Benjamin Cole

4 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

Thank you Andrew, some good stuff here. It was probably Newman reading a typo, as he said Churchill mentioned an "Iron Curtain" descending over Europe in May 45. The actual date is March 46.   VE day was in May 45, and some time elapsed after VE day for Churchill to make that valuation.in Europe.

But one passing fact I found interesting was to find

"Alan Dulles found out that navy officer Richard Nixon had been out in charge of captured poopoo documents revealing  Dulles was a traitor.  Dulles financed Nixon's first race for office in exchange for burying the documents."

This is the  first  I've heard of Nixon being part of any Naval Intelligence, much less being privy to any N-zi documents involving Dulles..He started out in the Navy as a lieutenant junior grade in 1942 and eventually went out into the other main venue, the South Pacific, Perhaps it could have been here, from the Naval History and Heritage Command. "From December through March 1945, he served at the Bureau of Aeronautics, Navy Department, Washington, D.C. In March, his next assignment was as the Bureau of Aeronautics Contracting Officer for Terminations in the Office of the Bureau of Aeronautics General Representative, Eastern District, headquartered in New York."  Still it does seem a bit unclear how he was privy to such information about Dulles.

Nixon  left the service in 46. It is true  that Nixon initially answered an ad from Prescott Bush (not Alan Dulles)to first get into politics and it was Bush who did finance his first political campaign.   

I second Kirk G's sentiments. I would like to see the source material on this one from John Newman, a top-notch researcher. 

12 hours ago, Jamey Flanagan said:

Benjamin Cole, it's getting about time for something investigatory from the government! So far every 20 or 30 years they do something to look like they are actually doing something in hopes to appease us "conspiracy theorists", lol! You had the Warren Commission right away nearly, then we got the HSCA in the 70's, and the ARRB in the 90's. But those last 2 were only formed after something major to sway the public towards conspiracy (Z film shown on TV, the film JFK). Sadly, it looks like we'll need something to force a new investigation. Hopefully the new Oliver Stone, Jim D doc will be a catalyst. But I fear it will take more than that. Some kinda bombshell.

Jamey F.---

Verily, and we are running out of innings.  Obviously, many people have died, and evidence becomes aged. 

Soon I will post about Connally's coat and Dr. Shaw, and the Z-film, evidence which again underlines the inconvenient truth that whoever fired on Nov. 22 did it too quickly for a lone gunman armed with a single-shot bolt-action rifle. 

I contend this simple, digestible and true story-line could be useful in bringing about another official investigation and report on the facts, and once and for all burying the lone gunman theory. Or, at least, a full release of all records under the JFK Act. 

3 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

 

Apparently, the guy on the right is not Jack Ruby, so I put Basement Ruby's hat and eye shadow on to see what he looked like, and Presto, 2 Jack Rubys. 

 

The photos are from where? Sure look like the same guy to me. Nice work.   

Jeez, you could a bang-up two-hour movie just on John Newman's  "WWIII" virus idea (Dan Hardway had a similar observation). 

It has been a few decades since I read a John le Carre novel, but the LHO biography build, the WWIII virus and of course the consequences tops anything he wrote. 

But of course, I would happier with a real-world serious full-on re-investigation of the whole JFKA. 

10 hours ago, Denny Zartman said:

Wouldn't believing that the rifle first found and mistakenly identified not just as a German Mauser but one of a specific caliber also mean believing that the Dallas Police couldn't read?

 

Danny Z-

You raise interesting points. 

There is the possibility that Weitzman and others did not want to handle the weapon, and so could not hold it in their hands and read the small print on the barrel. So Weitzman identified the rifle by its general look, and others deferred. 

However, Craig always insisted he saw the word "Mauser" stamped on the barrel. 

For me, Weitzman's most important testimony is that the final two shots were fired "simultaneously." Obviously, two shots fired simultaneously are heard as one, so Weitzman meant "nearly simultaneously." 

And how does one fire nearly simultaneous shots with a single-shot bolt-action rifle? 

Well, that and the "Secret Service man" Weitzman (and DPD'er Joe Smith) ran across near the Grassy Knoll...

6 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

No-one saw strangers, except for one old man that entered the ground floor for a leak. What stranger would risk shooting from the 6th floor and hope to escape unnoticed? That plan, IMO, would never be considered in the first place. Until you find evidence of a stranger, you must consider that there were none.

Well..maybe. Suppose they entered the night before, but after the building had closed up for the night. 

If there were no strangers...then who did the shooting? LHO? But he could not have fired a single-shot rifle as rapidly as required to do all the shooting. 

55 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

If that's you're train of thought, it's possible, but there are obstacles to overcome.

Descending stairs in hard sole shoes generates noise. There was a man who testified he was at the 5th level north/west corner staircase area at the time of the shooting. This man testified he did not use the stairs after the shooting, he used the elevator. The elevators were both on level 5 according to Truly when he peered up the elevator shaft in company with Baker.

 

My best guess is LHO fired at JFK once and intentionally missed, and ran down the stairs to the second floor where he met Marion Baker and Truly. Others did the real shooting, and may have been in the TSBD, or the roof of Dal-Tex building, and of course by the Grassy Knoll area.  

But if the offices on the second and fourth floors were not searched after the JFKA...that opens up all sorts of questions, about places to hide people and weapons. Just a possibility. 

If LHO fired no shots that day, then someone else did on floor 6 of the TSBD, and no one ever saw them. Where did the actual shooter(s), who would be strangers, go? 

1 hour ago, Tony Krome said:

Geneva Hine, Credit desk, 2nd floor. 

Thanks...here is one for you, from Victoria Elizabeth Adams, statement: 

"I am a Caucasian female, born February 8, 1941 at San Francisco, California. I presently reside at 4906 Wenonah, Dallas, Texas. I am employed as an Office Service Representative by Scott, Foreman and Cannery, Room 401, Texas School Book Depository...411 Elm Street, Dallas....and was employed employed on Nov. 22, 1963, the day President John Kennedy was assassinated...."

https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh22/pdf/WH22_CE_1381.pdf

So...there also non-TSBD offices on the fourth floor, as indicated by Room 401 for Scott, Foreman. Also see statement by Yola D. Hopson, who also worked for Scott, Foreman on the fourth floor.  

So....it is possible that someone fired at JFK, then only descended two flights of stairs, and went into a non-TSBD office.

3 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

Caster's office was on the 2nd floor. The door to these offices were locked at the time of the shooting. There was a person on the phone, inside the office, immediately after the shooting. Hine tried calling out to that person, knocked and shook the door, but they would not respond.

Tony K.--

Thanks for the correction and clarification. Who was Hine?

23 minutes ago, Gil Jesus said:

Mr. McBride, thank you. Notice that Caster says in his testimony that the rifle he bought was a 30.06 sporterized Mauser. I'm willing to bet that that was a sporterized 7.65 Argentine Mauser converted to a 30.06, just like Arnold Rowland described.

My recollection is that there were offices of four publishers on the fourth floor, Caster's being one. Does anyone know if these offices were searched after the JFKA? They nearly become invisible, except for the Caster episode. 

Could someone descend a couple light of stairs and go into a publisher's office?  Could a desk be outfitted with a false bottom? 

A former employee of Jack Ruby worked in one of those offices. 

1 hour ago, Eddy Bainbridge said:

My newspaper today has an article on a new book 'Two Steps Forward, One Step Back' by Miles Copeland III. The interesting quote comes from his father, who joined the CIA in 1947 as a founding member, and chief of its Political Action staff :-  "Nobody, knows more about changing governments, by force or otherwise, than me". Any thoughts?

President Biden just told the world, in Geneva, that “How would it be if the United States were viewed by the rest of the world as interfering with elections directly of other countries and everybody knew it?”

15 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

Roswell Gilpatric was quite a guy. Came up with the quarantine strategy during the Missile Crisis and was also Jackie's secret paramour.

Also good for a laugh is Fred Korth.

One of his (Korth's) better known cases^[4] was a small one heard June 24, 1948 in the County of Tarrant, Texas, when his client, Edwin A. Ekdahl, was officially divorced from Marguerite Frances Claverie Ekdahl (also known as Marguerite Oswald), whose son from a previous marriage was Lee Harvey Oswald.^[5] Following the end of Korth's first marriage in 1964, he began a romantic relationship with heiress and socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post, daughter of breakfast-cereal magnate C. W. Post, twenty years his senior. He was a co-executor of Post's will. Part of her estate was her mansion on Palm Beach Island, Mar-a-Lago, purchased in 1980 by Donald Trump.

I am wondering, if the DPD wanted to "enhance the evidence" against LHO, who they considered a cop-killer at the time.

Let me lead into it this way: When OJ Simpson was arrested, the LAPD said they found one glove at the murder scene and the matching glove at OJ's home.

Now, OJ probably did the crime, but perhaps the LAPD knew OJ would hire expensive lawyers, and they wanted to cement the case against OJ.  Really, the evidence was too perfect.  Would even OJ leave matching gloves at the crime scene and his own house? 

OK, back to Dallas. What is the timeline? The DPD arrest LHO in the Texas Theater, and lift the wallet from him. They take the wallet back to the Tippit crime scene, to cement the case against LHO. 

The WFAA-TV news footage, and the wallet, sure looks like LHO's wallet. I mean what are the chances of two random wallets so similar or identical in appearance? Given the circumstance, it sure looks like LHO's wallet. 

OK, so later, after planting the LHO wallet at the Tippit crime scene, but realizing the gravity of the situation, the DPD covered it up, and said there was no LHO wallet at the Tippit crime scene. 

Which brings up a point I have not heard too often. The DPD let Jack Ruby into HQ to shoot LHO, as they also wanted him dead. LHO had struck down a brother officer (from their point of view). So security was a bit lax....

Seymour Weitzman (0n timing of shots): "First one, then the second two seemed to be simultaneously."

For me, this is yet another forgotten nugget.

Weitzman was a police officer, who had owned a gun shop. 

Do you think he might be familiar with gunfire?

Weitzman must have known a single-shot bolt action rifle cannot deliver two shots "simultaneously." 

7 hours ago, Craig Carvalho said:

Thanks Ben.

I also agree that it was DeMohrenshildt's arranged meeting between Oswald and a Swedish psychiatrist, (the name escapes me at the moment), who later recalled publicly working up a "psychological profile" on Oswald. This, I believe, was the catalyst for the Walker shooting. During this conversation this individual recalls using Walker as a comparison to the rise of Hitler to Walker's political ambitions in order to "win Oswald's confidence" and induce him to speak further on his, (Oswald's), political beliefs. The psychiatrist in question, it has been suggested, had CIA ties as well, (I will get back to you with the name). My perception of Oswald's CIA ties are thus... San Diego (Marine induction), Atsugi, San Diego, (Marine discharge), defection, return, Moore, DeMorehnshilt, David Atlee Philips... James Jesus Angleton from A to Z.

Ruby was interviewed by the Warren Commission in late summer of 64 if I'm not mistaken. Last page of his testimony to Earl Warren, (directly). 

I will paraphrase... "There is a organization here in Dallas. And that organization is the John Birch Society. The leader of that organization is Edwin Walker."

Regards

   

Great quote.

So, in WC testimony, Walker says JR and LHO knew each other and were in a plot, and JR says Walker and his group are in a plot and out to get him. 

Ruby does seem disoriented in his testimony. I have wondered if Ruby was on drugs, but involuntarily. 

35 minutes ago, Craig Carvalho said:

Ben,

I agree with you on much of your reasoning. I believe there was a link between Ruby and Oswald. Based on my research I believe one key question regarding Oswald's movements prior to 11/22/63 was never addressed and could hold the answer. On the night of April 10th, 1963 following the attempted assassination of Edwin Walker Oswald's whereabouts have gone completely unaccounted for between the hours of 9 p.m. and approximately 11:30p.m. based on Marina's testimony. During an executive session of the Warren Commission in 1964 this issue was raised, but never follow up on. Where is the most logical place for Oswald to have hidden himself from view while the Dallas P.D. performed their rather lackluster initial investigation that night? While Ruby's infamous Carousel Club is often written about, less is known about his other club... The Vegas Club... nestled in the Turtlecreek area of Dallas just a few blocks from Walkers home. Based on Ruby's openly stated fear of the John Birch Society before the Warren Commission's Earl Warren, (more specifically Ruby names Edwin Walker), and his close contact with the Dallas P.D. who's ranks included many Birchers, I believe it is plausible that the mob in conjunction with certain Dallas P.D. members urged and assisted Ruby in the silencing of Oswald.

Regards, Craig C.

 

  

Craig C--

Interesting conjecture about the Vegas Club. No one ever saw LHO leave the scene of the Walker failed shooting, or ride a bus back home, or bury his rifle and retrieve it, and so on. 

So...maybe LHO hid out at the Vegas Club. Ruby had run guns to Cuba, he knew elements active in anti-Castro circles, and so perhaps Ruby's club could be used as a "safe house" for LHO for a couple of hours. 

Oddly enough, Walker thought LHO and Ruby knew each other. 

"Although he accepted the commission's finding that it was Oswald who had shot at him the previous year, Walker claimed that the commission was attempting to hide "some sort of conspiracy" that included an association between Jack Ruby and Oswald.^[43]"

Stiil, the planning of the Walking shooting (which I contend was an obvious planned miss) probably came from whoever was running LHO at the CIA, not the Mob.  Ruby may not even have known what LHO did that night. 

Best regards- Ben

PS Are you sure Ruby mentions Walker in his WC testimony? I tried to look it up.

If JFK had done nothing else, his sidestepping the nuke war trap being set up during the Cuban Affair would make him a hero. 

4 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

Thank you all. I've had to take a hiatus from this debate because I lost my job in 2007 when Polaroid closed. Fortunately, I had the foresight to see it coming and I went out and got my CDL. So I've been doing trucking for the last 10 or 11 years and its left me with little time for anything else. I had to give up the website due to the cost, but I'm in the process of updating that info and I'll be reposting it here as time goes forward. Last month I retired from trucking and took up a job as a security guard so I'll have some time now to make the trolls blush. LOL Before he passed away, Tom Rossley left me with some words of wisdom that Harold Weisberg gave him, he said, "hit em with the evidence", so that's what I plan to do. Good seeing you all again and good to know you're still fighting the good fight for truth.

Gil Jesus--

I am just a fan of yours, we never even e-mailed, let alone met. I too retired recently and plan to "get into" the JFK scene, which I have wanted to do my whole life. 

However, some problems, and I am working again more than half time---so it goes. Plus now I live in SE Asia, where it is cheap to live. 

I did manage to review some Dallas Police Department files online, and discovered that the window pane that deflected the bullet aimed at Walker, actually deflected the the buller lower not higher and yet the bullet struck above Walker's head. Not only that, far from the bullet nearly striking him, Walker initially thought kids had tossed a firecracker into the room. I posted that in this forum. 

So the whole Walker assassination attempt looks more like a biography builder, rather than true hit attempt. 

On this matter you have brought to us today, I see a minor discrepancy. 

LHO indicates he enclosed $19.95, in the blue handwriting under the red letter "D."

The bill indicates $21.45 is due, or an additional $1.50 charge.  I can't read the print; I assume something about shipping or taxes, or postage. 

So, did Klein's just eat the shipping charges (remember, in 1963 you have multiply a dollar amounts by ten, due to inflation. $1.50 back then is like $15.00 today). 

Was it shipped COD on the $1.50? 

Or, was some of this paperwork was generated after the JFKA? 

6 hours ago, Calvin Ye said:

Ruby was probably an government asset

Calvin Y---

You are right, I think. 

6 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

What other reasons could there possibly be for any of the Dallas wealthy elite and power people to have any association with 2nd rate strip joint owning Jack "brass knuckle" Ruby other than gambling, pimp, bag man and deli sandwiches?

And not knowing how intimate Ruby's friendship was with McClendon, but wouldn't supposedly JFK and Jackie loving Ruby have been put off by McClendon's apparently open vitriolic hatred of JFK?

 

Joe B.--

We don't know, as the WC was a cover-up, and the HSCA became a Mob-hunt.  Now, many are dead, some even naturally. 

Some people who have (economically) lower-class speaking patterns and social mannerisms are dismissed, and Ruby was that. His clumsy attempts at ingratiation (sandwiches) might have been successful in other circumstances. 

But Ruby may have had his portion of native wits. If Ruby was such a buffoon, how is it he figured out how to penetrate DPD defenses and plug LHO?

18 minutes ago, Larry Hancock said:

I think anything in his his personality file would be interesting, especially if it related to the proposed Phillips CIA TV series.

But the most interesting material would be in any operational files involving him as a source or his business operations as covers, especially for broadcasting.  That's why  I mentioned the Tejuana, which was the first large craft obtained by the CIA for maritime operations in the first Cuba project.  It was financed by Phillips contacts in Texas and elsewhere,  reworked and armed by the CIA and crewed by individuals that show up around the JFK story, like Bayo.  It also transported Felix Rodriquez into Cuba for an abortive rifle attack on Castro.

We learned a huge amount about Phillips contacts and activities as well as early anti-Castro activities from the ships operational files...for reference that is in SWHT including an appendix on its owner and in the more recent In Denial. 

Great work. I will have to take a look-see. 

McClendon certainly fits the profile of someone who would actively finance anti-Castro operations, given the time and place. If he was pals with Ruby for more than prurient reasons, that would add to the Ruby story, that Ruby was more than the not-too-bright nightclub owner portrayed.

3 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Actually it depends on what types of files from what agency. 

The CIA would have a personality file on him and would be larger or smaller according to how much he volunteered any intelligence to them as a corporate source.  It he was actively serving as a source it would look like any of the corporate source files we have seen ranging from Trade Mart including Clay Shaw.

However there might be a lot more if he and Phillips actually did take their proposal for a TV series on the CIA to the Agency; the CIA is always keep explore that sort of thing and if either man made an approach you can bet it would be documented and evaluated.

On the other hand, if McClendon did contribute assets or allow any of this facilities to be used for either covert communications or propaganda broadcasts that might more likely show up in project reports rather than his personality file. As an example we know all about the financial sponsors for the Tejuana (orchestrated by Phillips) but from project and  operational files, not personality files.

As to the FBI,  Hoover was also keen on major media outlets so there actually might have been an FBI security file on McClendon and his operations.

Larry H--

Always great to hear from Larry Hancock. 

My reasoning is as follows: If there is only innocuous stuff in the "dossier" on McClendon, why the hold-up? My hope is there are clues, which by deduction, allow intrepid investigators (that's you) get a better feel of the terrain. 

I must confess I do not know what is "Tejuana."

The 338-page file on J. Walton Moore is probably soporific, and cleansed if it had any bombshells on LHO. Still, why the lock-and-key?

I wonder what a guy has to do to get the "Dallas post" in the CIA.  

11 hours ago, Chuck Schwartz said:

No, but John Simkin posted this about Mclendon,"

 

Posted January 7, 2005

interesting post. It was indeed Gordon McLendon. In 1963 rumours began to circulate that McLendon might have been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In their book, Deadly Secrets, Warren Hinckle and William Turner claim that Gerry P. Hemming obtained money from McLendon to help fund Interpen.

McLendon was also an associate of Jack Ruby as well as being friendly with several other suspects including Clint Murchison, Bobby Baker and David Atlee Phillips. Peter Dale Scott claims that McLendon made a secret trip to Mexico City just before the assassination.

According to Seth Kantor when Ruby was arrested he "shouted out for Gordon McLendon". The KLIF disc-jockey, Weird Beard, later told Kantor that Ruby "greatly admired McLendon".

Does this mean that they shared the same political views? A member of the Democratic Party, McLendon attempted to unseat Ralph Yarborough in 1964. He later left the party saying he could no longer support the policies of Lyndon B. Johnson.

McLendon sold KLIF for $10.5m in 1971. Over the next eight years he sold the rest of his radio stations for approximately $100m. Later it was estimated that McLendon was worth around $200m.

In 1975 McLendon and David Atlee Phillips formed the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO).

You can find out more here:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmclendon.htm

Chuck S.--

Thanks for responding,  and yes I found those links too. There is more online about McClendon, he was in OSS during WWII, and has had contacts with military intel through his life.  No doubt, as he became a powerful radio-station network owner, he was useful too.

As an aside to no one in particular, anyone reading about the JFKA, but who had no idea of what the population of the US and Dallas was, would assume the country was rather small.  

This is from the Washington Post, four years ago, in regards to the JFK Records Act:

"So what exactly is still being withheld? The missing records include a 338-page file on J. Walton Moore, the head of the CIA office in Dallas at the time of the killing, and an 18-page dossier on Gordon McClendon, a Dallas businessman who conferred with Jack Ruby just before he shot Oswald. Several files on notorious anti-Castro Cuban exiles were apparently withheld, including those focusing on Luis Posada and Orlando Bosch, who had been accused of a 1976 airline bombing that killed 73 people."

---30---

So, to state the obvious, here we are 58 years after the JFKA, and a file on McClendon, ostensibly a civilian radio-station owner, would injure national security if released. 

The 338-page file on Moore is another laugher. Why the CIA had someone in Dallas anyway---egads, Moore must have been the loneliest man in the CIA. What did he do all day? But whatever he was doing, after 58 years if it were to be revealed, US national security would be imperiled. 

I traded e-mails with Larry Hancock, and he seems to think there might not be much in the McClenon file. But I wonder. 

I will try to do a post on McClendon in the next couple of weeks. Just for fun. 

5 hours ago, Calvin Ye said:

Jim,  I suggest you read Ruby's trial transcripts for complete information about Ruby's whereabouts on the day Kennedy died. https://markshawbooks.com/assets/images/Jack-Ruby-Trial-Transcript-Excerpts-Exposed-2.pdf

Re KLIF radio founder Gordon McClendon---my understanding is that the file on McClendon is still under lock-and-key, despite the JFK Records Act. Does anybody know more? 

Calvin Ye--

Great stuff...but how did Ruby get into the DPD on the day of the transfer?

And yes, I subscribe to the idea that Ruby stalked LHO, and was hired on to do it.