Paul Jolliffe

29 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

Romack mentions Sam Pate

Duke Lane (a member here) wrote this months after meeting with Sam Pate;

Sam Pate, who arrived behind the TSBD within just a couple of minutes of the shooting, noticed a young man cross Houston St diagonally from the TSBD side to the other, heading toward Pacific, which is what Worrell said that he'd done.

BTW, if you believe the FBI wanted Worrell to say it was Oswald, isn't Frazier saying exactly that?

Frazier "The closest I got to him when he was walking up the... along the side the Texas School Book Depository coming from the dock area"

Yes, Pate saw Worrell. But notice that Pate's timing (he saw Worrell cross Houston a couple of minutes after the shooting) does not fit with Worrell's story - he claimed he was scared because of the shots and took off running up Houston immediately!

I don't know who was right - Worrell or Pate. But they can't be both right. 

We know the FBI quoted Worrell as saying that he could identify "Oswald" as the man he saw, and at that moment, that was what the FBI wanted  - "Oswald" escaped out the back of the TSBD. 

Again, we all agree, Worrell did not see "Oswald" did not run out the back of the TSBD. Did he actually see anyone run out?

Well, I believe he was the kind of kid who could have been "persuaded" to say about anything that would generally fit the narrative and to shut up about anything that didn't fit. His filmed interview that I posted earlier seems to confirm exactly that.

So Tony, we agree that Romack and Rackley were where they said they were, approximately 100 - 150 yards northeast of the TSBD at the time of the shooting. We agree that they both looked south toward the TSBD. We agree that they testified that they saw no one leave the back of the TSBD. We agree that Welcome Barnett ran north on Houston Street within a minute of the shots, and his actions were accurately described by Romack. We agree that Rackley did not see Barnett.

I think we tend to agree that Adams and Styles probably exited the rear of the TSBD very soon after the shots. Neither man saw the girls exit, but then, I am not aware of any witness who did see Adams and Styles outside as they exited the back of the TSBD. Are you?

The whole point of this discussion is whether James Worrell was credible in his description of the man he claimed to have seen, or whether James Romack and George Rackley were more credible in their denial that anyone fitting the description given by Worrell left out the back.

If Worrell really did what he said he did after the shots, then he would have had to pass directly in front of Rackley and Romack, yet they did not see him!

Nor he did not see them!

Why do I suspect Worrell?

Because it would have been the simplest matter in the world for the Warren Commission attorneys to ask Rackley and Romack about James Worrell, but they did not.

It would have been the simplest matter in the world for the Warren Commission attorneys to ask Worrell about Rackley and Romack. But they did not.

Why not?

Well, whose story was more likely to fall apart under any kind of questioning at all - the two adult working men (one of whom was able to correctly describe Welcome Barnett's actions), or the 20 year old dropout drifter who had no coherent explanation for why he was there, how he got there, when he got there,  one whose own timeline is demonstrably false?

Worrell himself gave a hint that there was more to the story at the end of this interview: note his cryptic ending phrase "I saw everything that happened, and that's about all I'm about to say" (accompanied with a dismissive wave of the hand).

Tony, we don't know what happened behind the TSBD. We do know the FBI really wanted this kid to say that he saw "Oswald" run out the back. Trying to construct a coherent narrative based in part on the testimony of this very simple, very young (and almost certainly not very intelligent) witness would seem a dicey proposition. 

26 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

What time do you have Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles running out the back of the TSBD?

Good question. If we take the Barry Ernest/Victoria Adams 21st century version at face value, then the two young women were probably out the back within a minute of the shooting. Which, by the way, I tend to suspect is true, although as you are well aware, this remains an open question.

Perhaps I should clarify my earlier statement: I doubt that any man as described by James Worrell ran out of the back of the TSBD. I think his early story was going to be the "official" escape route, but then the 1st/2nd/3rd/4th floor stairs/lunchroom debacle forced the authorities to "revise" their timing and place for "Oswald's" departure. And so, the Worrell early version was quietly set aside.

John,

I agree that it is difficult to parse out the truth when various documents and statements seem to conflict, but might I suggest that in this case,  Romack's conflicts are fairly minor?

For example, Romack never testified that he and a DPD officer ever verbally conversed. But the FBI included that detail in their summary of his statement (with the word "allegedly.") So, we'll never know for sure what Romack actually told the FBI, but the general idea that he correctly saw a DPD officer run up Houston on the east side of the TSBD, check out the back of the TSBD briefly and then return to Elm is verified by Welcome Barnett's testimony, right? And we do all agree that FBI witness summaries included or excluded anything the FBI wanted, right?

Was Romack physically eating lunch on the docks at MKT when he heard the shots and then started towards the TSBD, or had he already finished eating his lunch and was actually in the process of walking toward the TSBD when he heard the shots?

I don't know, but I don't think it matters much. Either way, we agree that Romack was headed toward the TSBD from the NE when he saw a DPD officer run up Houston and check the back of the TSBD, within a minute or so of hearing the shots.

Could Romack even tentatively identify whether the shots he heard were fired from on high or low? Probably not, but so what? By the time of his testimony, everyone knew what the  authorities wanted to hear, and many ordinary witnesses were willing to "help out" the official version that was emerging. That doesn't make those witnesses active conspirators.

My earlier point was to suggest that James Worrell's DPD and FBI version of events - seeing a man who could possibly be "Oswald" run out the back of the TSBD shortly after the shooting - was exactly what the authorities wanted early on. It didn't take long though for a different version of "Oswald's" escape to emerge, and so, the (false) story put out by Worrell (and actively endorsed by the FBI - Worrell positively identified "Oswald" as the man in their version!) was quietly shelved in favor of the front door theory.

Now, I grant you that It is theoretically possible that the 39 year old, gainfully employed, in the immediate presence of fellow employees who also testified to the WC, James E. Romack was an FBI informant/disinformation plant who lied his eyes out when he claimed that no one ran out the back of the TSBD.

But you have to admit it is equally possible, and far, far more likely in my view, that 20 year old high school dropout, unemployed drifter with no particular place to be and no good explanation for how in the world he wound up on the corner of Elm and Houston at the critical time, James Worrell was a much more likely candidate to be "persuaded" to give a false early version of the "Oswald's escape" out the back of the TSBD, an early version that would soon be discarded and replaced by the current version.

Who was telling the truth - Romack or Worrell?

Well, I'll leave you with this nugget from Worrell:

He claimed to have been waiting near the corner of Elm and Houston for an "hour, an hour and a half" (arriving by bus and foot) after seeing President Kennedy and his party arrive at Love Field from Fort Worth!

Air Force One touched down at Love Field at 11:39 am!

There is no way in hell that Worrell could have been waiting for any time period whatsoever at Elm and Houston if he truly witnessed President Kennedy  depart Air Force One! 

Worrell could not even coherently explain how he arrived at the corner of Elm and Houston, nor why that corner!

No one ever demonstrated that it was even possible for anyone - let alone Worrell - to take a public bus from Love Field after seeing the president leave the plane and ride/walk to Elm and Houston in time to see the motorcade pass!

I'm sorry, John, but James Worrell is just not a credible witness. And the fact that both the DPD and the FBI wanted to endorse his story early on, before being forced to back away from it, tells me that James Worrell (not Romack) was much more susceptible to official "persuasion.'"

Mr. SPECTER - Couldn't you get a good view of him a Love Field? 
Mr. WORRELL - No, I just saw him get off the plane and I figured that I wasn't going to see him good so I was going to get a better place to see him. 
Mr. SPECTER - How did you travel from Love Field to Elm and Houston? 
Mr. WORRELL - Bus. No, no; I just traveled so far on the bus. I went down to Elm, and took a buds from there. I went down as far as, I don't know where that bus stops, anyway, I got close to there and I walked the rest of the way. 
Mr. SPECTER - What time, to the best of your recollection, did you arrive at the intersection of Elm and Houston? 
Mr. WORRELL - Well, about 10, 10:30, 10:45, something around there. There weren't many people standing around there then. 
Mr. SPECTER - Well about how long before the Presidential motorcade came to Elm and Houston did you get there? 
Mr. WORRELL - An hour; an hour and a half. 
Mr. SPECTER - Are you sure you were at Love Field when the President arrived there? 
Mr. WORRELL - Oh yes. 

7 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Tony,

It doesn't seem odd to me that Harvey Oswald might write such a letter.  This was more than a year before the assassination, and the evidence seems to show that the plot hadn't even been hatched yet. The actions of this young man weren't put under a microscope until 11/22/63.

What strikes me as entirely possible, though, is that Bargas still had the letter (or some accounting paperwork listing the address), and it was Ruth Paine's address at 2515 W. 5th in Irving. When the FBI/WC discovered this, the dreaded Conspiracy Alarm went off, everything was suppressed, and Bargas's testimony was altered.  This is obviously conjecture, but I'd sure like to see the stenographer’s notes on Bargas's testimony.

Can you name anyone else of interest to researchers who lived in Irving?

Jim,

That sounds plausible (but obviously, not proven.) 

Can you (or John A.) fill us in with a few more details about a possible "Oswald"/Ruth Paine connection from the 1950's?

2 hours ago, David Josephs said:

 

SO DOES THIS MEAN HE WAS less OR more IMPORTANT THAN ALL THE REDACTED NAMES....   

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32363606.pdf 

David,

I agree that it is mighty curious that our man's name was not redacted on a list of those whose "Q" clearances were terminated as of March 7, 1972. 

"Q clearance or Q access authorization is the Department of Energy (DOE) security clearance required to access Top Secret Restricted Data, Formerly Restricted Data, and National Security Information, as well as Secret Restricted Data. Restricted Data (RD) is defined in the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and covers nuclear weapons and related materials. "

"Anyone possessing an active Q clearance is always categorized as holding a National Security Critical-Sensitive position (sensitivity Level 3).^[3] Additionally, most Q-cleared incumbents will have collateral responsibilities designating them as Level 4: National Security Special-Sensitive personnel.^[4] With these two designations standing as the highest-risk sensitivity levels, occupants of these positions hold extraordinary accountability, harnessing the potential to cause exceptionally grave or inestimable damage to the national security of the United States."

So on July 27, 1962, longtime CIA professional James W. McCord, Jr. (and "zap man" for Richard Helms) was issued one of these super-duper clearances from the Dept. of Energy, giving him access to really dangerous nuclear weapons information. And at that very moment, the CIA was virtually alone in trying to persuade the rest of the government that the weapons buildup in Cuba was offensive. 

A "Q" clearance had to be renewed every five years, so McCord's clearance was renewed in 1967 and was good until 1972. (It would seem that it was renewed just as Jim Garrison's case against Clay Shaw was first heating up. But whether it was related to that, well, I don't know.)

We do know that by March of 1972, McCord had recently "retired" from the CIA and was hired by Jack Caulfield  for "defensive" security work at CREEP.  So his "Q" clearance was no longer necessary.

But this brings me back to my post yesterday, about JFK press conference on September 13, 1962, the one in which it is very apparent that Kennedy was very stressed about the arms buildup. He was even more concerned about keeping the military/intelligence/hawks from running wild with their public statements about the situation, which as he said:

"Unilateral military intervention, on the part of the United States, can not currently be either required or justified. And it is regrettable that loose talk about such action in this country might serve to give a thin color of legitimacy to the communist pretense that such a threat exists . . ."

I am sure that McCord's initial "Q" clearance had something to do with the pressure on President Kennedy from his own national security state people who wanted desperately to invade Cuba.

Here is JFK's press conference.

https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKWHA/1962/JFKWHA-126/JFKWHA-126

On 4/10/2019 at 8:33 PM, Jim Hargrove said:

Megathanks, Bart, for yet another fascinating doc from Malcolm Blunt's files.  Please keep them coming!

Below is James Richard Worrell's alleged 11/23/63 DPD statement.  Perhaps someone who knows the Dallas streets around Dealey Plaza can tell us whether Worrell's alleged affidavit supports or differs from Romack's alleged statement.  Sorry to say "alleged" so many times, but here's Worrell's alleged statement....

Jim,

After reading 39 year old James Romack's testimony before the Warren Commission, I am persuaded that the general gist of what Romack alleged in the FBI document is correct. Romack and Officer Barnett corroborate each other, except for the minor variation that Tony noted about whether there was a brief verbal exchange between the two.

But either way, this invalidates both the FBI and DPD affidavits from James Richard Worrell, Jr.

(An unemployed 20 year old,  high school dropout, just drifting around Dallas with no particular place to go or be, but just happened to be within five feet of the TSBD and was able to see a gun in the "Oswald" window? Wonder if our hero, Worrell, might have had a police record for anything from before.)

I doubt anyone ran out the back of the TSBD within five minutes of the shooting. I suspect the Worrell document was a bogus and early attempt by the DPD to pin it on "Oswald" using a pliable witness, but then, the story later had to change about precisely from where "Oswald" left the TSBD.

We do know that the FBI created an apparently bogus statement from Worrell in which he positively identified the man fleeing the back of the TSBD as "Oswald." However, the Warren Commission was rightly suspicious of this identification, and Worrell expressly testified that he could make no such identification of the man he allegedly saw. (He could not say whether he might have told the FBI that.)

Of course, we can't clarify this with Worrell because he was killed in a motorcycle accident less than three years later.

https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh6/pdf/WH6_Romack.pdf

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/m_j_russ/worrell.htm

2 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Paul,

The 2530 W. 5th St. address in Irving never occurred to me, but if the two musicians were there in the fall of 1963 specifically to keep tabs on the patsy-to-be, then the time frame a year earlier seems unlikely.  American-born LEE Oswald has always seemed more associated with Ruby than Russian-speaking HARVEY.  But who knows what convoluted turns this thing could have taken? I don’t know when the musicians moved into that address, do you?
 

Jim,

I was (subtly) suggesting that there may have been something sensitive about the 2530 W. 5th address - the "coincidence" of two of Jack Ruby's musicians living fully 15 miles away from their club, but within a snowball's throw of Ruth Paine, Marina, June, Rachel and (on the weekends) "Oswald" seems ridiculously improbable. I know that was in 1963, but the Paine's also lived at that address in the fall of 1962. I don't find it impossible that "Oswald" could have stayed at 2530 W. 5th a year earlier for roughly two weeks. 

If so, then it seems possible (probable?) to me that 2530 W. 5th may have been a CIA safehouse, used by intelligence assets/operatives while carrying out some clandestine assignment.

Also, I find it very curious that "Oswald" left his job in Fort Worth (either in September or early October), seemingly at the drop of a hat, just as the Military Intelligence Community was ramping up pressure on President Kennedy to "do something" about the arms build-up on Cuba. (While the SS-4's would not be discovered until October 16, the conventional arms build-up was real.) JFK responded with his September 13, 1962 press conference in which he restated his belief that offensive weapons had not yet been introduced to Cuba.

As Kennedy warned both the Cubans and his own national security people:

"Unilateral military intervention, on the part of the United States, can not currently be either required or justified. And it is regrettable that loose talk about such action in this country might serve to give a thin color of legitimacy to the communist pretense that such a threat exists . . ."

This agitated JFK's military advisers, who were chafing for a chance to invade Cuba.

The fact that "Oswald" inexplicably left his job in Fort Worth (quite possibly the day after JFK's press conference), was unaccounted for perhaps two weeks,  and then got a job on October 12 at Jaggars in Dallas,  working on sophisticated maps of Cuba, would suggest that these moves were somehow related.

https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKWHA/1962/JFKWHA-126/JFKWHA-126

Jim,

Good catch, indeed!

I'm curious: why did "Oswald" abruptly quit Leslie Welding in the first place? After all, he and Marina and their daughter had only lived at 2703 Mercedes in Fort Worth since August 10. He may have worked there as late as October 8 (as insinuated by Albert Jenner), but Bargas may well be right - "Oswald" may have quit in mid - September. 

Bargas remembered that "Oswald's" last day was a Friday and he didn't show up on the following Monday or Tuesday. But October 8 was a Monday, and we know that "Oswald" took aptitude tests on Tuesday, October 9 at the Texas Employment Commission and then rented the P.O. Box. "Oswald" started work at Jaggers-Chiles-Stovall on Friday, October 12.

Jenner's timeline leaves no real possibility that "Oswald" was in Irving. After all, he was in Fort Worth on Monday and in Dallas the next day.

And remember, that right at this time, Marina and June moved in with Elena Hall while "Oswald" looked for work in Dallas. If Jenner was right, then "Oswald's" last day was Monday, but he was working again by Friday. When, and why exactly, would they have made the arrangements for Marina and June? That makes no sense to me.

But what if Jenner was wrong and Bargas was right?

What if "Oswald" actually did quit in September on a Friday - maybe Sept. 14 or 21? 

Now the timing makes sense.

"Oswald" went to Irving for some unknown reason. Marina and June move in with Elena Hall. "Oswald" completes the Irving assignment and looks for work in Dallas. To me, it seems to fit better.

One other thing:

Two of Jack Ruby's band (Bill Willis, drummer and William Simmons, piano) lived in Irving.

Their address?

2530 W. 5th Street in Irving - 15 miles from Ruby's Carousel Club, but less than two hundred feet from Ruth Paine 2515 W. 5th in Irving.

I wonder if "Oswald" might have spent a few days at that (sensitive) address before moving on to Dallas by October 9? Might that also explain not only the missing residence but also his use of a P.O. Box to conceal that address?

7 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Steve,

Right, but despite the considerable sympathy we all must have for Marina’s position in 1964, her WC testimony can surely be regarded as little more than a practiced attempt to buttress the weak points in the Official Story®.  Remember her claim about him “shooting at leaves” in a city park?  Even the HSCA, in regard to the Walker shooting mentioned above, wrote, (emphasis added):

 “and since item (4) pertains to the testimony of Marina Oswald (whose testimony has all the weight of a handful of chicken feathers), we regretfully refuse to accept the judgment of the Commission in regard to the Walker shooting….”

To me, her claim just shows that the people shaping her testimony were well aware there was no obvious reason for LHO to have gone back to New Orleans that summer.

Jim,

Here is a bizarre quote from a Michael Kurtz article (attached below):

"According to CIA documents, Oswald was assigned many tasks involving anti-Castro maneuvers emanating from the New Orleans Field Office. "

Say what? 

To what CIA documents can Professor Kurtz possibly be referring? "Oswald" was assigned many tasks?

If Kurtz is correct, then obviously the answer to your question is simple: the CIA sent him to New Orleans.

Does anyone here know Michael Kurtz, or have any idea how to get in touch with him to ask him about those "CIA documents" in which "Oswald was assigned"?

He is a professor emeritus at Southeastern Louisiana University, Hammond, but he does not seem to have an office there anymore.

http://www.myneworleans.com/New-Orleans-Magazine/October-2013/The-Kennedy-Assassination-Fifty-Years-Later/

3 hours ago, Michael Clark said:

Here is the Q clearance Document for James McCord Jr.

Michael,

You asked an excellent question: since McCord already received his "Q" clearance from the AEC (exactly what was a "Q" clearance, anyway?), why this additional October 16, 1963, clearance? 

Maybe this has something to do with it?

According to the CIA itself, McCord's AEC "Q" clearance on July 27, 1962, came just as 

"Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev decided to develop Cuba into a nuclear base, and in mid-July Soviet shipments of conventional weapons and military equipment intensified. Throughout the summer, American policymakers and intelligence officials speculated about what the buildup meant. The IC concluded that Moscow's actions in Cuba were defensive, designed mainly to shore up a revolutionary ally while marginally improving its own political position in the region.

Director of Central Intelligence John McCone was virtually alone in assessing that the Kremlin had more malevolent intentions: the buildup was a prelude to the deployment of nuclear missiles. McCone believed that Khrushchev was trying to overcome US strategic superiority and extort diplomatic concessions by establishing a nuclear outpost near the United States."

So McCord's 1962 "Q" clearance came just as the CIA was looking for evidence to make its case that the missiles in Cuba were offensive, not defensive.

And so perhaps McCord's October 1963 clearance came just as the CIA was looking for/planting/creating wiretap evidence in Mexico City . . . that Castro - with Soviet approval - would kill Kennedy?

I think there is a connection between the timing of McCord's two clearances and US/Soviet relations. Both times his clearances came just as we were on the brink.

https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2007-featured-story-archive/a-look-back-remembering-the-cuban-missile-crisis.html

On 4/8/2019 at 6:32 PM, David Josephs said:

From the "ain't it strange" coincidence files.....

On the same day Oswald starts at the TSBD... James McCord takes his CIA Oath

 

David, 

This is one hell of a secrecy agreement!

McCord could not divulge anything, even to a court of law, an administrative proceeding, or any other tribunal without "notifying a duly authorized representative of the United States government immediately" and the burden was on McCord to "advise the court or tribunal of (his) oath" and "request that (his) need to testify be established before (he was) required to do so."

So, it was really, really important to the CIA that McCord sign this secrecy agreement just as the CIA was sending and receiving all kinds of mysterious cables from Mexico City and Langley about the visit of "Oswald' to the Cuban and Soviet Embassies from two weeks before.

I doubt that is a coincidence.
 

1 hour ago, Jim Harwood said:

And further quotes:

Roosevelt's understanding of the threat posed to world peace by the continuation of imperialism, was recorded by his son Elliott in his book, As He Saw It. FDR told his son,

``The colonial system means war. Exploit the resources of an India, a Burma, a Java; take all the wealth out of these countries, but never put anything back into them, things like education, decent standards of living, minimum health requirements--all you're doing is storing up the kind of trouble that leads to war. All you're doing is negating the value of any kind of organizational structure for peace before it begins.''

 

At the Casablanca conference in January of 1943, Roosevelt was even more emphatic:

``I'm talking about another war. I'm talking about what will happen to our world, if after this war we allow millions of people to slide back into the same semi-slavery! Don't think for a moment, Elliott, that Americans would be dying in the Pacific tonight, if it hadn't been for the shortsighted greed of the French and the British and the Dutch. Shall we allow them to do it all, all over again? Your son will be about the right age, fifteen or twenty years from now.''

 

Roosevelt understood the danger that British imperial policies posed to the world, and he was acutely aware that he would have to deal with this threat, in a forceful manner, at the conclusion of the war. In 1942, Roosevelt quipped, prophetically, to one of his advisors:

``We will have more trouble with Great Britain after the war than we are having with Germany now.''

All true. FDR, had he lived to implement the policies he outlined to his son, may well have ended the old Colonial/Imperial System a few years before it all came crashing down anyway. But he didn't live and his future showdowns with Churchill in the post-war world never happened. 

My simple point, stated earlier, was that the real end to the British Empire was . . . the costs (financial, political, moral, social, not to mention in human lives) and the results of WWII itself.

Within just a few years of the end of WWII, the British Empire was done.

And the irony was that they brought it on themselves. The British did not have to declare war on Germany in 1939, certainly not over the issue over who was going to rule Danzig. They chose to do so, and lost their empire as a result of the horrific war that followed.  

1 hour ago, Jim Harwood said:

 In fact what FDR intended to do post WWII was even more frightening to the British. FDR intended to do away with the British Empire. According to FDR's son Elliot who wrote a book "As I saw it" said that Clay Shaw's buddy Winston Churchill almost went mad when FDR told him point blank  "No more British colonial system". FDR planned to use the American System to modernize the old British, French colonial nations and bring them into the 20th century.  

Of course, what effectively brought an end to the British Empire by the late 1940's was not FDR's policies (whatever his post-war intent may have been), but the cost and results of WWII itself, which ironically the British government in general, and Churchill in particular, had done so much to bring about. (The argument is that the British made a conscious decision to enter WWII - the German invasion of Poland did not endanger Britain or her empire. In 1939 the Germans did not want war with Britain - instead it was the other way round. This huge and fascinating topic deserves a separate thread,  but not here in the JFK forum.)

FWIW, Jim, I completely agree with you that the "Mob" and the CIA are two sides of the same coin.

3 hours ago, Gene Kelly said:

When I think of someone who worked for both FBI and CIA, William Harvey comes immediately to mind. 

 

CIA Mexico City chief Win Scott worked for the FBI from 1941 - 43. As I recall, Peter Dale Scott was curious about a few different ex-FBI men in the CIA, but Winfield Scott is the only one I can think of at the moment. Winfield Scott, of course, managed to drop dead just as he was about to release his manuscript/thoughts/suspicions about the whole "Oswald in Mexico" event. 

And Angleton then immediately flew to Mexico City and personally inspected Scott's safe and confiscated the contents. Which supposedly included photos and a tape recording of "Oswald" at the Cuban and Russian Consulates in Mexico City. 

But since "Oswald" was never there, we can guess why Angleton wanted to grab those photos and tape ASAP - they were of a different "Oswald"!

Tony,

While it is certainly possible there was an entrance wound in the left temple, I can't help but wonder if it is at least possible that in the confusion of the moment, with the president lying on the table face up, some observers may have mistaken a wound on the right side of the head for a wound on the left side. After all, when someone is facing us, their right side is to our left.

Now this doesn't seem very likely with trained, competent medical professionals, but it might explain the observations of the priest, Oscar Huber, who, after performing the last rites on the president, then later stated that the president had a terrible wound of the left temple. 

If Puerto really put his finger in a hole in the president's left temple, then that wound has remained remarkably hidden in all of the official records. I find that awfully unlikely. 

(But not impossible.)

13 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Tony,

Ford named only "the Texas Attorney General" and long-time Dallas "District Attorney [Henry] Wade...."  The Texas Attorney General at the time was Waggoner Carr.   

Robert Tanenbaum (former Deputy Counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations) testified that he read the transcript of the secret session Ford was referring to.  In 1996 Tanenbaum testified at an ARRB hearing in Los Angeles by saying, "the Attorney General of Texas, Henry Wade the District Attorney and Leon Jaworsky counsel to the Attorney General, on the transcript spoke to the Chief Justice and said in substance, as I recall, that they had information from unimpeachable sources that Lee Harvey Oswald was a contract employee of the CIA and the FBI." (Click here for full testimony.)

Well, we have been able to read the actual transcript itself since 1974 - Harold Weisberg originally published it after receiving it in the mail (after much legal wrangling with the Nixon administration. He figured it had been released to him at a time when the Nixon Administration was desperately trying to save itself, and Weisberg guessed that Nixon and company were trying a last-ditch deflection by sending to him. He may well have been right.)

Now the better question is whether "Oswald" really was on the FBI payroll in any capacity. My guess is no, but either way, any evidence of FBI payment to "Oswald" would have disappeared 56 years ago. 

In any event, our "Oswald" would have been a CIA creature, not primarily an FBI contact. We can't tell from Rankin's memo exactly who the sources were that "Oswald" was an informant for the CIA (number 110669) , but Rankin was concerned enough to note it in his memo.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=60439#relPageId=5&tab=page

Jim, to answer your other question as to whether the picture at Ruby's club is of "Lee" in the background, well it sure resembles him!

I wonder about the validity of Mary Hollies 2011 remarks to the effect that the "Oswald" she knew (apparently/allegedly/belatedly/maybe?) remarked at least once or twice about "strip clubs". If so, that would seem to support the possibility that this photo is indeed Lee.

https://www.amazon.com/Whitewash-IV-Commission-Transcript-Assassination/dp/1626361126

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1328

19 hours ago, David Andrews said:

Perhaps the story waiting to be written about this period is how the Deep State of the day divorced itself from three presidents in a row: Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.  There should be two lengthy epilogues: the assassination attempts on Gerald Ford (together with period investigation of the intelligence community), and the withdrawal of support for Jimmy Carter.

Not to mention the assassination attempt on Reagan that came within a half-inch (the bullet just missed Reagan’s aorta) of putting GHWB in the White House barely sixty days into Reagan’s first term.

2 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Jim,

 

I liked this one:

Lillian Murret:

"Mrs. MURRET - “...one day the telephone rang and I answered the phone, and Lee said, "Hello, Aunt Lillian,...and I said, "Who is this?" and he said, "This is Lee," and I said, "Lee?" and he said, "Yes."
I said, "When did you get out? When did you get back? What are you doing?"

*smile*

Steve Thomas

“When did you get out?”  (Of jail, maybe, probably?)

Steve, Jim Hargrove can probably help us out here, but my guess is that the real Lee Harvey Oswald called his real Aunt Lillian and she let slip her surprise at his release from some sort of . . . custody?

I believe, and Jim does too, that the real LHO did spend at least part of the summer of 1963 in New Orleans. As a matter of fact, I personally believe there is significant evidence that the real LHO visited Carlos Bringuer’s store in N. O. in early August of 1963. 

Was Warren DeBrueys the FBI contact for the real LHO that summer of 1963?

22 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Just about everyone surrounding Oswald in New Orleans in the summer of ‘63 was either an FBI agent, ex-FBI, or an FBI informant.  Banister had been SAC of Chicago less than a decade earlier.  Oswald was on the Bureau’s payroll.

My bet is that DeBrueys was lying through his teeth to the Church Committee, and was probably told to do so. Funny how he felt compelled to deny those reports that Oswald was his informant.   I still think the CIA (Shaw) loaned Russian-speaking Oswald to the FBI (Banister) in 1963.  There was no conceivable reason for Oswald to move from Texas back to New Orleans in 1963 other than to set himself up as a Castro-loving commie.  It may not have started this way, but it turned out to be his unwitting role in the set-up for the JFK assassination which would, the conspirators undoubtedly believed, provoke a REAL invasion of Cuba.  Just note the activities of David Atlee Phillips immediately after the hit.

Jim and Steve,

I agree that DeBrueys lied to theChurch Committee.

Remember that back in 1967, when Harold Weisberg first started poking around in the murk of LHO in New Orleans, Orestes Pena was willing to spill it but was “mysteriously” lead-piped in the head - and hospitalized - on his way to meet Weisberg. Also, even more intriguing, Pena had the description and the license number of the car which was associated with “Oswald” and DeBrueys’s visits to the Habana Bar. 

The FBI and the Warren Commission made that car and license number disappear.

Finally, in 1964 when J. Edgar Hoover provided affidavits from various FBI agents denying that “Oswald” had been their informant, Hoover managed to NOT submit an affidavit from

.. . 

Warren DeBrueys.

By 1975, DeBrueys knew that he could lie under oath and would not risk a perjury charge.

On 4/6/2019 at 2:45 AM, Stephanie Goldberg said:

When arrested in New Orleans, Oswald asked to speak to someone from the FBI.  I know he spoke with Quigley, but didn't he ask to speak to someone else first?  

I'm just thinking what a conversation that must have been in Dallas and wondering if he asked to speak to a specific FBI agent there.  If so, it didn't work in his favor.  Hosty was told by his superiors to leave Oswald alone after the first interrogation, yes?  

My guess is that “Oswald” asked for Warren DeBrueys, who was apparently unavailable at that moment. Remember that Orestes Pena, owner of the Habana Bar, and his bartender Evarist Rodriguez, both swore that “Oswald” and Pena met at the bar on a couple of occasions. 

DeBrueys, of course, moved from New Orleans  to Dallas and back to New Orleans coincident with “Oswald’s” arrival in the Crescent City, his return to Dallas, and then his murder.

Was DeBrueys “Oswald’s” FBI contact?

Probably.

FWIW,

The home page of "The Unz Review" (published by Ron Unz, former gubernatorial candidate in California in 1994) has Edward Curtin's 2,900 word review on the front page.

For those who have never heard of this site, "The Unz Review" is a mixed bag - some mediocre/poor/unreadable writers, and some who are outstanding. Among the latter is Steve Sailer, one of the most observant, prescient and pithiest writers of current events in America.

In any event, I thought it worthwhile to point out that Lisa Pease's book is gaining traction certain circles among some very smart readers.

https://www.unz.com/article/the-cia-takeover-of-america-in-the-1960s-is-the-story-of-our-times/

19 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

I got one of the best complements I could on this article,  from the Watergate master, Jim Hougan.

When you google McCord's death, this comes up first, probably because we were the first to note it.  But Wikipedia has now updated their info based on this. Thanks to all here who helped me.

McCord was such a singular character. Such a fine operator who effortlessly draped himself in the robes of a technician just following orders.  I watched some of his testimony before the Ervin Committee last night. In retrospect its really something to see today.  Talk about a clever guy.  He redefines the term.  And what a bunch of idiots to buy into him.

Anyway, here is the first obituary you will see of the man who did so much to upend our political system.  And lied about it until the end.

 

https://kennedysandking.com/obituaries/the-mysterious-life-and-death-of-james-w-mccord

 

 

Jim,

I just read your article over at Kennedys and King.

Your work, as always, continues to fascinate and inform.

I must ask though:

I was under the impression that John Dean had a hand in the break-in - his girlfriend/fiance Mo Biner was the room mate of Heidi Rikan/Cathy Dieter, the leader of the hooker ring at the Colombia Plaza Apartments, just down the street from the Watergate. This view holds that Dean, aware of the Democrats use of these call girls to entertain out-of-town hotshots, wanted to bug the phones the Democrats used to make the "appointments" with the girls.

Further, says this view, the CIA was already using/running this ring for its own purposes, collecting information on all kinds of men in Washington who used this call girl ring. So, Dean's clumsy attempt to ingratiate himself with Nixon (who knew nothing of this at that moment) by getting the dirt on the Democrats would cross paths with a much more sophisticated CIA operation. Therefore, the CIA made sure the CREEP plan to bug that particular phone in the Democratic HQ was foiled, thanks to McCord and Hunt. (G. Gordon Liddy himself agreed with me when I posed that to him on the air in 1990.)

By presenting this alternate Watergate theory, I am not undermining your basic idea that the primary goal for the Deep State (of which Hunt/McCord team were a part) was to undermine and/or sabotage the Nixon presidency, particularly his foreign policies, which were an anathema to Nixon's Deep State enemies. The Military/Industrial/Intelligence Complex did not want an end to the Cold War, and Nixon's plans for easing tensions with both Brezhnev in the USSR and Mao in China threatened to do just that. That the Deep State could preserve an ongoing CIA operation and at the same time, damage the president, made the "failure" of the break-in a huge win for Nixon's enemies in Washington.

(An added bonus to this topic is that it gives me an excuse to post the cover from Phil Stanford's book "White House Call Girl: The Real Watergate Story"  )

https://www.amazon.com/White-House-Call-Girl-Watergate/dp/1936239906

So yes, a whole host of Deep State forces were arrayed against the president, and Watergate removed him from office, ultimately. 

4 hours ago, Rick McTague said:

Jim,

Did you intentionally leave off Roscoe White?  I know he wasn't an official policeman on the force but he sure helped frame LHO, especially in the story of Mike Robinson.  If true, he was one who killed JD Tippit which certainly helped frame LHO.  I'd be interested in your take on Roscoe White.

Thanks

Rick

Whoever killed J.D. Tippit bore at least a passing resemblance to the "Oswald" later arrested at the Texas Theater. This is not to suggest it was the same man, only that the two men looked somewhat alike.

(Roscoe White didn't much look like "Oswald" at all really, although it's not impossible he was somehow connected to the creation of the mysterious, infamous backyard photos.) 

The most likely suspect in the Tippit slaying was the same man who for at least two months prior, had been running all over Dallas and saying and doing conspicuously strange things - sure to be remembered later - in an "Oswaldian" fashion, yet could not have been our "Oswald"!

Remember, the Warren Commission was forced to conclude that all of these sightings, and I mean all of them, were in fact, not related to our "Oswald", even those that involved conversations such as "I might have to go back to Russia to buy a car." 

In other words, the Tippit killer was also the same "Oswald" impersonator from the previous two months. 

And that person was, as his brother Robert disingenuously wrote in his book, the real Lee Harvey Oswald. Robert's anguish over his brother's complicity in the assassination and Tippit's murder was genuine but Robert was incredibly cryptic and deceptive about precisely of whom he was writing. He knew perfectly well that his words would implicate the innocent man shot to death by Jack Ruby, the man married to Marina, the man we know as "Oswald", the infamous patsy,  when in fact Robert was writing about his guilty biological brother who was never caught.

On 3/30/2019 at 5:05 PM, Jim Hargrove said:

Thanks again for helping me out with that.  Bart Kamp posted an interview of a KDOS employee named Sam Pate in which he seemed to say there was a rumor that a rifle was found in the grass that may have been tossed out a window at the west end of the Book Depository.  It doesn’t say that literally, but if you look at the top of page 6 of the interview, you’ll probably agree that is what Pate meant to say.  It probably isn’t true (and if it was we surely wouldn’t have been told about by the “investigators”), but it started making me wonder if there weren’t two reasons for the whole TSBD spectacle.

First, to set up the patsy.  And second, to act as a diversion for the real kill shots, which surely came from the front.  It would make perfect sense.

To John B – When John Pic told the Warren Commission “the Lee Harvey Oswald I met in November, 1962 was not the same Lee Oswald I had known 10 years previous," one of the distinguishing features he noted was that the “LHO” he met in 1962 “no longer had a bull neck.”  It’s often hard to trust the photographic record, but John and I think it was American-born LEE Oswald who was two inches taller, heavier, and had a bull neck,” as opposed to the Russian-speaking Oswald.

Jim,

While the exact shot sequence and firing locations are probably never going to be settled beyond a reasonable doubt,  I do think a powerful case can be made that a shot - which missed the motorcade - was fired just as or very soon after the limo turned onto Elm. It did not necessarily sound like a shot as a number of witnesses described it in terms other than the crack of a high-powered rifle. Whatever it was, it missed.

Had the president been fatally wounded with that first shot, then there would have been no need for any further shots from any direction, including the front.

Your other point is worth emphasizing in full: John Pic at Thanksgiving in November of 1962 did NOT recognize his his half - brother ("Oswald") after a ten year separation. That it was not the same man is evident to anyone who reads Pic's testimony in full.  Why wasn't "Marguerite" there at that family gathering of her sons during a holiday? Because the mother of three sons was not the "mother in history", the "mother" of "Oswald." Different women. Different "Oswald's". Different "mothers".