Paul Jolliffe
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Posts posted by Paul Jolliffe
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3 hours ago, Andrej Stancak said:
As pointed out by several astute researchers before me, Mr. Buell Wesley Frazier commented on the location of a lady who worked in a Depository office in his interview for the Sixth Floor Museum on June 21, 2002. When asked by the interviewer, Mr. Gary Mack, if the lady stood to his left or right, Mr. Frazier replied at an instant that the lady stood to his left. His verbal response was accompanied by turning briefly his gaze leftward and pointing with his left hand toward his left. The frames below were selected from stills starting 53'33'. To Mr. Frazier's left means in the direction of where Mr. Shelley stood.
Impressive work, Andrej.
So Buell Wesley Frazier said there was a woman (did he know Sarah Stanton by sight?) to his left, not to his right, just where Prayerman is found. If anyone could get Buell Wesley Frazier to confirm that the woman to his left was indeed Sarah Stanton, then that would destroy the idea that Prayerman was Stanton. Is anyone in a position to show the family photo of the gray-haired, heavy-set Sarah Stanton to Frazier, and to record his answer?
Did Bill Shelley ever confirm the existence of an older woman right behind him? How tall, exactly, was Bill Shelley? If the top of Stanton's hair is indeed visible above Shelley's hair, then was he standing on a step, or was he very short?
Thanks for your work on this.
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8 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:
I agree about Don Gibson. His work was really unique.
When you say The Kennedy Assassination Cover Up Revisited , are you referring to the second edition of that book?
I presume it is. It was published in 2005. I have this on the table beside me at this moment:
https://www.amazon.com/Kennedy-Assassination-Cover-up-Revisited/dp/1594546444
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13 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:
Paul, I thought Don said it was Jock Whitney who came out with the first LHO as maladjusted sociopath story?
But that is interesting about Dulles and Reston. Reston was such a slime for the CIA. What page of the book is that on?
Jim,
Beginning on page 24 of '"The Kennedy Assassination Cover-Up Revisited", Don Gibson's section entitled "The Media Solves The Case From Afar" has an extended discussion of the NYT's role in shaping/creating the narrative. On November 23 (while "Oswald" was still very much alive and - presumably - awaiting trial) the NYT's Tom Wicker used the phrase "THE assassin" or "THE sniper" or "THE killer" (emphasis mine) five times in his front page description of the shooting.
Even better, as Gibson noted about James "Scotty" Reston's page one story (remember, this is less than 24 hours later - nobody knows anything at this moment! The backyard photos haven't even been "discovered" yet! The "prints" on the rifle have yet to be identified! Hoover is telling LBJ at that very moment that there was a second man down in Mexico City! etc. etc. etc.!) "Reston not only has it down to one person, but he is already offering up a diagnosis with what was wrong with this individual. This is truly impressive, especially since those in Dallas close to the investigation were saying explicitly that they thought Oswald was quite sane."
I love Gibson's sardonic, understated tone: "This performance did not seem to hurt Reston's career. He was promoted to associate editor in 1964 and then to executive editor in 1968. Reston brought Tom Wicker to New York as an associate editor."
After reading the excellent review of Mal Hymen's book in "Kennedys and King", I am going to buy it.
But I strongly urge every single reader here to read Donald Gibson's works, either "The Kennedy Assassination Cover-Up" or "The Kennedy Cover-Up Revisited". Here is the relevant section:
Here's the original NYT article from James "
CIA shill" Reston from 11/23/63. The first paragraph set the tone . . . -
50 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:
Yes, I recall Lisa Pease writing about that program.
Angleton was influential in the media, especially with the NY Times.
Can you imagine them trusting a nut like him?
Don't answer that.
Jim,
Have you read Steven Kinzer's "The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles and their secret world war"? According to Wiki, Kinzer portrayed the NYT's James Reston as "a key contact of former CIA chief Allen Dulles who had collaborated with the CIA in Operation Mockingbird, in which the agency sought to influence global reporting and journalism."
Was there another key CIA contact/asset/mouthpiece/shill at the NYT besides James Reston?
Donald Gibson pointed out years ago that James "Scotty" Reston at the New York Times was the first one in print to identify LHO as "a lone-nut communist" - this while "Oswald" was still alive! At that moment on Saturday, November 23, 1963, no one could be sure of anything about "Oswald's" connections or motivations, let alone whether he was actually guilty of murdering the president. Yet that did not stop the James Reston and the NYT from making the pronouncement that eventually became the "official" position - "Oswald" did it, he did it alone, and he did it because he was a "nut" (and maybe a communist "nut"!)
James Reston - just another S.O.B. who made his living misleading the American public.
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4 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:
That was a really interesting press conference Shane.
Twenty years later and McCord was still denying any CIA involvement in Watergate and accusing Dean of trying to trash the CIA. Which I don't recall him doing.
Then when someone quotes Sturgis as saying it was such an operation, McCord then says Sturgis is a pathological xxxx just like Oliver Stone, Jim Garrison and Fletcher Prouty.
Do not forget in reflecting on those outbursts that when McCord was in his nineties, a few months before he died, he was still denying the CIA had any kind of anti FPCC program and that he was a part of it. And he told Baldwin he was in Dallas on the day of the assassination.
How could anyone believe this guy on anything?
Jim,
I agree. To me, the bottom line is that McCord was silent on Watergate until it seemed the Nixon legal strategy might be to blame the break in on the CIA (something that Nixon himself told Haldeman on the infamous "smoking gun" tape of June 23, 1972.)
To guys like McCord, anything was OK as long as the finger was not pointed at the CIA. Now the bigger question is why? Was McCord's anger at the Nixon strategy solely motivated by loyalty to the CIA, or was there fire in the smoke of Nixon's veiled threat - that an open-ended FBI investigation would take a look at E. Howard Hunt, and: "Of course, this is a, this is a Hunt, you will-that will uncover a lot of things. You open that scab there’s a hell of a lot of things and that we just feel that it would be very detrimental to have this thing go any further. This involves these Cubans, Hunt, and a lot of hanky-panky that we have nothing to do with ourselves. "?
I am sure that guys like Hunt and McCord were CIA loyalists right to their deaths, misleading the public - and their own families - with their final statements.
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13 hours ago, Tony Krome said:
I just added more to the first post from the article;
Tony,
Any idea on which "Washington, D.C. television broadcast" six hours before the RFK assassination did Mark Lane reveal RFK's suspicions about JFK's murder?
That would be a clip worth having!
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4 hours ago, Douglas Caddy said:
How Robert Caro Missed LBJ’s End Run Around JFK’s Rejection of his Power Grab over National Security
Thanks, Douglas, for posting this fascinating article by Phillip Nelson. I have long suspected that "mainstream" biographers of any of the major figures of postwar America have little interest in deviating from the generally received narrative of events, especially as those events may relate to 11/22/63. Robert Caro's work, painstaking in detail as it may be in many areas of LBJ's life, has little relevance to those of us on this forum, simply because Caro chose to ignore anything that "didn't fit."
Having said that, it is a stretch to argue that because LBJ had established a backchannel to the JCS (via his aide, Col. Howard Burris - unbeknownst to JFK) that therefore LBJ was actually in on the plot prior to 11/22/63. Nor does Nelson offer any evidence for it. Sure, LBJ knew and interacted with many shady characters; yes LBJ was a manipulative, ruthless operator; no doubt LBJ's vaulting ambition propelled him toward the White House in ways that would have seemed Machiavellian to lesser mortals.
But there is no evidence that the ultimate sponsors of the plot came from LBJ's immediate circle. If anything, Don Gibson's work on the creation of the Warren Commission shows that enormous pressure came from private sources, outside the government, to create the Warren Commission, the legal body that made the cover-up possible and submitted a false solution to the world. In Gibson's view (one with which I agree completely), LBJ was a victim of this pressure.
We don't know for certain why LBJ acquiesced in creating the Warren Commission. We know he resisted it initially on November 24 and 25. We also know that something happened around the 26th or the 27th, because by the 29th, LBJ was "on board" with its creation.
My guess?
Someone outside the government, privy to the skeletons in LBJ's closet, made a very subtle but very effective offer to LBJ, one that he could not refuse: create the Warren Commission, or (???) would be revealed.
He authorized its creation, and with it, no proper investigation of the president's murder was undertaken.
Nor has one ever since.
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7 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:
You’re right, Tony. The existing transcript of his testimony describes it as a “light tan shirt.”
Mr. BELIN - Could you describe the man that you saw running down toward the station wagon?
Mr. CRAIG - Oh, he was a white male in his twenties, five nine, five eight, something like that; about 140 to 150; had kind of medium brown sandy hair--you know, it was like it'd been blown--you know, he'd been in the wind or something--it was all wild-looking; had on--uh--blue trousers--
Mr. BELIN - What shade of blue? Dark blue, medium or light?
Mr. CRAIG - No; medium, probably; I'd say medium. And, a--uh--light tan shirt, as I remember it.
Mr. BELIN - Anything else about him?
Mr. CRAIG - No; nothing except that he looked like he was in an awful hurry.Later, though, when he saw who he thought was the same man in Fritz’s office he was wearing a white T-shirt.
Mr. BELIN - What about his shirt?
Mr. CRAIG - I believe, as close as I can remember, a T-shirt--a white T-shirt.
Mr. BELIN - All right. But you didn't see him in a lineup? You just saw him sitting there?
Mr. CRAIG - No; he was sitting there by himself in a chair--off to one side.This appears to be my mistake rather than John A's. On my website he wrote Craig saw a man in a "light colored shirt."
At 12:40 P.M., Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig was standing on the south side of Elm Street when he heard a shrill whistle coming from across the street. He saw a man with sandy brown hair, wearing faded blue trousers and a light colored shirt, hurrying toward the street. A light green Nash Rambler station wagon with a chrome luggage rack, driven by a husky latin man, with short, dark hair, was was moving slowly west on Elm Street. The vehicle suddenly stopped and the man, a white male in his early 20's, wearing a light colored shirt, about 5'9” tall and 140-150 pounds, ran across the lawn that was adjacent to the Elm Street extension and got into the station wagon. Craig was unable to cross Elm Street, due to heavy traffic, and watched as the car drove west on Elm, under the triple underpass, and headed in the direction of Oak Cliff.
Below, also from the website, are a series of pictures depicting what John believes was the Nash Rambler Oswald's movements toward the car. The bottom one seems to show a man in a white shirt getting into a car.
It's hard to see a luggage rack toward the back as described by Craig, but there could be one there. This car seems to have the same deep wheel wells, the same basic grill, the slightly spaced headlights, and the same hood as a 1961 Nash Rambler Cross Country station wagon. It's impossible to say for certain, but Deputy Craig saw the car in person and believed that's what it was.
Is this the make and model of the car seen by Craig, and photographed by Jim Murray?
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1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:
Nice catch Paul.
This means that, of all the photos Reed took after the shooting, only two don't seem to fit the official story of Oswald getting away. I wonder if it's possible that those two actually did fit the official story (as planned by the perpetrators), but the story was shortened by the WC/FBI.
I can't test this theory because I'm not familiar with the streets and landmarks in that part of Dallas. (Or in any part for that matter.)
The photos that don't seem to match the story are #10 and #14. It would be great if somebody could figure out where these photos were taken. If it turns out the are along the official escape route, my guess would be that they indeed were meant to reflect those parts of the escape route.
Sandy,
#10 and #14 were both taken on Jefferson Avenue, very near the Texas Theater. #10 is looking west from the Texas Theater, on the opposite side of Jefferson. #14 is a street shot just slightly to the west of #1. On the left margin of #1, you can see the edge a sign that, as Reed panned his camera left, we can now read as the Thomas Furniture Mart in #14.
So, it would appear that all 14 extant shots from Stuart Reed could have been used to photo-illustrate the "flight of the assassin", especially as he made his way west on Jefferson from the Shoe Store to the Texas Theater.
Here is today's Google Maps streetview for #10:
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16 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:
Jim,I'd like to have considerably stronger evidence than that before using the word "proof." Also, I prefer that the evidence make a lot of sense. While creation of a sort of scrapbook of the movements of a patsy is a possible endeavor, it seems quite unnecessary to me and so it doesn't make as much sense as I'd like for my primary evidence. To me this is more along the lines of supporting evidence.
It would be helpful to know if the four photos we have are the only four on the roll of film, or at least were taken in succession. If Reed took numerous photos and the four we have were selected from them (as in "cherry picked"), that would lessen the impact. (I'm not accusing anybody here of cherry picking... it could have been that the FBI who cherry picked those four photos.)
It would also be helpful to know if Reed had intelligence ties.
Sandy,
According to Southeastern Louisiana University, they have 14 Stuart L. Reed slides in their collection. (These may not be all the ones he took that day, however.)
Here they are:
http://www.prayer-man.com/stuart-reed/#lightbox[group]/1/
A couple of comments:
Notice on slide #1, Reed was looking eastward on Jefferson Avenue, right at Hardy's Shoes. Although I can't quite make out the Hardy's Shoes sign, the store is just to the right of the "Austin Shoes" sign. So, adding to the pile, our man Reed just happened to take a photo of the storefront (from a distance) in which the suspect loitered while avoiding the cops. "Oswald" would have had to walk past these stores to get to the Texas Theater, according to the official narrative.
Wow. (Here is the block today - Hardy's Shoes is now Liz Bridal and Quinceanera - in the maroon awning.)
Secondly, notice that although this collection has slide #7, the westbound image apparently of the McWatters bus stuck in traffic on Elm, there is no corresponding eastward image of the bus, as reproduced in Robert Groden's book "The Search For Lee Harvey Oswald" and also on John and Jim's "Harvey & Lee" website. and seen below.
All I can guess is that the FBI withheld that image somehow. Too conspiratorial, probably. Also note that the quality of the reproductions on the SELU website is very poor - way too much contrast. If we compare the SELU and Groden images, for example, of the westbound bus, it is clear that Reed took some high quality photos, but we have only late generation reprints on the SELU website.
Finally, note slide #9 which is a backward looking, eastbound shot through the rear window as the vehicle leaves Dealey Plaza after crossing the Triple Underpass. The TSBD is in the background. This photo followed the route not only of the presidential limo, but also the "fleeing assassin", regardless of whether said assassin left via the station wagon or a taxi.
Speaking of which: Ruth Paine owned a light blue/green 1955 Chevy Bel Air station wagon. How in the world did that get changed to a Nash Rambler?
I
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2 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:
That’s pretty funny, Tony. I have to admit the “Man in the White Suit” look really doesn’t match my image of our patsy.
But Harvey Oswald’s whereabouts for the weeks prior to the assassination have been under a microscope for more than half a century, and no one knows this data better than John Armstrong….
Harvey checked out of the YMCA on October 4th, spent the nights of the 4th, 5th, and 6th at Ruth Paine’s house, and then moved into one of Mrs. Bledsoe’s bedrooms at 621 N. Marsalis on Oct. 7th. He used her phone (WH 2-1985) to call Marina and tell her had had rented a room. He gave Marina the WH 2-1985 number, and Marina subsequently contacted him there to tell him that R.L. Adams from the Texas Employment Commission was trying to contact him. Mrs. Bledsoe let him make other calls from her phone looking for a job.
If you have any evidence that contradicts this timeline, both John and I would LOVE to hear about it. We want to get these details right, which isn't made much easier by the bang-up investigation our tax dollars funded.
Jim,
I am with you on this one: I think it is more likely than not that "Oswald" rented a room from Mary Bledsoe for a few days in early October, 1963.
But Tony's point about Bledsoe's dubious identification of "Oswald" on the McWatters bus is valid, too. As I pointed out earlier, both McWatters and Roy Milton Jones made it clear that Mary Bledsoe did not board the bus until AFTER "Oswald" had departed - so she could not possibly have identified him on the bus!
The Secret Service put her up to that because neither McWatters nor Jones could positively identify the man who boarded the bus on Elm near Griifin as "Oswald". They did not rule him out, they did not say it wasn't him, their vague descriptions do not preclude him, merely that they simply could not say much about the man who rode on the bus for only a few blocks before exiting.
Why did the Secret Service want to firm up "Oswald" on the bus?
Simply to quash the Roger Craig identification of a different LHO leaving Dealey Plaza via the station wagon.
So, "Oswald" really did rent a room from Bledsoe in October, but Bledsoe did not see "Oswald" on McWatters bus in November. She was put up to that.
In short, I believe both Tony and Jim have some truth to their comments.
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Jim,
A nice summary of John's arguments in favor of a suspect on the McWatters bus and Whaley taxi.
A couple of minor points:
I seriously doubt that Mary Bledsoe actually boarded the McWatters bus downtown in time to see our "Oswald" board. That's not the way either Roy Milton Jones or Cecil McWatters remembered it. Both Jones and McWatters had her boarding after the bus had cleared Dealey Plaza - long after the "Oswald" person had exited. Here is McWatters' relevant testimony:
Mr. BALL - Didn't some lady say something?
Mr. McWATTERS - Well, yes, sir.
Now, as we got on out on Marsalis, along about it was either Edgemont or Vermont, I believe it was Vermont Street, there was a lady who was fixing to cross the intersection and I stopped and asked her if she was going to catch the bus into town from the opposite direction, and she said that she was and I told her that we was off schedule, that the other bus had done went into town, and I asked her did she care to just ride on to the end of the line and come back and she wouldn't have to stand there and wait, and she was getting on, and I asked her had she heard the news of the President being shot, at the time that was all I knew about it, and she said, "No, what are you--you are just kidding me."
I said, "No, I really am not kidding you." I said, "It is the truth from all the reliable sources that we have come in contact with," and this teenage boy sitting on the side, I said "Well, now, if you think I am kidding you," I said, "Ask this gentleman sitting over here," and he kind of, I don't know whether it was a grinning or smile or whatever expression it was, and she said, "I know you are kidding now, because he laughed or grinned or made some remark to that effect."
And I just told her no it wasn't no kidding matter, but that was part of the conversation that was said at that time. "Jim, this lady can only be Bledsoe, because the conversation between McWatters, Bledsoe and Jones mirrors perfectly, yet Jones and McWatters both said she got on after "Oswald" left!
That's why Bledsoe's description of what shirt "Oswald" was wearing was bizarre - she was describing how "Oswald's" shirt looked after he had been forcibly removed from the Texas Theater - but she never saw him that day!
The Secret Service put her up to it because neither McWatters nor Jones could identify "Oswald" as the man who boarded the westbound bus somewhere around Griffin Street. This is not to say that our "Oswald" didn't get on that bus - he did - but that neither of the men could say so for sure.
I think William Whaley was telling the truth about our "Oswald" riding in his taxi - but it wasn't to "Neches" Street. "Oswald" rode to Beckley and Neely. Why did he get out there? Because he clearly suspected that something had gone wrong, and he was starting to "wing it." (The cops who picked him up at 1026 N. Beckley got him back in line and took him to the Texas Theater, but I think "Oswald" had started to go off the reservation for a few minutes.) "Oswald" got off the McWatters bus (just in time to avoid the sudden police search) and instead of being intercepted by Tippit, waiting at the GLOCO station overlooking the Houston Street viaduct, he took that weird roundabout route to 1026 N. Beckley.
Anyway, here's Whaley explaining the cab ride. Note the drop off point - just three blocks from that strange address 214 W. Neely - a place in which "Oswald" vehemently denied ever living.
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15 hours ago, David Josephs said:
Hey there Paul....
"confess" to what... do you think?
- Accessory after the fact?
- Direct Accessory - in that the confession would state he knew a rifle was in the bag and he helped Oswald go get it and get it into the TSBD?
- The murder itself? There is no image of Wesley before we see him on the steps AFTER the shooting.as to speculating about jail time and such, IDK.... do you get the impression that Fritz would just say nothing and leave after Wesley threatens him with retaliatory violence should they want to try and "make" him sign.... "I'll get in a few good licks before you take me..." he says to Fritz, or something to that effect.
Seems strange to me that DPD cops and whoever else was in there just let that slide....
David,
Well, I can only speculate here, but maybe:
The DPD wanted Frazier to confess to knowing about "Oswald's" rifle in the bag. (Direct Accessory, but maybe they'd induce Frazier with the hint that he didn't know about "Oswald's" plans to shoot JFK, and therefore, he could save himself by buttressing the case against "Oswald.")
Why?
Because as of Friday evening, there was exactly zero evidence that "Oswald" had transported a rifle into the TSBD. The DPD needed the bag story to get a rifle into the TSBD.
Remember that the DPD was clearly conflicted on Friday night about the "curtain rods" story - they actually brought Frazier back to HQ to give him the polygraph about it, which (supposedly) he passed. And therefore (supposedly) Frazier was telling the truth, and therefore (supposedly) "Oswald" was lying in his denial about bringing a suspicious bag to work.
I agree with you that "Oswald" did not bring any bag approaching 36" or 27" or any other major size to work. (He may have brought a much smaller lunch bag, but nothing remarkable - he did eat a simple lunch that day, after all.)
So why did Fritz and the other cops let Frazier's threatened physical retaliation slide?
Well, we know things were proceeding hot and heavy at that moment: the FBI had seized the "evidence" (including the rifle, whatever it was, recovered from the TSBD).
Did Fritz get word that the FBI had "traced" the rifle back to Oswald, and therefore the case against "Oswald" no longer needed firming up from Frazier?
The timing is tight, but maybe it works - I get the impression that Frazier's confrontation with Fritz happened before the FBI could have officially "cinched" the case against "Oswald" with the physical evidence. (Remember, supposedly the FBI did not match up the Klein's order form until sometime around 4:00 am Chicago time. But, since those documents were almost certainly phony anyway, maybe the FBI let slip earlier what they expected to "find" at Klein's later.)
But still, that's the only logical answer I can think of to your good question: why did Fritz back down to Frazier?
Did Fritz on Friday night suddenly get word through FBI channels (official or otherwise) that the FBI could or would make the (phony) case against "Oswald" on its own, and therefore Frazier's (phony) "confession" was no longer necessary?
That's my guess.
Jesse Curry certainly hinted at it under oath:
Mr. CURRY - I believe I told them it had been reported that we had an FBI report that they had been able to trace that weapon where he had ordered it from Chicago, and it had been picked up under the name of Hidell and that the handwriting was the same on the order blank as Oswald's.
Mr. RANKIN - Was this told to a news conference or over the TV?
Mr. CURRY - Well, the TV was there. It was not a news conference. I was walking down the hall, and they surrounded me.
Mr. RANKIN - Did you tell them anything else about the evidence you had against Oswald?
Mr. CURRY - I only told them I believed that we had some other evidence, but I didn't tell them what it was.
Mr. RANKIN - Did you ever tell them any more about the evidence that you had- against Oswald?
Mr. CURRY - I don't believe so; I don't recall it.
Mr. RANKIN - Did you ever tell them about the evidence you had against Oswald concerning the Tippit shooting?
Mr. CURRY - No, sir; I don't believe I made any comment.
Mr. RANKIN - Do you know about when this was made, these statements were made about the evidence?
Mr. CURRY - I believe this was on Friday, the 22d, during the late evening. -
Jim,
I own Curry's book and I read it cover to cover last summer, and no, that quote is not in it. However, he makes it clear that he had doubts about the basics of the case against "Oswald". He clearly believed there could have been multiple shooters.
There is some other pretty good stuff in it though. Maybe I'll do a separate thread just on Jesse Curry's "JFK Assassination Files."
Meanwhile, look at this interview with him:
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1 hour ago, David Josephs said:
As I was searching for Wesley's interrogation notes I came across this statement concluding an argument on DVP's site:
Numbers 1 through 8 above strongly suggest that Lee Harvey Oswald's "curtain rod" story was a complete fabrication from the beginning, used as a device with which to avoid suspicion when he carried his dismantled Mannlicher-Carcano rifle into the Depository Building on the same morning of President Kennedy's visit to Dallas, Texas.
Now, doesn't it make a bit more sense that FRAZIER fabricated the story since Oswald is claimed to have said he 1 - did not bring a bag to work, and 2 - never said anything about curtain rods.... Since Fritz did these notes well afterward, does it not make more sense to claim Oswald did say he brought a bag with curtain rods in it?
Now why in the world would Wesley lie? - to save himself? Maybe has something to do with William "Bill" Randle and his relationship with Oswald?
Mr. BALL - And who lives in that house with you?
Mr. FRAZIER - My sister and brother-in-law and their three children.
Mr. BALL - Will you state their names, your sister's name?
Mr. FRAZIER - Linnie Mae Randle and my brother-in-law. I believe his real name is William Edward Randle. We call him Bill. They have three little girls, Diana, Patricia and Caroline Sue.Mrs. RANDLE. He was carrying a package in a sort of a heavy brown bag, heavier than a grocery bag it looked to me. It was about, if I might measure, about this long, I suppose, and he carried it in his right hand, had the top sort of folded down and had a grip like this, and the bottom, he carried it this way, you know, and it almost touched the ground as he carried it.
Even the Find a Grave site bio perpetuates the lie
Linnie Randle testified to the Warren Commission that she had seen Lee Harvey Oswald with a long package under his arm when he got into her brother, Buell Wesley Frazier's car as they left for work at the Texas School Book Depository on Friday, 22 Nov. 1963.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/102461058/linnie-mae-randle
William Edward "Bill" Randle https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/131275226/william-edward-randle
A funeral Service for William "Bill" Randle age 80, of Dike will be held at 10:00 a.m. Friday, June 13, 2014 at First Baptist Church of Sulphur Springs with Bro. Mike Skelton and Bro. Fred Lewis officiating. Interment will follow in Restlawn Memorial Park with Grandsons and Great-Grandsons serving as Pallbearers. With Ray Skelton, Randy Gyer, B.W. Frazier, Robert Frazier, Erwin Boyle, Clifford Randle, Marvin Randle, Don Randle and Chuck Creed serving as honorary Pallbearers. Visitation will be from 6 until 8 pm Thursday, June 12, 2014 at Murray-Orwosky Funeral Home. Bill Randle died Wednesday, June 11, 2014 at his residence. He was born January 20, 1934, in Dallas to Alfred Ernest Randle and Adina Gebert. He married Linnie Frazier who preceded him in death in 2012. Bill was a retired cabinet maker and wood worker. He was a member of the First Baptist Church and served as a Deacon since 1955. He is survived by daughters, Diana Gyer (Randy) of Dike, Patricia Skelton (Ray) of Sulphur Springs; brothers Clifford Randle, Marvin Randle and Don Randle all of Irving; sister Dorothy Creed of Coppell; Grandchildren, Jason Ashford, Josh Ashford, Steven Cooper, Patricia Cooper, Mike Skelton, Brandon Skelton, Jessica Heaton and Amber Jester , and nine Great grandchildren He was preceded in death by his parents, one brother Charlie Randle and a daughter Carolyn Ashford and one great granddaughter Chloe Ashford.
From WCD 21 we find yet another piece of the puzzle about which Wesley was not questioned...
His brother-in-law knows Lee Harvey in one FBI report yet denies this to the SS 5 days later...
I haven't been able to find the SAIC Benavides O/M, San Antonio 11/25/63 that they reference here.... I've found a few 11/25 reports by Benavides but they had to do with New Orleans and a woman claiming to see Charles Steele Jr in both New Orleans leafleting film and in front of the TSBD
Ya see, if Oswald's paper sack did not or could not contain a rifle... there was no other way for it to get to the TSBD... Frazier was their only choice 'cause the other paper sack never made it to Oswald.
"Denied Curtain Rods"
"Now why in the world would Wesley lie? - to save himself? Maybe has something to do with William "Bill" Randle and his relationship with Oswald?"
David,
Do we agree that if Frazier had buckled to Fritz's pressure to "confess", then a carrot would likely have been offered to Frazier: implicate "Oswald" as the prime-mover behind the assassination, and Frazier would have faced little (or maybe no) jail time?
In other words, I think that if the pressure on Frazier induced a "confession", then that "confession" would have been used to dismiss any later concerns about the lack of any physical evidence against "Oswald". Frazier would prop up the case against "Oswald".
And of course, if by that time "Oswald" was dead, well then, Frazier's "confession" would cinch the case against "Oswald".
Now we all know that Frazier was innocent of any involvement, and it may seem a ridiculous strategy to us to frame a man so obviously innocent. But that was not the way the Dallas authorities under Henry Wade operated back then.
As Assistant D. A. Ed Gray (1969 - 74) later remarked:
"I saw how it happened when I was with the DA's office. I saw the callous attitude that we had. I saw the flippancy toward these cases where the evidence was flimsy at best."
"I confess that I became so arrogant that I believed I could convince a jury of anything," he said.
There was a cocky joke within the DA's office back then: Anybody can convict a guilty person. Convicting the innocent is the trick."
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5 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:
Jim,
I'm trying to wrap my head around what the purpose might have been for Reed to take those photos. And also whether or not the subjects of the photos might have been mere coincidence.
Sandy,
The guess that these photos were to be part of a photo-montage about the "flight of the assassin" seems plausible to me. Jim didn't mention it, but as soon as the FBI saw what these photos were, they flew to the Caribbean and actually helicoptered out to a boat on which Reed was a passenger at that moment to interview him. That's how suspicious the FBI was about these photos!
The man who first published these was Robert Groden and he told me that anecdote. He got it from Reed himself. Reed would not confess to an assignment, but nor did Groden say that Reed claimed they were a "coincidence", either. I think we can rule that out.
Reed may or may not have known exactly what his photo assignment actually involved that day. Once he realized the president was dead, he may have hightailed it out of there ASAP and let the FBI have whatever it wanted. (That's what I would have done in his position.)
Because those pictures were never part of the Warren Commission exhibits or documents, I think we can safely conclude they were "too hot to handle." Anyone with eyes would suspect monkey business at once - how could anyone "innocently" be in position to take pictures of McWatters' bus, stuck in traffic on Elm, east of the TSBD, at a time when "Oswald" had just boarded, or (more suspiciously) at the moment when two unidentified Dallas Policemen boarded that bus and searched the passengers for "weapons"? (See Roy Milton Jones' statement below)
Note too, that not only does Roy Milton Jones put cops searching for "Oswald" on the McWatters bus within minutes of the assassination, but Jones also destroys Mary Bledsoe's identification of "Oswald" - she didn't get on the bus until after the "Oswald" man had exited!
No wonder the Warren Commission did not call Roy Milton Jones as a witness!
https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh25/pdf/WH25_CE_2641.pdf
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On 2/4/2018 at 1:24 PM, Tom Hume said:
On March 27, 2013, referring to Wesley Frazier, John Dolva asked this question on this very thread:
“Can someone ask him if he knows who James Branum is/was?”
John asked this question at least ten times on various threads (without response), and he was interested in an anomaly he found that appears to be associated with Buell Wesley Frazier’s written statement to the Dallas Police.
Below are five consecutive links. The first four are Wesley’s written statement, and attached, without explanation apparently, is a fifth gif, something that might be called the “James Branum Doodle”.
http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/01/0124-001.gif
http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/01/0124-002.gif
http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/01/0124-003.gif
http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/01/0124-004.gif
http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/01/0124-005.gif
Did Lee Oswald give this doodle to Wesley? Was it found in the backseat of Wesley’s car? What is it, and why did the Dallas Police think it important enough to photograph it and attach it to Wesley’s written statement (if that’s indeed what happened)?
I’ll rephrase John Dolva’s old and somewhat ubiquitous question: If the opportunity arises, could someone please ask Wesley Frazier about this doodle?
Tom
Could it be a map of Dealey Plaza, detailing possible firing locations and sight lines?
I don't know - I am just speculating. I have never seen this before, but that's it looks like to me.
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30 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:
Has anything been written about possible connections between Phillip Graham's August 1963 "suicide" and the JFK assassination? I noticed that he used a standard CIA suicide methodology-- one of their preferred alternatives to jumping out of 16th floor windows.
W. Niederhut,
Yes, John Simkin in this very forum speculated that because Phillip Graham was an unstable alcoholic - prone to saying strange things - that if he stumbled onto foreknowledge of the assassination, then the plotters would want him silenced in advance. He couldn't be trusted to keep his mouth shut.
Possible, I suppose.
Graham certainly lived and breathed in the right circles to have learned something about the planned "big event". His China connections alone are a veritable Who's Who of JFK suspects.
But in the end, we don't have any evidence that he knew or suspected anything about JFK's impending fate, so I'm not sure there's much more to be said here. Unless we can find some evidence - a written record or some story he confided to someone before he died, which, of course, we don't even know ever existed in the first place.
Anyway, here's Simkin's post:
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/18143-deaths-of-witnesses-before-the-assassination/
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3 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:
Paul:
What Saturday calls are you speaking of?
Jim,
These calls:
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11839#relPageId=20&tab=page
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11839#relPageId=21&tab=page
Note that somehow, these two calls (one not completed in the later afternoon, the other one definitely complete around 8 pm) that although the "telephone sheet is usually used for writing names of prisoners who use the phone" somehow Officer Popplewell "missed writing Oswald's name down on the sheet."
Huh.
Funny how that works. "Oswald" makes a phone call to a mysterious party, and somehow the normal Dallas Police Procedures are not followed and the initial indication of the call disappears from the record.
Gosh, what bad luck.
The suspect of the century makes a 30 minute call from the Dallas City Jail, and the call was not to Marina, not to Marguerite, not to Robert, not to the press, but to whom?
I'd bet a million dollars that call was tapped.
We're wondering whether Fritz might have taped "Oswald's" statement in the interrogation room, but I guarantee they were listening in on the the 30 minute call to the unknown party on Saturday evening.
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11 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:
I've wondered about this before. At some point it seems likely that Oswald would have told FBI agents Bookhout or Hosty or SSA Sorrels, just contact.... (Phillips? or...), he can vouch for me, straighten this out. When they clammed up, did nothing, nothing happened, he knew he was Really screwed.
This brings us back to those mysterious phone calls on Saturday afternoon and early evening. One of which lasted 30 minutes, and for which apparently there exists no official record of the number dialed nor the recipient. (Not to be confused with the later, infamous "Raleigh" call.)
Strange sudden respect by the authorities for the suspect's privacy, just as he is contacting . . . someone.
Rmember, too, that right around this very time on late Saturday afternoon, Dean Andrews received a call from "Clay Bertrand", asking that Andrews go to Dallas to provide legal counsel for "Oswald" . . .
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Oh, you didn't need to have special access to "sophisticated crap" in 1963 to be able to record a suspect innocuously. Dallas was not some hick town - it was in the heart of oil country, and I'll bet the DPD had plenty of money sloshing around to get what they wanted.
The real question is: would Captain Fritz follow the FBI lead and eschew taping devices in favor of a hand-written summary of the witness statement? (The advantage for the FBI was that if the suspect said something the FBI did not want to hear, they simply did not write it down. Problem solved!)
Note that Fritz and Curry did not claim they did not have a recorder, they claimed that there was not room for one during the "Oswald" interrogations.
I'll bet they had one, and your guess that "Oswald" at some point started to give up his "informant" status information to the cops, is a shrewd one. (One that I too, have long suspected.)
Tape recorders were so widespread by 1963 they had their own fan magazine:
https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Tape-Recording/60s/Tape-Recording-1963-04.pdf
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2 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:
The question I’ve always had was how many of the people sitting in during the interrogations were aware of the recordings and therefore had to keep their mouths shut for year after year.
The answer: all of them.
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11 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:
William S. Paley, Frank Stanton, C.D. Jackson, Phillip Graham, et.al... The close relationships between these mainstream U.S. media titans of the early 60s and Allen Dulles, the WWII OSS and CIA never cease to amaze. And those guys were masters at controlling the narrative from Day One -- e.g., buying and sequestering the Zapruder film, telling Dan Rather to lie about the Zapruder film, and altering the Zapruder photo still sequence published in Life magazine, etc.
I wonder if the ongoing CBS cover up -- and promotion of the WC-- was controlled all along from the top down by Dulles, Paley and Stanton.
Whatever we think of Phil Graham, we ought to be careful about lumping him in with the other cover-up artists here.
Why?
Because Phil Graham committed "suicide" in August of 1963, three months before the JFK assassination.
Although, as Graham's buddy George Smathers (Florida Senator) later noted, "Well, if you'd been married to Kay Graham, you'd have probably shot yourself too."
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10 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:
That is a really good question. Which we will probably never know the answer to for sure.
But If you read the article I linked to above, you will see that McCloy's daughter was Salant's secretary
Also, in a declassified document that Bill Davy has, Eddie Barker told the FBI that it was not just McCloy who consulted on the 1967 special, it was also Dulles.
When Dean Acheson's daughter Mary married William Bundy, the wedding breakfast was held at McCloy's house.
The Mysterious Life and Death of James McCord
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
"I just can’t believe they were there to spy or rob. They just too big of fish to be doing that sort of stuff."
Oh, I agree. Maybe I didn't make myself clear before, but I never believed that McCord and Hunt were honestly "on board" with the break-in as it was originally conceived. Were they part of deliberate plan to sabotage the break-in to hide/protect an ongoing CIA operation involving the Colombia Plaza hookers and Heidi Rikan?
Oh yeah.
Could they also have sabotaged it to force Nixon to cover-up their own involvement in even more nefarious "black ops", including (possibly) the JFKA?
Maybe, but remember, Nixon didn't seem to realize that E. Howard Hunt was indirectly working for him until June 23, 1972. Once he realized that fact, he seized on the offered opportunity to blame the break-in on the CIA, and gambled that the CIA would tell the FBI to back off (and obstruct justice) rather than to allow the FBI to investigate Hunt properly.
After vehement protests, Helms and Walters did do exactly that.
So, the real question is "why DID the CIA go along with Nixon's plan to blame the break-in on the CIA if the CIA had nothing to do the Liddy/Magruder/Mitchell(?)/Dean break-in?
Why did Richard Nixon appoint Richard Helms as ambassador to Iran after firing him?
What exactly did President Gerald Ford fear when, in January of 1975, he personally met with the editorial board of the New York Times and told them he was concerned that a full-scale investigation into Seymour Hersh's story (about CHAOS material) would reveal some extremely embarrassing material, including assassination plots?