Jim Hargrove

When Jerry Hill – a former TV reporter – got on TV late that afternoon, he told the world about Oswald’s time and adventures in the USSR. When asked how he knew all that, he said “Westbrook told me!” --Bill Simpich, 2016 I don't know Mr. Simpich's source for that, but he's usually pretty careful with his claims. He said it on one of Jefferson Morley's pages. By "late that afternoon," he meant the afternoon of 11/22/63.

Oh, brother, WC apologists continue to trip up trying to ‘splain how we’ve been told nothing but the truth about the Magic Carcano rifle that shot the Magic Bullet at JFK. It was paid for, wouldn’t you know, with an uncashed, un-deposited Magic Money Order made out $21.45 (the cost of a $19.95 rifle with scope from Kleins). Only problem is, for a week the FBI had been saying that the rifle, with scope, only cost $12.78 from Kleins. Why? Because Hoover himself had been fooled by a somewhat confusing Klein’s ad that showed a $12.78 rifle (without a scope) listed above the picture of a rifle with a scope. Ooops! Hoover may not have known the correct price of the rifle, but he sure as heck knew it was Oswald’s handwriting on the Magic Money Order. Amazing!

Steve, That members of the Dallas PD and the FBI were calling each other liars fifty years after the event speaks volumes. Westbrook is all over this thing. Although he seems to have had no crime investigation experience at all, he was the ranking cop at both 10th and Patton and the theatre and his name comes up again and again in the evidence handling. Despite what they might have said at other times, not a single one of the five cops who drove Harvey Oswald to police headquarters said a thing about the Hidell ID in their reports, including Bentley. If the Hidell card was EVER in any Oswald wallet, my guess is that Westbrook either put it there or was the middle-man for the set-up team. Clements' claim is interesting, because when he said he saw the Hidell ID, the evidence was surely already being prepared for the FBI. Again, why was there no fingerprint ink on the Hidell IDs? I find that report hard to believe

I’m pretty sure that by the 1960s small publishers hardly had to rely on hot-metal Linotype machines for printing (as a student in the 1960s, I worked with thin, flexible metal “plates” that were produced directly from paper paste-ups that held paper sheets of typeset). But leaving aside for a minute who may have produced the Hidell cards, I’d like to object calling “Lee Harvey Oswald” a “wanna-be CIA/FBI agent.” Although much suppressed, the evidence shows that the man killed by Jack Ruby was employed by both the FBI and the CIA. For the FBI, none other than Gerald Ford pretty much spilled the beans way back in 1965 when he admitted in Portrait of the Assassin that the Texas Attorney General, District Attorney Wade and other high-ranking Texas officials told the Commission that Oswald “was actually hired by the FBI, that he was assigned the undercover-agent number 179; that he was on the FBI payroll at two hundred dollars a month starting in September 1962 and that he was still on the payroll the day he was apprehended at the Texas Theatre….” Throughout an otherwise uninteresting book, Ford never even attempted to deny the claim, beyond saying that Hoover adamantly denied it. As for Oswald and the CIA, here’s a list I’ve been maintaining for several years: 21 Facts Indicating the Oswald Project Was Run by the CIA 1. CIA accountant James Wilcott testified that he made payments to an encrypted account for “Oswald or the Oswald Project.” Contemporaneous HSCA notes indicate Wilcott told staffers, but wasn't allowed to say in Executive session, that the cryptonym for the CIA's "Oswald Project" was RX-ZIM. 2. Antonio Veciana said he saw LHO meeting with CIA’s Maurice Bishop/David Atlee Phillips in Dallas in August 1963. 3. A 1978 CIA memo indicates that a CIA operations officer “had run an agent into the USSR, that man having met a Russian girl and eventually marrying her,” a case very similar to Oswald’s and clearly indicating that the Agency ran a “false defector” program in the 1950s. 4. Robert Webster and LHO "defected" a few months apart in 1959, both tried to "defect" on a Saturday, both possessed "sensitive" information of possible value to the Russians, both were befriended by Marina Prusakova, and both returned to the United States in the spring of 1962. 5. Richard Sprague, Richard Schweiker, and CIA agents Donald Norton and Joseph Newbrough all said LHO was associated with the CIA. 6. CIA employee Donald Deneslya said he read reports of a CIA "contact" who had worked at a radio factory in Minsk and returned to the US with a Russian wife and child. 7. Kenneth Porter, employee of CIA-connected Collins Radio, left his family to marry (and probably monitor) Marina Oswald after LHO’s death. 8. George Joannides, case officer and paymaster for DRE (which LHO had attempted to infiltrate) was put in charge of lying to the HSCA and never told them of his relationship to DRE. 9. For his achievements, Joannides was given a medal by the CIA. 10. FBI took Oswald off the watch list at the same time a CIA cable gave him a clean bill of political health, weeks after Oswald’s New Orleans arrest and less than two months before the assassination. 11. Oswald’s lengthy “Lives of Russian Workers” essay reads like a pretty good intelligence report. 12. Oswald’s possessions were searched for microdots. 13. Oswald owned an expensive Minox spy camera, which the FBI tried to make disappear. 14. Even the official cover story of the radar operator near American U-2 planes defecting to Russia, saying he would give away all his secrets, and returning home without penalty smells like a spy story. 15. CIA's Richard Case Nagell clearly knew about the plot to assassinate JFK and LHO’s relation to it, and he said that the CIA and the FBI ignored his warnings. 16. LHO always seemed poor as a church mouse, until it was time to go “on assignment.” For his Russian adventure, we’re to believe he saved all the money he needed for first class European hotels and private tour guides in Moscow from the non-convertible USMC script he saved. In the summer of 1963, he once again seemed to have enough money to travel abroad to Communist nations. 17. To this day, the CIA claims it never interacted with Oswald, that it didn’t even bother debriefing him after the “defection.” What utter bs…. 18. After he “defected” to the Soviet Union in 1959, bragging to U.S. embassy personnel in Moscow that he would tell the Russians everything he knew about U.S. military secrets, he returns to the U.S. without punishment and is then in 1963 given the OK to travel to Cuba and the Soviet Union again! 19. Allen Dulles, the CIA director fired by JFK, and the Warren Commission clearly wanted the truth hidden from the public to protect sources and methods of intelligence agencies such as the CIA. Earl Warren said, “Full disclosure was not possible for reasons of national security.” 20. CIA's Ann Egerter, who worked for J.J. Angleton's Counterintelligence Special Interest Group (CI/SIG), opened a "201" file on Oswald on December 9, 1960. Egerter testified to the HSCA: "We were charged with the investigation of Agency personnel....” When asked if the purpose was to "investigate Agency employees," she answered, "That is correct." When asked, "Would there be any other reason for opening up a file?" she answered, "No, I can't think of one." 21. President Kennedy and the CIA clearly were at war with each other in the weeks immediately before his assassination, as evidenced by Arthur Krock's infamous defense of the Agency in the Oct. 3, 1963 New York Times. “Oswald” was the CIA’s pawn.

Someone asked me in email why I chose to believe the Dallas Police report indicating the Hidell ID was NOT found in Oswald’s wallet when there is an FBI report, supposedly from the same time frame, indicating that the Hidell ID WAS inside the wallet. The answer is that I’ll choose to believe the DPD over the FBI in a heartbeat. Although there were clearly a few rotten apples on the Dallas force, the FBI’s malfeasance in this case was legion and is well known by most members of this forum. It clearly came from the top down. The short (3 minute) YouTube video below demonstrates quite clearly how the FBI altered the observations of three critical Dealey Plaza witnesses who believed shots may have been taken at JFK from outside of the Texas School Book Depository, thus contradicting the official story. The FBI went to extraordinary lengths to suppress evidence of what CIA accountant James Wilcott called the “Oswald Project,” including sending out agents within hours of the assassination to confiscate original school and teen-aged employment records of “Lee Harvey Oswald.” In the wee hours of the night of Nov 22-23, 1963, the FBI secretly took “Oswald's Possessions” from the Dallas Police Department, transported them to Washington, D.C. altered them, and then secretly returned them to Dallas, only to publicly send them to Washington. D.C. a few days later. Among a great many other alterations, a Minox “spy camera” became a Minox “light meter.” Tax records, not found by Dallas police who said they initialed each scrap of paper, magically appeared without DPD initials. FBI agent James Cadigan inadvertently spilled the bean about the secret transfer during his sworn WC testimony, which was altered by the WC. The FBI falsified so much testimony that it even had a process in place for routinely doing so, including over the objections of Warren Commission attorneys. For more about how the FBI altered evidence, see this link: Manipulated, Fabricated, and Disappearing Evidence

Steve, Without directly answering your questions, perhaps a broader look at things might shed some light on all this. First, the initial DPD inventory of the wallet contents is, to me at least, the most believable evidence we have. Just about everything else, especially Fritz’s notes, seem to have been created later. The fact that the Hidell cards were not originally found in the wallet in evidence explains why they were not treated with fingerprint ink during the secret FBI possession of “Oswald’s possessions” on 11/23-11/26. Most likely, Westbrook did not formally introduce them in evidence by the time the possessions were shipped to D.C. in the wee hours of 11/22-11/23. Once I saw a blueprint of a floor at Dallas Police headquarters circa 1963. There was a sizable room there called the “Recording Room.” The fact that Oswald’s interrogations were not recorded with equipment from the “Recording Room” is simply unimaginable. What was being hidden? Probably, among other things, that Oswald was saying he was a spy who had served in the Soviet Union for U.S. Intel. There is evidence of all kinds of subterfuge going on with these possessions. For example, below is a doc that DJ posted yesterday. I’d really like to know how “all photos + originals returned to Det. Sims” from the wallet on 11/23/63 when they were, in fact, at FBI headquarters being soaked with fingerprint ink on that date.

It went by pretty fast when David Josephs presented it on the previous page, but does everyone reading this thread understand the significance of the list of Oswald’s wallet contents made by the Dallas cops on 11/22/63? Here’s the full page of the list David excerpted: Note item 2 on the list above. It reads as follows: “Selective Service Notice of Classification SSN 41-114-30-532.” It is the ONLY SS Notice of Classification listed by the Dallas cops in Oswald’s wallet. Compare the above to the famous SS Notice of Classification card for “Alek James Hidell.” That obviously phony card (real Selective Service registration cards did not have photos) had SSN 42-224-39-5321. That is a completely different number from the card listed by the DPD on 11/22/63. In other words, the bogus Hidell SS card was not among the contents of Oswald’s wallet on 11/22/63. There is a lot more to this story, but I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware of the fact that the Hidell draft card (and undoubtedly the Hidell “Certificate of Service” card) were NOT found in Oswald’s wallet by the Dallas police on 11/22/63. (Thanks to DJ for pointing me to the full doc page.)

Ron, I can’t answer all your questions, but the photo of the stained wallet contents has been in the National Archives for more than half a century. It was taken, apparently, on 11/26/63, after “Oswald’s possessions” had been secretly returned to the Dallas police following their secret trip to FBI headquarters, where they were vastly expanded. My guess is that the grossly uneven patterns of the fingerprint ink has more to do with the plastic sleeves and photo techniques than anything else, but that’s just a guess. Can anyone produce a photo of the two Hidell cards taken in November '63 stained with fingerprint ink? James Cadigan explained that the FBI applied the ink to some exhibits but didn’t have time to remove it (a process called “desilvering”) because the items “were returned to the Dallas police within two or three days” and “there was insufficient time to ‘desilver’ it.” Cadigan’s sworn testimony was altered because it exposed the secret handling of “Oswald’s possessions” by the FBI. This suggests to me that the Hidell IDs were not sent to Washington the night of November 22/23. Why?

DJ and Steve, Now this is getting INTERESTING! You both present info and evidence indicating the Hidell ID should have been well known around DPD headquarters while it was still the afternoon of 11/22/63. Which seems entirely logical, except…. Below is a picture of the wallet contents with the Oswald IDs (but not the Hidell IDs). Notice that each ID was saturated with fingerprint ink when “Oswald’s” possessions were secretly returned to Dallas on the 26th after the secret transfer to the FBI the night of November 22/23. The ink was quite visible when the photo below was taken in Dallas on the 26th. Which makes perfect sense. Why, then, is there no fingerprint ink on the Hidell ID’s????? Would you not want to know whose fingerprints were on the ID card for the alias fellow who supposedly bought the rifle that supposedly killed JFK? No interest in that, right? Also, as JA pointed out above, “ On 11/22/63 there is no photographic evidence or list of inventoried items from the wallet that shows with the SS Hidell card nor the USMC Certificate of Service card in the name of Hidell. And neither card is listed on the DPD typewritten inventory of LHO's possessions (225 items). Does this really add up?

Maybe Joe McBride will comment on some of this stuff. Would be very interesting to get his thoughts. He comes by the forum once in a while. From John A.... I recently looked over the items taken from LHO's wallet. On 11/22/63 there is no photographic evidence or list of inventoried items from the wallet that shows with the SS Hidell card nor the USMC Certificate of Service card in the name of Hidell. And neither card is listed on the DPD typewritten inventory of LHO's possessions (225 items). On 11/23/63 all of LHO's possessions were at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC and most items were coated with finger print ink, including items from LHO's wallet (see photograph). We know that Westbrook had the 2nd wallet, and we know that he told fellow officers that it contained ID for Oswald and Hidell. I think it is likely that Westbrook took these two cards from the 2nd wallet and placed them in DPD inventory the following day (AFTER LHO's possessions had been sent to Washington, DC). It would be very interesting to see who "officially" placed these items in inventory and when. On 11/26/63 LHO's possessions were returned to the Dallas Police and a joint inventory was made totaling 455 items. We now see that all items from LHO's wallet were covered with fingerprint ink, but NOT the two cards with Hidell identification. Seems if these two cards had been sent to FBI headquarters with other items from LHO's wallet they would have been coated with fingerprint ink. What do you think? Capt Westbrook was the first person known to have possession of Hidell identification. Was Westbrook responsible for placing them in the DPD inventory?

Croy’s descriptions of how well he knew or didn’t know Ruby are about as believable as his tale of leaving the scene of the crime of the century to have lunch with his estranged wife. Most of us would agree that he probably helped Ruby kill Oswald and that he was, therefore, a part of the larger conspiracy. Which brings us back to how well he knew or didn’t know a certain wallet.... That 10th & Patton wallet has been a real key to understanding the details of this case. In 1996, the very year Hosty spilled the beans in Assignment: Oswald and the WFAA footage was re-discovered, Ken Croy continued his work covering things up by ‘splaining that he got the wallet from some unknown fellow and then gave it to Westbrook. Croy even put it in writing just to make sure no one would thing this was bs. Does anyone know of evidence linking “Oswald” to “Hidell” outside of that planted wallet?

Virginia Davis testified that Tippit lived at 410 E. 10th, which is why we speculate that he may have had a girlfriend there. Since a number of people in the neighborhood seemed to know him, he must have been in the immediate vicinity a lot (even though his beat was elsewhere). It is unusual to block a driveway with a car, even a squad car, one of several the reasons the meeting was probably planned. We can only speculate about how Westbrook and Tippit may have determined Tippit’s exact parking procedure, including blocking the driveway, but that position would allow Tippit to see a squad car in the narrow driveway between the two houses before almost anyone else. If memory serves, Earlene Roberts said there were two people in car 207, and the case that those two men were Croy and Westbrook (and not Lee Oswald) seems reasonably likely to me, considering the early arrival of both policeman at 10th and Patton.

Steve, A very thorough article. Thanks! We’re in agreement that the “Secret Service agents” Buhk encountered at the Jefferson Library were probably impostors. In retrospect, at least, it’s hard to imagine another purpose for the subterfuge other than to redirect the search to the Texas Theatre. And this may have been part of a campaign. In the early years after the assassination, researcher Leo Sauvage indicated that he asked Dallas Assistant District Attorney Jim Bowie whether Postal’s telephone call had led to Oswald's arrest and Bowie answered that there was a call from the cashier but that there were also “half a dozen calls.” This, of course, would help explain why 26 cops rushed to the theater. The stories by Westbrook and Croy about their whereabouts immediately after the assassination seem, at least to me, exceptionally hard to believe. We’ll never be able to prove it, but I think the chances are good that Westbrook and Croy were in the squad car that Earlene Roberts heard and sort of saw at the N. Beckley rooming house, and that they were in the 2nd police car parked in the narrow driveway near 10th and Patton that only Doris Holan was in a position to see (from her vantage point on the second floor of the house across Tenth St., where she could see over Tippit’s car and down the driveway).

Steve, I don't know about the Mobile station(s), but Joseph McBride might, and he's a member of the forum. Why don't you send him a note? You also mentioned the Jefferson Library, which is yet another weird part of this weird case. 1:30pm-Jefferson Branch Library Around 1:30pm nineteen-year-old Adrian Hamby drove his car into the park­- ing lot at the Jefferson Branch Library at the corner of Denver and Jefferson (two blocks from 1Oth & Patton). As he got out of his car two plainclothes policemen approached him and asked what he was doing in the area (these men have never been identified). After Hamby told them he worked at the library, they told him to go into the library and tell the management to lock all of the doors. Hamby followed their instructions and ran across the parking lot towards the entrance to the library. Officers Leonard Jez, Charles Walker, and a newsman were driving south on Denver when they noticed an unidentified white male running east across the lawn of the library. The officers thought they had located the suspect and broadcast over their police radio, "He's in the library, Jefferson-ah-East 500 block." The squads of police officers inspecting the vacant houses and the area around the Ballew Texaco Station immediately jumped in their cars and sped toward the library. One of the squad cars, heading west on Jefferson Blvd., was within 1/2 block of the Texas Theater before making a U-turn at Zang and speeding east toward the library. Within a couple of minutes nearly every police car in the area was closing in on the library, believing they had Tippit's murderer trapped. . . . . 1:35 pm- Jefferson Branch Libraty While Johnny Brewer and Butch Burroughs were checking the exit doors of the Texas Theater, police cars began arriving at the Jefferson Branch Library. Police sur­- rounded the library and ordered patrons to walk out with their hands in the air. When Officer Walker spotted the man he saw running across the lawn, officers grabbed him and pushed him against the wall. Detective Marvin A. Buhk, one of the officers who responded to the call, said that a "Secret Service" man straightened out the problem. Buhk reported, "One of the Secret Service men stated the person who came out of the basement with the others was not the suspect and that he had already talked to him a few minutes previously."62 But there were no Secret Service agents in Oak Cliff at 1:30 pm on November 22. Whoever this unidentified person was, he was not a member of the Secret Service and was unknown to Detective Buhk. This is yet another report that unidentified "Secret Service agents" were encountered by witnesses following the assassination, yet all Secret Service agents were with the President. --From Harvey and Lee, pp. 858 and 860, Copyright © 2003 by John Armstrong

Tom, I misspoke. Although I believe it is filled with lies, according to his testimony, Croy had been a professional cowboy for about 12 years, and he also worked in real estate, construction, and owned an “oil service station.” He said he had also been in the Dallas police reserves “since August of 1959.” That still seems like a pretty long time for that sort of thing.

Tom, Minutes after the assassination of JFK, according to Sgt. Kenneth Croy, he asked other Dallas cops at the downtown courthouse if they needed his help, and, again according to Croy, they said that his help wasn’t needed (even though at nearly precisely the same time, off-duty Dallas cops were being called in to start covering the case). Once more according to Croy, at that fateful time he decided to have lunch at Austin’s Barbecue with his estranged wife. Croy was a 12-year veteran of the DPD. Capt. W.R. Westbrook had an equally difficult time explaining his whereabouts in the minutes after the assassination. Do you believe Croy spent time immediately after the assassination of JFK with his estranged wife at Austin’s Barbecue?

There is no evidence that the Tenth & Patton Oswald (LEE) exited either police car. Anyone interested in examining the evidence for the involvement of LEE Oswald, Westbrook, and Reserve Sgt. Croy in the murder of J.D. Tippit can read John’s new write-up here: THE MURDER OF J.D. TIPPIT

That Hogwash excerpt obviously contains some speculation, but I'll bet it is right on the money as far as it goes.

David and Ron, We think the whole Tippit scenario was a set-up to enrage the Dallas police about “Oswald” and lead them to the Texas Theatre, where Harvey Oswald was already inside. It isn’t normal to block a driveway with a car, even a police squad car, and so it seems a fair enough assumption that Westbrook instructed Tippit to park there in anticipation of a meeting between the two men (three if you count Croy) at the scene. From that location, Tippit could immediately see Westbrook's car move into the narrow space between the two houses, but not many others could.

The directions get a little obtuse because Tatum was in a moving car driving past the site of the murder, but toward the end of his short affidavit (just before the Q&A) Tatum made it clear when he said that he saw this Oswald “run south on Patton toward Jefferson.” From the intersection of Patton and Jefferson, Jefferson goes directly to the Texas Theatre. In other words, this Oswald was beginning to take the most direct route possible to the theater. Take a look at the route on Google Maps if this isn’t clear.

Maybe he should be. Tatum is one of the most important witnesses to Tippit's murder. On my website John wrote, "As Oswald and Tippit were talking, Jack Roy Tatum was driving west on 10th St. in his new, red, Ford Galaxie 500. As he drove slowly past Tippit's squad car Tatum saw a young white male with both hands in the pockets of his zippered jacket leaning over the passenger side window of the squad car. Tatum said, 'It looked as if Oswald and Tippit were talking to each other.... It was almost as if Tippit knew Oswald.' Of course they knew each other. LEE Oswald was the same man that Tippit sat next to at the Dobbs Restaurant two days earlier, on Wednesday at 10:00 AM, while HARVEY Oswald was working at the Book Depository." Tatum also indicated that the Oswald who shot Tippit wore "what looked like a t-shirt" under his "light colored zipper jacket," which describes LEE Oswald's attire but not HARVEY'S. I'll try to remember to ask John about the map. Thanks, Mark.

As we all know, minutes before Tippit was killed Earlene Roberts said she witnessed a Dallas Police car honking a horn at at her N. Beckley rooming house where LHO was staying. Although there was some confusion in her testimony, she apparently concluded she had seen car No. 207. The fact that a Dallas Police car was honking near the residence of the putative killer of JFK and officer Tippit in the brief minutes between the murder of both men should have set off alarm bells at the FBI and the Warren Commission. Instead, both the FBI and the WC seemed so disinterested in this event that they were entirely happy to just accept a “letter of explanation” about car 207 from non other than Captain Westbrook. Jimmy Valentine, the cop that had the car at the time in question, according to Westbrook, wasn’t even questioned by anyone. Nothing to see here... let’s all move on. It seems quite likely that Westbrook’s brief note was covering up the fact that he himself was in car 207, honking the horn at the N. Beckley rooming house. He certainly demonstrated that he could not account for the majority of his time immediately after the assassination of President Kennedy. Why would he take the considerable risk of honking a horn at the site of the patsy-to-be? Probably because Oswald had been instructed to go to the Texas Theater directly from the Book Depository, but instead had made a detour to the rooming house. Unlike other Dallas cops, Westbrook knew where Oswald lived and knew how important he was about to become.

Tippit may have had a girlfriend who lived near 10th and Patton. John wrote that, “Officer J.D. Tippit lived with his wife and family at 238 Glencairn, 7 miles south of 10th & Patton, and patrolled area 78 in South Oak Cliff, far away from 10th & Patton.” But many people living near 10th and Patton knew him, and Virginia Davis thought he lived at 410 E. 10th, right next to where Tippit’s squad car was parked when he was murdered. Ms. Davis lived in the house next door.

The Yates encounter was just part of the elaborate pantomime in which an Oswald lookalike (LEE) impersonated LHO in the days and weeks prior to the assassination. Other events in this series included LEE’s multiple appearances at the Sports Drome Rifle Range, the Downtown Lincoln Mercury dealership, the Irving Furniture Mart, and the Southland Hotel. On November 20, shortly before the Yates encounter, multiple witnesses told the FBI they saw “Oswald” at the Dobbs House restaurant, about a mile north of the Beckley St. entrance to the Thornton Expressway, where Yates would soon give “Oswald” a ride. At Dobbs House, “Oswald” acted in a publicly rude and obnoxious manner. According to waitress Mary Dowling, J.D. Tippit, was also seated in the restaurant at the time. She had known Tippit for many years. The point of this charade was probably to bring LEE Oswald to J.D. Tippit’s awareness, so that he would recognize him for their fateful meeting two days later. During both the Dobbs House appearance and the Yates episode, HARVEY Oswald was filling orders at the Book Depository. Documentation (mostly FBI reports) about the Dobbs House episode can be found here, including information from multiple sources: http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/po-arm/id/13343/rec/31

Here is the Wesley Wise page on HarveyandLee.net: WES WISE