Steve Thomas

Wade, I once wrote an essay called, "Drunk on the Railroad Tracks." It went like this: I started out by reading Deputy Sheriff "Lummie" Lewis' after action report in the WC Hearings. There is one line that reads: COUNTY OF DALLAS SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT SUPPLEMENTARY INVESTIGATION REPORT ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY Deputy C.L. "Lummie" Lewis, Dallas County Sheriff's Department Lonnie Ray Wright w/m/ - 3 time loser. Drunk, put in jail. Was on RR track. I went to the DPD Archives, and Wright does not appear in the Index. So, I went to the DPD Dispatch tapes. At 1:08, there is this transmission: At 1:08 : 261: I have a white male that fits that description in size. He's drunk down at the end of the north end of Laws Street. You want to have someone check him? DIS: 15. 15: 15. DIS: Can you get to him? DIS: 261, are you near that person? 261: I've got him on my motor. DIS: Are you at the north end of Laws, at the dead end? 261: 10-4. 261 is Patrolman C.M. Barnhart 15: If you can get 15, car 2, would you get him to put some personnel on those railroad tracks near Market Hall and check back toward this location? And check up the tracks in that immediate vicinity. DIS: 10-4. DIS: 15, car 2. DIS: 10-4, 15. He's on Channel 2. He has the information. DIS: Do you have anybody you could send to the dead end of Laws Street? 15: 10-4. 212: 212. DIS: 212. 212: Have you got another squad that can meet that unit at the dead end of Laws? I'm blocked in over here and can't get out. DIS: Yes. Disregard. Have someone there now. 212: 10-4. 15 is Captain Talbert 15-2 is Captain Souter 212 is Patrolman Spredlin 261: 261. DIS: 261. 261: I'm going to stay on these railroad tracks down at the end of Laws. DIS: 10-4. 261 is Patrolman C. M. Barnhart and is a 3 wheel motorcycle At 1:12 # 243 calls in on Channel 2. #243 is Patrolman B. L. Apple “I’m down here with this three wheeler at the dead-end of Laurels and he has got black hair. He is 42 years old and got a light colored jacket on and he is pretty drunk but he has been walking down these railroad tracks. Do you want me to take him up there or what do you want me to do with him? Yes, take any of them up there to 505 Main and contact Matt or Emmit Hughes. 10-4 Box 14, Folder# 4, Item# 11 page 32 http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/box14.htm In the DPD Archives, there is an Arrest Report for John Elrod signed by C.M. Barnhart (Box 3, Folder#20, Item# 2) http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/box3.htm It reads in part, "This man was arrested on railroad tracks a few minutes after radio call was dispatched that man was walking along railroad carrying a rifle. This man was not carrying a rifle at time of arrest." The time on Elrod's Arrest Record is given as 2:45 pm, but Barnhart is talking about his suspect as "having him on my motor" as early as 1:10 or so. Elrod's age in his arrest report is given as 31. Apple's transmission at 1:12 gives his suspect's age as 42. So, is the 1:08 - 1:12 arrest for Lonnie Ray Wright? How old was Lonnie Ray Wright? Apple is instructed to take his suspect to the Dallas County Sheriff's Office. Elrod's arrest report is filed by the Dallas City Police. Elrod's arrest report was signed by C.M. Barnhart, H.M. Hart and F.A. Hellinghausen of the Special Services Bureau, and M.A. Rhodes. Why was Elrod's arrest record signed by Barnhart and not L.L. Hill? Barnhart was in on the arrest at 1:08PM, but there is no reference on the dispatch tapes to him being in on the 2:23 PM arrest. There is a M.A. Rhoads who is listed as a 3-W motorcycle officer on the second platoon 10:00 - 6:00 PM shift in the Traffic Divison (19H131) He was number 292. His name is spelled differently on Elrod's arrest report. I wonder what happened to Lonnie Wright? He'd probably have an interesting story to tell. Steve Thomas

Tim, So Trafficante may very well have been serving two (or even three) masters when he helped plan the Kennedy hit. You need cutouts and plausible deniability. The people who made the decision to kill John F. Kennedy were not the same people who planned it. The people who planned it were not the same people who carried it out. The people who carried it out were not the same people who covered it up. That's why it gets so confusing. Steve Thomas

Wade, I was finally able to get to the Report you cited. With respect to statement number 3, I believe this to be John Elrod. The time on Elrod's arrest report is given as 2:45 PM The radio transmissions surrounding this subject and getting a wrecker to pick up a car near Cobb Stadium are kind of interesting: According to CE 1974 at 23H885, at approximately 2:20PM, Unit 474A (which is only identified as the Special Services Bureau) is dispatched to pick up a "subject on this overpass, carrying a rifle; railroad tracks, Cobb Stadium." 474A was asked if he could see the subject. 474A said no, but that they would go over and get him. At 2:23, Unit 22 (Patrolman L.L. Hill) was dispatched to go out to Cobb Stadium on the railroad track overpass and meet 474A at the railroad tracks. "There is a white male carrying a rifle" (23H886) At 2:26, unit 562 (a wrecker) radioed in and said that he was at Cobb stadium "for that suspect's car" (23H887). The Dispatcher told the wrecker to wait there, that 474A will "be back in a minute". At 2:27, Unit 52(unknown) radioed in and asked if the T.C. Cobb Stadium was on the Hines Blvd overpass, the railroad overpass, or the freeway overpass and asked which direction the suspect was walking. The Dispatcher's response was garbled, but said he didn't know about the direction. (23H887) At 2:28 Patrolman Hill reported that he was with the wrecker at Cobb Stadium and Unit 474A was ordered to go there. (23H887) 474A radios in and says, "The car that we want picked up is on the parking lot if front of the Merchandise Mart just north of Cobb Stadium." 22 asks if it is a 1964 Falcon. 474A says, "No. It is a red panel truck with writing on the side... license plate 3E9087. (23H888) The time on Elrod's Arrest Record is given as 2:45 pm. As early as 2:03 PM, Unit 474A was calling for a wrecker. "We need a wrecker on the parking lot just west of Cobb's stadium for suspect's car." (23H881) At 2:26, unit 562 (a wrecker) radioed in and said that he was at Cobb stadium "for that suspect's car" (23H887). The Dispatcher told the wrecker to wait there, that 474A will "be back in a minute". What suspect was that? 474A wasn't dispatched to pick up the suspect walking on the railroad tracks until 2:20 PM. (23H885) There follows as series of transmissions from 474A looking for Deputy Chief M.W. Stevenson and Lieutenant C.C. Wallace. Steve Thomas

Wade, For some reason, the DPD Archives server is acting up. Can you tell me what Box, Folder, and Item # you are referring to? I'll go back and look at it later. Steve Thomas

Shanet, Carroll Jarnagin, Dallas attorney, told the FBI that on October 4, 1963, he was in the Carousel Club and overheard Ruby talking to a man named 'H.L. Lee' about plans to kill the governor of Texas." This is at 26H257 under CE2821 He was given an 11 question polygraph by the Dallas Police and flunked 10 out of the 11 questions. The only answer he got right was, "Were you drunk at the time?" His polygraph interview can be found in the DPD Archives at Box 13, Folder# 4, Item# 15. Steve Thomas

I forgot to mention that there are various documents relating to Mr. Bray and the Thresher incident in the DPD Archives. They can be found in Box 8, Folder# 7, Item# 1 Box 13, Folder# 5, Item# 8 and Box 18, Folder# 5, Item# 1 Steve Thomas

John, FWIW Well, for some reason the software is not allowing me to upload this, but if you go to Box 1, Folder# 3, Item# 26 of the DPD Archives: http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/box1.htm There is a memo there from Detective B.M. Waters to Deputy Chief Lunday concerning a 1966 phone call from a guy named James Hacker in Los Angeles. He said that Oswald was paid by Jack Ruby to kill Connally. What was interesting to me is the amount of time he spent on the phone with two Detectives and FBI Agent Bob Gemberling. I spent some time on this subject a shile back. Coincidentally, the Thresher went down on the same day that someone took a potshot at General Edwin Walker. I tried to determine if the initials JFCOTT were an acronym for something. I didn't come up with anything. Steve Thomas

Hi Bill, Bill Greer's after-action report is at 18H723 here: http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...Vol18_0369a.htm While he starts his narrative at 11:30 on the morning of the 22nd, James Rowley said that of the 9 SS Agents who went to the Press Club and 10 Agents who went to the Cellar, only four agents went to these places who were also in the motorcade: Landis, Hill, Ready, and Bennett. Steve Thomas

Antti, FWIW, I once contacted the Automobile License Plate Collectors Association of America and asked them what state had that particular configuration - six black numbers, no letters, on a white background in 1963. I was told that only one state had that configuration in 1963 - Virginia. Steve Thomas

James, Do you know if this FBI guy Pinkston was ever questioned or confirmed what happened? He testified before the WC, but only about examining Oswald's Clipboard in December. Looks like he filed a report with Gordon Shanklin on his activities on November 22nd. From the National Archives: AGENCY INFORMATION AGENCY : FBI RECORD NUMBER : 124-10027-10331 RECORDS SERIES : DL AGENCY FILE NUMBER : 89-43-89 DOCUMENT INFORMATION ORIGINATOR : FBI FROM : PINKSTON, NAT A. TO : SAC, DL TITLE : [No Title] DATE : 11/23/1963 PAGES : 2 DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT SUBJECTS : EVID, FPT, PPT, RIFLE, CRIME SCENE DALLAS, PD, TSBD CLASSIFICATION : UNCLASSIFIED RESTRICTIONS : OPEN IN FULL CURRENT STATUS : OPEN DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 10/26/1992 Steve Thomas

Those of you who study JFK's assassination in the context of world developments may be interested in a new research tool. From the press blurb: "The origins of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) can be traced back to the period after World War II when there was increased interest in providing substantial research on subjects of national security interest and their likely outcomes. Officially created in 1979, the NIC reports directly to the director of the CIA. The NIC performs a number of outreach functions, including reaching out to non-government experts in academia and the private sector and providing a focal point for policy-makers interested in the organization's diverse areas of inquiry. Scholars and the general public will enjoy browsing through their recent publications area, which features documents such as "Mapping the Global Future". Visitors who wish to delve deeper into the ways in which the NIC devises its studies will appreciate the section dedicated to explaining analytic methodologies. Historians and political scientists alike will want to take a look at the declassified National Intelligence Estimates on China from the period 1948 to 1976." The collection of documents has this to say: The NIC Collection includes hundreds of declassified National Intelligence Estimates and other publications produced by the National Intelligence Council or its predecessor organizations, the Office of National Estimates and the Office of Reports and Estimates. The NIC database, housed within CIA's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Electronic Reading Room, includes some 1100 documents that have been declassified and made available to the public, either partially or in their entirety, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The earliest of these dates back to 1946; several were published as late as the 1990s. Additional items are being added regularly. Collectively, they constitute an important historical record of Intelligence Community analysis at the highest level; individually, many make for fascinating and instructive reading. Here's the NIC Collection website: http://www.cia.gov/nic/NIC_foia_intro.html I liked this one: "Would the loss of South Vietnam and Laos Precipitate a Domino Effect in the F?" dated 6/9/64 The conclusion was no. "We do not believe that the loss of South Vietnam and Laos would be followed by the rapid, successive communization of the other states of the Far East. ...With the possible exception of Cambodia, it is likely that no nation in the area would quickly succumb to communism as a result of the fall of Laos and South Vietnam. Furthermore, a continuation of the spread of communism in the area would not be ineorable..." So much for what we were told. Steve Thomas

Tim, I found this part of what you wrote to be very interesting because in an 2003 article by Peter Whitney, called, DECEPTION AND DECEIT: MEDIA COVERAGE OF JFK’S ASSASSINATION http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/the_critics/W.../Deception.html Whitney wrote, "Although the Warren Commission downplayed Ruby’s alleged ties to organized crime, his former handyman, Curtis Laverne Craford (aka Larry Crafard) told me in 2001 that Ruby was a Mafia “wannabe.” He also revealed to me that he had been a hitman in the San Francisco area prior to coming to Dallas in the fall of 1963, following his release from the U.S. Army after only fourteen months, while stationed in West Germany. " Crafard got out of the Army in 1959. Steve Thomas

This next one is facinating to me as well: Following the assassination, Detectives Richard M. Sims and Elmer L. Boyd of the Homicide and Robbery Bureau filed a joint after-action report with Police Chief Jesse Curry. They were on the sixth floor when the rifle was found. As part of their report, they wrote, “Detective Studebaker and Lieutenant Day took pictures of the rifle. Mr. Pinkston of the F.B.I. and a Secret Service Agent were there at the time the pictures were being made. We don’t know the Secret Service agent’s name. " Steve Thomas <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I don't know why, but my reply to James made it into the Forum, but not into the queue of messages.

Bill, I don't know if you meant to imply that these men are from the Homicde Bureau, but when I showed this picture to two former Dallas Policemen, one of them told me that these men would not be Detectives, precisely because they are carrying coats. To paraphrase, one of them said no Homicide Detective worth his salt would be investigating a crime scene carrying a coat. Steve Thomas

Hi James, This next one is facinating to me as well: Following the assassination, Detectives Richard M. Sims and Elmer L. Boyd of the Homicide and Robbery Bureau filed a joint after-action report with Police Chief Jesse Curry. They were on the sixth floor when the rifle was found. As part of their report, they wrote, “Detective Studebaker and Lieutenant Day took pictures of the rifle. Mr. Pinkston of the F.B.I. and a Secret Service Agent were there at the time the pictures were being made. We don’t know the Secret Service agent’s name. " Steve Thomas

James, From the WC testimony of Sergeant D.V. Harkness: Mr. BELIN - Then you went around to the back of the building? Mr. HARKNESS - Yes, sir. Mr. BELIN - Was anyone around in the back when you got there? Mr. HARKNESS - There were some Secret Service agents there. I didn't get them identified. They told me they were Secret Service. I suspect that these were the same people that James Romack saw: Mr. BELIN. Did you see any employees walk up the back way? Mr. ROMACK. There was two other gentlemen which I never said anything about, that taken over. They were FBI or something standing right here at the very entrance, and just stood there. Mr. BELIN. You are pointing again to the back stairway that leads up from the street to the dock on the north side of the building? Mr. ROMACK. Right. Steve Thomas

Jim, I guess there will always be lingering doubts that the Army files were in fact destroyed. This from: SENATOR SAM ERVIN AND THE ARMY SPY SCANDAL OF 1970-1971: BALANCING NATIONAL SECURITY AND CIVIL LIBERTIES IN A FREE SOCIETY Karl E. Campbell http://cmhpf.org/senator%20sam%20ervin.htm Although Pyle succeeded in bringing the secret CONUS program to the public's attention, he left many apprehensive Americans wanting to know more, including Sam Ervin.[11] The Senator joined more than a dozen other congress­men from both political parties in ordering the Army to issue "an immediate explanation." [12] From the floor of the Senate Ervin declared, "Clearly, the Army has no business operating data banks for surveillance of private citizens; nor do they have any business in domestic politics." He went on to question the constitutionality of an "ever‑curious" Executive Branch secretly watching and maintaining files on law‑abiding Americans. He called the Army's surveillance program "a violation of the First Amendment rights of our entire nation."[13] Instead of answering Ervin's concerns, the Army chose to cover up. Robert E. Jordan III, Army General Counsel, froze all responses to congressional inquiries. Agents received orders to gather only "essential elements of information," and not to discuss the CONUS operation with any civilian.[14] Behind the scenes intelligence officers at Fort Holabird removed from the files the embarrassing items to which Pyle had referred in his article.[15] Officers also telephoned agents across the country telling them to hide, but not destroy, any files until the controversy blew over.[16] To organize its response to the crisis, the Pentagon formed a "task group" which met in the "Domestic War Room" deep in the basement of the Pentagon. As one member of that group later recalled: "[We] proceeded from the start to deny any and all charges, factual or otherwise."[17] The military intelligence bureaucracy fought back tenaciously against members of Congress, reporters, or any other American citizen who wanted to know more about their highly questionable domestic surveillance system. In the name of defending democracy and freedom, the officers in charge of the secret national security program acted in a manner more consistent with totalitarian regimes. In order to cover up the excesses of their domestic spying, CONUS commanders throughout the country began to replace all of their newer agents with older career soldiers.[18] Intelligence units received orders "to just hide it, get it out of the way, this will all blow over."[19] At some bases they destroyed the data but kept the "input" (the computer keypunch cards), or copied the information onto microfilm before destroying it.[20] As one clerk later recalled, "The order didn't say to destroy the information, just destroy the Compendium [a computer data bank]."[21] Typical were the actions of the officers in the 116th Military Intelligence Group at Fort McNair in Washington D.C. who classified all of their files and threatened anyone disclosing anything about their domestic surveillance would be court‑martial or prosecuted in civilian court for violation of national security."[22] Steve Thomas Footnotes: [11]. Typical was the North Carolinian who wrote to Ervin: "I hope you will investigate this situation and bring the power of the Senate to act to protect the citizens of this nation from further encroachment of their rights." Cong. Rec., 91st Cong., 2nd sess., 2226. All of the participants in Ervin's hearings with whom I spoke confirmed Ervin's frequent claim that the subcommittee received hundreds of letters in reaction to Pyle's revelations. See U.S., Congress. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Military Surveillance of Civilian Politics, a report of the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, 93rd Cong., 1st sess., 1973, 2 (hereafter cited as "Military Surveillance Report, 1973"). [12]. Ervin to Stanley R. Resor, 22 January 1970, Samuel J. Ervin Papers, southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (hereafter cited as “Ervin Papers”), box 408, folder 458. This letter and other correspondence between Ervin and the departments of Defense and Justice concerning military surveillance may also be found in Cong. Rec., 91st Cong., 2nd sess., 26333‑26350; and in U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Federal Data Banks, Computers, and the Bill of Rights, Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, Part II, Documentary Analysis, 92nd Cong., 1st sess., 1971 (hereafter cited as "Documen­tary Analysis, 1971"). [13]. Cong. Rec., 91st Cong., 2nd sess., 2227. [14]. Christopher H. Pyle, "CONUS Revisited: The Army Covers Up", Washington Monthly 2, July 1970, 50. Pyle combined this article with his January article to form the basis of his testimony before the committee's hearings in 1971 (hereafter cited as "Pyle Testimony"). See U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Federal Data Banks, Computers, and the Bill of Rights, Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, Part I, 92nd Cong., 1st sess., 1971 (hereafter cited as "Ervin Hearings, 1971"). [15]. Military Surveillance Report, 1973, 98; Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1 (1972). [16]. Donner, The Age of Surveillance, 317. [17]. Edward Sohier, Testimony before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, February 24, 1971, Ervin Hearings, 1971, 278‑279. Sohier's testimony, along with sections of other ex‑intelligence agents' testimony, appears in Barth, Uncle Sam is Watching You. [18]. Military Surveillance Report, 1973, 99. [19]. Donner, The Age of Surveillance, note 78, 508. [20]. Joseph Hanlon, "Army Drops Data Banks but Keeps Data Banks," Computerworld, 11 March 1970, Documentary Analysis, 1646. Pyle also cited this in his testimony before the committee, and added that officials at Fort Holabird destroyed some computer tapes but hid others and filed some under different names. [21]. Military Surveillance Report, 1973, 100. [22]. Military Surveillance Report, 1973, 99. Also cited in Pyle testimony, Ervin Hearings, 1971, 209.

Jim, This is from an interview with Christopher Pyle - who testified before the Ervin Committee around 1970: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/...ohide/pyle.html Pyle: "Oh yes. And in 1973 I was on the committee staff that wrote it. We wrote the Privacy Act. It was a funny thing. After all these disclosures: the COINTELPRO disclosures, the FBI [disclosures], the Watergate disclosures, the Army disclosures - and the Army was just the lead up to all this stuff. The beginning of Watergate, so to speak. After all those disclosures, there was a general consensus among the politicians in Washington that we needed a law protecting privacy. But among other things, we had a provision in there saying that the Army - that the government - that no government agency will maintain files on wholly lawful political activity of citizens. And in anticipation of that law going into effect in 1974, in late '73 the Army started burning all its files. And I interviewed some the agents who did the burning over the Christmas holidays because the Army didn't want people filing Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act requests for the documents. And so I went into that giant warehouse at Fort Holabird, that big, black building I told you about, which had enormous files. And to get a sense of it, these things were on racks. It looked a Home Depot with all these racks. And they had a cherry picker on rails that rode down the aisles - up and down the aisles, computer run by a console in the corner - picking off the shelves. They had 108 linear feet of files on the Communist Party U.S.A. just to give you a sense of the quantity of paper files they had on political activity. All of that had to be burned. " Steve Thomas

Bill, You are right about the white stetsons worn by members of the Homicide and Robbery Bureau. I asked two former Dallas policemen if they recognized the gentleman in the suit. Neitehr said they recognized him. I believe that the man in the suit is a civilian. If he was a Detective, the patrolman would not be shooing him away from the scene. The white hat on the patrolman indicates that he was a member of the Traffic Division. Steve Thomas

Bill,

Bill, Thanks. I think you are right. I don't remember where I copied this from, but it was a blowup of this set of pictures: (I had to delete the photo I used before 'cause I was "out of space" :-) ) Steve Thomas

Duncan, I cropped the area you mentioned and blew it up some. I don't know if this will show up here or not, but I was surprised to see two beedy little eyes looking back at me. Steve Thomas

I have been reading Peter Noyes, Legacy of Doubt over the weekend. In his book, Noyes wrote, "I was somewhat startled during a conversation with the California Attorney General's office in 1968, when he said that information picked up by agents in the field indicated that Oswald was connected with far right extremist groups following his return from the Soviet Union; he was not the sniveling little Communist everyone thought him to be. The Attorney General's official pointed out that undercover officers had infiltrated the Minutemen and were startled to hear members of the gun-toting cadre heap praise on Oswald and embrace him as one of their own." It sort of reminded me of Guy Bannister telling his Secretary, "He's one of us." Does anyone have any information on this subject? It might explain why American Nazi Party Head, George Lincoln Rockwell's name was in Oswald's address book. Steve Thomas

Richard, I found that part of what you wrote to be interesting, because the Head of the Secret Service, James Rowley told the Warren Commission, "The men we recruit are men that are college graduates and mature, and screen them very carefully, particularly before we assign them to the White House detail." and later, "Mr. RANKIN. Now, I think the Commission would be interested in the requirements or standards that you have for agents. Do you require a college education now? Mr. ROWLEY. Yes, sir. Mr. RANKIN. And are there any other conditions or standards that you would like to describe? Mr. DULLES. May I inquire for one point? Is that a college education for the White House detail? Mr. ROWLEY. No; that is for all the agents that we recruit for our work, for both criminal and protective, Mr. Dulles. We require a minimum academic achievement of 4 years of college or university, and preferably those who attend police administrative schools, where they have in their curricula subjects on science, criminology, and law." I guess the operative word is "now." To digress just a little, one of my classic exchanges in all of the Warren Commission testimonies came when Rankin was interviewing Rowley, "he" being Oswald, "Mr. RANKIN. Was he an agent or informant or directly or indirectly connected" with the Secret Service in anyway? Mr. ROWLEY. Not in any way. We did not know of him until the event. Mr. RANKIN. And you are certain that he never was hired directly or indirectly or acted in that capacity. Mr. ROWLEY. He was never hired directly or indirectly in any capacity. Was Oswald connected to the Secret Service? No. Are you sure? :-) Steve Thomas

James and Shanet. I would be tempted to say that too, except for this: From William Harvey’s handwritten notes on setting up the ZR/Rifle Program From ajweberman’s Coup d’etat in America Nodule 0 http://www.weberman.com/nodules/nodule0.htm 8. Use nobody who has never dealt with criminals; otherwise will not be aware of pitfalls or consider factors such as freedom to travel, wanted lists, etc. Exclude organization criminals, those with record of arrests, those who have engaged in several types of crime. Corsicans recommended. Sicilians lead to Mafia. Steve Thomas