don't recall ever seeing any CIA document that confirms that - frankly after looking at thousands of such documents that doesn't mean I haven't seen it, it very well could mean I saw it and have forgotten - my memory is fair but far from photographic. I think that if I had seen such a document I would have referenced it and put it in my book though....maybe somebody will remind me it's in there... After about 14 years at this my memory "buffer" is overflowing, no doubt about that.

If you have seen it and can describe the source I may well remember it and probably have it somewhere in my files or on CD. In that case I would add it to my errata and credit you as I have a host of people who are helping me make that work as historically accurate as possible.

-- Larry

That's a good lead Tosh, and maybe I can help a bit there.

I have the file on the local investigation of the Roselli murder and several of the internal memoranda from the agents as well as their requests for information on a list of individuals. Black was on the list and there were several other names including Cuban names. In addition to background information on associations the investigators (in the same letters) asked for the names of any exiles who Roselli had named in his confidential HSCA interviews.

(On a side note, we know from Roselli's lawyers that in his last testimony he did give names for a couple of Trafficante people that he had used to network into Cuba to find folks to plant the poison pills - apparently word that he had mentioned some real names did get back to Miami and that may have led to the contract on him).

Anyway, by asking for those names, the investigators pressed the normal CIA hot button for protecting information and CIA began its typical stonewalling process - reading their correspondance gives one a good feel for their prorities and certainly protecting sources and methods always comes before minor things like solving muders...

These internal memos do include short profiles for some of the names including Black (for internal consumption only; sort of like the ones produced internally during the Garrison investigation - not to give out of course but just a quick look to see if they should really be worried about the names being requested. As I recall they did list some very basic info. about Black but nothing suggesting any Agency association). However they essentially refused to provide anything to the invistigators at all and as far as I can tell they didn't, as usual defending their general right not to disclose information and invoking National Security as a blanket justification (sort of like Presidential Previlege...sigh).

You are certainly right that the investigators wanted to know about Black - but he was only one person on the list. One lead the guys were following was that not long before his death Roselli had gone back to LA and reportedly had some meetings which they thought certain parties might have interpreted as Roselli thinking about coming out of retirement - leading to some push back and perhaps a contract on him.

-- hope that helps, Larry

Tosh, I'm curious as to what particular files or documents you feel are

un-released on Black? Unfortunately the NARA search engine seems to

be down this afternoon but when I can I will hit it and post if I see any

unreleased documents on him.

If you have something specific on him that you know is unreleased we can

check it out but that would be new to me......also you had asked

if researchers had ever interviewed him and the answer on that would be

yes they have. Rappleye and Becker interviewed him and in fact researched

him at some length for their book on Roselli, that was in the early 90's. Morrow interviewed him earlier but got nothing more than dinner conversation as I recall. Schriber did some digging on him when he wrote his book on the "Bobby Baker Affair."

About the only thing that Rapplyeve and Becker found was that Black denied

passing on a warning to Roselli that was described by friends and relatives. That may well have been because Black would have had to explain why he was well enough connected to get a rumor that a contract was out on Roselli. Such a contract has been mentioned by oher associates of Roselli but of course that's something in the rumor class.

-- Larry

Hi Greg, yes I'm aware that Williams said that - he may have been

told that by supervisor or just heard it as talk at work. I think it was

Williams who normally worked at the other TSBD building over NW of the

Plaza and who was moved over to the Elm street building work on the

floors - so it would make sense as he might indeed have been out of work

otherwise. One of the confusing remarks has been something to the effect

that an outside crew had been brought in to work on the flooring - apparently

what that really meant was that some people who were working on it that

were either new hires or from the other building.

The floor project wasn't the only work under way, they had worked on

the elevators previously and were working on the back stairs as well in

November as I recall. They had just finished the fifth floor work and

were in the first phase of reworking the sixth on November 22, moving

boxes to clear space to work.

-- Larry

For the real deal on the TSBD building and various activities there I'd refer

you all to various research articles by William Weston. He has done more

work on it than anyone else - actually the repair project was not at all make

work but it was driven by the fact that the TSBD had only moved into the'building

within the last year or so and it had been a grocery warehouse before that with

much of the upper flooring badly damaged and not in condidition to bear the

weight of large amounts of heavy book cartons.

What is perhaps more interesting though is why the TSBD had grown it's

inventory so dramatically in a short span of time and why there were so

many books in the building in November - usually a light inventory time

as the school year shipments should have been virtually over, it was a

pretty seasonal business.

.... Larry

Tosh, I can supply a little information although I don't know if Black

is still alive, if so he would be quite old as he was certainly middle

aged in 1963. I've certainly never seen him on any suspicious death lists.

Black's connections were almost entirely high level legal and government

associations, he was one of the first "super lobbyists" making hundreds of

thousands of dollars from corportations circa 1960. His two major

clients appear to have been North American Aviation and Howard Foundries, both

with significant government contracts. He was the subject of both FBI and

Congressional investigation related to both those clients, the Baker affair was

big trouble to him but even more was the Howard Foundry investigation

which blew up in 1964 and was a major concern to Johnson as it involved a

2.7 million Air Force contract.

Black was also the subject of an FBI wire tap investigation and successfully

challenged the FBI in Court and as part of the Baker thing.

I recall seeing Black testimony but I don't know if that was HSCA or some of

the other investigations, in any event Black said as little as possible and pretty

much denied knowing anybody he was asked about other than in passing.

I don't think there has ever been any sign that Black had been associated with

operational Cuban exiles or really with anybody other than lawyers, high ranking government employees and various high flyers within the Las Vegas and L.A. crime set such as Roselli and Levinson.

-- Larry

John and William, there were a host of warnings from Dallas and Texas in general. Some in writing, most verbal. From community leaders, from politicians etc. Manchester probably does the best job of laying out exactly how many warnings with examples - in several cases the folks were worried enough to go to Kennedy's staff.

Remember, the fears of violent demonstration were strong enough for the City Council to pass a special law dealing with that specifically as a last minute precaution for the JFK visit and the Chief of Police felt strongly enough to go on public TV to call for everyone to help the police quell any such demonstrations or protests.

-- Larry