Greg Doudna

29 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

Did Dial Ryder say that his wife answered the (Schmidt dialled) phone?

Dial's account in his Warren Commission testimony is he answered the phone, said "no comment" and hung up, no mention of Peggy. The reporter, Hunter Schmidt, who had a witness to the phone call and comes across as credible, said Dial's wife answered the phone, handed it to Dial and Dial talked to him for maybe fifteen minutes. Dial's first claim was there was no phone call, then he told the Secret Service the reporter had misrepresented what he told the reporter, and then to the Warren Commission he said there was a call but he had said nothing more than "no comment" to the reporter.

40 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

Are you suggesting that law enforcement did not bother enquiring at 2434 West 5th, a house that had direct connections to the Gunsmith with an "Oswald" scope mount tag, and that it was a house with direct views to the corner of West 5th and Westbrook, where Oswald was allegedly carrying a scoped rifle in a bag, because there was a possibility that he wasn't there?

I have no special knowledge but it looks to me like law enforcement did not bother inquiring, though not for the reason you suggest.

I think your point you are wanting to make is law enforcement should have made inquiries at the house there. I agree (to ask if they knew the Randles and if they knew of any rifle activity, had they seen anything related to Oswald, how often Dial was there, did he interact with Buell, etc.). I don't know why it wasn't done other than the default explanation that it never came onto their radar.

45 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

And finally, why has it taken 60 years to find the Ryder/Jones family opposite the Randles? Why wasn't the WC informed of this while they were doggedly pursuing lines of enquiry regarding the "Oswald" tag? Why would the whole street remain silent about this?

I'm not the person to ask, I don't know.

Maybe ask Buell Frazier. 

Is it possible people like Buell living across the street either did not know or if they did know that was the house of Dial's in-laws did not think it was a matter of importance warranting a call to the police or FBI?

I doubt there was a neighborhood conspiracy not to make such a call to the FBI, yet it seems no such call was made. My best guess: an accident that no one who knew thought it important enough to call the FBI about it. 

16 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Do you have a copy of “A Secret Order”? Surely no one is suggesting Hank didn’t know who he was talking to all that time or was oblivious to the true identity of his grandson’s godmother?

That's a good question Leslie--what do you think?

Do you know who has Hank's June Cobb manuscript? I would like to ask for access to it to find out if Hank knew.

A whole lot of people in the JFK research community who knew you for the past ten years didn't know your true identity. Not so hard to imagine, if you never tell them.

So it can happen, even to the best of us, to believe someone is one name and they are really secretly some other name. I agree it is unusual and doesn't happen often, but in the world June Cobb operated that kind of thing did happen. I wouldn't hold it against Hank if he didn't know June Cobb's true identity. But maybe his June Cobb manuscript would tell whether he did? Maybe you have knowledge and can speak for what Hank had in his June Cobb manuscript on this?

I think Ruth's position on the Furniture Mart and Sport Shop Oswald sighting stories as they were reported was dismissal that they were true, because in her mind she knew Lee and Marina had not gone anywhere without her knowledge. So in her mind she knew they weren't true. That was what she said then to a reporter asking her (about the Furniture Mart sighting), and that is what she has said ever since to the present day, which was also the conclusion of the Warren Report which also dismissed that Oswald was ever in either of those places.

I see no reason to assume Ruth would know Dial Ryder's in-laws living several houses away, or if she did know who they were or had met them, might not necessarily know of the daughter's marriage to Dial, and unless she learned from some neighborhood gossip that Dial Ryder in the news about the Sport Shop was the husband of the daughter of the family down the street, she easily could never have known that either. And if she did, it wouldn't matter. Because Ruth from all accounts never considered either of those stories (Furniture Mart or Irving Sport Shop) as being true, based on what she thought she knew firsthand. 

And I do not think Dial Ryder himself was living in his wife's parents house. Instead he was living at 2028 Harvard St. (as reported by FBI 11/25 and Secret Service 12/1) and Peggy with him based on the Hunter Schmidt reporter's account of his phone call to Dial being answered sleepily early in the morning by his wife; Dial's reference to what he may have told or not told his wife the weekend of the assassination; and usually young married people live together.

[Edit 11/26/63: I have removed a closing sentence proposing a recent marriage and non-updated drivers' license of Peggie after learning from Tony Krome that Peggie and Dial were married in 1959.] 

Steve's right Tony. In addition to the Nov 25, 1963 FBI interview Steve cites, a Secret Service interview of Dial Ryder on Dec 1, 1963, also has Dial's address as 2028 Harvard (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10490#relPageId=522). We know Dial was married to Peggy in Nov-Dec 1963 and spoke of saying or not saying something to his wife the weekend of the assassination, implying she was living with him as would be expected barring marital difficulties. The December newspaper report giving Peggy's address as her parents' address across the street from the Randles must be from the police report and the question there is whether the police officer who made out the report obtained Peggy's address from asking Peggy or from copying it from Peggy's driver's license. Whenever I have been stopped by an officer and asked for my driver's license, the officer usually asks, "is this your current address?" but did that happen in that case in Dec 1963?

Here is another indication Peggy was living with Dial in Nov 1963. It is the reporter Hunter Schmidt phone call to Dial Ryder which resulted in the Thanksgiving Day newspaper story written by Hunter Schmidt. Dial Ryder first denied to his boss (who learned from reading in the newspaper on Thanksgiving that his shop installed the scope on the rifle that shot the president!) and to the FBI that any such call had occurred, then to the Secret Service protested the reporter had misquoted what he told him in that phone call.

Mr. LIEBELER. I want to advise you of the fact that we have located the newspaper reporter who supposedly talked to you that morning and his name is Hunter Schmidt, Jr., and that he has testified that he came to work at The Dallas Times Herald that morning and had a lead on this story that he had gotten from an anonymous telephone call that some woman made to the FBI and one was made to a television station here in Dallas telling them that Oswald had had some work done in your sports shop and I think I previously asked you about this and you said you didn't have anything to do with those anonymous telephone calls; is that right?
Mr. RYDER. That's right.
Mr. LIEBELER. Schmidt says that he started looking for your name which he got from somewhere, apparently in connection with the Dallas Police Department and tracked you down at your home and called you between 7:30 and 8 o'clock on the morning of November 28, 1963, and that apparently your wife answered the telephone as you were still asleep and you came to the telephone and you appeared to be sleepy and that he talked to you for an extended period of time, and that you gave him the information that subsequently appeared in the newspaper article on November 28, 1963, in The Dallas Times Herald. Mr. Schmidt was advised when he testified that you had denied giving him this story, although you had admitted that some reporter had called you on the telephone that morning. Is the name Hunter Schmidt familiar to you at all?
Mr. RYDER. No; it's not.

Who knows, maybe Dial told Peggy about the Oswald job ticket the same day he found it and when Dial did not immediately inform his boss and police, an upset Peggy told her father and her father phoned it anonymously to the FBI, the source of the leak. Then Peggy became angry with Dial over it and related issues in the coming days, there was an argument and Peggy moves back in with her parents and was there at the time of the auto accident, if she really was there at the time of the December accident.

[Edit 11/26/63: I have removed a closing sentence proposing a recent marriage and non-updated drivers' license of Peggie because Krome has informed that Peggie and Dial were married in 1959.] 

54 minutes ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

Marina at times was like shooting a riot gun...   she'd hit anything within reach... One really needed to be carefull in asking her the right questions, or you would have some serious backfire.  Smart girl she was.

That’s an interesting interpretation Jean. I remember wondering if something like that could be going on with Marina’s identification of CE 162, the light tan tippit killer’s abandoned jacket, as the gray jacket she and others see spoke of belonging to Oswald. In my study of the jackets I was certain that identification of Marina’s could not be correct—among other things Buell Frazier was categorical it wasn’t correct. I went to some work in my paper to show fluorescent lighting in indoor lighting can wash out warm colors making light tan look gray, and the leading questions in the runup of known Oswald clothing items, Marina saying yes, yes, yes… then without missing a beat asking her about the only item on the table not found by police among Lee’s belongings, that jacket, and Marina not handling it, not touching it, not hesitating, just says another yes (did her antennae pick up a yes was wanted of her on that?) … I noted the WC asked her at the close of a fourth consecutive day of grueling testimony when she was acknowledged tired and was told as soon as she got those last clothing IDs done she could go home… but she calls it a “shirt” not a jacket before agreeing, and then (wickedly?) drops a bomb, saying she thought Lee was wearing that Thursday night in Irving 11/21/63. Which completely contradicts the desired and concluded Warren Commission narrative. So that little (!) bomb in Marina’s testimony is disregarded and assumed mistaken while the jacket ID by her in the same breath is considered solid. Was Marina doing what you suggest… smart girl as you put it, wily ingenue, a hint of passive-aggressive toward her interlocutors? I don’t know. 

8 hours ago, Mike Aitken said:

Any firearm capable of inflicting a life-threatening or lethal injury from the distance of the Babushka Lady to JFK would have had enough recoil to cause her to move noticeably.  This includes pistol rounds, e.g. 9mm, 40S&W, etc.  I recommend that anyone who believes that the limousine driver, the Babushka Lady, etc. fired at the President from close range and in full view of the spectators, go to a range and try shooting some firearms.  Firearms are extremely loud and have lots of recoil.  Silenced/suppressed firearms reduce the speed of the bullet, thereby negatively effecting the damage inflicted by the bullet.

Additionally, for nearly anyone but the most advanced shooters, shooting a firearm from below eye level, the result is going to be a potshot. Also, firearms are extremely loud, and even “silenced” (suppressed) shots are very loud.  To me it’s inconceivable that the Babushka Lady fired off any rounds during the event.

Also, I’ve dealt with homicide scenes, including multiple incidents where an individual was shot in the head from close distance with a handgun.  None of the shots caused anything close to the damage that was inflicted to Kennedy’s head.  In my opinion, again, this eliminates the possibility of anyone firing the headshot with a pistol round, including the Babushka Lady or any of the Secret Service agents in the Presidential limousine.  The only time I’ve seen a victim with a head injury that even came close to the injury suffered by Kennedy, the individual was shot in the head with a high velocity rifle round.

Thanks for this Mike A., good comments, appreciated.

But take a look at this: the PSS silent pistol developed by the Soviet Union around 1980 "to give Soviet special forces and secret police an almost completely silent option for covert options such as reconnaissance and assassinations". Its size is 6-1/2 inches length. Range 25 meters (82 feet). It may be right that Babushka's camera was after all only a camera, but is it excluded that there could have been an assassination weapon like the PSS silent pistol there? Granting your point that it would not produce the major gaping head wound of Z313, could it have produced a different JFK wound (or missed)? There does remain the issue you note of the sound it would make. A figure of 122 decibels is cited in the second article below for the PSS, "on a par with simple airguns and suppressed .22 LR rifles", which does not seem silent enough to me not to have been heard by those standing nearby. Either it must be supposed some technology on the US side could do better (the argument against that would be if there was, it would be known by now), or that the sound was disguised by accident or intent by some other simultaneous sound from somewhere else so as to have been unnoticed by the three or four persons within several feet of Babushka. This is not intended to be a positive argument or claim that that happened, but a question of whether that was and is rightly excluded as a possibility.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSS_silent_pistol 

Technical discussion on how the PSS pistol worked:

https://sadefensejournal.com/functioning-of-the-soviet-pss-pistol-with-sp4-captive-piston-aummunition/

On 11/24/2023 at 4:09 PM, Tony Krome said:

Up to at least Friday, the 13th of December, 1963, Peggie Jo Ryder was living at 2434 West 5th. You have suggested above that Peggie was living with her husband Dial, and I agree. The excerpt below was published on Sunday the 15th of December 1963.

 

It looks like you’re right Tony. But when did Peggy and Dial marry? Could that W. 5th address be from her driver’s license (reporter getting that from the police report), not updated? But I agree it looks like they both were there.

[Update 11/26/63: Krome has subsequently informed that Peggie and Dial were married in 1959.] 

Author has a wild but apparently true section from documents on the CIA’s June Cobb (Jerrie Cobb acc to author) installed in a bugged hotel room in NYC (with her knowledge), with adjoining room filled to the gills with CIA and eavesdropping, around the time of the debates at the height of the Nixon and JFK presidential campaign.

Author says CIA badly wanted both presidential candidates to support US proactive regime change in Cuba so that that would happen, and although JFK had been briefed and was hawkish there was still uncertainty about him. June Cobb, major Cold War operative, at the same time she was supposedly a leftist working for Castro, was in that hotel room wheeling and dealing with highly placed campaign operatives in both the Nixon and Kennedy campaigns, in one case sending over to her contact Richard Goodwin, JFK’s speechwriter, a hawkish prepared speech for JFK written in JFK’s voice hoping Goodwin would use it and have JFK speak that.

According to author Haverstick, Jerrie Cobb was very knowledgeable on Cold War politics and history. The CIA June Cobb (Jerrie Cobb per author) was no low-level flaky honey-trap as made out by CIA legend-making (says author), but was an important operative of the agency for whom the leftism of June Cobb was pure fiction. And the CIA was directly trying to influence policy of presidential candidates in an election toward specific desired ends. 

Author compares the pay documents in CIA files for June Cobb and QJWINN, dates and amounts, and on its face June Cobb the CIA operative was very poorly paid. Author says after QJWINN was shut down Jerrie Cobb may have received a huge payout into the millions in value in the form of rare and valuable “pre-Colombian gold” and related Inca artifacts and antiquities. Jerrie Cobb would sell them anonymously for huge amounts through Sotheby’s in NYC with proceeds to her charitable foundation, the Jerrie Cobb Foundation (ostensibly assisting indigenous tribes of South America), but which ended up as Jerrie Cobb’s personal wealth. Author suggests that is how Jerrie may have actually been paid by CIA (through whatever cutouts) for highly valuable Cold War work. 

Author claims a CIA person named “Jeri” and alternative spelling “Jerri” named on three QJWINN documents, one a marginal handwritten note written by “Jeri” to “B.”, presumably Bill Harvey, matches the signature of Jerrie Cobb. Author shows photos of the two signatures of “Jeri” and “Jerrie” and it is quite striking as a match. 

Author sees a connection between a Jerrie Cobb colleague in the women astronauts initiative program named Jane Pearson and June Cobb’s case officer according to CIA documents named Jane Pierson. 

Author does a lot of timeline, dates and places analyses, arguing for matchups between the covert June Cobb persona and the above ground famous aviator Jerrie Cobb. 

7 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Ok so in other words, the author is claiming “June Cobb” was not actually a distinct, real person, but rather an amalgam of different clandestine operatives?

There was a real June Cobb born in Oklahoma, real girl who grew up, not an amalgam of anything. Then at a later stage there is a missing real June Cobb and instead an alias June Cobb with identity papers etc used as an identity cover by Jerrie Cobb and in documents operationally, by which the CIA’s June Cobb work is not attributed to Jerrie, thanks to the alias. 

…

16 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

While I wait for the hardcover to arrive, can Greg or someone else explain whether the author truly claims Jerrie and June Cobb were the same person, or simply that their individual clandestine activities were somehow merged so as to create the impression that they were the work of one individual?

Not claiming Jerrie Cobb and June Cobb (no direct relation apparently), both born in Oklahoma a few years apart, were the same person, no. Claims that Jerrie Cobb in adult life selectively claimed at times a CIA cover persona as “June Cobb” with a personal history based on the real June Cobb. Author does not say what happened to the real June Cobb. Author says the “CIA” June Cobb who worked for Castro and testified to Congress and was in Mexico City and maybe something with Oswald’s trip there, was actually Jerrie Cobb claiming to be June Cobb, not the real June Cobb. 

So it is a selective impersonation theory in this case but not necessarily of someone still living. 

19 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

So we have a GUNSMITH with an OSWALD scope mount Repair Tag who was literally within shouting distance from Ruth Paine, and across the road from the Randles. 

Roy Everett Jones was Peggie Jo Ryder's father, and Dial Ryder was his son in law.

 

Tony, this establishes Dial’s wife’s family lived across the street from the Randles, but if Dial’s wife, Peggy, was living with Dial, which is likely since they were married and Dial refers to maybe telling his wife something he told no one else the weekend of the assassination, then it does not ever put DIAL living across the street from the Randles, except when he would visit his in-laws. 

When the FBI showed Dial a photo of Oswald he did say he thought he maybe had seen him before, but according to the FBI report he thought it probably was as a customer in the shop. All of this qualified by uncertainty by Dial. But no likelihood expressed by Dial that he had seen Oswald on Fifth Street when, say, at dinner on Sunday at his wife’s parents’ house.

What might be interesting would be to ask the still living Buell Frazier if he knew Peggy and Dial Ryder from seeing them across the street, if he knew Peggy’s parents, and if he ever remembered meeting or knew Willis the musician for Ruby living in a different house also across the street from the Randles. 

4 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Good questions, fascinating book. Seeing as the author’s research appears entirely original, without the usual access to the researchers who’ve been studying this for decades (other than John Newman, who she apparently knows - the extent of that relationship is unknown), I’d give her a pass on getting everything right. I haven’t finished the book, but at least by the middle it seems that her point of view is that there were two individuals, June and Jennie, by photo evidence, but operationally maybe one individual using dual or multiple identities. Have I read that wrong? 
Her research on Harvey and Silver, indicating development of a high tech weapon that Harvey even sketches, may indicate that Babushka, or someone else, was using something other than a conventional gun. 

Yes Paul, original research from archives and documents as well as the personal relationship with the figure of interest, all not leaked in advance but a complete (and well-edited and well-written) book dropped whole "like a bomb", going to the heart of ZRRIFLE, QJWINN and the CIA persona cover name June Cobb. And yes it seems in addition to her own numbers of hours in archives and traveling to archives, there is something of John Newman in the background, considered one of the most respected JFK document researchers (and he met "June Cobb" once and Haverstick reports Newman consistently refused to rule out that photos of Jerrie Cobb were a match to the "June Cobb" he met). Last weekend there were back-to-back strong talks at Lancer by David Boylan (last up Fri night 11/17/23) and Larry Hancock (first Sat AM 11/18/23). There were other strong Lancer papers as well--a somber Johnny Cairns speaking in (literal) poetry of what the loss of JFK meant for America and the world stood out, synthesis of sounds and meanings of words reaching to the heart underneath the facts--but Boylan and Hancock building further beyond their Redbird Leads paper seemed to me especially to break new ground. (Boylan in his talk in my opinion and excitingly to me at long last solved the identities of the two men with Oswald at Silvia Odio's door after so many false leads and speculations on that these many years, and it connects Oswald right back into certain circles in New Orleans.) I wonder how Boylan and Hancock, as well as others experienced with the ZRRIFLE and QJWINN documents, will interpret and/or integrate the research and interpretations of Haverstick's chapter 5 of those operations.

Haverstick did discuss Bill Harvey's notes and drawings of a mysterious new weapon called "Button" with a drawing of something that looks maybe like a taser or slimmed-down semi-rifle shape of something but not a normal rifle. I doubt that was Babushka's camera though because if there was a pistol in Babushka's camera and maybe a silencer as well it would have to be very compact and snub-nosed, not looking like Bill Harvey's drawing. But, Harvey's name for the mystery weapon, "Button", could evoke a camera button, who knows. 

One thing gives the reader an involuntary gallows-humor smile: author Haverstick's wicked double-entendre when she reports finally working up the nerve to ask Jerrie Cobb if, when she was at Redbird with all the photographers and cameras supposedly in the plane of which Jerrie spoke, she had left Redbird "to go to Dallas to shoot Kennedy". (as in shoot pictures, get it?)

(Jerrie Cobb said no she did not leave Redbird "to go shoot Kennedy".) (That answer of Jerrie Cobb I actually believe was true, contrary to the author.)

From Haverstick's account, it almost comes through that while Jerrie Cobb never departed from overtly denying that she was June Cobb, like people burdened a lifetime with secrets wanting to confess, Haverstick says she acted like Jerrie wanted Haverstick to find and tell the story of her as June Cobb. Jerrie Cobb, if she was the CIA operative Haverstick found her to have been, would be under lifetime sworn obligation of secrecy to the agency not to reveal or discuss that. By having Haverstick find it on her own, did that function as Haverstick both confessing but abiding by her oath at the same time?

If Haverstick's account or expose holds up, it is a tremendous female spy story (referring here to the real Jerrie Cobb), though a black spy story if there was witting involvement in assassinations. Haverstick makes a serious case that a compartmentalized assassination capability was legally set up under William Harvey early in the JFK presidency with the conscious idea of being capable of being used against JFK if he did not cooperate with what some insiders believed a president's foreign policy should be toward e.g. Cuba and the Soviet Union, sort of a contingency plan that maybe became activated and resulted in Nov 22. 

And William Harvey's words, "in case of blow" be prepared to blame it on "Russia or Czechoslovakia". 

Haverstick does not suggest the following, this is from me, but in light of many other examples cited by Haverstick of "open code" sound-alike and similar-meaning words spoken openly to mean something else, it just sounds to me like "Czechoslovakia" in that statement stands for (really means) "Cuba". Soviet bloc, starts with "C", by far the known blaming interest was Cuba.  

"In case of blow", blame it on "Czechoslovakia" (sic, Cuba). Some books continue to do that to the present day with the JFK assassination, the original agency-approved conspiracy theory of the JFK assassination. 

Should the Babushka Lady have been suspected as a possible gunman in the JFK assassination?

The new book, A Woman I Know, by Mary Haverstick, makes an argument that I don’t remember having seen raised before now, and in retrospect is that a little surprising: that the Babushka Lady, seen in photos and the Zapruder film photographing the presidential limousine a few feet from JFK when he was killed, is suspicious in the JFK assassination, and I don’t mean suspicious photos. 

I mean as in suspicion of being a shooter of JFK, who was only 33 feet away at the time of the fatal Z313 head shot.

Never mind that the author proposes a name in identification of Babushka Lady which may not be right, for that is a separate issue, even if it is found in the same book. 

I find the author’s central argument of the book convincing in unmasking famous aviator Jerrie Cobb as an important CIA officer and/or agent during the height of the Cold War and the Kennedy administration, in which she operated at times under her CIA persona as the now-famous and legendary CIA agent of the early 1960’s, the beautiful American woman (in published photos) who went to work for Castro in Cuba and other leftist causes, had adventures and was reputed to be a femme fatale, June Cobb. 

(In actuality, Jerrie Cobb comes across in this book, not explicitly outed but all but, as gay, not having romantic relationships with men, and the author suggests that stories of June Cobb’s sexual liaisons with men in her spy work, which added sizzle to the persona and the legend, were bogus. The author suggests Jerrie Cobb’s own claim of having a love affair with a male pilot in her autobiographical book is also manufactured. This took place at a time when Jerrie Cobb was in the forefront of attempting to break glass ceilings for women in an unsuccessful quest to become the first woman astronaut allowed to go into space, in which her image mattered, and mainstream America was less tolerant of alternative lifestyles.)

And I find believable the author’s report of a confession from Jerrie Cobb that she, Jerrie Cobb, was the pilot of a particular twin-engine aircraft that was reported on Nov 22, 1963, as idling and revving its engine at Redbird Airport south of Dallas, as that aircraft waited for hours on the runway ready to depart, evidently waiting for some passenger who never arrived, before finally flying away. People around the Redbird airport phoned in that plane’s behavior as suspicious in light of the president’s assassination that day. 

And, for reasons given below, I find of interest the author’s case for the possibility that Babushka Lady could have been a gunman.

But I do not think Jerrie Cobb, in the twin-engine at Redbird that day, was Babushka Lady in Dealey Plaza (commuting from, then returning to Redbird to resume piloting).   

Again, these are distinct issues. I believe the author got the first three points right (Jerrie Cobb as underlying CIA agent/alias June Cobb; Jerrie Cobb’s confession of being at Redbird on Nov 22, 1963; and justified suspicions surrounding the figure of Babushka Lady), but did not get the next step right: identification of those two figures as the same person. 

Three points well-argued and persuasive, the fourth not, without impeaching the arguments in favor of the first three points. That is the picture I wish to be kept in mind here.

Now to the Babushka Lady. 

First off, I have separately wondered (this is my, not the author’s, comment) if it is certain Babushka Lady was a woman. Babushka is wrapped up with coat and scarf and sunglasses and for all we know maybe wig presenting as a woman, but if it was a man who would know.

But to proceed with this mysterious her/him figure. The author cites: the wide-apart footing stance; not talking or relating to or associated with anyone else; failure of Babushka to become known at the time and the mystery of identification; the choice to stand several feet behind Brehm and Moorman et al standing at the curb, and with Brehm in the field of vision of Babushka’s photo-taking instead of Babushka choosing to stand at the curb for better and unobstructed photos; Babushka’s coolly remaining standing instead of falling to the ground like all around after JFK is hit; being very close to JFK, only 33 feet from JFK's head; a lack of panning of the box camera by Babushka as done by normal photographers but instead a stance with fixed aim of the camera held to the eye into which the JFK limousine drove into her camera's view (as if setup for an aim for a shot); the positioning of Babushka’s hands, with the right hand in agreement with holding the trigger of an aimed pistol close to the eyes inside the camera box, and the left hand on top of the camera box for control and cushioning of kickback if it was a pistol fired; the Secret Service’s routine checks of camera boxes today to see what is inside before letting anyone get close to a president; and no photos taken by the Babushka camera, nor the camera, ever having turned up. 

The suggestion is "Babushka Lady" could have had means and did have opportunity to have been a gunman in the assassination—to have fired at JFK’s head at close range (33 feet) by means of a pistol, held to the eye and aimed and fired, hidden within, and outwardly disguised as, a box camera. 

The author says the Z313 head shot occurred just after JFK passed Babushka, which would put JFK if hit by Babushka as a hit from behind.

Then Babushka, who did not hit the ground like everyone else at the time of the shots but remained standing unaffected, bundled up in anonymity, walked away and disappeared to history, her identity unknown and no photos from Babushka’s supposed camera ever came forth.

Forget Jerrie Cobb for the moment, even if this is a book about Jerrie Cobb. For there is no reason to suppose Jerrie Cobb was other than the pilot of that twin-engine at Redbird that day—not at Dealey Plaza. 

Just consider the Babushka-as-gunman idea for a moment in itself, on its own merits.

Is that not ingenious? Was Babushka ever considered a suspect or ruled out as a suspect in the FBI’s investigation?

If not, why not? 

Would this not have made a great “Colombo” or James Bond episode, of an assassin in broad daylight, walking away unsuspected while police scramble madly to hunt for hidden gunmen shooting from buildings or from behind fences et al? 

Against the notion of Babushka as a shooter I can imagine at least one objection: that Brehm and two other other curbside south knoll witnesses, Mary Moorman and Jean Hill nearby, did not tell of hearing a shot fired from immediately close behind them.

Could that be addressed by supposing a silencer on the pistol? A silencer still would not totally suppress sound, right?--but it would depend on how much ambient noise there was in the background, whether a human ear watching the parade would pick it up behind them? Maybe even more, there is all the discussion over the years over that forward movement of JFK’s head a split-second before the Z313 violent-backward. Could a coincidence of two practically simultaneous shots mean that witnesses only heard the non-silenced one, and did not notice the distinct one from Babushka if there was one? Could Babushka have fired one of those two shots, hitting JFK in the right parietal or right occipital of JFK’s head? 

(Or alternatively, the shot that hit JFK’s back but did not penetrate more than 2”, at the timing Cliff Varnell always cites of Bennett riding in the car behind JFK, if that was the timing?)

Babushka Lady as a possible mechanism for both an assassination of JFK at close range, and escape of the gunman after the shot, is that not ingenious?

Just assassinate the president, then calmly walk away openly, weapon in hand, unsuspected, seen by hundreds of eyes in person and millions of eyes on film, and fade into disappearance forever, no problem!

Is that not an ingenious suggestion?

Is it possible that possibility never occurred to the Secret Service or FBI, or the Warren Commission or HSCA, or to researchers before author Haverstick publishing in 2023? 

Does anyone know of a falsification to this idea retroactively justifying a lack of law enforcement consideration of this as a possibility?

(Note the question is not whether Babushka Lady fired a shot at JFK, but whether it was proper not to have considered that she/he could have.)

15 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

Was it you that mentioned you had met her? Would you be tempted to ask her if she was aware that Peggie Ryder lived a few doors away, and that the Randle phone number had belonged to the house next to hers? Be great if we could get those matters cleared up.

Tony, as chance has it, I received a note from Ruth Paine yesterday, only the third written communication I have received from her in 22 years. It was a nice handwritten note in her frail handwriting responding to my mailing her my two papers on the Furniture Mart and the Irving Sport Shop (which I have on my website, https://www.scrollery.com/?page_id=1581). I have never sent her anything before and was unsure whether it would be an intrusion to send this, but did so because my research results so directly involve her house so long ago and I thought possibly could in some small way bring an element of understanding or closure to Marina's long-ago estrangement from Ruth without reconnection in later years. In my cover letter to Ruth I quoted this section toward the end of my Irving Sport Shop paper:

Ruth's reply, courteously expressed, was that she had read my two papers and that I had not succeeded in convincing her that Lee and Marina took Michael's car on a trip to a store, but she thought it commendable that I was researching and seeking truth. (What she didn't say was some form of "I know your paper is wrong because I was there and reason x, y, z". As for someone 91 years old not changing their mind, I don't mind that.)

As to your question, I am not in frequent or ongoing contact with her and do not feel up to writing to ask the questions you ask, to do that (not that I'm not curious about what you name). I wonder if someone close to Ruth (not me) could with Ruth's permission become a conduit for anyone to email questions, to relay and obtain and communicate back answers if Ruth was willing to do that. 

Speaking of aged living persons from that time, I called John Curington in Texas, the aide to HL Hunt, a couple of weeks ago, now age 96. I suspect he has more to tell which he has not yet told, because it could go into areas of past personal criminal wrongdoing, I don't know that, but I suspect it from some things he has said to me. He has directly said to me his book on HL Hunt with Mitchell Whitington and interview with me was the "light" version of what he knows. Another person than me would see this as a loss to history not to obtain if possible, actually that is how I see it too, but I just don't have the initiative to see if a trip would work to be worthwhile, whether he would tell more than he's said already, how reliable are stories from someone 96 years old, shyness (mine), and increased reluctance on my part to travel by air in recent years, all those reasons mixed together. Curington has become hard of hearing and is now a little difficult to talk with over the phone for that reason.

I'm sorry I'm not up to being more helpful to your question.

1 minute ago, Andrew Prutsok said:

And as for her authenticity, just look at all of those other Soviet immigrants and defectors she took into her home over the years.

Long ago my parents took in a foster girl for a year, loved and cared for that girl, did their best. It was a difficult experience and they chose not to repeat it. It does not mean they were not genuine; they were.  What nerve people have condemning Ruth Paine for what companion she chose to share her home with or not post-Marina as the case may be. I understand she reunited with Michael and lived with Michael until a later divorce, then at a later stage I think a boyfriend in there somewhere. Whose business is it and who cares. She treated Marina well while she was in her home and that’s all that matters. This is so unreasonable. 

22 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

And her role in handing over questionable evidence against Oswald. 

Michael—she gave no testimony that incriminated Oswald. As for physical evidence, what physical evidence do you have in mind specifically that you think Ruth should have decided not to hand over? 

6 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Greg, I too think she has been unfairly abused at times. But I have long had doubts about her as a result of the Oswald letter. Perhaps you can help me with this. Why did she fail to tell the DPD about it on the 22nd, and wait to the 23rd to tell Hosty? It seems obvious to me that this was not an over-sight, and that she was wittingly or unwittingly attempting to impress Hosty and/or the FBI. Has she ever addressed this, to your knowledge? I mean it could very well be she was impressed with Hosty, or even attracted to him, and that she wanted to give the letter to him to help him in his career, as opposed to giving it to some Texan in a cowboy hat. Do you have any idea why she did this? 

I wouldn’t know Pat. It’s true she had started a favorable impression or friendly relationship with Hosty, and she said she had planned to give the letter to him anyway. After the assassination and Oswald was a suspect would require timely/immediate giving it, no delay, which Ruth did, just not to the DPD which treated her rudely, took her property out of her house without a warrant and over her protests, and was treating her as a suspected communist. Did she decide then to give it to Hosty whom she trusted and he could take charge of turning it over to DPD if warranted? I am not aware of Ruth having been asked or commented on this specifically. The other possibility that occurs to me is if Ruth did wonder if Lee could be a spy, did she think that FBI would be better to give the letter than local police. But thats just speculation, I don’t know. Did FBI give the Dallas Police that letter after they had it Sat Nov 23? Should they have?

25 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Sorry, but this yet another "such and such knew someone and they were college classmates with someone and they once went out to lunch with someone else and so that means Ruth and Michael are CIA spies." There are numerous other dubious conclusions here, including that Ruth would have been "informing on Oswald to the FBI" by giving them the "Kostin" letter, that there's something suspicious about Michael Paine attending meetings with Oswald by groups with opposing ideologies (there isn't), and, even worse, that the Paines had "very limited interactions" with Oswald (total nonsense - Ruth probably spent as much time around Oswald in 1963 as any other human being).

Absolutely right. Does she know anything material related to the assassination that she has not already told? Extremely unlikely. She has talked and told the truth to the best of her ability. There is no evidence or indication otherwise. Only baseless suspicions from some villages which, traumatized over the loss of JFK and what his loss represented without adequate resolution (the trauma is real) fix on scapegoating as some primal purgation, and a factually innocent Ruth Paine, whom I doubt has ever acted intentionally to harm someone in her life, becomes “it”. 

On 11/17/2023 at 10:47 AM, Michael Griffith said:

Perhaps an even more plausible theory is that the back wound was caused by a large fragment from the shot that struck near the right rear of JFK's limo early in the shooting. This would explain the back wound's slightly upward trajectory, the wound's shallow depth, and Custer's account of seeing a large fragment fall from JFK's back when the body was lifted for the taking of x-rays. 

The most likely, really the only plausible, explanation for the two back-of-head bullet fragments is that they are ricochet fragments from the bullet that several witnesses said struck just behind and to the right side of JFK's limo early in the shooting. The same shot may well have sent a large fragment streaking toward JFK's back.

Michael, on the back wound coming from a ricochet from a bullet hitting the street behind the limo and bouncing up into JFK’s back, that could account for the low velocity and the <2” penetration (per the probe attempts), and would also remove the objection to a short shot, that a short shot would have fallen short and not hit jfk at all (by the ricochet idea that is exactly what happened) … but it raises other issues.

First, it seems unlikely the nose of a ricochet bullet, if so, would look pristine like the nose of CE 399, therefore it won’t work that the Landis claimed bullet find was both from the back AND is CE 399. That’s not necessarily a fatal objection since the Landis story is a currently contested story. 

But second, the entrance wound looks like a whole bullet entering nose first as if it had not ricocheted. If a ricochet would the entry look like that? I suppose that is ambiguous because it could by accident? (True? Is there data showing ricochet bullet entrance wounds looking like the jfk back entrance wound?)

And a third point, you mention the back wound’s “slightly upward trajectory”, but my understanding is the finger and metal probes found what the Sibert and O’Neill FBI report retold as a 45 degree downward trajectory (for ca two inches). I do not recall any physical evidence report for an upward trajectory apart from an indirect reasoning conclusion from the assumption that it came out the front of the throat (through and through), which I believe you reject. Absent that assumption, there is no upward trajectory for the back entrance. 

The only sense I can envision along this line of thinking would be the ricochet striking on the street was sufficiently far enough behind the limo and the speed of the bullet now sufficiently slow that it literally was on the downward “falling” half of an arc when it went into JFK’ss back, after striking and “bouncing” upward off the pavement. In that downward arc the bullet could then go in JFK’s back at about 45 degrees downward (that angle report not well explained otherwise in any case). 

Can it be determined how far back of the JFK limousine a ricochet bullet may actually have hit the street pavement, and how far would be the distance it would take for the bullet to peak and start falling downward again in its “bounce” arc? 

I have the book. On the photos, the author discusses those, recognizes they are different women, does not claim they are of the same woman. What the author claims is that Jerrie Cobb the aviator was also a covert CIA operative who had cover persona named first “Catherine Taafe” and then the CIA/Cuba/Mexico City “June Cobb”, which took over true life biographies of the real Catherine Taafe and the real June Cobb as part of CIA cover identities under which Jerrie Cobb operated at times.

The author says Jerrie Cobb told her she, Jerrie, was the pilot of the twin-engine plane seen at the Redbird Airport revving its engine on the runway waiting after the assassination. Jerrie told the author that it was a charter flight in which she flew a Life magazine news team from Miami, then when the assassination happened, they flew back. 

So the author is not speculating that identification but reporting Jerrie’s own claim on that.

On 11/18/2023 at 7:20 AM, Tom Gram said:

Just for context, here’s an FBI report on Bardwell Odum and another guy asking the neighbors if they saw Oswald that morning. All denials, and no 2434 W. Fifth: 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10408#relPageId=103

EDIT: Don’t know if this is of any use, but in this massive index of phone numbers from Weisberg, Dial Ryder’s home phone number is listed as BL 3-4876, Irving, Tx. Page 65: 

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/T Disk/Telephone Numbers/Item 06.pdf

I see Odum checked with the people at 2438 W. Fifth, across the street from the Randles and Frazier, but not the next house, 2434 W. Fifth, Peggy Ryder (and Dial?). Maybe that house was judged beyond the scope of interest which was houses that could have seen Oswald walking to the Randle house the morning of Nov 22. 

And in the never-resolved question of the source of the anonymous phone calls that came in Sun Nov 24 tipping off the press and the FBI with the true information that Oswald had had his rifle sighted-in at the Irving Sport Shop ... Peggy Ryder was never interviewed, even though Dial said he had not told anyone about his Oswald work ticket except his wife. Did FBI have scruples against interviewing spouses in an attempt to find information about the other spouse that potentially could involve criminal charges (even though that never was the case with Dial)? 

In any case Odum becomes a second narrow miss failure to question Peggy Ryder. Still, Odum's near miss in interviewing her looks like coincidence.

Peggy Ryder would otherwise be a candidate for source of the leak that tipped off the FBI re the Oswald rifle sighting-in at the Irving Sport Shop if it were not for (a) the deep male voice of the caller of the two known anonymous phone calls on Sun Nov 24; and (b) one of the two anonymous calls was not to law enforcement but to a TV news station. 

That does not sound like Peggy Ryder going to either the DPD or FBI with a confidential tip on something she learned from her husband. Do "good citizen" phone calls to law enforcement (e.g. Peggy Ryder if so) also call to the press? I don't think so. Yet the leak was true information in the sense that Oswald had had the rifle sighted-in by Dial Ryder on Nov 11 (per argument for reasons in my paper), and if Dial or Peggy Ryder weren't the leak, it about comes down to the leak (source for the anonymous caller's information) being Oswald himself, via someone Oswald told, whether as part of a conveyance of the rifle or otherwise, as the source of the anonymous caller's information.