Jim Hargrove

Wow! Has John Armstrong been invited? Edit: Never mind. John will be far from the continental U.S. on 11/15, but he and Bill Kelly have been discussing this privately. Mr. Kelly has interviewed Wes Wise and he will attend the conference.

EXACTLY! Benavides--the closest witness to the Tippit shooting--saw a man he thought looked like "Lee Harvey Oswald," except for the hair at the back of his neck. Note LEE Oswald's longer hair (a toupee?) in the photo below apparently from Ruby's club. Too bad we couldn't also see it from the back.

We need to always keep in mind that, prior to the murder of J.D. Tippit, a second Oswald (LEE) had already been involved for weeks in framing the historic Oswald (HARVEY). For example, While one LHO was elsewhere, the other was seen at the Sports Drome Rifle Range on Oct. 26, Nov. 9, Nov. 10, and again on Nov. 17, several times creating a scene and once shooting at another guy's target. A second Oswald was seen at the Downtown Lincoln Mercury dealership in Dallas on Nov. 2 where he test drove a car at recklessly high speeds saying he would soon come into enough money to buy a new car. While Harvey Oswald was working at the Texas Book Depository, another LHO appeared at the Irving Furniture Mart On Nov. 6 or 7 for a gun part where he was referred to the shop where Dial Ryder worked, A second Oswald appeared at the Southland Hotel parking garage (Allright Parking Systems) on Nov. 15 to apply for a job and oh-so-subtly ask how high the Southland Building was and if it had a good view of downtown Dallas. While Harvey Oswald was still working at the Book Depository on November 20, a second LHO was hitchhiking on the R.L. Thornton Expressway while carrying a 4-foot long package wrapped in brown paper and introducing himself to Ralph Yates as “Lee Harvey Oswald.” He discussed the President's visit, wondered if you could shoot a president, and asked to be dropped across the street from the Texas School Book Depository (where Russian-speaking “Lee Harvey Oswald” was already at work).

Mr. BELIN - You used the name Oswald. How did you know this man was Oswald? Mr. BENAVIDES - From the pictures I had seen. It looked like a guy, resembled the guy. That was the reason I figured it was Oswald.

And since the wallet indicates that the pre-planned assassination of Tippit was designed to implicate “Lee Harvey Oswald” in the crime, would the plotters utilize someone to kill Tippit who didn’t look at all like Oswald? Benavides, the witness closest to the crime, thought it was committed by Oswald, noting only that the killer’s hair in the back of his head “sort of went square instead of tapering off,” as Oswald’s clearly did. Someone who looked a lot like Oswald killed Tippit? Who could that be?

Hill may have been just following Westbrook's orders. Just a few hours after the assassination, Hill was on television talking about Oswald's defection and life in the Soviet Union. When asked how he knew all that, he answered that Westbrook told him. We think Westbrook and Croy were in the car hidden in the narrow driveway near 10th and Patton and that Westbrook got out to look at Tippit's body and probably told LEE to make sure the job was finished. Westbrook was in charge of personnel for the DPD. That's a pretty high-ranking official. Later, he's advising Saigon Police in an obviously intel-related post. Paul Brancato, David Josephs, and probably others here think he was, or at least may have been, a member of Jack Crichton's 488th MI outfit. I'd love to know who gave Westbrook the wallet. Croy apparently lied about it.

DJ, Who made those notes?

Beautiful summary, Gene. Thanks! Don’t forget to add that when Westbrook died on Feb. 21, 1996, Hosty’s Assignment: Oswald was surely already in galleys, his revelation about the 10th and Patton wallet in the process of becoming public knowledge. This is a suspicious death, despite Westbrook’s advanced age and the fact that cancers are normally slow.

John wrote and revised the following new paragraph yesterday and today for the Tippit Murder page on HarveyandLee.net. I just put the new paragraph up. Read the part, especially, about Westbrook's death. Both Both Capt. Westbrook and Sgt. Croy were interviewed by the WC, but neither man said anything about the 2nd wallet. In March, 1996 FBI agent James Hosty published his book, Assignment: Oswald. For the first time, Hosty described how Capt. Westbrook showed a wallet to fellow police officers at 10th & Patton that contained identification for Lee Harvey Oswald and Alex Hidell. Hosty's book contained photos of the wallet and FBI agent Barrett's first hand account of Westbrook asking him if he knew Lee Harvey Oswald or Alex Hidell. Hosty, however, was unable to explain how Westbrook acquired the wallet nor could he explain what Westbrook did with the wallet after leaving 10th & Patton. Capt. Westbrook never wrote a report about the wallet, never entered the wallet into evidence, was never interviewed by the FBI about the wallet, and never, ever, discussed the wallet with anyone. When JFK researchers first learned about the 2nd Oswald wallet, from Hosty's book in early 1996, they were desperate to interview Westbrook. They soon learned that only a few weeks before Hosty's book was released, Capt Westbook suddenly died on February 21, 1996. After learning of the death of Capt. Westbrook researcher Jones Harris arranged for an interview with the first police officer at 10th & Patton, Sgt. Kenneth Croy. For the first time Sgt. Croy was asked what he knew about the 2nd wallet, and told Harris that an "unknown witness" gave him gave the wallet, which he then gave to Westbrook. It should not surprise anyone to learn there is, and never has been, any evidence to support or verify Croy's claim. Not one witness, not one ambulance driver, not one neighbor, and not one bystander nor anyone else saw a wallet lying on the street, in Tippit's car or anywhere. Ted Calloway arrived before Tippit's body was loaded in the ambulance. Callaway said, "I'll tell you one thing, there was no billfold at that scene. If there was, there would have been too many people who would have seen it." Neither Westbrook, Croy, or anyone told the Warren Commission or the HSCA about the 2nd Oswald wallet that appeared, and then disappeared, at 10th & Patton. Thirty three years later, in 1996, the 2nd wallet was first introduced to the public by former FBI agent James Hosty. Because of their actions and involvement at 10th & Patton, we now know that Westbrook, Croy, and LEE Oswald conspired to murder Officer Tippit, and frame HARVEY Oswald for the crime.

The conspirators took the risk of making both Oswalds appear together at the same time as adults in one place: the Texas Theater. LEE Oswald killed Tippit, as planned, and led police to the theater, also as planned. When Tippit was killed, HARVEY Oswald was already inside the theater, looking for a contact with the other half of his torn-in-half dollar bill. HARVEY was instructed to go to the theater so it would appear that he was hiding in the dark from the police, not because there was actually a contact there. LEE led the chase to HARVEY. LEE was arrested, or at least detained, in the balcony of the theater and was led out the back door, where he was seen in police custody by Bernard Haire and others. HARVEY was arrested on the main floor and led out the front door of the theater. Butch Burroughs told James Douglass that he witnessed the arrest of both Oswalds inside the theater on 11/22/63. You may find this hard to believe, but he was there, and none of the rest of us were. The balcony arrest of LEE Oswald is described in at least two Dallas Police reports.

Hi, Paul. Soon after the assassination, Westbrook was relocated to South Vietnam and became an advisor to the Saigon Police Dep't., clearly an intel-related position. Can you tell us more?

John Armstrong’s new write-up on the Tippit slaying is now available on HarveyandLee.net. It shows how Dallas Police Captain W.R. Westbrook was present at the murder, which was part of the setup of “Lee Harvey Oswald,” how Westbrook and reserve Sgt. Kenneth Croy were most likely in car #207 seen and heard by Earlene Roberts at 1026 N. Beckley, and shortly thereafter seen by Virginia Davis at the Tippit murder site. Many enduring mysteries, such as the multiple wallets, the balcony and main floor arrests of “Oswald” at the theater, and several others are explained in this write-up. Although the article contains a mixture of facts and informed speculation, it makes sense, at last, of many of the conflicting aspects of Tippit’s murder. Read it here: https://harveyandlee.net/Tippit/Tippit.html

I'll be releasing on HarveyandLee.net a major new write-up by John Armstrong on the Tippit murder tomorrow or Saturday.

I couldn't agree more!!! In his 11/2/63 Washington Daily News story that prompted Kroch’s outrage, Richard Starnes wrote, An American field officer with a distinguished combat career speaks angrily about "that man at headquarters in Saigon wearing a colonel's uniform." He means the man is a CIA agent, and he can't understand what he is doing at U.S. military headquarters here, unless it is spying on other Americans. Another American officer, talking about the CIA, acidly commented: "You'd think they'd have learned something from Cuba but apparently they didn't." They were ALL intertwined!!!

Thanks for posting this link to the Operation Northwoods write-up from Body of Secrets. I read much of James Bamford’s tome ten or fifteen years ago when it first came out and had forgotten much of it since, so this review was welcome. If memory serves, Mr. Bamford made news on the publication of his book by pointing out how Lemnitzer and, in fact, the entire JCS seemed to have gone nuts over their willingness to see innocent people killed—in fact to order their deaths--simply to provoke an invasion of Cuba. At least these were the kinds of ideas written up in the Operation Northwoods plan that was signed by every member of the JCS. Pretty shocking stuff. It is easy to see that when the order came from the Kennedy Brothers to stop all covert action plans against Cuba, people like Lemnitzer, Lansdale and perhaps even the entire JCS would have been incensed. Would that anger have led these military leaders to plot the murder of their own commander-in-chief? It seems quite possible that it would, but I know of little or no direct evidence to convict them. Compare the scant evidence against the military to the trainload of evidence against David Atlee Phillips and several other members of the CIA. Perhaps I harp on this too much, but in the weeks leading up to his assassination, member(s) of JFK’s own administration predicted that if a coup d'état occurred in the U.S., it would come from the CIA and not the Pentagon.

Steve, I think Mr. Hardway was probably referring to this: https://www.cnn.com/2014/07/31/politics/cia-spying-senate-apologize/

My bet is you’re right, Mike. I couldn’t agree more with what you say (except I’m not familiar with the case against William Kent). To your list of the probably guilty among Agency personnel I’d add E. Howard Hunt and J.J. Angleton. And as I said near the beginning of this thread, there may well have been a direct chain of command from CIA’s David Atlee Phillips to former intel officer Gordon McLendon to McLendon’s close friend Jack Ruby. After all, the most critical first step in the cover-up was surely the silencing of the patsy. OTOH, there are reasons to suspect the conspiracy may have extended beyond the CIA into elements of the military. I’ll be watching for evidence about that. Thanks for your post! EDIT: Ah, I see Dan Hardway makes the case against Kent in the "Declaration" you linked above. Thank you for that. First I've seen it!

Steve and Paul have probably already discussed the following, but I'm still trying to catch up. Anyway, the Find a Grave listing for George Whitmeyer has the following lurid write-up (emphasis added by me): Lt Col Whitmeyer was riding in the Pilot Car, driven by DPD Dep. Chief George Laster Lumpkin - the first car in President Kennedy's motorcade in Dallas when he was assassinated. Whitmeyer was head of the 488th Military Intelligence Detachment, Dallas, started by Maj. Jack Crichton, and gave the military protection stand-down order. Lumpkin was the Captain of the 488th. Whitmeyer died just days before he was to give testimony on the Kennedy assassination to the HSCA (House Select Committee on Assassinations) in 1978. There is a "suggest edits" button on the Find a Grave listings, but I have no idea who finalizes these things.

This has been discussed here before, but in a WikiSpooks article presenting a 2010 COPA speech by Peter Dale Scott, Dr. Scott seems to accept the existence of the 488th MID in Dallas without offering a whole lot of proof for it. His description (please correct me if I'm wrong) seems to essentially follow Crichton’s. The print edition of his speech includes the following: Researcher Larry Haapanen has discovered the 488th seems to have had its own direct chain of command linking it to Washington. In an esoteric publication entitled The Military Order of World Wars (Turner Publishing Company, 1997, p. 120), he found that Crichton "commanded the 488th MID (Strategic), reporting directly to the Army Chief of Intelligence and the Defense Intelligence Agency." [56]. And in 1970 Haapanen was told by Crichton’s commander in the Texas Army Reserve, Lt. Col. Whitmeyer, that Crichton's unit did its summer training at the Pentagon. Has anyone actually seen p. 120 of this obscure work? I know from long experience that my rural library system has essentially no chance whatsoever of having the book.

The “Study of Military Intelligence Detachments” by Thomas Cagley that Steve found seems to indicate that a 488th MID did indeed exist, even though there is not much mention of it publicly. If we accept that it probably did exist, we can then concentrate on whether it was located in Dallas and whether Crichton was really associated with it. Is this a fair characterization of where we stand? The "Army Intelligence in Dallas" memo Steve linked us to above makes no mention of the 488th MID, which, frankly, is exactly what I'd expect from a government document if some bureaucrat knew, or suspected, the 488th had something to do with JFK's murder. Am I being too cynical?

Thanks, Joe, that's interesting. I can't quite believe, though, that "the power of suggestion, though innuendo" could make Ruby perform an act that was certain to completely ruin his life. Perhaps the Mob could make one of those offers you can't refuse, or, more likely to me, an intel operative might offer a combination of threats and promises to perform the same thing.

Steve, However, if memory serves, there are a few references to the 488th in literature available online that doesn't seem to come from Crichton, are there not? (I'm really asking, because I did a search a month or more ago and my memory isn't what it used to be and was never great to begin with.)

Paul, There was a 488th Army battalion active in WW 2, but apparently this had nothing to do with the Army's 488th Intel Detachment that may have been formed a few years later in Dallas. Steve Thomas raised a number of issues questioning its existence. Do you have any thoughts about that? (I have no illusions about how the hall of mirrors of some major intel operations can distort reality in so many ways.)

WHO ORDERED OSWALD'S DEATH? KLIF radio founder Gordon McLendon was a former Naval Intelligence officer who was a close friend and confidant of CIA officer David Atlee Phillips. Jack Ruby called McLendon’s unlisted phone number the day of the assassination. Ruby was overheard that very afternoon saying he could be reached at KLIF, and he continued writing letters to McLendon even from prison. In 1975 McLendon and David Atlee Phillips formed the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO). The two men had known one another since childhood. And it was Phillips who was spotted by Antonio Veciana talking to LEE Oswald at the Southland building in Dallas in the summer of 1963. And so we are starring at a direct chain of command from CIA’s David Atlee Phillips to former intel officer Gordon McLendon to McLendon’s close friend Jack Ruby. From Harvey and Lee: Around 1:15 am KLIF radio announcer Russ Knight approached the entrance to the police station and asked if anyone had seen District Attorney Henry Wade. Jack Ruby, who was milling around talking to people said, "I'll show you" and escorted Knight to the basement. Before reaching the basement Ruby asked Knight, twice, to ask District Attorney Wade if he thought Oswald was "insane." After reaching the base­- ment Ruby once again approached Wade and told him that radio announcer Russ Knight wanted to speak with him.142 As Knight began talking with Wade, Dallas Police Lieutenant James Gilmore saw Ruby and asked him what he was doing at the police station after midnight. Ruby told Gilmore that he was passing out sandwiches and planning to deliver sandwiches to KLIF radio, the station owned by Gordon McLendon.143 NOTE: Jack Ruby listed Gordon McLendon, the owner of Dallas radio station KLIF, as one of his six closest friends. McLendon had known career CIA officer David Atlee Phillips since both men were in their teens and attended school in Fort Worth. In the 1970's McLendon joined Phillips to form the Association of Former Intelligence Offic- ers (AFIO). .... Jack Ruby-1:30 am to 6:00am After Russ Knight finished talking with Henry Wade he and Ruby walked out of the police station. Ruby asked Knight if he needed a ride to the KLIF station, but Knight declined and walked to KLIF, while Ruby walked to his car.147 About 1:45am Ruby arrived at KLIF with sandwiches and soft drinks and again talked with Knight. At 2:00am, with Ruby nearby, Knight went on the air and told ra­- dio listeners, "Through a tip from a local nightclub owner I asked Mr. Wade the ques- tion of Oswald's insanity." Around 2:15am, following the radio broadcast, Knight and Ruby left the radio station. On the steps of the building Ruby handed Knight the text of a speech called "Heroism" from H.L. Hunt's LIFE Line radio program, broadcast on radio station KRLD. Ruby told Knight there were elements such as Hunt's in Dallas that hated Presi­- dent Kennedy. Knight remembered the late night incident and said, "Ruby had the speech but he didn't seem to be cognizant fully of what the speech was or actually what side that he stood on ..... just mentioned like there is an element here that hates, that hated Mr. Kennedy." When Knight asked Ruby if he meant the Hunt's, Ruby said nothing.148 NOTE: After Ruby shot Oswald, Knight began to think about the "Heroism" speech that Ruby gave him and said, "It seemed to me like too much of a coincidence that he should be carrying a speech called 'Heroism' and then for him to shoot Oswald on Sunday mormng...."149 --From Harvey and Lee, pp. 904-905, Copyright © 2003 by John Armstrong. All rights reserved.

Many researchers have suggested over the years that the assassination plot and the subsequent cover-up were surely totally separate operations. For the safety of all the participants, they reason, the two elements had to be rigidly compartmentalized. That makes perfect sense. But there is at least one HUGE area where the plot and the cover-up overlapped: the silencing of “Lee Harvey Oswald.” The most critical part of the early cover-up was obviously the killing of the patsy. The order to kill JFK and the order to kill LHO surely came, ultimately, from the same source. Whether Oswald was supposed to arrive at Dallas police headquarters alive is an open question, but since he did, and was soon shot dead by Ruby, the question is, where did Ruby get his orders? I believe that will shed light on who ordered JFK’s assassination. Ruby’s excuse for killing Oswald is laughable. He was clearly part of a plot, as he himself eventually said to Dr. Teuter and implied to Deputy Sheriff Maddox. It has long been suggested that Ruby had deep ties to organized crime and, therefore, the Mob was most likely involved in the assassination of JFK. What has long been suppressed, however, was Ruby’s involvement in Cuban gun-running and his apparent protection by the CIA. To see a description of that evidence, see: https://harveyandlee.net/Ruby/Ruby.html Ruby’s activities in the hours before he killed Oswald also suggest more of a connection to the CIA than to organized crime. I’ve posted the following once or twice before, so please forgive the repeat, but it helps to back up my point.