Paul Jolliffe

1 hour ago, John Kowalski said:

Jim:

Have you or John researched Harvey's mother's origin? He referred to Judge Tunheim and an AARB document that stated that an M.Oswald was somehow connected to Nazis in New Jersey in 1941. Not sure if she was spying on them but if she was this would be evidence that she was connected to intelligence services. Contacted Tunheim's office about his AARB documents and they confirmed that he has submitted everything to NARA.

Jean Stafford's stated in her book A Mother in History that Marguerite Oswald's accent was from New York or New Jersey. She also stated that she thought that Marguerite may have taken elocution lessons. If she did take them to improve how she spoke, then why would she do this? Could she have emigrated from Europe and was attempting to change her accent to an American one?

John,

I, too, read Jean Stafford's book and was struck by precisely the same things: 

15 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Steve,

What Hyman says on page 433 (in the chapter titled Military Cooperation?) is:  

"Oswald's friend George de Mohrenschildt had CIA and military connections. DM's wife and daughter both say George got Oswald the job at Jaggers … de M was a member of the Dallas Petroleum Club which included George H. W. Bush, George Bauhe and D. H. Byrd - owner of The TSBD building.  Byrd was an owner of LTV, a major Air Force contractor, … Byrd was friends with General Doolittle and LeMay as well as LBJ.  In May 1963 LeMay awarded Byrd an Air force award for funding the Civil Air Patrol... 

"In April 1963 de M wrote a letter to LBJ , which contained the suggestion to meet with LBJ's security advisor Colonel (another one!) Howard Burris.  They did meet Burris, a Texas oil man, who was friends with General Charles Cabell and Richard Helms of the CIA."

The part about LeMay and Byrd is referenced in the end notes to Family of Secrets (Baker) pg. 410 and Devil's Chessboard (Talbot) pg. 540.  

There is nothing in FOS on pg. 410 about LeMay or Byrd or for a couple of pages each way.  Le May is not referenced in the end notes.  Byrd is a half dozen times but none mention LeMay.  I don't know what's going on here.  Wrong book?  Dr. Hyman seems legit, the book mentions many things I've seen documented elsewhere.

Chessboard's pg. 540 reveals this " The owner of the Texas School Book Depository was closely associated with a number of passionate Kennedy adversaries, including Curtis LeMay, the Air Force chief whose relentless request for a nuclear showdown with the Soviet Union caused the president to question the general's sanity.   LeMay bestowed a glowing Air Force commendation on Byrd in May 1963 for his role in founding the Civil Air Patrol."  I've not yet checked David's references yet but have come to trust them pretty well explicitly.  Wish he would post here.   

 Ron quoted David Talbot as writing: "LeMay bestowed a glowing Air Force commendation on Byrd in May 1963 for his role in founding the Civil Air Patrol."  I've not yet checked David's references yet but have come to trust them pretty well explicitly.  Wish he would post here. ""

Ron, Wikipedia says that D.H.Byrd himself supplied the source on pages 101 and 102 of his own autobiography "I'm An Endangered Species: Autobiography of a Free Enterpriser" (1978). Byrd apparently published the USAF's Scroll of Appreciation with the citation on those pages. Since I don't own Byrd's book, I can't say for certain, but I bet it is highly likely that Talbot's sentence is correct.

On 11/16/2019 at 10:50 PM, Larry Hancock said:

Actually it appears that what he was told to do was to make every effort to restrict an autopsy - first by ordering the staff at Bethesda simply to recover any bullet materials as evidence since the assassin was in custody (no need to do a full autopsy). When they rejected that he inserted himself into the actual autopsy in several ways (if you have SWHT 2010 check page 239-240).

Given that Burkley traveled back on AF1 and appears to have been involved in selecting Bethesda, and that he went directly from the plane to the autopsy I would have to say that his direction originated during the flight back to Washington.  Its far to lengthy to go into here by if you read my Chapter 15 his actions are extremely consistent with a number of others which can be traced back to Johnson - who appears to have initiated any number of actions to stop investigation of conspiracy and to suppress evidence of multiple shooters; those actions going into play at approximately the time Burkley was at Bethesda.

As to who gave Burkley the instruction,  I really can't put forth a name but I can say that what he was doing was totally in sync with other orders Johnson was giving in the same time frame.  It would be an interesting research project for someone to dig back though Manchester and other sources and try to prepare a really detailed timeline of Burkley's actions that day, including who he talked to, when.

 

Larry,

To me, the absolute proof positive that Admiral Burkley was an extremely sensitive source was the fact that the Warren Commission did NOT call him as a witness. Yet Burkley was the only man in the whole world who

1. Was riding in the Dallas motorcade when JFK was shot and

2. Was present throughout the life-saving efforts at Parkland Hospital and

3. Flew aboard Air Force One with JFK's body (and new president, LBJ) and

4. Was present throughout JFK's "autopsy" at Bethesda.

Further, Burkley's death certificate  - completed in Dallas! - totally destroyed the single-bullet theory ("a second wound occurred in the posterior back at about the level of the third thoracic vertabra.")

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=587&relPageId=2

Also, Burkley "verified" Boswell's sketch sheet, completed at the autopsy table in Bethesda. This sketch sheet showed an entrance wound in JFK's back (NOT his neck), just where Burkley's death certificate located it! Burkley signed just below where he wrote the word "VERIFIED"!!!!

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=582

The Warren Commission then published AN ALTERED COPY OF BOSWELL'S SKETCH SHEET - THEY DELIBERATELY DELETED BURKLEY'S SIGNATURE AND THE WORD "VERIFIED" !!!!!!!!

Finally, as late as 1977, Burkley was very open to telling his lawyer (at the time of the HSCA) that he had "information in the Kennedy  assassination indicating that others besides Oswald must have participated."

http://www.jfklancer.com/Dr_Burkley.html

So, in the end, I don't agree that Burkley was necessarily calling the conspiratorial shots at Bethesda. I think he had a pretty good idea what was going on and kept his mouth shut for a while.

My personal suspicion revolves around a bizarre personal experience. While on a phone call with Harold Weisberg in the early 1990's, Weisberg mentioned to me his suspicion that his phone was tapped. I dismissed it at that moment as a figment of his imagination. Weisberg however insisted that when he mentioned certain names, strange things would happen with his phone. 

OK.

He and I discussed the autopsy a few minutes later, and he said the key to uncovering the cover-up was to determine exactly who controlled the autopsy. It was the U.S. military, of course, but who?

Weisberg then dropped a name with which I (at that time) was not familiar - the Surgeon General of the U.S. Navy, Edward C. Kenney. As soon as Weisberg said "Admiral Kenney" a very audible blaring buzz began on the line. Weisberg asked me if I could hear it - of course I could! It continued for a few moments, and then stopped. 

I can't prove it, but I suspect Weisberg's phone really was tapped, and 1992 phone taps triggered by computer-recognition of key names conceivably could have made that buzzing noise. 

19 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

 

 

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80B01676R001200020047-8.pdf

Yes, I agree, Jim.

The above docs show that LeMay and Dulles were not only buddies on a first name basis, but apparently that LeMay claimed to have "searched" Dulles's office for cigars, and having found none, offered to buy some for Dulles.

(Dulles opted for Montecristo's!)

This was in 1954. 

By 1961, LeMay was USAF Chief of Staff but his buddy was on his way out of the CIA. I wonder how he reacted to that news?

(Who wants to search Series 1 - Special Personal Correspondence 1935-1964 - of the LeMay papers here?)

https://www.loc.gov/item/mm82029918/

13 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Yes, sawed off could be interpreted in more than one way.  To be honest I wondered if maybe Dulles was putting words into Ike's mouth in the first place.  What I was really getting at was this seems to support that the assassination attempts on Castro started before JFK.  I wouldn't put it past Dulles.  Some think he may have sabotaged Ike's peace talks with Khrushchev with the U2 Powers incident.  Kinzer addresses this from the perspective of Gottlieb developing the poison pin in a silver dollar Powers didn't use.  He details the Russians discovery of this and presentation at their trial of Powers. 

He also mentions on page 177 that Dulles claims in 1960 that Ike said Lumumba should be eliminated.  So Gottlieb developed a poison package.  Then delivered it in person as "Joe from Paris" to the CIA station chief in Leopoldville (they were previously acquainted).  He details why this didn't work out.

None of this excuses using Halpern as a source but it's interesting to me at least.  He does have pretty extensive notes I've not looked into yet.  

Ron,

This article does a nice job of summarizing the circumstances surrounding the U 2 shoot-down. Whether the U 2 was sabotaged or not, the effect of the shoot-down was to perpetuate the status quo for the both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. war machines. Both Eisenhower and Khrushchev saw their hopes for a reduction in their respective arms budgets dashed because of the U 2 incident. 

Personally, I'd bet serious money that Allen Dulles not only sabotaged that flight, but had arranged for the "elimination" of Francis Gary Powers in 1960, only to be foiled by Powers own sense of self-preservation. 

https://www.counterpunch.org/2009/11/27/mayday-1960/

On 10/8/2019 at 11:07 PM, Ron Bulman said:

W., your having West approve you as "in" at UCLA is fascinating.  You really need to read at least Chapter 11 of Tom O'Neill's Chaos.  I don't want to get this thread moved like the one on the book was but he relates to Ruby - JFK.

The author was looking for info on West in relation to Manson and discovered his previously ignored files, 200 boxes, in the basement of the UCLA library.  He spent two months digging.  "And then Jolly West happened."

Which led him where he didn't want to go, the JFK assassination via Jack Ruby.  

West tried to interject himself immediately (while at OU) but was rebuffed by Judge Joe Brown.  When Ruby was convicted he fired his former lawyers for the appeal.  But retained one of them, Attorney and Dr. Hubert Smith.  Who immediately brought in Dr. Jolly West.  "Nearly a half dozen psychiatrists had found him (Ruby) compos mentis."  At this point.

"West emerged from Ruby's cell (alone with him) to announce the previously sane inmate had undergone "an acute psychotic beak" sometime in the preceding forty eight hours ."

'From that day forward, every doctor who examined Ruby made similar diagnoses: he was delusional."

Peculiar ain't it?  The chapter goes much deeper on Jolly.

Given your profession and a personal connection the chapter is worth the price and your time.  Chapter 10 set's the stage for how he discovered it though. 

Ron,

This scene from the Batman movie "Dark Knight Rises" is so close to what you just described that I have to link it.

Here's Cilliian Murphy as Joly West and Tom Wilkinson as Jack Ruby (Wilkinson even resembles Ruby, if you squint!):

Check your email for a message from me.

6 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Bill.

 

Had Burroughs ever seen Oswald in the movies before?

Or anywhere else for that matter?

I don't think the WC asked him.

 

Steve Thomas

Those are good questions, Steve. "Dr. No" had been a hit movie since 1962 and "Oswald" had checked out at least four Ian Fleming novels in New Orleans in 1963, all of which would later be made into Hollywood blockbusters in the James Bond series. "Oswald" was clearly a fan of spy stories, science fiction and stories about Russian Communism.

I'd be very surprised if he hadn't seen "Dr. No" in a movie theater somewhere at some point. 

Maybe a couple of other questions for Burroughs might be "Did the Texas Theater ever show "Dr. No" or any other spy movies? What about science fiction movies?" Also, perhaps Burroughs might remember what other movies had been showing earlier that fall at the Texas Theater (before the Audie Murphy double-header).

https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh25/pdf/WH25_CE_2650.pdf

On 11/9/2019 at 10:10 PM, Ron Bulman said:

An interview of Brewer by someone along the lines of Bill could be interesting here as well.

About these two IBM employee's, why did they hang out in a shoe store, over a period of time?  That seems unusual in itself, enough one would think you'd remember thier names.  

Did you know before the assassination your co worker was tight with Ruby?  Did you know Ruby?

For starters.

Ron,

I agree that interviewing Brewer is a must. However, there is a fundamental difference between Burroughs and Brewer: we believe Butch Burroughs was essentially telling the truth as he remembered it.

However, I believe that Johnny Brewer has long suspected that he was used by someone else (the "IBM men", Tommy Rowe, someone else) who urged/cajoled/ordered Brewer to follow the stranger to the Texas Theater and to call the DPD. In other words, Johnny Brewer knows he has been telling a fundamentally dishonest story for 56 years, a story for which he has been lauded a hero.  I believe Johnny Brewer has been covering for the person/people who remained back at Hardy's Shoes that day, the ones who sent him chasing after the stranger to the Texas Theater. There is something sensitive about that person/people, something investigators did not want to touch. Brewer may yet be an informative source, even if, as I suspect, he will be hostile. 

On 11/3/2019 at 1:59 AM, Ron Bulman said:

I defer to Bill Simpich.  Like Jim D's link provides the manager question remains.  Callahan was a manger of 5 theater's at the time, previously up to 15, a general manager from downtown Dallas.  Each Theatre had it's own site manager.  Never named for the TT. Why was Callahan there at then moment, left immediately when the xxxx came down, but no operational manager ever named?  Because "They" didn't want to know.  Even though they did.

 https://www.thenewdisease.space/texas-theatre-mysteries

You're right - the Warren Commission didn't want to know about the "manager on duty." As far as I know, the projectionist was never identified, let alone interviewed, so it is possible that person could have the been the one to "clear" a second suspect in the balcony. It's also possible that the "manager on duty" was a complete outsider, unaffiliated with the Texas Theater in any professional capacity, a conspirator desperate to deflect attention from the second suspect.

Either way, because the WC did not investigate or identify this person, we can conclude (a la Peter Dale Scott's "negative template") that this person's identity was sensitive - they were "connected" to something the WC did not want publicized. 

Might someone here ask Butch Burroughs about the projectionist on duty that day? (Is Butch Burroughs still alive?)

1 hour ago, Ron Ecker said:

If LBJ had indeed re-entered the presidential race in the summer of 1968, we might would be wondering today if Hubert Humphrey had anything to do with the assassination of LBJ.

 

 

Ron,

I am not much of a fan of the NYT, but this op-ed - first link below -  on the "what-ifs" for Hubert Humphrey is worth reading in full.

It highlights Humphrey's isolation within the Johnson administration after writing his infamous February 1965 memo in which Humphrey called for a U.S. pull-out from Vietnam. Humphrey became a persona non grata to LBJ until he reversed his position in 1966, calling for more bombing and troops. That brought him back into Johnson's good graces, and he became the administration's mouthpiece on the Vietnam buildup. (And therefore, the Democratic nominee in 1968.)

Ironically, Humphrey revealed his true (?) colors in a speech in Salt Lake City in September of 1968, calling once again for a bombing halt. This so infuriated Johnson that he shunned Humphrey the rest of the campaign, which may have cost Humphrey the election. The writer even wonders whether LBJ hated Humphrey so much that he wanted Nixon to win!

Anyway, the point is that the only LBJ was going to get back into the race was as a hawk. LBJ may have hated the Vietnam War, but he did nothing to get us out of it, and there is no evidence that he had changed. If, somehow, LBJ had been re-elected in 1968, why as long as he was pro-war, then he wasn't going to get shot.

My belief (shared by Oliver Stone, apparently) is that Richard Nixon was also aware of the War Machine (and what it could do to presidents who wanted to pull-out) which is why it took him a full four years to get us out.

 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/opinion/vietnam-hubert-humphrey.html

I've long suspected that LBJ had some generalized awareness of what was to happen, but I've never seen any good evidence that he had any specific knowledge of the plot, let alone that he was a prime mover.

LBJ's question to J. Edgar Hoover on the 23rd ("Were any of those bullets aimed at me?") would seem to indicate not only a lack of specific awareness of the plot, but also a legitimate fear in Johnson's mind that, to the plotters, he too was expendable.

Equally fascinating to me is the recent revelation that LBJ was eager to re-enter the 1968 presidential race in the summer of 1968!

LBJ called Chicago's Mayor Daley and:

"LBJ only wanted to get back into the race if Daley could guarantee the party would fall in line behind him.

They also discussed whether the president's helicopter, Marine One, could land on top of the Hilton Hotel to avoid the anti-war protesters.

Daley assured him enough delegates would support his nomination but the plan was shelved after the Secret Service warned the president they could not guarantee his safety."

I believe President Johnson feared assassination every day of his presidency, and not only or even primarily from the anti-war left. Instead, I believe LBJ knew who'd paid for and plotted Kennedy's assassination, and if he crossed those men over Vietnam (or anything else), then he knew what would happen to him . . .

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21768668

1 hour ago, Ron Bulman said:

I stumbled across this thread started by Jim DiEugenio almost a year and a half ago.  A really interesting link I'd read then forgotten about.

 

Good find, Ron. I hadn't read that post either. 

A couple things strike me:

1. Julia Postal was an especially vulnerable woman with her tragic/awful family history and the out-of-wedlock birth of her first child. Could she have been pressured to tell a tale about seeing "Oswald" enter the theater, even though she witnessed no such thing? (And she all but admitted it in both her affidavit and her WC testimony!)

Absolutely.

2. Allen Dulles was a close friend of Robert Storey, a Dallas attorney (see below.) Charles Storey, another Dallas attorney, was both personally and professionally related to Robert.

Charles Story was a longstanding member of the Oak Cliff Lions Club with the infamous John Callahan, the general manager for the Rowley Theater Chain who departed the Texas Theater just around 1:30 - ish. (A man from whom no statement, affidavit, or testimony was taken. We don't even have a newspaper interview! He's yet another "mystery man.")

So, Allen Dulles to Robert Storey to Charles Storey to John Callahan to the Texas Theater . . .

3. Hardy's Shoes  was owned and controlled by Genesco, whose chairman, Maxey Jarman, was an enormously wealthy and ambitious man. Jarman served on the boards of several other corporations and foundations. He moved in elite circles in the financial and corporate world. (For example, he knew Oveta Culp Hobby, owner of the Houston Post and the most influential woman in the Eisenhower administration at a time when both Dulles brothers were in peak power.)

According to Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, "The CIA's financing mechanisms for these abuses of its charter came in the form of large subventions from American businessmen among whom Allen Dulles and Forrestal passed the hat at New York's Brook Club, getting contributions from fearful millionaires such as Arthur Amory Houghton, president of Steuben Glass; John Hay Whitney, owner of the New York Herald Tribune; and Oveta Culp Hobby, owner of the Houston Post."

The point here is that the head honcho for Hardy's was powerfully intertwined with spooky people directly connected to Allen Dulles, and most of them did not like JFK.

Now, did Johnny Brewer know any of this on 11/22/63?

I doubt it. 

I bet that Brewer was subtly pressured to follow and report the stranger at Hardy's by the man/men with whom Brewer was chatting while they listened to the radio reports. 

If anyone is up for asking Johnny Brewer directly a few questions, I'd appreciate it. If not, I'll do it:

1. Did he know Kathy Kay Coleman, her daughters, or her husband DPD officer Harry Olsen? (It's been alleged elsewhere that he did know them, but I can find no evidence, just the allegation.)

2. Was Johnny Brewer related to DPD motorcyle patrolman (and motorcade rider) E. D. Brewer? Officer Brewer reported a gunman on the second floor of the TSBD.

3. How well did Brewer know DPD Nick McDonald? (Johnny claimed in a later interview to have known the "Oswald"- disarming McDonald for months prior to 11/22/63.)

Don't ask this directly, because this is the money shot: had Johnny Brewer ever been a source, a contact, an asset, an informant or in any way a conduit of information for anyone in law enforcement at either the local, state or federal level?

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80R01731R000300080009-6.pdf

4 hours ago, Paul Bacon said:

So the conspiracy plan was to "find" Oswald in the Texas Theatre.  They needed the DPD to have a reason to look for him there.  Was it "Lee" Oswald's job to go into Hardy"s Shoes looking panicked, suspicious and afraid in order to lead "someone" (J. Brewer, or J. Brewer via T. Rowe) in the shoe store to the theatre and to call the police?  Is this what you're getting at?

Almost.

I doubt "Lee" actually was in Hardy's Shoes on the afternoon of 11/22/63. I am certain that "Harvey" was not there that afternoon. I am not even sure that the stranger in Hardy's actually looked all that panicked or suspicious or afraid, certainly not enough to warrant Brewer's following him on Brewer's own accord. 

Remember, Johnny Brewer himself told us in 1996 that he didn't really know why he was at the theater, nor exactly for whom he was to look. Note that Brewer confessed to Ian Griggs in 1996 that he did not recognize "Oswald" until he saw him in the theater.

But that raises the obvious question: why didn't Johnny Brewer recognize "Oswald" a few minutes earlier, at very close range, right in the lobby of Hardy's Shoes, a place that "Oswald" really had shopped weeks earlier, and who had acted so obnoxiously that Johnny Brewer could even recite, decades later, the exact pair of shoes that "Oswald" bought? Why didn't Brewer recognize "Oswald" until he saw him in the theater? 

I believe that the person/people with whom Brewer spoke back at Hardy's (Brewer returned to Hardy's briefly after stepping out of the store) directed him to follow and report the stranger in the Texas Theater. So, if I am correct, then both the stranger (probably) and the person/people at Hardy's (definitely) were in on the conspiracy to lead the DPD to the Texas Theater for "Oswald's" arrest (or to shoot him when he attempted to "escape". I think only "Oswald's" quick thinking - he shouted repeatedly "I am not resisting arrest, I am not resisting arrest" - saved his life.)

It is possible, of course, that the stranger at Hardy's around 1:30 was actually "Lee". However, I doubt it, simply because it would have been extremely risky for the conspirators to have "Lee" loose on the streets in Oak Cliff at a time when the entire neighborhood was crawling with cops. 

FWIW, I doubt that Johnny Brewer himself was a witting accomplice to the plot. I believe he was duped into thinking he was doing his patriotic duty. Who could have duped him? Only some person or persons whom Brewer knew and trusted as an authority figure/s. 

Brewer told us in 1996 that he'd known the two "IBM men" who remained in Hardy's that afternoon (they even helpfully locked the place up for him!) since August of 1962, yet Brewer was careful to claim he could not remember their names.

Why did Brewer hide their names from Ian Griggs?

My guess is they were some kind of law enforcement figures, and somewhere deep in his psyche, Johnny Brewer knows they duped him. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=16235&relPageId=8&search=johnny_brewer

12 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

So did Rowe move into Ruby's apartment to protect this shed out back after Ruby was arrested?  If he was that close to Ruby, worked for Brewer., was in Hardy's shoe shop with Brewer and the two IBM men hanging out...  when Oswald ducked in.  Might his claims of pointing out Oswald, instead of Brewer doing so , indicate directing him (Brewer) to Oswald?.

Ron,

My contention has been all along that Brewer was directed to the Texas Theater by someone (maybe Tommy Rowe, maybe the "IBM men", maybe Tommy Rowe was an "IBM man", maybe someone else) to report the person who had briefly been in Hardy's Shoes. 

I believe that Brewer did not head to the theater on his own accord - he admitted in 1996 that he didn't know who or why he was at the theater. 

How do I know that our "Oswald" did not step into Hardy's Shoes on 11/22/63?

Because Johnny Brewer did not recognize the man who stepped in, and "Oswald" was known to and remembered by Brewer! "Oswald" had been a memorably obnoxious customer a few weeks before, and Johnny Brewer not only remembered him, he could still describe exactly which pair of shoes "Oswald" bought decades later!

The obvious question - avoided like hell by the Warren Commission - was since Brewer knew "Oswald", why didn't he recognize him if "Oswald" actually entered Hardy's Shoes on 11/22/63?

Simple - "Oswald" didn't actually go to Hardy's Shoes on 11/22/63! It was a stranger, someone unknown to Brewer, not "Oswald."

56 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

True enough.  I only know of two sources for the Tommy Rowe story.  One is from the Garrison files, apparently summarizing an interview of Rowe with the D.A.’s staff:

The other, which may be based on the above, is from a Penn Jones piece in the Aug. 21, 1971 Midlothian Mirror.

 

Jim,

The Penn Jones piece in the Aug. 21, 1971 Midlothian Mirror, does not claim that Penn Jones himself ever talked with Tommy Rowe. It merely states that Rowe told relatives about his relationship with Ruby and his role at Hardy's Shoes. It does not even state that Penn Jones interviewed one of those relatives about Rowe's statements. Instead, it seemingly implies that Jones heard of Rowe's admissions to his relatives via some third party who, presumably, then told Penn Jones.

So, the 1971 statements could be true.

But they are far enough removed from a direct quote that I think caution is in order when assessing their validity.

Penn Jones himself admitted in print on 3/1/68 - second column below, halfway down -  that he was never able to find or interview Tommy Rowe, and that as of that date, he had given up trying. We don't know what, if anything, transpired between 3/1/68 and 8/21/71, but the above 1971 editorial never claimed anything more than what Jones said in 1968, and as of that date, Jones had never talked with Rowe.

We need to be careful here. After all, we do have a living witness, Johnny Brewer, who might yet enlighten us as to who was with him in Hardy's Shoes on that afternoon. 

8 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Ron,

 

Did you read her Affidavit that Jim Hargrove made reference to? You can see a copy in the DPD Archives in Box 2, Folder# 3, Item# 21 here:

http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/box2.htm

(With Box 2, you have to follow the numbers on the right hand side of the page)

That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. She saw Oswald duck into the Theater without paying for a ticket, and didn't do anything about it. Instead, she went outside and stood on the sidewalk looking at the police down the street. She was the one who insisted on calling the police because she knew he was running from the police because of her "woman's intuition". What a crock.

 

Steve Thomas

"What a crock."

You got that right, Steve.

Julia Postal even admitted in her affidavit that she had no idea about Johnny Brewer's suspect ("I asked him what man?") . . . 

More interesting to me from Postal's affidavit is that Brewer made not one, but TWO searches of the Texas Theater BEFORE the DPD arrived, and Brewer was unable to identify his suspect either time! Both times Brewer reported to Postal that he could not see whomever it was he was looking for! 

1. "He went in and looked, then came out and said that he didn't see him." 

2. "Then the two of them (Brewer and Burroughs) came back out, and Johnny said he just wasn't in there."

This strongly supports my contention from two months ago that Brewer understood neither why nor for whom he was to look. (His words from 1996: "What the hell am I doing here?")

Steve, you may recall my posts from that time in which I argued that Brewer had been urged/prompted/directed/ordered to follow the man from Hardy's Shoes and then to cajole Julia Postal into placing the call to the DPD. 

I pointed out then that although "Oswald" was indeed known to and remembered by Brewer ("Oswald" had been a memorably obnoxious customer at Hardy's some weeks earlier), according to the official narrative, Brewer failed to recognize "Oswald" while ducking in to Hardy's around 1:30!  This contradiction was suppressed from the narrative - since Brewer knew "Oswald" previously, why didn't he recognize him on 11/22/63?

My answer was simple: "Oswald" never stepped into Hardy's on 11/22/63! The man who stepped into Hardy's around 1:30 however briefly was unknown to Brewer. 

It is clear from all of Brewer's interviews and statements that he stepped out onto the sidewalk to watch a man head toward the Texas Theater. 

It is also clear that neither Brewer nor anyone else standing in front of Hardy's could have seen whether anyone bought a ticket to the theater. 

What happened next was systematically hidden from every filmed version of the narrative: Brewer then returned to Hardy's and spoke with at least one person there before heading up the sidewalk himself to speak with Julia Postal. 

Jim Hargrove (and John Armstrong) believe that someone named Tommy Rowe was at Hardy's and persuaded Brewer to give chase and report the suspect.

Perhaps. But the evidence for that is so incredibly thin that other possibilities ought to be considered. 

Brewer himself told us in 1996 that in fact there were two longstanding acquaintances of his (the "IBM men") with whom he spoke before setting off to the theater.

Whoever these men (or man) were/was, their presence was scrubbed from the narrative for three decades, only to be revealed in 1996. Don't believe me? Look back at the three filmed versions of the Brewer story that I posted back in August. All three were carefully edited to omit the key moment when Brewer returned to Hardy's and spoke with at least one person there!

Those men/man were conspirators, directing Brewer to get Julia Postal to make the covering call to the cops about the suspect in the theater. That's why their presence was hidden for so long. And it's also why the Julia Postal/Johnny Brewer story never made any sense - Postal never saw the suspect, and Brewer didn't know why he was to look for a stranger in the theater! Finally, that explains the two week time lag on the affidavits - it took the DPD that long to realize the flimsy Postal/Brewer narrative was needed, and to pressure Postal and Brewer to comply.

They both did, eventually.

It also explains why neither Postal nor Brewer had anything much to say about that day for decades to come.

36 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Yeah, you both make good cases against Mrs. Postal, but what documents and testimonies do you distrust the least in this case?  In her 12/4/64 affidavit, Mrs. Postal said, “...at 1:30 pm or a little later.... As the police went by, a man ducked inside the theater.... In a minute or two the police were there.... In a matter of about 10 minutes, the officers came out with the man that I had called about.”

*IF* she actually saw what she described above, which she probably didn't, my bet is that the man she saw brought out by the police looked quite a bit like the man who entered the theater just after 1:30, but wasn’t the same man.

And why on earth did it take some two weeks to get a signed affidavit from Mrs. Postal?
 

Jim asked "why on earth did it take some two weeks to get a signed affidavit from Mrs. Postal?"

For the same reason it took two weeks to get an affidavit from Johnny Brewer: the Dallas Police did not realize until then that an excuse for their arrival at the theater had to be cooked up. 

We know there were calls to the DPD dispatcher from inside the Texas Theater about the presence of "Oswald" at a time when no one knew about "Oswald". 

We also know from the Ron Reiland broadcast film that the DPD was told that their suspect entered the Texas Theater carrying a shotgun, and that the DPD reacted immediately to this news. That was what set the cops racing to the theater en masse, not the belated, incoherent phone call from the mousy Julia Postal about a man who may or may not have paid for a movie ticket.

The conspirators pre-planned the Brewer/Postal cover story, but they took no chances: the DPD were coming to the theater to arrest (kill?) "Oswald" whether Brewer was able to persuade Postal to make the covering phone call or not. 

All the conspirators needed was to tell (order) Brewer to get Postal to make the call. Then everything else would fall in place. 

What excuse did they use to get Brewer to comply?

I don't know, but the most logical explanation is that they were known to Brewer, and that he trusted them. I doubt Brewer had any idea he was a pawn in the assassination plot, a part of the frame-up of "Oswald". Whether he's ever allowed himself to contemplate "Oswald's" innocence is doubtful. 

No wonder he is reluctant to talk much about it, even today!

On 10/22/2019 at 10:55 PM, Ron Bulman said:

Not funny.   Why didn't the Warren Omission know about this, investigate it?  They weren't an investigative body.  They were dependent on Hoover and his FBI to voluntarily provide this and much more,  but didn't.  In Fact suppressed information.

Well yes, Ron. The Warren Commission not only conducted no honest investigation, they conducted no investigation at all. They only evaluated whatever "evidence" the FBI gave them. They only interviewed those witnesses cleared by the FBI. 

The Warren Commission had only one objective: to issue a report that blamed "Oswald" and "Oswald" alone for the assassination. The only acceptable "Oswald" motive for the Warren Commission was that "Oswald" was a nut.

Nothing else was permissible. 

The most benign explanation for this is that the commission members honestly believed that a cover-up was preferable to what they believed (wrongly) was the alternative: to tell the country that the president's murder was the result of a foreign-based plot. (Of course it wasn't, but this explanation says that men around Earl Warren worried about that.)

I reject that explanation.

While some of the commissioners may have believed this, Dulles and McCloy certainly knew better. No foreign power would have used "Oswald" and Ruby as assets in an assassination. Dulles knew better than anyone that "Oswald" shot no one. And Dulles and McCloy were the ultimate Wall Street insiders, men with profound and  prolonged professional and social connections to highest levels of the Deep State. 

Dulles and McCloy (and Ford?) knew perfectly well they were issuing a lie.

So who did it?

I don't know for certain, but Jefferson Morley argues that James Angleton knew exactly for whom he was covering:

 "Morley raises the possibility that Angleton "manipulated Oswald as part of an assassination plot," but admits we simply don't know. However, "he certainly abetted those who did. Whoever killed JFK, Angleton protected them. He masterminded the JFK conspiracy cover-up."

https://www.boiseweekly.com/boise/new-book-reveals-secrets-about-boise-born-spy-james-angleton/Content?oid=7397602

28 minutes ago, Steve Thomas said:

Paul,

 

I like this exchange:

Mr. BALL. And after you saw the police car go west with its siren on, why at the time the police car went west with its siren on, did you see the man that ducked?

Mrs. POSTAL. Yes; and when the sirens went by he had a panicked look on his face, and he ducked in.

Mr. BALL. Now, as the car went by, you say the man ducked in, had you seen him before the car went by, the police went by?
Mrs. POSTAL. No, sir; I was looking up, as I say, when the cars passed,

Mr. BALL. What did you see him do after became around the corner?
Mrs. POSTAL. Well, I didn't actually---

So, well, I called the police, and he wanted to know why I thought it was their man, and I said, "Well, I didn't know," and he said, "Well, it fits the description," and I have not---I said I hadn't heard the description. All I know is, "This man is running from them for some reason." And he wanted to know why, and told him because everytime the sirens go by he would duck and he wanted to know----well, if he fits the description is what he says. I said, "Let me tell you what he looks like and you take it from there." And explained that he had on this brown sports shirt and I couldn't tell you what design it was, and medium height, ruddy looking to me, and he said, "Thank you,"

 

Everytime the sirens went by?  How many sirens did go by? How many times was he "ducking"

How could the police operator know Oswald fit the description before Postal even gave it to him?

 

Steve Thomas

 

 

 

 

Steve Thomas

 

Amen, Steve.

There is no way that Julia Postal saw Brewer's suspect. She couldn't even relate a coherent story before the Warren Commission, and they had to know it!

Suborning perjury is a felony, and Joseph Ball was guilty as hell. 

U.S. Law

In American federal law, Title 18 U.S.C. § 1622 provides:

Whoever procures another to commit any perjury is guilty of subornation of perjury, and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

The term subornation of perjury further describes the circumstance wherein an attorney at law causes a client to lie under oath or, allows another party to lie under oath.^[1][2]

On 10/24/2019 at 9:06 AM, Jim Hargrove said:

The post by Mr. Simpich shows clearly how poor the “investigation” into the events at the Texas Theater really was.  Not only was the list of theater patrons lost,  manager John Callahan was never questioned by the police, nor the FBI, nor the sheriff’s department, nor the Warren Commission, even though his timing leaving the theater seems utterly bizarre, at least as described by Mrs. Postal.

Worse yet, there is no indication that there was any attempt to identify the so-called  “manager on duty” described in Det. John Toney’s report. The non-existent “manager on duty” falsely claimed that the Oswald-type character in the balcony had been in the theater since 12:05 pm, when, in fact, the theater didn’t open until 12:45.  If this “manager on duty” was not John Callahan, and the evidence clearly suggests he wasn’t, he may well have been a conspirator providing a much needed alibi for the Oswald who led police to the theater. 

There is no indication that Det. Toney even bothered to get or report the name of this “manager on duty.” Nor was there any attempt to identify him later, at least that I’m aware of.  It is shameful!  This false manager might have provided a direct link to the conspirators who set up "Lee Harvey Oswald" as the patsy in this case.

Jim,

I don't believe Julia Postal saw anyone "ducking in" as later described by Johnny Brewer. By her own admission, she had left the ticket booth and was facing WEST on Jefferson a the time of the alleged "duck in". In her own words, she then turned around (now facing east) to see Brewer and answer his question about the stranger. (Remember, Hardy's Shoes, the place from which Brewer's suspect had allegedly came, was EAST of the Texas Theater.)

Mr. BALL. What did you see him do after he came around the corner?
Mrs. POSTAL. Well, I didn't actually----because I stepped out of the box office and went to the front and was facing west. I was right at the box office facing west, because I thought .the police were stopping up quite a ways. Well, just as I turned around then Johnny Brewer was standing there and he asked me if the fellow that ducked in bought a ticket, and I said, "No; by golly, he didn't," and turned around expecting to see him.
Mr. BALL. And he had ducked in?
Mrs. POSTAL. And Mr. Brewer said he had been ducking in at his place of business, and he had gone by me, because I was facing west, and I said, "Go in and see if you can see him," it isn't too much people in there. So, he came and says, well, he didn't see him, and I says, "Well, he has to be there." So I told him to go back and check----we have exit doors, behind--one behind the stage and one straight through, and asked him to check them, check the lounges because I knew he was in there. Well, he just had to be.
Mr. BALL. The last time you had seen him before he ducked in, he was just standing outside of the door, was he?
Mrs. POSTAL. No, sir; he was still just in (WHERE JULIA? WHERE WAS THIS MAN? "Still"IN A POLICE CAR MAYBE, ABOUT TO GET OUT, OR "STILL JUST IN"  WHAT?) ----just off of the sidewalk, and he headed for the theater.

"Still" just off of the sidewalk" ???

If someone is "still" "just off of the sidewalk", then that someone is NOT on the sidewalk. 

Did Brewer's man wobble into the street?

Did Brewer's man emerge from a vehicle?

Did Brewer's man even exist?

I don't believe Julia Postal ever saw Johnny Brewer's suspect. She had no idea about the guy Johnny Brewer described. She was facing the wrong way - that's why she told Brewer to go in and look for him. She didn't know for whom to look!

(Johnny Brewer didn't know either - he was prompted/cajoled/directed by the two mysterious "men" (obviously law enforcement for whom Brewer was a regular contact, cough, cough)  in Hardy's Shoes to chase and report a suspect - but that's a separate topic.)

I highlighted Postal's testimony in which she all but admitted that she never saw a suspect. According to the official transcript, she stopped herself just in time. But, of course, Jim has shown that games were played with the transcripts all the time, so who knows what she really said?

On 10/21/2019 at 11:51 PM, Ron Bulman said:

I've read about Wallace working at Temco with Byrd as a part owner.  But not about Truly being a co director of Byrd's parent company for the TSBD.  Superintendent of the facility and operations is one thing.  Co director of the company that owned it would imply greater responsibility and a greater chance that he had a actual working relationship of some sort with Byrd, wouldn't it?

I'd never read about De Mohrenschildt working for Three States Natural Gas, owned by Byrd, either.

If you throw in him creating the Civil Air Patrol that brought together Oswald and Ferrie it makes one wonder about Byrd.

Next you add Byrd reportedly taking his first ever African hunting trip at the time of the assassination as I read somewhere years ago, if true.  If true could it be a case of Roy, I don't want affiliated with this, you let them do what ever they want.  I'm going hunting.  Speculation.

Then there's the window frame.  The "snipers nest" window frame Byrd supposedly had removed and mounted in his game or trophy room.  I read about it in a east Texas promotional magazine for one of the cities there in just the last couple of years.  It was being auctioned off or disposed of in an estate sale, in Dallas???   Anyway a local business had obtained it and put it on display.  But I digress from Truly.

Addendum.

 

Ron, 

According to O.V. Campbell, the wrong window was removed. Campbell quoted Truly who accompanied the carpenter team that removed the window on Byrd's instructions, the the westernmost window on the sixth floor was removed, not the one in the southeast corner.

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/WindowAuthenticity001.pdf

Now, as to Jim DiEugenio's question about Truly, well Roy Truly never gave a coherent reason for suspecting "Oswald" within minutes of (supposedly) clearing "Oswald" in the infamous 2nd floor lunchroom encounter with Marrion Baker.

Since I doubt that (lunchroom) encounter occurred in the manner described in the Warren Report, Truly's actions a few minutes later become much more psychologically plausible - he was prepared to point the finger at "Oswald." 

Only later did Truly have to help invent the lunchroom encounter story, which upon examination, not only fell apart from a timing perspective, but also never made any sense psychologically!

If the lunchroom encounter at 12:31 ish was real, then Truly could never have accused missing "Oswald" of complicity just a few minutes later! Truly did not then, nor did he ever formulate a reason to suspect "Oswald" of anything at that moment!

Yet we know that Truly did point the accusing finger at "Oswald" so therefore, the lunchroom encounter never happened . . .

6 hours ago, David Josephs said:

Agreed Paul... and here are some of the names...  One I just noticed missing: The owners of TEXTRON who bought Bell Helicopter via a lucrative load from an Insurance Co.

McGeorge Bundy  "Well, it is alarming to have a president who doesn't know what he is doing." ~ McGeorge Bundy

==============

The book (THE WISE MEN) identifies six people who were important foreign policy advisors to U.S. Presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson and were influential in the development of Cold War era foreign policy for America. The six are:

Dean Acheson, Secretary of State under President Harry Truman
Charles E. Bohlen, U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, the Philippines, and France
W. Averell Harriman, Special Envoy for President Franklin Roosevelt
George F. Kennan, Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, State Dept. Director of Policy Planning
Robert A. Lovett, Truman's Secretary of Defense
John J. McCloy, a War Department official and later U.S. High Commissioner for Germany.

The group comprised two lawyers, two bankers, and two diplomats. Five of the six were from the so-called Georgetown Set. Acheson, Harriman, and Lovett had known each other since their days at prep school or college and on Wall Street. Bohlen, Kennan and McCloy were younger and did not know the others well until their public lives brought them into close contact.[3]

Most of these men, Lovett and McCloy in particular, were strongly influenced by Secretary of War Henry Stimson. Elihu Root, Stimson's mentor, is often regarded as the prototypical "wise men."

============================

Also take a look at Deputy Director of Defense Roswell Gilpatric and the partners of Cravath, Swaine and Moore (McCloy, 

He graduated from Yale University in 1928, Phi Beta Kappa; and then from Yale Law School in 1931, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. Following his graduation, Gilpatric went to work for the New York City law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he became a partner and where he practiced when not serving in government. Gilpatric owed much of his political cachet to his special relationship with the celebrated lawyer, diplomat and investment banker Robert A. Lovett, to whom Gilpatric was a protégé.

Gilpatric served as Under Secretary of the Air Force from 1951-1953. During 1956 and 1957, Gilpatric was a member of the Rockefeller Brothers' Special Studies Project. Gilpatric was a childhood friend of Governor Nelson Rockefeller.[7]

==============================

Another partner - Seymour P. Gilbert, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in Woodrow Wilson and Warren G. Harding's administrations... this is during the creation of the FED.

 

The "Sponsor" level of the crime resides within and above the Military Industrial Congressional Complex... to me Bundy was both Sponsor and Facilitator...

DJ

David,

What's your take on McGeorge Bundy's role in the critical revision of the draft of NSAM 273, the one prepared for (presumably JFK) on Thursday, 11/21/63 in Honolulu but then finalized the next week in Washington for LBJ?

http://www.jfklancer.com/NSAM273.html

4 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

And, to continue Paul's point, the very next day Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach wrote the infamous memo that called for a cover-up... I mean a determination of "Oswald's" lone guilt.. before the Warren Commission was even organized.

An easier to read reproduction of the above document can be seen at this address:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=62268#relPageId=29&tab=page

 

 

Actually, Jim, it's a little bit better than that - Katzenbach hand wrote his draft of this memo on Sunday evening, November 24. Harold Weisberg dug out the longhand version, hand-written on a yellow legal pad. As Weisberg noted to me, it was not typed on Sunday evening because no typists were available on Sunday evenings. So, the memo above, typed on Monday, November 25, was actually prepared within just a very few hours of "Oswald's" murder, and shortly after Katzenbach had received at least two separate phone calls from Eugene Rostow, telling/pressuring/cajoling him to get LBJ to create the Warren Commission.

Rostow was so concerned that his message had not resonated with Katzenbach that he then placed the infamous call to Bill Moyers before 4 o'clock on Sunday afternoon. That call was taped, and in it, we can hear Rostow crank up the pressure on Moyers to get LBJ to act.

So, this memo, in which Katzenbach laid out the basics of the coverup before "Oswald" was even cold, was the immediate result of intense pressure on the Johnson administration from outside the U.S. government. 

That pressure came from the conspirators, and Eugene Rostow was their mouthpiece .  .   .

On 9/28/2019 at 12:13 PM, Lawrence Schnapf said:

I genuinely believe that the passions of the time and LBJ's need to show strength  would have led to a world war if the lone gunman theory was not reached. There would have been enormous pressure to punish castro or USSR (even though it was likely rightwing conspiracy). So maybe he really did save the lives of us on this thread. I'd give them all a mulligan if they just came out now and admitted that they lied because they thought that was what was best for the country.

The irony in your position is, of course, that had they conducted a real investigation, an honest investigation, there would have been no danger of WWIII: neither the Soviets nor the Cubans assassinated President Kennedy!

 By failing to investigate the crime, those who thought they knew what was best for the country actually increased the possibility of a nuclear armageddon! Once the "Oswald did it all by himself" facade fell away, the finger of suspicion would fall on the Communists in the USSR and Cuba and no belated admission that the original "investigation" was deliberately botched for "benign" reasons would have been accepted.

The JFK murder was carried out by forces within the United States (almost certainly under the general direction of Allen Dulles, although he was not the ultimate sponsor. Even Dulles could not have acted without the tacit approval of super elites here.) Peter Dale Scott has long argued that the crime was plotted in such a way as to seemingly threaten national security and therefore, a built-in incentive to find a "lone-nut, no conspiracy" solution was enormous.

But that only makes sense if the investigators honestly believed that "Oswald" shot the president. Since the evidence against "Oswald" was so deficient, any investigator had to know the reason he was killed was not so much to shut his mouth, but to hide the weakness of the pre-fabricated case against him. Only a dead "Oswald" spared the conspirators the certainty that the planted evidence against him would fall apart at a trial. 

Dead "Oswald", no trial. No trial, no testing of the evidence. No testing of the evidence, no revelation that the assasination was actually a conspiracy.