Denny Zartman

Definitely. Your paper makes it clear exactly how badly Oswald's rights were trampled and how the Dallas police were potentially damaging their own case by denying him the legal representation he repeatedly asked for and actually rebuffing a lawyer that called to offer his services. And it's funny how two of Oswald's three phone calls were to the good Ruth Paine, who seemed to do absolutely nothing in trying to help him get a lawyer.

I don't see what is so incriminating about Thursday instead of Friday. I thought the incriminating aspect of the Thursday visit was the allegation that Oswald picked up a rifle there and we have Ruth and Marina as witnesses even though they didn't see a rifle or Oswald with a rifle. If LHO hadn't gone to the Paine's house that Thursday night, what would have prevented the official explanation from being "Oswald was keeping his rifle at his rooming house"? The only things that are lost are Oswald's change in usual schedule (hardly proof that he fired a rifle) and two questionable "witnesses." Frazier and Randle are a different story. I don't know enough about Linnie Mae Randle to feel like I could evaluate her honesty. I believe that I once read she was in the same social circle as Ruth Paine, and I mistrust anyone connected to the Paines. It would be foolish to believe that extraordinary pressure wasn't put on Randle to provide a story that would be seen as incriminating. All that said, I still don't have a solid reason to distrust her story of Oswald taking a long package with him that morning. I think I have read and seen enough on Buell Wesley Frazier though, and I believe that he's honest. He has stuck to his story that the package Oswald had fit between LHO's cupped hand and LHO's armpit. If that's true, it couldn't have been the entire disassembled rifle. So, was it part of the rifle, part of another rifle, another weapon, part of another weapon, another object, or just an unusually long sandwich? I don't know.

I read the latest one linked above. Good work, Bart. I look forward to the revised version. Great job in adding so many documents and newspaper articles. Those are quite valuable. Good use of pictures as well, and I think your analysis is sound. There was a little repetition in the text, which I trust can be smoothed out in the next revision. I had been doing my own compilation of statements Oswald made on tape recently, and couldn't find the "hygiene" complaint video for the life of me. I was beginning to wonder if I had dreamed it. I was relieved to see it mentioned here. I'd leave off the meme's, though. They weren't necessary and, in my humble opinion, undercuts the seriousness of the work you've done. Otherwise, this is an excellent article with many valuable resources, especially the documents and newspaper articles.

My question would be: was Oswald's Mexico City visit fabricated at the time, or concocted after the assassination? Lyndon Johnson said to Richard Russell that he (Johnson) was only able to convince a very reluctant Earl Warren to chair the Commission by mentioning "what Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico City..."

My notes say Gilberto Policarpo Lopez was the possible patsy for an attempt in Tampa, Florida on Nov. 18.

We're on the same page. I don't think it originated with Hoover, either. I was trying to see if logic could tell us who had the ability to direct Hoover and the FBI immediately after the assassination and tell them that the lone assassin scenario was going to be the official story.

I agree with you. I don't think satisfying Johnson's desire to become President and get him out of trouble was the initiating cause. I do understand how just applying simple detective logic would lead one to him, though. If we ask ourselves, "who benefits?" it would appear that Lyndon Johnson would be at the top of that list. The more I look at it, it seems to me that the trigger for the JFK assassination had to come from the upper level military. They used the CIA, and the CIA used multiple proxies to hide its involvement. Cuba and the Soviet Union were clearly major factors that military types would take into consideration when mulling this sort of extraordinary action. It's hard to ignore the change in policy in Vietnam in the wake of Kennedy's death and the amount of money that was poured into military coffers. If one were to truly: "Follow the money" Ask "who benefits?" Ask who had the authority to tell Hoover how it was going to go? Ask who had the ability to get into the autopsy room at Bethesda? It certainly would be logical (in my view) to suspect the highest levels of the military.

I'm learning that the CIA was an Executive Branch creation, and it appears that by JFK's time the CIA had transformed into something that couldn't be controlled by the President any longer and wasn't functioning as originally intended. Since the CIA was the central information gathering point for all the other military intelligence agencies, it does seem that the CIA was turned around from a relatively passive intelligence collection resource to an active participant in carrying out extralegal actions for the president and the military, and may have been used by the military to carry out the assassination. Getting into the autopsy room at Bethesda is key to an effective cover up. As powerful as the mob and the wealthy right wing oilmen were at the time, it is still a task to get into that room and direct how things are going to go. It is also quite a feat to be in the position to continue the cover up through all the official investigation, and I just don't see how that is done by someone outside the highest levels of government. I think Lyndon Johnson is a natural suspect. Judging from the way detectives work in mystery fiction, you'd think that he had a motive, means, and opportunity. Certainly he jumped into the cover up with both feet right away, so even if he wasn't the one who gave the ultimate "go order" beforehand, he still shares guilt in acting to obscure the truth and aid the assassins in their escape. His immediate and enthusiastic participation in the cover up also shows consciousness of guilt. At the same time, it might have been Joint Chief of Staffs decision that just happened to get lucky have a Vice President in waiting and Director of the FBI who were more than willing to participate. I try to look suspiciously at any aspect of the JFK assassination that involves luck, happenstance, or coincidence, though... so that's why I'm questioning the way I'm trying to analyze this whole thing.

I don't think Hoover and the FBI were the heads of the conspiracy. I suppose there's a possibility that they weren't part of the actual mechanics of the assassination. I do think it had to be someone over Hoover in authority. I don't think the mafia had the ability to call up Hoover immediately after the assassination and tell him how things were going to go. It also had to be someone who not only had a disinformation team on the ground handling the evidence right away but had the ability and plan to feed disinformation to the press. I really don't know if the mafia had that sort of organization. The FBI were the ones handling the investigation and evidence, and intimidating the witnesses.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. What's the alternative to someone with the authority to tell Hoover how the investigation was going to go?

Wasn't Oswald's alleged presence in Mexico City the main reason investigators rejected the Odio incident?

There's that good ol' critical thinking in action.

Deleted.

This is a good question. I agree, 2067 is absurd. I wonder if anyone holding these papers will go on record as explaining the reasoning behind restricting these interviews.

Thanks, Ron.

I'm surprised Gene is part of any group, because he's not really a joiner.

That's the thing about protests: they're not very effective if people don't know you're protesting. Duct tape over the mouth or a sign or something like that, is recognizable as a protest. There's no question about it. But, holding up an open umbrella on a sunny day could also be interpreted simply as someone with sensitive skin protecting themselves from a potential sunburn. And it seems that most of the images of Neville Chamberlain with his umbrella show it closed. Brandishing a closed umbrella would have slightly more impact as a protest if that protest were truly meant to visually evoke Neville Chamberlain. In fact, wouldn't it be more effective to wave a piece of paper in the air if a protester really wanted to protest evoking Chamberlain's appeasement policy? Umbrellas were not a common method of protesting JFK, yet some random office worker in Dallas believed that the Kennedy's were easily annoyed at the sight of an umbrella, and that was enough for the self-described apolitical Witt to make the only political protest in his lifetime. Then Witt lies and says the umbrella was blocking his view when anyone can see for themselves that's just not true. In my opinion, it takes a lot of gullibility to believe Witt was telling the truth. I'm not convinced he was Umbrella Man in the first place. I am convinced that Umbrella Man was a conspirator.

Outstanding. Thanks very much, Steve. You sure know your stuff! What do you make of all these Colonels bopping around?

Thank you, Steve. That's an interesting story. Great catch. I can't believe I typed that out and didn't make a connection. I have to dig through my notes and refresh my memory about that other story. Someone was at a meeting (with Ruby?) where there was reportedly a Colonel (in uniform?), and there was also a guy who was described as looking like a boxer. I found the name of the boxer by accident and have to find it again, and now I have to see if I can go back and find those details. As for Colonel Wilmeth, as usual, the forum here has already discussed him a bit on this thread, which I haven't yet read: Col. J. D. Wilmeth Here's the FBI report about Wilmeth and his contacts with the Paines and Marina. Looks like the scanner software was really struggling to turn this into a text file: Full text of "Wilmeth J D Colonel"

I just finished listening to it. It's an interesting compilation of two interviews from a few years back. There's a little repetition between the two interviews and occasionally the topic of conversation veers away from JFK, but that's brief. Brown does not name a shooter, so the title is misleading. I still found it informative, though there are a few things I would want to follow up on. Here are my notes. This is only my interpretation. Hopefully I'm summarizing his views accurately. If not, I apologize. I'm not sure of the spelling of certain names, so I've tried to put them in quotes. Also, these are only a few of the things that stood out the most to me personally. It's not meant to comprehensively represent everything that was discussed in the entire video. - Brown believes it was a military plot ultimately intended to reverse Kennedy's intent to draw down in Vietnam, and that George H.W. Bush was probably the man in charge of the conspiracy at the Texas level. Brown's view appears to be that there is not that much of a difference or divide between top military intelligence and the CIA. He doubts that Lyndon Johnson was the main force behind the conspiracy. At 26:30 and 32:00 Brown mentions a "J.D. Wilmuth" a Colonel in Army intelligence that served in Moscow and was connected to Michael Paine in some way. (I'd love to know more. I find the Paines to be persons of interest.) Brown also mentions James Powell, a military intelligence officer that was in Dealey Plaza and taking pictures of the TSBD during the assassination. Brown theorizes that Powell was there to ensure that Oswald was on the scene. ( If my memory serves me, Powell then made his way to the Dal Tex building and to the company of Jim Braden. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about that.) A surprising factoid that I had never heard came around at 34:00, where Brown says there were no planned DPD escort assignments to go from the Trade Mart back to Love Field. I wonder if this is true? Around 36:00 Brown mentions Jack Crichton, Texas oilman with a military intelligence background and with connections to George de Mohrenschildt (and, according to Wikipedia, George H.W. Bush). Brown also mentions a connection with a person by the name of "Mamentoff" maybe? I couldn't quite understand what Brown was saying or the relevance of the person by that name. Most interestingly, Brown says that Crichton later went to work for fellow oilman D.H. Byrd who owned the TSBD and kept the sixth floor window frame in his home. Brown points out that Oswald made a late night phone call to North Carolina to a person named John Hurt. If memory serves me again, there were two men in NC by that name, one of them former military intelligence. Around 43:00, Brown seems to say Arlen Specter was also former Army intelligence. Does anyone know if that's true? Brown made a good point that doesn't get much attention: if the rifle was disassembled and reassembled, it would need to be resighted before it would again fire accurately. Around 1:13:00, Brown tells of the rifle being "bench fired" (fired while fixed in position by a vice) and reportedly the rifle was inaccurate even from a 15 yard distance. Brown calculates that at Oswald's alleged distance, any bullets would be 20 feet off the mark. Around 1:19:30 in the video, Brown says Tippit was parked at the final bus stop of the bus that Oswald had boarded earlier. That's a detail I hadn't heard before. Around 1:42:00 Brown claims that Oswald had not been practicing with his rifle since 1959. I'm not sure how Brown views the reports of people allegedly seeing Oswald at the Sports Drome rifle range just before the assassination. Around 2:06:30 Brown talks about radiating fractures criss-crossing JFK's skull, and how this should be impossible. I need to follow up on this. At one point Brown talks about Dr. Cyril Wecht saying that Wecht believes a bullet went into JFK's back and out his throat, and Brown theorizes that bullet is the bullet that hit the chrome trim over the front windshield. I could be wrong, but I suspect Wecht was saying that even if the bullet hit JFK in the back and went out his throat, for it to go on and hit Connally at the angle it was going, JFK would have had to been tying his shoes at the time. Saying that he believed the bullet entered JFK's back and went out his throat doesn't sound at all like something I'd ever expect Cyril Wecht to say. All in all a good series of interviews, and Brown's timeline is a valuable resource.

Here's my full transcript of the video and partial transcript I posted upthread:

It also makes you wonder why, if Oswald really wanted to kill Connally, why he didn't just fill him full of lead as the limo was going north on Houston? You have to give it to Oswald, he truly was a bipartisan assassin.

Thanks Bart, I look forward to reading your upcoming paper as well.

But Hunt was trusted enough by high level covert operators to be included the Watergate break in nine years later, wasn't he? I have a hard time understanding how someone who was part of the Plumbers wouldn't be considered a "real" covert operator.

Thank you very much, Vince!