Greg Doudna

4 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

As per Greg, he has become embarrassing on this issue.  I mean if I had met David Phillips in 1975 before all the controversy with the HSCA, i probably would have thought he was a suave, sophisticated, debonair gentleman.  But I would not think that after learning something about him.  But apparently Ruth had a Beyonce style halo over her head when he met her.

The difference between David Phillips and Ruth Paine is Phillips was employed by the CIA, was despicably involved in the destabilization and overthrow of the Chilean government, and I believe the Arbenz government in Guatemala as well. And no doubt a lot of other spooky ops directly interfering in other nations.

Ruth did none of those things, nor is there any sign she supported any of those actions, and for you to suggest that as a comparison is outrageous. 

On Ruth being questioned by Garrison re her sister, the confusion over in which state in the map Falls Church was (likely she had never been there before and was following directions to get to her sister’s place for the first time) I don’t buy that as sinister as you do, but that aside, I do partly agree with you on one thing: I think she was trying to avoid if possible putting her CIA employed (but not in the least way JFK assassination involved) sister into Garrison’s witch-hunt crosshairs. It’s how her answers look to me. And from what I know of Garrison I don’t blame her. 

Jean is right: Ruth’s sister’s employment, so what. It’s Ruth that matters, not her older sister. 

And on Sylvia Hoke’s CiA employment, I studied that a bit earlier, with some back and forth Q and A with Robert Reynolds who is expert on such and interpretation of CIA documents, in addition to some digging of my own.

And I found that Sylvia Hoke was not working for CIA in the mid-1950s as has been claimed, no evidence of that, when she was working for the Air Force and through some McCarthyism genre mistake was ridiculously investigated on suspicion of being a communist (she was cleared).

I think Sylvia Hoke originally applied to work for CIA ca 1959 reflected in CIA opening a 201 file on her that year and a lengthy investigation routine for a CIA employment application.

Her application then succeeded and she became employed in some overt capacity in CIA employment in the D.C. area, considered at the time in D.C. circles a solid respectable job with govt benefits.

She wasn’t involved in murdering and foreign overthrows etc. I don’t know what exactly Silvia did but Ruth’s testimony has mentioned psychological testing in Human Resources dept type stuff.

A key point I found was it was overt not covert CIA employment for Sylvia. The reason I know Sylvia was overt (non secret) employed with CIA is because of Sylvia’s appearance in the 1961 Falls Church, Va. city directory listing her as CIA employed. I went to some work to verify that. Those city directories were compiled from door to door canvassing. If she was covert, it would not have ended up published there in that way.

But I have also read that many CIA overt employed, from their own choice not imposed, would use a euphemism, working for “the government” rather than naming CIA, because the non-CIA public often has bad views of the CIA. So the euphemism.

I experienced that phenomenon of the use of euphemism for employment with my own Danish wife newly imported to America who, after she became a US citizen, became employed as a TSA airport security screener half-time for several years. Because TSA screening and patdowns were widely hated, she told me how fellow TSA screeners, and she herself, did not like to tell people they worked for TSA, to avoid dealing with all the reactions, etc. Her coworkers would find other ways of answering where they worked when asked, “government”, etc. I thought of that when reading Ruth’s answers to Garrison of her sister’s “government” work. 

I would not work for the CIA even in the “peaceful” sectors jobs (e.g. economic data analysis). Or the military either. But I have a sister-in-law who is career Air Force (nurse and medical administrator). I think of that with Ruth’s sister working in human resources type work for the CIA in D.C. 

John Hoke, Sylvia’s husband, apparently wanted to attain CIA employment too, applied but was turned down a couple times in the 1960’s, maybe later succeeded or maybe not, I don’t remember, but from the little I read about him he was a maverick, into inventing solar powered cars or things of that nature, not killing people or destabilizing foreign governments.

Again, that’s siblings. How is that much different from my Air Force sister-in-law.

Ruth is now 91 and in all this time none of your allegations have been proven. What happened to “innocent until proven guilty”. 

45 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

You make some good points in there, and I appreciate the depth of your reply.

I am hoping you will also give consideration and a comprehensive reply to the following;

There are three (3) different witnesses in New Orleans, that testify that the station wagon they saw, associated with Ruth Paine's visits to New Orleans, was a colour other than green.

Murrett, Rogers and Garner.

By your standards, this station wagon differs from the station wagon you have parked at 2515 West 5th St Irving, after the assassination.

 

Tony, I know nothing of any claims you mention that Ruth’s station wagon was described as a different color than green by the three witnesses you name. Would you be able to summarize those descriptions? The dark green over light green two-tone of Ruth’s 1955 Chevrolet Belair wagon, in 1963, is certain. The car is known and exists today and its history is known. I did a lot of research on that car at an earlier stage and there is no question on its two colors, both green, dark over light green. Any other descriptions must be wrong, still I would like to know what they were to try to understand them. 

3 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

I notice here you use the colour of the station wagon as evidence to debunk. You have just trapped yourself. 

No, let me clarify. The discrepancy between Shasteen’s claim of a white top (over lt green or lt blue) of a station wagon of similar or same make as Ruth’s, whereas Ruth’s wagon’s top was dark green (over light green), is NOT a decisive negative argument against an identification (because witnesses can make minor mistakes). That is not what I meant.

Rather, the car similarity is a weak positive case for identification, because there would be many similar colored Chevy wagons without being Ruth’s, which other evidence, such as Ruth’s testimony, establishes that this one was NOT. And Ruth’s testimony is very strong evidence due to her credibility.

And yet as I think further, the white versus dark green top discrepancy (both over light green lower color), actually may be some weight against the identification viewed in itself; here is why. 

It is that Shasteen’s testimony indicates Shasteen made his Oswald/ coveralls customer identification not only from Oswald on TV, but even more because Shasteen remembered the customer’s station wagon, and remembered that Ruth Paine had a similar looking wagon, and that was the “aha!” connection he made when he saw Oswald on the news after the assassination, told to have lived at Ruth Paine’s.

Shasteen said he did not know Ruth personally but he had seen her Chevy wagon parked at her house and remembered it.

And until that moment he hadn’t put that together with his coveralls customer’s similar car, but he did now. That must have been Oswald, was his logic.

He told that to his fellow barbers and customers and decided to get in his own car and drive by Ruth’s house to confirm a match to the car of the coveralls customer. Here is the point: Shasteen was consistent—both WC and HSCA—that coveralls man’s Chevy wagon was white over light green or light blue, WHITE over. I think Shasteen had that accurate, that was what he noticed and remembered of the customers car.

I don’t think he remembered more of Ruth’s car than the light green mid-1950’s Chevy wagon similarity.

If Shasteen had succeeded in his intent to verify the car identity by driving by Ruth’s house to take another look at her Chevy wagon, I think there is a good chance his mistaken Oswald identification of his coveralls customer would not have happened. For I think he did accurately remember a white top, but he would have seen Ruth’s had a dark green top, and would have realized it was not the same car, close but not the same.

But what happened was traffic was piled up around the street where Ruth lived, police cars and other cars, and he could not physically get to it so was unable to see Ruth’s station wagon.

Shasteen then returned to the barbershop and they talked some more and he decided the cars must have been a match even though he had been unable to verify that when he tried that evening. 

I don’t think Shasteen remembered that white top color wrong and Ruth lied. I think instead Ruth did not lie, Shasteen’s memory of the white top on the customer’s wagon was correct, and it wasn’t Ruth’s station wagon.

The customer must have looked a little like Oswald but many men were remembered as such according to those who did not know Oswald well; that’s why so many mistaken claims to sightings of possible Oswalds came in after the assassination and seeing Oswald on TV. 

There ISN’T a positive match ID of the cars; and the coveralls customer cannot have been Oswald due to the number of haircuts, frequency of haircuts, style of hair, clothing worn, lack of frequent barbershop visits of Oswald, implausibility that Oswald would want to go to a barbershop in Irving instead of relax with Marina and his two children, and last but not least, the very strong evidence of Ruth’s testimony, which alone and in and of itself overpowers Shasteen’s Oswald identification claim in terms of weight.

The 14-yr old (Shasteen’s account) (or 15 if Shasteen was mistaken by a year) kid as Hootkins ONLY comes into play if you first have the coveralls man established as Oswald. If you don’t have the coveralls man as Oswald first, then the kid is the coverall man’s son in Irving and Hootkins remains in faraway Dallas where he logically was anyway, and has nothing to do with any of this. 

There were three barbers in Shasteen’s shop. Two, Shasteen and Glover in talking together remembered the same coveralls customer whose hair Glover too had cut at least once and Glover too thought it was Oswald. Greg Parker agrees that Glover’s identification of Oswald in the shop  was wrong, Glover illusorily thinking some other man had been Oswald who really wasn’t.

The third barber, who had also cut Shasteen’s coveralls customer’s hair at least once (Shasteen witnessed him on that occasion) told the FBI he didn’t remember any Oswald ever in the shop. 

The evidence for is therefore weak and not compelling, against extremely strong evidence against, including the stand-alone decisive testimony of Ruth Paine against. 

There is no good reason why Ruth would lie about Oswald going to a barbershop if it were true, or have loaned her car to Lee routinely to drive if she was so intent on covering that up later. But the fact is Ruth was not a li-ar in her testimony, no WC, HSCA, or FBI investigator thought she was, all regarded her as highly credible and accurate, there has never been evidence shown that she was a perjurer that has convinced any reasonable majority who have studied the matter. And she wasn’t massively lying here to cover up repeated prior lending of her car to Lee to drive to a barbershop.

I do have Lee and Marina driving Michael Paine’s car from Ruth’s house on Nov 11, but Ruth was gone at the time and did not know that. So that driving of a Paine car by Lee on his own happened that once but it was unusual and not with Ruth’s knowledge or permission.

These interpretations make a lot more sense on the assumption that Ruth is truthful in describing everyday life details in Irving than to suppose without convincing positive evidence that Ruth was lying to cover up a local barbershop plot. 

Another thing: The 14-yr old kid who Shasteen wanted to smack because Shasteen thought he had communist unamerican ideas, that was on a week night, a school night, when Shasteen’s coveralls customer wasn’t there with him (Shasteen had seen the kid with the coveralls customer at the shop an earlier time). 

The reaction or scene of Shasteen and the kid is a satisfactory explanation of why Shasteen never saw the kid or the coveralls man there again: the kid would have told his father (the coveralls man) in colorful terms what a jerk Shasteen was; the kid probably shared similar political views as his father or parents, and they weren’t going back to the scene of that scene again.

That 14-yr old instead of brought by his father that evening—the coveralls man driving the Chevy wagon—was brought that evening by a woman driving a car of unknown make but Shasteen said it was not the Chevy wagon. That woman and car waited for the kid outside the shop until the kid left the shop and she drove him away. 

That would be the kids mother. 

If that had really been 15-yr old Hootkins far from his home in Dallas on a school night and without his mother knowing he was all the way in Irving when he was missing for dinner at home in Dallas, WHO was that woman and car that drove the kid away? It was not Hootkins. This was an Irving family and kid and that was his mother.

I cannot believe people are just enmeshed in this Hootkins and Irving barbershop conspiracy and coverup business. This is as bad as the Harvey and Lee doppelganger business, where people go that route and there is imperviousness to reason showing otherwise.

Shasteen also separately saw Lee and Marina for real in a store which Greg P has correctly I believe identified as Sat Oct 5 when Lee and Marina and June walked to get ice cream. I interpret that as Shasteen did see and remember Marina but did not pay attention to Lee even though he was there too, sufficient to know he was not the coveralls customer when Shasteen later thought back about it.

On Cummings, I have to interject this, even if slightly off-topic. It was a Sixty Minutes show, sometime mid-1980s, featuring Cummings. It stayed with me. It showed Cummings cheerfully talking about selling arms to both sides of wars, all over the world, telling his war stories, chuckling, debonair, as he discussed the world of mayhem for profit.

After all that, the interviewer (I forget which one of Sixty Minutes it was) segued into this question: cited all of the human destruction of those wars, the children killed, the maimed for life, the dead ... and asked Cummings if he felt qualms of conscience about earning profits from that (or however it was worded).

This was what stayed with me, and why I remembered it.

Cummings, who had been at ease and smiling, got real serious. The camera went close up to his face. He said (as if he had prepared for this question) how much he abhorred war (no longer smiling). He detested war, the human damage. He longed for a day when there would be a world without war and people like himself would be out of business. 

He said it with feeling. You could just see and hear and feel how much he cared.

But, he said, this was a common problem. A shared, common problem. What about paying taxes that pay for war? Isn't everyone implicated in that? It is a common problem. And if he did not sell those arms, someone else would. 

But you could see how much he cared, really really cared, about this common problem, of war.

(He cared all the way to the bank.)

I had to admire how good he was at handling the question. Had he been scripted and advised and rehearsed for that question? Or did he really believe that and that is what he told himself when he looked in the mirror in the morning?

2 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

@Greg Doudna You breached the guardrails by attacking me professionally and personally, and by insinuating Hank was either a fool or a fraud. I’m moderating the leaf from Hank’s book ... he would tell you to “just go away.”

If you’re not interested in further details about June Cobb’s life story for your own edification, on whose behalf are you lobbying, and why the urgency? Surely you and/or they aren’t inspired by the pure speculation that permeates this recent book, speculation acknowledged by the author herself btw.

Several names come to mind who might have asked you to perform as proxy. Perhaps some among those you visited with at Lancer even. Or Dr. Newman himself? In the event, you should be aware that Hank’s family was around during that dispute. I’ll leave it at that.

Let’s clear this up once and for all. The time expended with you on the issue of June — who was NOT in Dealey nor was she an active participant in the Lancelot Project — is better  spent.

Where was your interest in Hank’s pursuit of someone he suspected intuitively WAS a participant, Pierre Lafitte — with ot without the datebook and ledger sheets — a character known to have been a “special employee” of numerous three letter agencies including Hunter White’s FBN working with Gottlieb, a personal friend of Angleton as were their wives, and Charlie Siragusa, the agency’s liaison to the mob. That’s where you and “historians” should be looking, not chasing some wild speculative sci-fi that three women were actually all one and the same.

Please respond in the specifics; otherwise this discussion is concluded. And tell your “historians” they are invited to contact me directly.  Many have my email and or phone.

I speak for myself. 

When you invite Cold War historians to contact you (and not someone else) if interested in access to the June Cobb mss, that sounds like you are identifying yourself as the correct person legitimately in a position to discuss such a request, the gatekeeper with the keys to that mss.

Though it would have been preferable to have had that information at the outset in the form of a straight answer, this is at least some progress, at last disclosure of the identity of the gatekeeper: yourself, Linda O'Hara alias Leslie Sharp, contactable I suppose via the messaging feature of this site or by forwarding request c/o the address of the publisher given in the flyleaf of Coup in Dallas: Arcade Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

Full and open access to a genuine manuscript of June Cobb interviews or memoirs would be of extreme potential interest to historians.

If this was real-deal late-life extensive interviews from the real-deal CIA spy June Cobb of 1959-1963 Havana, NYC, and Mexico City--two years of twice-weekly with Albarelli, photographs, tapes, etc. including Mexico City with knowledge of operations and contacts with Oswald—if that is actually real June Cobb memoirs of those things told truthfully near the end of her life—that could be unbelievably significant.

If that manuscript deals with June Cobb's times in Mexico City in particular, from one of the most important firsthand sources there at the time Oswald was there--that is one of the most enduring mysteries of the entire JFK assassination with many unresolved questions.

You responded to the most basic questions of inquiry from me concerning who is in control of that manuscript with a brutal rhetorical personal attack on me, for asking who controls it, without answering the question. 

The way I read you, you are saying that after four years of dead silence about the late Albarelli’s June Cobb mss, that my questions are interrupting very sensitive progress (that you can’t discuss), and that I should "stay the f--- out of this" on the grounds that it is no one's business to know who controls that manuscript.

You are so loathe to give specific responsive information concerning the legal status or control with respect to that mss and you breathe fire like a dragon without answering if anyone dares ask.

Is that normal behavior to that question?

Normal behavior: “Answer. No I have no legal control over that mss.” “Answer. Yes I have xyz legal standing in control of that manuscript, and no, I and my partners are not going to allow open access <+ optional explanation or reason given>.”

Those would be responsive answers. 99 out of 100 persons would give answers of that form I would think. You don't. Why? 

It is not as if, if there were open access allowed to that manuscript to academic Cold War historians and the like, with all the potential that a true June Cobb memoirs or memoirs-like mss could mean, you could not still fully use that material yourself in a book a few years from now, a Coup in Dallas #2, and profit from those book sales then.

Or is it having an exclusive on some spun selections/soundbites dribbled out in a series of publications the sales lure, the monetization of the exclusivity and control of the interpretation dragged out indefinitely, which is the idea?

I am not functioning as proxy for anyone but seek solely open public access of JFK assassination-relevant documents and information, the same motivation as the Congress which passed the JFK Records Acts, so that responsible Cold War historians and JFK assassination specialists can have open access to process and vet and comment upon that information in the interests of history--our nation's history, history which properly belongs to all of us, as our citizens' birthright in this land, the right to know what happened in the circumstances surrounding the John F. Kennedy assassination. 

That is my only interest here. And if you have no more, I don't think I have much more to say that hasn't already been said. 

23 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

@Greg Doudna You have no idea what efforts are underway, so pardon my French, but stay the fxck out of this for the time being.

Ask Bob Woodward for his source material. See how that goes.  Better still, ask Jeff Morley about Win Scott's Cold War diaries.  See if he'll arrange for your personal access based on your illustrious Dead Sea Scroll experience. 

Inflated sense of self-importance is the hallmark of a weak ego. Don't use Hank Albarelli as a whipping post to create the illusion you're a more qualified investigator. I read your stuff on Walker.... full of holes. Where is du Berrier, or Johnson? Why leave out his fascist connections or his role as attache to Angleton in Rome? Or Wicliffe Venard or the American Mercury and Willis Carto? Instead you chase his publicist? Again, full of holes as is your stuff on H. L. Hunt. Anyone knowledgable would investigate Morrow or Diggs, and Gen. Willoughby named in the Lafitte datebook as active in the Lancelot Project - or Paul Rothermel named in the Lafitte ledgers. (Or the more contemporary throughline from Bunker to Iran Contra.)  But you chase Hunt's aging attorney.... for no other reason than he fell into your lap, in East Texas as I recall, tellin' you tales most of us in the know recognized as a complete whitewash and an embarrassing puff piece, not investigative reporting.

This is information warfare Mr. Doudna, and I finally realize what faction you're serving. You can take the boy outta East Texas, but  . . . 

More on your failure to recognize the contradictions in the Jerrie Cobb The Pilot, June Cobb The CIA Employee, and Catherine Taaffe The Arms Dealer on the appropriate thread. Where is you disernment??

You keep trying to attack and impugn me personally instead of addressing the issues. To remove myself from this, I pledge I will not personally initiate contact myself or by proxy with any known executor in a decision-making capacity with respect to access to the June Cobb manuscript. Nor if open access to legitimate historians and researchers were granted to that manuscript, I will not avail myself of such access personally for a period of seven years following opening of that access.

Now please stop your attacks on me personally for asking questions which I know are of interest to many in the research community.

I want to see others--Cold War historians; ones with more knowledge and expertise than me--capable of unfettered study, analysis, and reporting on any genuine June Cobb information that may be available.

Why the secrecy and venom at being asked questions that reasonable minds will ask? Concerning such basic questions as who is in control of that manuscript and what your legal standing is with respect to access to it?

Why not do as wise public relations types recommend: respond with information, instead of attack on the questioner?

21 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

Curious what members here think about the fact that for 60 years, Marina Oswald has made so little effort ( if any at all ) to re-connect with or at least express something more in the publicly stated appreciation praise department upon Ruth Paine than she has?

According to what I have read, Marina's cut off from RP was very sudden and hard.

Does MP even send RP an occasional Christmas card?

A woman that took her and her baby into her own home for months right through Marina's delivery of her 2nd child and even through the nightmare of Lee Oswald's arrest and provided them with as much help through all that as even a mother would have provided? 

And apparently doing so without ever once expressing a resentful "you owe me" or gratitude expecting statement toward her?

Ruth could afford the added expenses. But still, nefarious intentions or not, one would assume Marina might have given Ruth Paine at least the minimum of appreciative respect with an occasional note or call instead of an immediate cutoff and then relatively nothing for 6 decades?

Yes, it is certainly normal for anyone who has experienced incredible psychological trauma and pain like Marina Porter did during her Ruth Paine days to want to get as far away from those memories as possible and for the rest of her life.

This includes not wanting to even see people who were around during the trauma and even helped you through it.

This probably explains Marina's stark avoidance of RP all these years to a certain logical degree.

Visiting and maybe even talking to RP in person could trigger a PTSD episode in Marina that would just be too difficult and painful for Marina to bear.

Still, I always had a sense that Marina never liked Ruth Paine on any level personally.

You can't choose who offers you serious help when you need it. You take it regardless whether you truly like the person offering such or not when you are desperate enough as Marina was.

Marina actually liked Jeanne De Mohrenschildt. Felt comfortable around her. Opened up to her. A true mother figure for Marina for sure.

If it was Jeanne De Mohrenschildt who had taken Marina and her babies in during that nightmare time, I think MP would have kept in touch with her forever.

Seems like insightful comments Joe.

Marina also cut herself and her children off from Lee's mother Marguerite, and I believe at least at times from brother-in-law Robert too as well. I recall reading (cannot find the link this moment) that one of the grown Oswald daughters--was it Rachel?--while not wanting to criticize her mother, said while growing up she regretted she never got to see or know her grandmother, Marguerite. She had been told Marguerite did not want contact. Then, I think only after Marguerite's death, she learned that Marguerite actually had made attempts to see her grandchildren but had been refused and turned away, and the granddaughter had remorse that she had not sought out Marguerite herself when she had the chance, just to know her grandmother.

And, although Marina has had a life of pressures that we cannot know, and I think nearly everyone respects her survival ability, it has struck me that Marina received great wealth for a time from public sympathy while Marguerite apparently lived out her years with real poverty issues, and none of that wealth was shared by Marina to make Marguerite's last years a little more comfortable. 

On 11/29/2023 at 8:49 AM, Sandy Larsen said:

"Greg Parker is a little like that Jack Nicholson figure."

So Greg Parker isn't crazy after all??  heh heh

Thank you Greg Doudna for the well-written tribute to Greg Parker and the good fight he's put up over the decades.

Yeah Sandy, I thought of that after I posted it. As colorfully as Jack Nicholson (one of my favorite actors) acted in that film and in some of his other films, not everyone might take that as a complimentary comparison. 

Fortunately Greg Parker seems not to have taken offense. I had been meaning to write him one of these days, but before doing so unexpectedly got the nicest note from Greg P last night. He thanked me for what I said and wished me well, and this: 

I admit (and you can quote me if you want) that I was wrong in my initial assessment of you - an assessment that guided my early responses to you.

That said, I suspect we would continue to butt heads over Ruth Paine until the proverbial judgement day. 

So like in the movies where lawyers and prosecutors go at it tooth and nail against each other in court and then are buddies for drinks afterward (a little disconcerting to clients of defense counsel), or like my doctoral defense in Copenhagen (the Danish "disputats", lit "disputation" or defense) where before an open audience they have you alone on a stage and your veteran, senior "opponents" rake your work over the coals, beat you up rhetorically for two hours, then after you (sort of) hold your own and survive that, tell you you got your degree and take you out to dinner to celebrate for you ... 

In the spirit of feeling generous toward "adversaries", since I didn't get the chance before, thanks Jim D. for that time you stuck up for me in another discussion (the Coup in Dallas discussion). I appreciated your words there.  

7 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

@Greg Doudna again, apology and retraction are in order. If you choose not to, I’ll take the issue to the moderators.

Meanwhile, you can stay abreast of facts in question by following my responses to members that approached the datebook and Albarelli’s investigation laid out in Coup in Dallas Coup with an open mind from the outset.

I will state, for the public record, third party interference would prompt injunctions which could interrupt the progress being made.

Non responsiveness to legitimate questions noted. Just to be clear, you are refusing to deny that you are in some position of legal control affecting open access of that manuscript.

And are unwilling to state you would not be opposed to access now to legitimate researchers and Cold War historians of that unpublished manuscript of Albarelli on one of the single most important figures relevant to the CIA and Oswald.

I’ve seen this story before, as old as the hills. I saw it and in a minor way was a participant in the ultimately successful struggle to free photographs of the Dead Sea Scrolls to open access from the craven, greedy hands of a few self-serving academics who sat on important unpublished texts for lifetimes in order to dribble out crumbs in conferences, assign exclusive access to texts to their graduate students, generate grant funding, control the interpretations given key texts, etc and etc. 

Open access to historians now of that June Cobb manuscript would not prevent you from making any future citation or interpreted use of anything in it you wished to utilize and entwine within your Lafitte datebook Coup in Dallas publications and interpretations in future years. Nothing would be lost to you in that sense by open access now to that manuscript on such a highly significant topic to JFK assassination research.

But you won’t lift a finger in your power to cause such access to historians and scholars now, independent of your planned future spin and packaging of it in a Lafitte datebook interpretation.

Also, nobody changes into a jumpsuit to go to a barbershop to protect from getting hairs on regular clothes. I’ve been in barbershops countless times, so has every other man reading this, everybody knows men show up in ordinary street or business clothes and the barber puts a tissue collar and washable sheet or gown all around the person getting the haircut.

At the end of the haircut the barber removes it, steps away and shakes the hair off it onto the floor which is later swept up. No hair gets on the customer’s clothes. No mess, no changes into jumpsuits needed for trips to a barbershop in America.

Instead of some idea that Oswald unlike any other barbershop customer anybody has ever heard of was changing into a jumpsuit before Ruth Paine would secretly let him take her car to drive openly a few blocks away to get his haircut every second week, with instruction to the barber to leave the back of his neck scruffy and untrimmed because jumpsuit-wearing Oswald just loved paying his hard earned money in order to purposely remain looking scruffy in the back of his neck … consider the unthinkable: that witness Shasteen was mistaken. The man was somebody else, and nobody came out of the Shasteen barbershop after a haircut looking scruffy in the back of the neck like Oswald’s coworkers and everybody else noticed of Oswald in Nov 1963.  

And the claim that Ruth was parsing her answers to intend to mislead while being technically truthful is without basis. First, the wordings are FBI wordings or paraphrase of the sense of what she said as they understood it in interview, in answer to their questions as they worded those questions. Those were not necessarily Ruth’s exact words. 

Second, there is no recognized track record or comparative parallels of Ruth doing that genre of stratagem in other places apart from a couple other unverified claims of the kind that anyone could read into anyone’s words.

Third, the claim is that Ruth did that because that kind of stratagem is what Quakers believed was right to do and did (and the claim is that Ruth was supposedly being scrupulous in practicing her religion here). As evidence, somebody once cited a blog poster who asserted that was a Quaker practice and gave an anecdote as the only evidence supporting that assertion. Then DiEugenio approvingly quotes the person who believed that assertion from the blogger, and a few dozens people on this forum uncritically think and believe it sounds true for years to come, because DiEugenio endorsed it. 

But there is no recognized or standard reference work or study on Quakers, no primary text of Quakers themselves, that I’ve ever seen set forth that doctrine or custom (that it’s OK to deceive by being literally true but intentionally misleading). I’ve known a lot of Friends’ peculiarities and ways from experience but never knew that to be one.

Ruth’s answer to the FBIs question of if she knew of any 14-year old in the neighborhood associated with Oswald was a straight answer to a question asked by the FBI. She knew of no such kid associated with Oswald, full stop. There is no basis for parsing some hidden subtext or deceit on Ruth’s part in that FBI agent’s writeup of her answer to the FBI’s question. Ruth was not concealing a 15 year old Hootkins of Dallas in Irving with Oswald because she only denied she knew of any 14 year old in the neighborhood with Oswald. That’s just nonsense that Ruth was engaging in that kind of semantic hairsplitting. But DiEugenio perpetuates it, as if he doesn’t care whether it is true. 

6 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

@Greg Doudna AND YOU SIT ON IT LIKE A DOG IN THE MANGER ...

I’ll leave this here for a few days, Greg, to allow you time to apologize and retract.  

Leslie -- who exactly has control over Albarelli's June Cobb manuscript?

To whom in a position of decision-making authority should a legitimate researcher address communication concerning that manuscript? (Asking for a name.) Do you have any legal control over such decision-making?

You have said you have legal contractual rights to portions of the June Cobb manuscript for future publication down the road related to Coup in Dallas.

Is that exclusive or non-exclusive rights to those portions of the June Cobb manuscript, i.e. do you have right of veto over someone else obtaining access to and/or publishing those same portions before you do?

Have selections of specific portions of content of the June Cobb manuscript to be utilized in that contractual agreement been made or finalized by you and the executor yet?

Can you state assurance that you would not seek to stand in the way of open, immediate, no-strings access to legitimate researchers of any parts or all of the June Cobb manuscript should the legal executor so consent?

Are you willing to use reasonable personal influence to recommend to that decision-maker open, no-strings access of that manuscript to legitimate researchers?

Thanks in advance for what I trust will be straight answers, not heretofore disclosed. 

3 hours ago, Adam Johnson said:

I've had my hair cut short by clippers for the past 20 years (#3 back and sides #6 on top) never, have i ever had my hair cut 4,5,6 or 7 times in 8 weeks. Once every 10 to 12 weeks and my hair grows fast I've been told. 

Who knows anyone with thinning hair that has it cut every two or three weeks???

That’s exactly the point Adam, that customer of Shasteen’s barbershop was having his hair cut every two weeks—way more often than a frugal Oswald would and most other men.

It is one of the specific and compelling indicators that Shasteen’s and fellow barber Glover’s claim that the guy they thought from seeing Oswald on TV after the assassination must be the guy who had been in their shop, was mistaken, somebody other than Oswald.

How many men get a haircut that often? The man came in a jumpsuit on Friday nights. That’s what he wore on his job. Maybe he was some city roadwork worker, could be anything that involved a work jumpsuit, coming in after work on his way home without changing clothes, to get a biweekly trim. 

You and I and probably 98% of men sure don’t go to the barber every two weeks. Varies to taste but @6-10 weeks maybe for most working men, Oswald maybe less than that. 

Oswald’s hair was thinning as you note and his hair completely non-fashion conscious, and Oswald was poor and frugal. His own coworkers noted his scruffy back of the neck indicating infrequent, not frequent, haircuts.

It is a complete certainty Shasteen’s customer did not have an unshaven or scruffy back of the neck at any time, if he was in Shasteen’s shop getting an haircut every @2 weeks, because barbers ALWAYS clean up or shave the back of the neck, taper or block cut it, but do not leave hair growing on the back of the neck untrimmed and scruffy like Oswald looked according to his coworkers. 

Why would that Shasteen customer be in to get trimmed that often, such an uncommon frequency?

The answer is because that man liked his hair a certain way—exactly just short enough to almost stand up, but not long enough for the hair to start laying flat naturally. Hair length longer than a buzz cut, but shorter than hair that falls flat when combed. It was a certain look that particular man wanted, and that look required frequent trimming— the “take off 1/16 or 1/32” instruction that Shasteen said the barbers found so humorous when that man was gone. 

The man didn’t want much taken off at all. As Shasteen explained, the man was finicky, wanted it EXACTLY a length where it neither stood straight up or laid flat but when oiled was exactly in between, an intentional “ragged” look on top (NOT hair grown out scruffy and fuzzy on the back of his neck like Oswald had). 

It was solely that idiosyncratic look which was that man’s reason for coming in that frequently, @2 weeks. No other reason to be in that frequently otherwise.

And that shows that was not Oswald, because that doesn’t fit Oswald. And unless that was Oswald, neither the car or the 14-year old kid are of any interest or have anything to do with Oswald or Ruth Paine or Hootkins in another city. 

If that coveralls-wearing man particular about his hair style was some man other than Oswald, the car he drove becomes just some similar looking car to Ruth Paine’s but not Ruth’s (and in fact Shasteen’s description of coveralls man’s car does not agree exactly with Ruth’ car), and the 14-year old becomes trivially the man’s son living somewhere in Irving and with his Dad that once or twice in the barbershop, not Hootkins far away in the different city of Dallas.

To say from Shasteen’s description of a broad-faced or -shouldered strong husky kid with blond hair who was intelligent, who Shasteen said told him he was 14 years old, is grounds for a standalone positive identification with 15-year old slightly heavyset redhead intelligent Hootkins in another city 20-25 miles away, is not warranted, to put it mildly.

I do not understand why this has received traction. Has DiEugenio really thought this through? The best I can make of explaining this is it is a combination of Greg P’s otherwise credibility on other work combined with his saying in this case what Jim D is predisposed to like to hear—anything which might make Ruth Paine into a sinister person lying in her testimony, in this case shockingly lying to cover up alleged secret barbershop trips out in the open of Oswald. 

Tom Gram objects to my comparing Oswald against Shasteen’s descriptions, instead of Greg P’s modifications of Shasteen’s descriptions which partly attempt to harmonize some of the differences. 

For example, on the matter of at least five haircuts personally known to Shasteen and maybe as many as six or seven (WC testimony) or as many as eight (earlier to FBI), that cannot be fit in Oswald’s five weeks of weekends in Irving Oct 4 to Nov 8 at the rate of one haircut @2 weeks. 

You can look up on the ROKC site and Greg P has an explanation for that. It happens that Shasteen only personally himself gave 3 of this 5-7 haircuts to the coveralls man finicky about his hair length. So Greg P says those 3 of Shasteen personally were the only real Oswald appearances in that shop, spaced weekends 1, 3, and 5 out of five weekends, get it? That’s how he fits the coveralls man’s haircuts to Oswald. 

But what about the other at least two haircuts Shasteen says the man received from his other barbers than him in his shop, that he personally saw? Greg P waves his hand and says Shasteen was mistaken in his identifications on those! They weren’t Oswald, says Greg P.! (no matter what Shasteen thought and said)

Well, Greg P was actually right on that, those other haircuts that Shasteen saw of the same coveralls wearing man he thought was Oswald, really were not Oswald. But neither were the three times of the same man when Shasteen did the haircuts himself. 

Not only Shasteen but his other barber, Glover, who cut that man’s hair at least once, Glover, just like Shasteen, said that it was the same man. Greg P again waves his hand and says Glover was mistaken about that too, Glover too mistakenly identified some other man as Oswald who wasn’t really Oswald.

In other words Greg P has no problem with the idea that Glover in full and Shasteen in part could mistakenly think a customer in the shop had been Oswald based on seeing Oswald on TV. No problem there for Greg P. But he insists that 3 out of 5 Shasteen identifications of the same man cannot have also been mistaken, but those must be truly Oswald. But it’s just arbitrary, driven by the problem of how to fit 5-7 biweekly haircuts of that man into five weeks of Oswald weekends. So Greg P arbitrarily decides to chop off the remaining 2-4 as mistaken Oswald identifications of the barbers in that shop, problem solved (?).

And on that foundation of sand as premise (that 3 but no more than 3 of the 5 witnessings of Shasteen of what both Shasteen and Glover recognized as the same man, really were Oswald), then one has to find a 14 year old and a car this alleged real Oswald (of the 3 but not more haircuts) drove in his jumpsuit to the barbershop, and voila!—15-yr old Hootkins of Dallas for the kid and Ruth Paine’s car for the car, and Ruth is just lying, lying, in denying it! (the whole point of this)

Cannot people see this is bonkers, even if a researcher with some credibility otherwise says it is so? 

Jim D, if you were on a jury, would you consider Shasteen’s testimony with all of its major discrepancies from Oswald to be sufficient basis for you to vote/judge Ruth guilty of perjury in saying she never saw Oswald change into a jumpsuit and she never lent Oswald her car to drive to a barbershop?

Has your longstanding animus against Ruth, for which not one instance of perjury, misstatement above nitpick level/rare honest mistake, in her voluminous testimony, or any other criminal conduct has ever been proven, and the fact that Greg P said it, caused you to buy into something this weak? 

What say you, Jim D? Not what Greg P says, but you?

Do you believe Oswald really was there in a jumpsuit for 3 haircuts but not more than 3 of what Shasteen said was his same barbershop customer in his shop @2 weeks 5-7 times? 

Ruth Paine said Oswald never went to a barbershop when he was at her home in Irving and she never lent him her car to drive

"Mrs. Ruth Paine ... advised that she does not recall Lee Harvey Oswald going for a haircut on a weekend during October or November, 1963, and that she does not recall the location of any barbershop where Oswald ever obtained a haircut. Mrs. Paine has previously advised, as reflected on pages 635 and 636 of the report of Special Agent Robert P. Gemberling, dated December 23, 1963, that she did not know of any boy about 14 years of age with whom Oswald was ever associated in the neighborhood and that she had never allowed Oswald to take her car anywhere by himself." (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1142#relPageId=832)

Shasteen describes his customer he claimed was "Oswald". Was this Lee Harvey Oswald?

Did Oswald get frequent, biweekly haircuts?

"he got a haircut about every 2 weeks, and I don't think he ever went over 2 weeks"

Oswald's physical description was "needs haircut" (FBI); "needs a haircut" (Fritz, DPD); "He [Oswald] never wanted to get a haircut. We would tease him about it because hair would be growing down his neck" (Roy Lewis, coworker with Oswald at TSBD); "some of the other male employees tease him and tell him he ought to go get a haircut" (Danny Arce, coworker with Oswald at TSBD). 

Did Oswald get 5-7 biweekly haircuts in five weeks between Oct 4 and Nov 8, 1963?

"we cut his hair five or possibly six times [biweekly in five weeks between Oct 4 and Nov 8 if Oswald]"

"2 or 3 or 4 months that we had been seeing him [in five weeks between Oct 4 and Nov 8 if Oswald]"

"he could have possibly gotten seven haircuts but I think about six haircuts is what he got. It could have possibly been five. I know personally three times I cut his hair and I know that the front guy cut his hair one time, Mr. Glover, and Mr. Law cut his hair one time, the last time the customer was in the shop [Nov 8]--he might have cut it one other time and if he did that would've made six."

"it seemed to me like there was a dead spot in there. Some time maybe a month or 6 weeks that we might not have saw him, between the first time I cut his hair, but the last three haircuts--it seemed to me like he was pretty regular"

"I personally know of five times he was in there [biweekly in five weeks between Oct 4 and Nov 8 if Oswald]"

Was Oswald almost black-headed?

"Oh, he was dark headed--I wouldn't say he was real black, you know, what I mean, he wasn't jet black, but most people would call him black-headed.

Oswald was not dark-haired nor did he look black-headed. 

Was Oswald meticulous about his hair?

"We laughed about his saying, 'Take a 32nd', or he would say, 'Take a 16th off of the top', or something."

No one ever commented on Oswald being meticulous about his hair. As noted above, Oswald was teased by his coworkers for being ungroomed with hair growing on the back of his neck.

Did Oswald have a distinctive maintained hairstyle in which his hair was cut so short it would not lay down flat but was worn oiled and slicked back so that it almost stood up?

"It was almost short enough to stand up but it was too long to stand up ... rough shod ... many times I thought, 'Boy, you sure ought to let this grow out up here where it will lay down and comb nice ..."

This is not Oswald's hair at all. Oswald did not slick his hair back. Nor did Oswald's hair stand partway up. Oswald's haircut in all photos is a basic no-frills simple hair with a part combed down flat each way, not oiled and slicked back short enough that it had a half standing up fashion "look".

Did Oswald have hairy black hair on his arms?

"he had pretty hairy arms. I remember that about him, you know,. he had black hair on his arms."

Oswald was never described as having hairy arms of black hair.

Did Oswald wear huge oversized coveralls?

"he had on some kind of coveralls, nearly every time he came in ... they buttoned down the front ... those old coveralls ... they were too big for him"

Oswald had no coveralls in his clothing, nor are any known of Michael Paine, nor was Oswald ever seen wearing coveralls.

Did Oswald have yellow shoes?

"One morning early--it was a Saturday--he came in wearing old men's shoes. They were yellow w/flexible side sections--looked very comfortable." (HSCA)

No such shoes in Oswald's belongings, no such shoes ever seen worn by Oswald.

Did Oswald make lots of trips across the border into Mexico?

"I admired them [yellow shoes] + told him so + he said 'I'll be glad to get a pair for you. I got these in Mexico--only paid $1.60. I make lots of trips down there.'" (HSCA)

Oswald did not make lots of trips over the border into Mexico.

Did Oswald have a 14-year old son or accompany someone else's 14-year old boy?

"Another time he came in with what appeared to be a 14 year old boy. During the boy's cutting, he (the boy) was talking politics and finally said this country wouldn't be right until the ni**ers get the same rights as the rest of the people. I asked him if that didn't sound like a Communist type gov't would work better + he said 'Yes!' That's when Oswald told him to 'Shut up!'. Neither one of them said another word. The boy never came back. It was his first + last time." (HSCA)

Oswald never known to be in company of any 14-year old kid. 

Did Oswald drive Ruth Paine's car to go on trips a few blocks away to the barbershop?

"He drove Ruth Paine's car. She had a 1955 Chev, a 4 door sedan, I think. It was either lt blue or lt green--that part was faded quite a bit, but it did have a white top. He used to park it right over there..." (HSCA)

This was not Ruth Paine's car. Ruth Paine had a 1955 Chevy Belair station wagon that was two-tone green, no white top. It was dark green over light green. Ruth Paine never lent Oswald any car to drive a few blocks walking distance to a barbershop biweekly.

Did Oswald get his hair cut in Irving at all?

Oswald got his haircuts near his rooming house in Oak Cliff, not on Friday evenings in Irving when he arrived in Buell Frazier's car to visit Marina and his child and baby at Ruth Paine's house. The Oak Cliff barber who cut Oswald's hair is identified, at 2005 North Beckley: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95673#relPageId=31.

What did Warren Commission staff counsel think of Shasteen's story?

Warren Commission staff counsel Jenner who interviewed Shasteen wrote in a memo of Shasteen's claim to have been the barber of Oswald: "This man obviously is imagining things. His story was made completely out of old cloth." (https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/sightings-of-lho-nov.-1963-clifford-m.-shasteen/691160?item=691161) 

An appeal to reason

Jim D., whoever that customer was, it wasn't Oswald and it wasn't Ruth Paine's car. For you to embrace this as some credible allegation against Ruth Paine for answering truthfully when asked about this is not helpful.

17 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

Yes, the specific date called in, coincides with the proximity of Oswald to Irving Sports.

According to RAY JOHN over at WFAA, he received the call between 3pm & 3.30pm Sunday 24th Nov. 15 minutes later he phones the Office of Fritz.

This call precedes the FBI call.

From RAY JOHN, we get a specific description of the MALE's VOICE.

Now, for some reason, and IF the same male caller was the FBI caller, the FBI recipient of that call, does not disclose the characteristics of that voice. In fact, he describes the male as sounding "normal".

I'm confident both male callers, that suppled matching information, are the same person.

I'm also confident the FBI caught up with this same man and questioned him on a matter unrelated to the anonymous calls. (I have old research, that I'm still working on, so I'm leaving it there for now. It's only recently, since we have been discussing this issue, that I've realised it most likely is the same guy)

The key is the voice.

Makes total sense to me that the two calls re the Sport Shop Oswald rifle sighting-in were the same caller, I just assume that. Now you have got me intrigued. Who do you think it was?

21 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

Please clarify, you are implying that your "speaker" has knowledge of what Oswald said.

In the hypothetical I was outlining, yes. Oswald told somebody he had the rifle sighted-in, and by that means word got to whoever made the anonymous phone calls, perhaps someone to whom Oswald conveyed the rifle (a conveyance perhaps being the reason he got the scope base mount fixed and the scope put back on).

The more I think about this, that Nov 21 date of the anonymous caller phoning in the tips is too specific to be random hearsay transmission error from accurate Nov 11. The nature of that mistake indicates knowledge that Oswald was in Irving on Nov 21 (combined with information that Oswald had had the rifle sighted-in at the Irving Sport Shop).  

Since it was not Oswald himself making the anonymous phone calls (and it just doesn't quite ring right that Peggie Ryder or her father would not only call the FBI but also a news media radio station, and do so anonymously), it would be someone who learned from Oswald about the Irving Sport Shop sighting-in.

Since the scope was crap, and Oswald had previously taken it off the rifle, and because there is no ammo or any other sound evidence that Oswald practiced shooting after the Nov 11 Sport Shop visit, one possibility is Oswald had that costly (to him) repair done in order to prep the rifle for a sale (or a trade or whatever). Then as part of that sale or conveyance Oswald tells the buyer that the rifle is freshly sighted-in, at the Irving Sport Shop. That then would become the original source of information which via an unknown number of hearsay transmissions ends up as the anonymous phone calls of Nov 24 intending to expedite having Oswald incriminated. Something like that.

As noted, this is speculation, but speculation in an attempt to explain the specificity of the mistake in the date in the accurate tip that Oswald had had the rifle sighted-in at the Irving Sport Shop.  

Speaking of Greg Parker, though I disagree on the Shasteen Hootkins thing, never mind that, people can read those arguments and judge for themselves at the link on ROKC that Jim D. gives above. 

Greg P. has announced he is giving up the ROKC site (https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net), putting it down in the coming weeks in terms of any new activity, though leaving the site up online as an archive. A lot of solid details and documents research there among the things people variously disagree with. But underneath that, there is something about the passion for Oswald's innocence, and Greg Parker saying that after these years at it the site's purpose--to reopen the Kennedy case--he realizes he gave it his best with that site but faces reality that he fell short in accomplishing its purpose (the Kennedy case is not reopened) ... there is something about that ... that whatever else one agrees or disagrees, that passion comes through, an Innocence Project type passion parallel to or reminiscent of the lifetime spent by Eric Olsen, son of Frank Olsen, in trying to get to the bottom of his father's death.

Or like that scene in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in which the Jack Nicholson character (who is in an asylum by mistake and isn't crazy) challenges the other inmates in the asylum (whom he is "waking up" in the larger undertones of the film) ... to move some massive iron piece of furniture or something that is humanly impossible to move it is so heavy. Everybody knows its impossible. Nicholson insists he can, bets them he can pick it up and throw it. In disbelief, the other inmates reluctantly but with interest one by one take him up on his bet, putting their skin in the game in interest in the outcome.

The scene proceeds. Nicholson rolls up his sleeves, with mighty effort reaches and strains ... strains ... to lift it. Everyone watching. Nicholson (as only Nicholson can do) shows all the effort and tension as he struggles to do the impossible.

Turns out, he can't budge it. (Counter to expectations of the viewer built up by the filmmaker who by this point half-expects a surprising triumph.)

He loses his bets. But he tells them (and this was the point he wanted to make to them): "but I tried (you guys are sitting in lethargy not doing anything)". (In a satisfying cinematic final touch, in the closing scene the big strong Indian, who could hear all along and only pretended to be dumb and silent, with a mighty heave does pick it up and heaves it through a window making possible freedom.)

Greg Parker is a little like that Jack Nicholson figure.  

Speaking metaphorically here not literally, but my vision of heaven is it is populated not by perfect people, but by raw human beings, warts and all, whose defining moments come through on the things that matter.

There is some untold story to the JFK assassination, and there is a case for Oswald having been set up that day, a case that there is more to that story. Some day, conceivably, such may become known with better clarity. or maybe not, maybe ultimately never better than now in the minds of most reasonable persons judging dispassionately. 

But if--if--such does later emerge, not simply to the passionate few talking to each other among this community, but to the wider world of general recognition, forensic specialist types, law enforcement types, military and Cold War historians, academic specialists, and across the spectrum of the literate and informed reading lay public ... then Greg Parker, despite any criticisms, I think will have his place in heaven.

And I have found him decent in private on a personal level. And he is a better debater and writer than me.

So I will continue to be on the other side of the Shasteen Hootkins debate. But just wanted to get this said.

39 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

@Greg Doudna You have no understanding of policy continuity if you argue the 1960’s aren’t reflected in current geopolitics. 60 years are a blip on the screen of the Great Game.  
 

Why haven’t you researched the Kameradenwerke, the Grand Mufti and the Reich, the French Connection, the blowback of Algeria’s war for independence, Ethiopia/Eritrea and the Italians, Ireland’s ‘neutrality’ and the Nazis, NATO and INTERPOL in context of the assassination v. 2017 when Trump failed to deliver.
 

 Had Kennedy lived, what would our policies look like today? No doubt you argue his influence would still be apparent on the global stage after just 60 years? Or are you still staring at Cuba and Vietnam?

Irrelevant to the point Leslie. You’re blowing a blizzard of snow.

The issue is should hypothetical possible embarrassment to allies today justify refusal to release certain records related to the JFK assassination from sixty years ago. And the answer must be no. 

Let the truth come out. Let there be sunlight. If uncomfortable, let there be a national soul-searching and reckoning. But enough of the apologia for continued holding of secrets surrounding that assassination by decision of gatekeepers themselves not above suspicion of institutional interests in the matter.

13 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Hypothetically, if the remaining records pertain to foreign governments that were and still are our strongest international allies, would Trump and Biden be justified in refusing to release the final tranche.

From sixty years ago? I don’t buy that at all. If allies are upset or embarrassed at anything released from sixty years ago, let them suck it up and deal with it, they’ll still be allies. What is this, a floating of a bs justification meme for continued withholding from history? A modernized (and much less convincing today than then) version of LBJ’s “if you don’t agree to our secrecy there could be World War III”?

A wild thought Tony on mechanism of a mistake in the date in the tip being that specific. Somebody accurately tells somebody, “Oswald said he had this/that rifle sighted-in in Irving at the sport shop there.” The hearer or speaker does not know when but they do know Oswald was in Irving Nov 21, assumed that was when?

8 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

Yes, the anonymous calls only relate to a rifle that required sighting on Thursday 21st.

The Tag only relates to a rifle that wasn't scoped, and was weeks prior. This rifle was freshly mounted and sighted at the time.

This eliminates Peggie Jo Ryder as the source of the anonymous calls. Ryder would not divulge a normal every day single rifle sighting to Peggie.

What Horton should have looked for on the Monday, was a docket for the sum total of $1.50

Excellent point. Any sighting-in on Thu Nov 21 at the Sport Shop, with both Greener and the secretary there in addition to Dial that day, would have been run through the cash register properly and should show up as a $1.50 charge in the cash register records. Also, if such charge(s) had been found, asking Greener, Dial, and the secretary in the next week would have a good chance of a recent memory of the person or persons of any such charge on Nov 21. Yet Horton on Nov 25 did not ask Dial about that, nor was there a return visit on Nov 26 the next day to ask Greener that when Greener was back. When Greener at a later point did check his cash register tapes to report to the FBI, it was all about whether he could find a $6.00 charge in the ca Nov 2-15 range of the Oswald job ticket.

In my paper on this I interpreted the discrepancy in the date of the tip from when Oswald actually was there as indication of a hearsay transmission mistake, and that is still what I think is the simplest or most likely explanation. But this other possibility you raise should have been checked, absolutely, you’re right!

14 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

By the end of the afternoon of Sunday 24th Nov, two anonymous calls had been made from either different MALE callers or the same MALE caller.. One to WFAA (subsequently passed to the Office of Fritz) and one to the FBI.

Fundamentally, the anonymous information is the same, OSWALD, RIFLE SIGHTING, IRVING SPORTS and THURSDAY, 21st NOV. There is no mention of MOUNTS, or mention of EARLY NOVEMBER.

Both anonymous calls refer to the known day that OSWALD was in Irving, the 21st Nov.

In essence, Horton had the same information, that Detective Fay Turner (Fritz's office) had, before he spoke to Ryder on Monday 25th Nov.

This is the important part;

Horton meets with Ryder with only the information that Oswald may have had his SCOPED rifle SIGHTED at Irving Sports on the Thursday when Oswald was known to have been close by. Horton knew by then that the TSBD rifle found had a scope, and logically, to get that rifle sighted before targeting someone, made sense.

So the meeting with Ryder takes place. Ryder shows him the "Oswald" repair tag, talks about early November, looks at photos etc, all good. Horton leaves and writes up his report.

Horton never asked Ryder if a man came into the shop on Thursday 21st Nov to get a rifle sighted. Thursday was only a few days ago, fresh in Ryder's memory.

That's the reason Horton went there.

Mr. Ryder, did a man, any man, come into the shop to get a rifle sighted on Thursday?

The question was never asked.

The Thursday man could have been a shooter that weekend, for all Horton knew. Nothing had been officially been determined by that Monday.

Interesting point Tony. I've always assumed the anonymous caller got the date mistaken for a single rifle sighting-in, either by accident or on purpose. You are suggesting the possibility that the anonymous caller's rifle sighting-in said to have occurred Nov 21 may not have been the same one as that of the Oswald job ticket (which I date for reasons explained to Nov 11). And you are right, in light of the content of the tip, any Nov 21 rifle sightings-in at that sport shop should have been checked. 

Indirectly there is partial information addressing this: owner Greener, who was very knowledgeable on rifles and would have been in the shop Nov 21, said he never saw Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano run through his shop any time he was there. That effectively excludes that the Mannlicher-Carcano was sighted-in there on Nov 21. However, if the tip arose from some different rifle and different person, it could have been missed. I agree, it should have been asked, good thinking.   

2 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

What were the specifics of the anonymous tip that Horton had before he spoke to Ryder?

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11462#relPageId=203. 6:30 pm Sun Nov 24, anonymous male caller to Dallas FBI claimed he had been told just an hour earlier by a sack boy at an Irving supermarket that Oswald had had the rifle sighted-in at the Irving Sport Shop, 221 Irving Boulevard, on Thu Nov 21, 1963. (The FBI exhaustively interviewed employees at that supermarket to try to find the caller's alleged source and came up empty.) The next morning, Mon Nov 25, FBI agent Horton goes to Irving to the Sport Shop, finds the store closed and owner Greener out of the city for the day, and knocks on the door at the home residence of employee Dial Ryder, telling Ryder it was just a routine check of gun shops (did not tell Ryder of the specific tip). Ryder disclosed the Oswald job ticket to Horton at that point. Owner Greener will know nothing of this. Owner Greener first learns of the Oswald job ticket reading the newspaper on Thu Nov 28, and although Ryder on Nov 28 confirms to Greener the existence of the job ticket in Ryder's handwriting, Greener never is told by Ryder of the Horton FBI visit on Mon Nov 25. 

8 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

Do you believe Horton was aware of the anonymous tip forwarded to Will Fritz's office on the 24th Nov, before he spoke to Ryder?

Wouldn’t know for sure but no reason to assume so. The FBI had received their own phoned-in anonymous tip on Sun Nov 24 which Horton is checking out on Mon the 25th.

Also, the barbershop upstart kid told Shasteen he was 14, but by fall 1963 Hootkins was 15. Shasteen said the kids hair was brown, but a Hootkins family member (or someone who knew Hootkins well enough to be one) said he was a redhead. The barbershop 14-yr old kid advocating world government was on a weeknight in Irving when Hootkins would be at home in Dallas doing his homework.

The supposed “Oswald” figure in the barbershop wore a jumpsuit and yellow shoes that nobody else ever saw on Oswald or was ever seen in the Ruth Paine garage.

And the idea of that “Oswald” driving openly to the barbershop about 0.8 miles from Ruth Paine’s house all so Ruth Paine could perjure and cover up that she lent her car that way because it was such a secret, when 0.8 miles to the barbershop could be walked and had no need for a car … 

Bottom line: that Irving barbershop “Oswald” was a mistaken identification, wasn’t Oswald (he got his hair cut in Oak Cliff not after riding to Irving with Buell Fri nights in Irving when he would rather see Marina and his kids, and his hair was cut differently and less frequently). And the 14-year old kid in that barbershop in Irving that caused Shasteen to say he wanted to smack him to knock some proper values into the kid, was not 15 yr old Hootkins far away in Dallas whom no witness ever once even claimed had ever been to Ruth’s place in Irving.

Nothing relevant to the JFK assassination or Oswald’s guilt or innocence hangs on this in the slightest. It is a created story and then Ruth is accused of lying or alternatively deceiving by telling literal misleading truth from her religious scruples, by her truthful testimony in conflict with the created story, to make Ruth out to look bad gratuitously. That’s what’s going on with this story which Jim D has been pumping.

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Jim,

I understand that the boy went with Oswald to a barber named Shasteen a couple of times, using a car that looked like the Paine's car. And then the boy went by himself, and extolled the virtues of one-world government. And that Shasteen never saw the boy again.

What is the significance of this? Other than Oswald didn't drive.

Please. Jim D's argument should be obvious. Ruth Paine, after weeks of picking up young Hootkins in Dallas through traffic ca. 30 minutes each way, two round trips, to drive him to her house in Irving in order to give him a Russian tutoring lesson and then drive him back home (instead of tutoring him in Dallas like everyone says happened), Ruth nefariously knew--knew, Sandy--that Hootkins the future actor was going to act like a one-worlder 14 year old communist kid in a barbershop to an audience of maybe as many as eight (8!) other men in that barbershop. And the young Hootkins had gone in with Oswald (?) who drove (?) him there on one or two earlier weeknights, so that one or two people in that barbershop would remember that and make the link that the 14-year old commie had been seen with Oswald! Then, that would point a finger of suspicion on Oswald, breaking the shocking news that Oswald (by association with the 14-year old young) was leftist!!!!

And everybody knows that for Ruth to be aware of this, and to have driven Hootkins to her home for those tutoring lessons all those round trips on previous times to set this up, was definitely a crime, because everybody knows how seriously criminal it is for 14-year old kids in barbershops to talk about the world should be more fair, or mouthing some other such socialist crap.

This is what Jim D has been on about.

Of course Hootkins, Hootkins' mother, Hootkins' family, Ruth Paine, Marina, everybody on earth who was ever asked, denied that young Hootkins' Russian tutoring lessons involved two round trip drives to Irving instead of Ruth more conveniently saving all that trouble and tutoring Bill in Dallas. 

All part of the coverup. 

Hootkins' family in on it for life. To this day, won't admit Ruth was commuting young Bill Hootkins all the way to Irving and back, two round trips, to tutor him in Irving, instead of tutoring him in Dallas.

And the men in the barbershop who remembered (the 14-year old kid's own barber that day didn't recall the event) said other men had started an animated discussion about world affairs before the upstart 14-year old getting his haircut listening had piped up belatedly and joined in with his crap about the world should be more fair. A lot of planning went into that setup--good thing that was already the topic of conversation underway that day!

You just can't be too suspicious of what Ruth Paine was up to. Just ask Jim D.

[satire]