Tom Neal

Just to add some additional info to these scenarios:

Per John Martino (from Larry Hancock's EXCELLENT "Someone Would Have Talked")

Oswald was part of the plan, but not a shooter and was supposed to meet an exile contact at the Texas Theater. Oswald's understanding was that he was being taken out of the country. However, the actual plan was to kill him -- apparently outside the country, and very possibly in a location and fashion that would tie him to Cuba and Castro. The killing of Tippit was definitely not part of the plan and indeed aborted the contact. One of the shooters was actually waiting in the Texas Theater to contact Oswald and was released by the police after Oswald's arrest.

Tom

Tom,

To me, that sounds like a rumor that might have been circulating among individuals in the exile community. Though the rumor (if that is all it was) does contain a fact not widely known early on -- that being the guy in the theater who was released by the DPD -- which is interesting to say the least.

But I don't know about the assertion that the Tippit killing wasn't part of the plan. Maybe it wasn't part of the JFK assassination plan, but it certainly appears to have been part of somebody's plan.

EDIT: I see that David Andrews already brought up the point of my second paragraph..

Sandy,

If you read the book, I doubt you'd dismiss John Martino as giving birth to a rumor. Do you know John Martin's history? Immediately after the assassination, Martino was a visible face for the 'LHO killed JFK for Castro' gambit. But many years later, he told people what Larry Hancock reported. What was his motivation to do this?

As far as "who" had Tippit in their plans, it doesn't mean that Martino's people were planning it. So he would not know about someone elses plans. Compartmentalization. Martino is CLEAR that he was never privy to ALL of the plan. Just the part he was personally involved in. This is another reason that makes him credible.

Tom

I remember that from SWHT - but Armstrong's research on the activities of Capt. Westbrook and reserve officer Kroy of DPD is compelling, given that the two were involved in the well-witnessed "discovery" of an Oswald wallet at the Tippit scene. If the wallet was a plant, how accidental was the Tippit killing?

The counterargument might be that the Tippit meeting was accidental, but the killing was ordered by Westbrook to resolve it, and frame Oswald. Yet Tippit's observed actions before his killing - rushing around as if pursuing someone - make the meeting seem a bit less accidental.

The Westbrook-Kroy involvement is worth further investigation even if one doesn't accept a second Oswald

David,

I heartily agree. Just thought I would throw Martino into the mix for anyone who was unaware.

Lots of possible scenarios. e.g. Tippit was part of it, and refused to accomplish his assignment, etc, etc...

Tom

Hi, Tom,

I see Chuck Schwartz has elaborated above on his earlier post about Captain Westbrook, and that may require some study. In the meantime, since I already decided to post this ....

Hello Jim,

I've been offline for a couple of days so I just read this.

Thanks for all the additional info!

Tom

Tom, I did not write that piece. I got it off the internet by googling JFK and WR Westbrook. There is a thread on this website called 488 Military intelligence..Here are some snapshots..

Hello Chuck,

I've been offline for a couple of days, so I just read your response.

Thanks for all the additional info!

Tom

Just to add some additional info to these scenarios:

Per John Martino (from Larry Hancock's EXCELLENT "Someone Would Have Talked")

Oswald was part of the plan, but not a shooter and was supposed to meet an exile contact at the Texas Theater. Oswald's understanding was that he was being taken out of the country. However, the actual plan was to kill him -- apparently outside the country, and very possibly in a location and fashion that would tie him to Cuba and Castro. The killing of Tippit was definitely not part of the plan and indeed aborted the contact. One of the shooters was actually waiting in the Texas Theater to contact Oswald and was released by the police after Oswald's arrest.

Tom

Do I understand correctly that Cecil McWatters' bus was headed toward the TSBD when it was boarded by police?

Jim,

You said the bus route didn't go near LHO's rooming house. What was it's route AFTER passing the TSBD?

Sandy and Jim,

Perhaps like the movie theater, he was supposed to meet someone on the bus? Someone he knew, or someone who knew him. Could he have been handed the revolver and/or the torn-in-half bills on the bus? It has never made sense to me that he went 'home' to retrieve the revolver. There was no place in the room to hide it, and IIRC, the owner checked the room regularly for alcohol.

Or, no contact-get off bus, back to TSBD, and enter Rambler station wagon. Then go to backup rendezvous at the theater to meet someone he did not know, hence the torn bills.

Tom:

This is what he says about the Italian rifle test.

"For example, representatives of three of Italy's leading newspapers arranged for a rifle test from the sixth floor of the Book Depository. With a camera fitted to a Mannlicher Carcano carbine, Dallas rifle experts were asked to fire at another reporter who was driven past the building in a convertible. When the developed film showed that the local experts had not been as proficient as Oswald, the order came to seal off the Book Depository to all media representatives and nongovernmental investigators. The American public was thus spared the possibility of exposure to future tests while at the same time the American media declined to publish the results of the Italian test. In this fashion foreign enterprise was rendered less competitive." (p. 12)

Lane footnotes almost everything he writes in this book. Unfortunately, this passage is not.

Sound really interesting though.

Thanks, Jim.

REALLY Interesting is right! It would be REALLY interesting to hear what the Italians wrote about this experiment...

I wonder who the 'authority' was who arranged to "seal off the TSBD" to all future media and non-gov't investigations?

Tom

WR Westbrook appears to have been a member of an intelligence unit in Dallas, per this this piece:

488th Reserve Military Intelligence Detachment

Hello Chuck,

Whole lotta good info in this. Do you have a source, or is this something you wrote up yourself?

Thanks for posting this!

Tom

Following the assassination, Capt. Westbrook re-located to South Vietnam, where he worked as an advisor to the Saigon Police Dept. (courtesy of the CIA).

Hello Jim,

That certainly is an intriguing bunch of information. Kind of a surprising and suspicious move from a Texas police department to a Saigon police advisor...

More W.R. Westbrook information:

...as author Larry Sneed writes in his book; following his retirement from the DPD in 1966, Westbrook served as a Police advisor in South Vietnam (Sneed, No More Silence, page 325).

William Ralph "Pinky" Westbrook (1917-1996):

photo from p. 177 "No More Silence" by Larry Sneed 1998

Thanks, Tom, for providing King's complete Afterword. The names he trusted leap out at the reader; Gary Mack, Posner, Bugliosi, Thomas Mallon, Mailer, Doris Kearns Goodwin, even William Manchester. King, like Bugliosi and every other lone-nutter who has researched this case, knows perfectly well that he is peddling disinformation.

It is impossible to study the evidence and believe the Warren Report, to paraphrase Penn Jones. King's audience is huge and impressionable. I am proud not to have read anything by this schlock artist. Judging by the Afterword, he is hardly a master literary craftsman. The sheeple are sound asleep, and when popular figures like King, James Franco and Tom Hanks tout the official state lies, there is little we can do.

Oliver Stone is a part of this business, and he faced it head on. He is a true profile in courage.

You're welcome Don,

He obviously chose to look at only one side of the story from the start of this project. Seems he had an agenda, or was given one.

Tom

About Eagle One To Wanta:

"It is the compelling story about President Reagan, and how he brought about the

fall of the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War without firing a shot."

Another point about this: I wonder how much King changed his draft from his first attempt at it all those many years ago?

I think back in the 70's?

Jim,

This is from the Afterword of 11-22-63. It's a start toward answering your questions:

Early in the novel, Jake Eppings friend Al puts the probability that Oswald was the lone gunman at ninety-five percent. After reading a stack of books and articles on the subject almost as tall as I am, Id put the probability at ninety-eight percent, maybe even ninety-nine. Because all of the accounts, including those written by conspiracy theorists, tell the same simple American story: here was a dangerous little fame-junkie who found himself in just the right place to get lucky. Were the odds of it happening just the way it did long? Yes. So are the odds on winning the lottery, but someone wins one every day.

Probably the most useful source-materials I read in preparation for writing this novel were Case Closed, by Gerald Posner; Legend, by Edward Jay Epstein (nutty Robert Ludlum stuff, but fun); Oswalds Tale, by Norman Mailer; and Mrs. Paines Garage, by Thomas Mallon. The latter offers a brilliant analysis of the conspiracy theorists and their need to find order in what was almost a random event. The Mailer is also remarkable. He says that he went into the project (which includes extensive interviews with Russians who knew Lee and Marina in Minsk) believing that Oswald was the victim of a conspiracy, but in the end came to believereluctantlythat the stodgy ole Warren Commission was right: Oswald acted alone.

It is very, very difficult for a reasonable person to believe otherwise. Occams Razorthe simplest explanation is usually the right one.

I was also deeply impressedand moved, and shakenby my rereading of William Manchesters Death of a President. Hes dead wrong about some things, hes given to flights of purple prose (calling Marina Oswald lynx-eyed, for instance), his analysis of Oswalds motives is both superficial and hostile, but this massive work, published only four years after that terrible lunch hour in Dallas, is closest in time to the assassination, written when most of the participants were still alive and their recollections were still vivid. Armed with Jacqueline Kennedys conditional approval of the project, everyone talked to Manchester, and although his account of the aftermath is turgid, his narrative of 11/22s events is chilling and vivid, a Zapruder film in words.

Well . . . almost everyone talked to him. Marina Oswald did not, and Manchesters consequent harsh treatment of her may have something to do with that. Marina (still alive at this writing) had her eye on the main chance in the aftermath of her husbands cowardly act, and who could blame her? Those who want to read her full recollections can find them in Marina and Lee, by Priscilla Johnson McMillan. I trust very little of what she says (unless corroborated by other sources), but I salutewith some reluctance, its trueher survival skills.

I originally tried to write this book way back in 1972. I dropped the project because the research it would involve seemed far too daunting for a man who was teaching full-time. There was another reason: even nine years after the deed, the wound was still too fresh. Im glad I waited. When I finally decided to go ahead, it was natural for me to turn to my old friend Russ Dorr for help with the research. He provided a splendid support system for another long book, Under the Dome, and once more rose to the occasion. I am writing this afterword surrounded by heaps of research materials, the most valuable of which are the videos Russ shot during our exhaustive (and exhausting) travels in Dallas, and the foot-high stack of emails that came in response to my questions about everything from the 1958 World Series to mid-century bugging devices. It was Russ who located the home of Edwin Walker, which just happened to be on the 11/22 motorcade route (the past harmonizes), and it was Russ whoafter much searching of various Dallas recordsfound the probable 1963 address of that most peculiar man, George de Mohrenschildt. And by the way, just where was Mr. de Mohrenschildt on the night of April 10, 1963? Probably not at the Carousel Club, but if he had an alibi for the attempted assassination of the general, I wasnt able to find it.

I hate to bore you with my Academy Awards speechI get very annoyed with writers who do thatbut I need to tip my cap to some other people, all the same. Big Number One is Gary Mack, curator of The Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas. He answered billions of questions, sometimes twice or three times before I got the info crammed into my dumb head. The tour of the Texas School Book Depository was a grim necessity that he lightened with his considerable wit and encyclopedic knowledge.

Thanks are also due to Nicola Longford, the Executive Director of The Sixth Floor Museum, and Megan Bryant, Director of Collections and Intellectual Property. Brian Collins and Rachel Howell work in the History Department of the Dallas Public Library and gave me access to old films (some of them pretty hilarious) that show how the city looked in the years 196063. Susan Richards, a researcher at the Dallas Historical Society, also pitched in, as did Amy Brumfield, David Reynolds, and the staff of the Adolphus Hotel. Longtime Dallas resident Martin Nobles drove Russ and me around Dallas. He took us to the now-closed but still standing Texas Theatre, where Oswald was captured, to the former residence of Edwin Walker, to Greenville Avenue (not as gruesome as Fort Worths bar-and-whore district once was), and to Mercedes Street, where 2703 no longer exists. It did indeed blow away in a tornado . . . although not in 1963. And a tip of the cap to Mike Silent Mike McEachern, who donated his name for charitable purposes.

I want to thank Doris Kearns Goodwin and her husband, former Kennedy aide-de-camp Dick Goodwin, for indulging my questions about worst-case scenarios, had Kennedy lived. George Wallace as the thirty-seventh president was their idea . . . but the more I thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. My son, the novelist Joe Hill, pointed out several consequences of time-travel I hadnt considered. He also thought up a new and better ending. Joe, you rock.

And I want to thank my wife, my first reader of choice and hardest, fairest critic. An ardent Kennedy supporter, she saw him in person not long before his death, and has never forgotten it. A contrarian her whole life, Tabitha is (it does not surprise me and should not surprise you) on the side of the conspiracy theorists.

Have I gotten things wrong here? You bet. Have I changed things to suit the course of my story? Sure. As one example, its true that Lee and Marina went to a welcome party thrown by George Bouhe and attended by most of the areas Russian émigrés, and its true that Lee hated and resented those middle-class burghers who had turned their back on Mother Russia, but the party happened three weeks later than it does in my book. And while its true that Lee, Marina, and baby June lived upstairs at 214 West Neely Street, I have no idea whoif anybodylived in the downstairs apartment. But that was the one I toured (paying twenty bucks for the privilege), and it seemed a shame not to use the layout of the place. And what a desperate little place it was.

Mostly, however, I stuck to the truth.

Some people will protest that I have been excessively hard on the city of Dallas. I beg to differ. If anything, Jake Eppings first-person narrative allowed me to be too easy on it, at least as it was in 1963. On the day Kennedy landed at Love Field, Dallas was a hateful place. Confederate flags flew rightside up; American flags flew upside down. Some airport spectators held up signs reading HELP JFK STAMP OUT DEMOCRACY. Not long before that day in November, both Adlai Stevenson and Lady Bird Johnson were subjected to spit-showers by Dallas voters. Those spitting on Mrs. Johnson were middle-class housewives.

Its better today, but one still sees signs on Main Street saying HANDGUNS NOT ALLOWED IN THE BAR. This is an afterword, not an editorial, but I hold strong opinions on this subject, particularly given the current political climate of my country. If you want to know what political extremism can lead to, look at the Zapruder film. Take particular note of frame 313, where Kennedys head explodes.

Before I finish, I want to thank one other person: the late Jack Finney, who was one of Americas great fantasists and storytellers. Besides The Body Snatchers, he wrote Time and Again, which is, in this writers humble opinion, the great time-travel story. Originally I meant to dedicate this book to him, but in June of last year, a lovely little granddaughter arrived in our family, so Zelda gets the nod.

Jack, Im sure youd understand.

Stephen King

Mr. King claims his wife is a conspiracy theorist in the JFK case. It would interesting to hear what he thinks of Bridget Carpenter's conversion from LN to CT after writing the screenplay...

Is that the house in Brookline?

83 Beal Street, Brookline MA, IIRC it is a 9 room house.

2. A camera crew from Italy arrived in Dealey Plaza to film a rifle team trying to duplicate what the WR said Oswald did. Except it was under real circumstances: that is from the sixth floor with an open car below. They couldn't do it. Shortly after, the authorities limit daces to the TSBD and the plaza for such purposes.

Jim,

Does the book give any more info about this? I've never heard of it, and I always find the re-enactments intriguing.

Tom

Waiting for Ken and his info.

Also, waiting for Ken...

Tom

My favorite over-the-top moment was Lee whistling "Soldier Boy" while preparing to murder JFK for no reason at all. Even they couldn't come up with a motive.

No second season because LHO is dead? No problem. Season 2: "A Tribute to the Warren Commission and J. Edgar Hoover" subtitled "They Got It Right" starring Tom Hanks as the lovable Allen Dulles...

As to Joseph Kennedy's rise to wealth, there is this from an article by Peter Dale Scott:

Hoover eventually collected information on all those with political influence, from members of Congress to the very wealthy; and he retained personal control over this information in his files to protect his position. For example he reportedly had 343 closely held case files on the business activities of Joseph P. Kennedy, starting with the bootlegging years

and including coverage of several illegal treasonous, even transactions brought off while Kennedy was Ambassador to

Court of Saint James.

[source cited by Scott: Burton Hershs book, Bobby and J. Edgar, p 15.]

Douglas,

Were these alleged files actually seen by Hersh or whoever his source was?

Three questions immediately come to mind:

1. Were these files used to blackmail Bobby into silence re JFK's assassination?

2. Do they still exist and if so who has them?

3. Are they still being used to keep the Kennedy's more or less quiet?

Tom

I got this for a free trial at Hulu.

I am glad I didn't pay anything for it since its worthless. But I did waste some time.

Really in every way. There were simply no redeeming factors.

http://www.ctka.net/2016/review-stephen-king/11-22-63-stephen-king-and-jj-abrams-lay-an-egg.html

I did not read the book.

I wonder if it was better?

No. Same WC propaganda. The time travel aspect was an old scifi/fantasy concept even back when he actually wrote the book. It was one of, if not the first written by King but he couldn't get it published.

What next, Saddam Hussein took down the two towers and Bush/Cheney were saviors?

Yes Ken, do tell so I can stop wasting my time gathering facts that you already have.

Tom

The guns are now considered to be collectable curiosities that are unsafe to shoot.

Considering the popularity of this alteration at the time I guess safety wasn't much of a factor.

Did you see my comments in post #143?

Considering the expansion of the cases I suspect they were not so easy to remove after firing. Yet LHO lingered at the murder scene long enough to remove them AND reload. Apparently this wasn't a dumb enough idea, so he also left his brass at the crime scene. IIRC, a civilian placed the spent brass in a cigarette package and turned it over to the police. Do we know the name of this helpful fellow? Or like the fellow who gave the description of the DP shooter, not one of these highly trained and experienced cops thought to ask him his name.

Didn't LHO also leave his wallet at the crime scene? But he didn't stop to pick it up, because he STILL had one wallet on him when he was picked up, and had several more at various other locations...

I'm actually glad this topic came up. I had seen vague references being made to there being something odd about Oswald's alleged revolver but I never looked that closely at the subject before. As usual, truth is stranger than fiction, and a lot more interesting to boot.

How about the bullets and cases? Did you know that 3 Winchester bullets and 1 Remington bullet were removed from JDT, but 2 Remington and 2 Winchester cases were introduced as evidence? DPD turned 1 bullet over to the FBI immediately. The other 3 sat in the DPD files for months until the FBI asked for them. Also, according to FBI testimony, the cases were turned over to the DPD by a neighbor near JDT's murder scene. I don't recall that they ever stated who turned the cases in, or how far from JDT they were found.

I just spent a while chasing down the name of the guy who actually picked up the brass at Tippit's murder site. It was Domingo Benavides. I remember reading about him, but I don't recall ever reading that he was the one who turned it over to DPD. He saw the shooter toss the shells aside while walking away from the crime scene. He scooped them up into an empty cigarette pack. But he only found TWO shells, not the 4 that are in evidence. He has no idea who the DPD cop was that he handed the evidence to.

Sergeant Gerald Hill later testified that Officer J.M. Poe showed him a Winston cigarette pack with THREE spent shells in it. Hill told him to be sure and mark them as evidence. Poe told the Commission that "he believed he had marked them, but couldn't swear it." Later he told FBI Agent Bardwell Odum that he recalled marking the cases with his initials "JMP" before giving them to DP Sergeant W.E. Barnes, but after a thorough exam of the four shells shown to him he cannot locate his marks. Barnes recalls Poe giving him the two shells, but according to Mark Lane was unable to find his mark either.

The other TWO shells were found by Barbara and Virginia Davis, who later could NOT identify the shells in evidence as those that they found.

In regard to the erratic GSR deposited by the same gun, it would be helpful to know if VP Guinn's tests were also conducted on rifles and automatic pistols.

That's true Pat, but recall where Rather was in life before the JFK assassination and where he went after.

A tragedy for most of us, but a lucky break for Dan Rather. Much like 911 for Bush. The surge of patriotism allowed him to do what he wanted to do. He was a hero. For a while, anyway...

One possibility is that by 1963 Dan Rather was already nuts. Remember the "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" episode?

Actually Ron, that really did happen, If I recall, they caught the guy later.

A doorman was a witness to the attack on Rather, so there should never have been any doubt that the attack happened. I expected this to be one of those bizarre incidents that would never be explained, but:

http://lubbockonline.com/news/013097/dan.htm

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/kenneth_what_is_the_frequency_ac_dc_dan_rather

Tom

Nikita K. picked up on the truth right away as well. I believe it was Jack Anderson who tried to convince him that it was a left-wing conspiracy and NK told him 'No, it was the right-wing.' Anderson reported this as soon as he returned to the US.

Perhaps like so many of us, Dan Rather is considering that the only alternative on the menu is Donald J. Trump. Although it's possible for Bernie Sanders to get the nomination, even the despicable Romney, Bush I and Bush II, refuse to support Trump.

The same situation existed with Obama v. McCain (who's shelf-life has long since expired, IMO) and Romney. My vote went to Obama in BOTH cases, and I STILL think it was the correct move. Yes, Obama and Hillary should be criticized when it is appropriate, but let's not forget that DR may simply be drumming up some votes that would keep Trump out of the White House because Hillary or Bernie would be better than Trump. The only requirement to get MY vote is to be BETTER than Trump. Perhaps DR would agree...