Greg Doudna

Excellent riveting program. Two things stand out to me. First, post-Bay of Pigs how the Battalion or "secret army" actually soon became for the most part pro-JFK, not anti-JFK, because JFK (according to all the information in the program) was working with the exiles on continued efforts to overthrow Castro and exiles believed JFK would succeed. JFK had made a promise, after all, upon the return of the BOP prisoners from Cuba, that the flag of a free Cuba would fly in Havana (overthrow of Castro)--and the Battalion members cheered JFK on that and believed it, that JFK was going to deliver, and this after the Bay of Pigs (per the present documentary). 

And yet at the same time there is all the credible information that JFK was privately corresponding with Kruschschev, getting the test ban treaty, giving the American University visionary speech with a vision of an end to the Cold War.

I can see no other big picture conclusion than this: JFK was intent on overthrowing Castro, and if it played out as JFK and maybe Kruschschev intended, Kruschschev was going to let that happen (i.e. loss of Castro as Soviet satellite, throw Castro under the bus), as part of a quid pro quo of an end to the Cold War. 

i.e. JFK was intent on rapprochement with Kruschschev and ending the Cold War with the Soviet Union, but not intent at all on rapprochement with Castro, notwithstanding rumors to the contrary.

RFK Jr. tells of his father's personal friendship with Ruiz Williams and other exiles (who were intent on overthrowing Castro). It seems the vision of JFK/RFK for Cuba was a free and democratic Cuba that was aligned with US interests. Due to US election pressures, an overthrow of Castro before November 1964 would be predicted. All of this supports the basic idea, brought out in Lamar and Waldron but also in the present documentary, that there was an imminent large-scale action planned for Cuba at around the time of the JFK assassination. 

I would be interested in knowing if any key points of this synthesis or interpretation are clearly wrong, from some more informed on these matters. 

On 5/18/2023 at 3:11 PM, Steve Thomas said:

Greg,

Elrod told the FBI that Ruby had met four other men in a motel to talk about a gun running scheme.

I wondered if Borchgardt named those four other men. We know Lawrence Miller was one.

Was Wydell Ruby's car mechanic?

Steve Thomas

That is interesting Steve, seems like it could be the four, i.e. two versions not just one of the same story. In this second version with actual names that could be further traced and researched.

If Elrod was picked up Friday on suspicion and held 72 hours (as in the memory of Elrod in the excerpt you quoted), he would have been in the Dallas jail after Ruby's killing of Oswald Sunday morning, and the reference to Ruby by name would make sense as after Ruby was in the news, not before, therefore the incident of the seeing the man with the smashed-up face I reason should be Sunday afternoon or Monday (and the man in the cell with Elrod therefore not Oswald but someone else--Thomas Masen, who supposedly was arrested about that time and also was involved with gunrunning (and according to ATF Ellsworth, could be confused in appearance with Oswald thereby accounting for possible confusion in Elrod's memory on that point?)

Borchgardt says all four in that meeting worked for someone named "Fred". Any idea who "Fred" could be?

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

If Paine says the March notation was put on after the JFKA, and there is no way of disproving that...then this likely a dead end. 

That does not mean Paine is, or is not, telling the truth. 

It just means there is no compelling evidence she was lying about this specific matter.  

It also has to be wondered the plausibility of the idea of a top-secret involvement of pacifist Ruth Paine in Oswald's rifle, why she would put notes to that top-secret information on her kitchen calendar bulletin board to remind herself so she wouldn't forget the secrets she was not supposed to reveal. Why not post it right there in the calendar on the kitchen wall? Makes perfect sense! Not very good tradecraft? Does anyone seriously still think that? 

DiEugenio who disparages a researcher who is producing research on the case--me--by a gratuitous insult and name-calling--will cast suspicion on Ruth Paine without putting any cards on the table as to what he is actually accusing. The innuendo ... the wink, the sarcasm, the arched eyebrow, the mocking ... It is a way of having it both ways. Insinuate dark suspicions, the witch allegation, but deny that anything was actually accused if called out on it. 

Some people have spent lifetimes involved in JFK assassination study without having any concrete evidence-grounded proposal to solve the case other than suspicion of the Agency or other malevolent unseen dark forces at large. The lack of solution in itself is not to be faulted--to admit one doesn't know when one doesn't. But knowing that something horribly wrong happened to America in that assassination and not knowing exactly who, what or how it went down, innocent people like Clay Shaw and Ruth Paine become targets ... neither of whom had anything to do with killing Kennedy or knowledge of who did ... ruining reputations of innocent people, without conscience, without remorse ... age-old scapegoat theory wired into human tribalism at work ... in Ruth Paine's case for the crime of having believed the Warren Commission's findings and having tried to help that investigation by truthful testimony.

When the elephant in the room is the assassination may have a solution at hand, means, motive, opportunity, and confessions--the Marcello-Trafficante-Hoffa-did-it angle. If only there had been, say, some courageous local prosecutor in New Orleans willing to investigate and expose how Marcello controlled the local pols and law enforcement in New Orleans with a reach all the way to Dallas ... to have investigated Marcello's relationships to Ruby and Oswald and public officials.

Three articles:

"Murdered by the Mob?", Robert Blakey (1993), https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1993/11/07/murdered-by-the-mob/590c014a-a3b4-4f6d-b5a2-189249cd5663/ 

"Carlos Marcello and the Assassination of President Kennedy", Don Fulsom (2009), http://crimemagazine.com/carlos-marcello-and-assassination-president-kennedy 

"John F. Kennedy's Vision of Peace", Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (2013), https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/john-f-kennedys-vision-of-peace-109020/  

23 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

This is slightly off-topic, but I wanted to jot it down before I forget it.

On December 1, 1963 Richard Borchgardt (who had appeared in a lineup alongside Lee Harvey Oswald) told Patrolman Kenneth Anderton that he had information that Jack Ruby was involved in a gun running scheme involving Lawrence Miller, et.al.

Portal to Texas History John F. Kennedy Memorial Collection

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth338950/?q=Anderton

Though Anderton identified Borchgardt as “Robert” instead of “Richard”, Borchgardt told Anderton that Ruby had been in a motel room with four other men and named Lawrence Miller as one of the four. Lawrence Miller is the man with the smashed - up face.

Compare the Borchgardt/Anderton story to the account of John Elrod in this FBI Report:

Steve Thomas

This is interesting Steve but I see nothing connecting Ruby to the Miller gunrunning four or a motel room in the borchgardt story, though it sounds like borchgardt knew the same ones in the Elrod story. What is interesting is borchgardt picked up some rumor that ruby owed bookies —not the irs—$40,000 (about a half million in todays money) which would be forgiven if he offed Oswald. But no verification and officer Anderton didn’t think there was anything of interest there, such as to ask borchgardt where he heard that. 

Unrelated to the theory of the shots of the author, but why call Ruby by his birth name, Rubenstein, instead of by his legal name since 1947 when he legally changed it to Ruby and went by that name to everyone thereafter?

Away from home and speaking only from memory, but one detail can be cleared up. The report of the sighting of Oswald with Ruby testing speakers or electronics equipment is the alleged Ruby and Oswald sighting at the Contract Electronics store, which actually was Craford according to both plausibility and Craford’s direct testimony that it was him. In other words a mistaken identification of Craford. The informant source of it I think was an employee at the store (?-not sure on that detail), who had been an informant in the past. Not an actual Oswald connection to Ruby there. 

william Kelly has done some interesting research on ONI files and Oswald (I don’t have the links this moment). One of the “fire marshals” doing security for the Oswald women at the secluded motel after the assassination when the Secret Service had them before the FBI, was also, unknown to anyone at the time (but is known now), a or the resident ONI agent in Fort Worth. That is, ONI was there covertly at the earliest interrogation of Marina. See William Kelly’s blog posts for that. 

Michael, on Frank Cimino, the anomaly I can see is lack of mention of seeing Jimmy Burt and Wm Smith, but the rest would be part of his "About this time people came from all directions". Helen Markham thinks the killer went in the alley as about the location on Patton where she last saw him even though the killer actually went south on Patton to Jefferson from other witnesses. Could it be Cimino "put[ting] on his shoes" took long enough (sixty seconds?) for Burt and Smith to have driven there and left by the time he got out his front door to see for himself? 

Hi Cliff, in response to my asking this:

8 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Could you explain how you see the right T1 transverse process hairline fracture and the air pocket as refuting the slight upward and slightly from the right (enough to miss the windshield) trajectory that a shot would have hitting JFK's throat from the front at Z330, and exiting back of the head, fired from the storm drain? 

You answered this:

8 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

I asked Barb Junkkarinen what creates the kind of air pocket seen on the x-ray and she said it can occur when the tissue is lightly tapped—“like with a pencil.”

I am not at all comprehending your answer. First, who is Barb Junkkarinen and does she have medical credentials. Second, are you interpreting that as a suggestion that the air pocket was caused by a doctor at Parkland tapping on the outside of JFK's throat lightly with a pencil or similar object? What does the quote from Barb Junkkarinen have to do with--how does that refute that the throat wound could have been a front entrance wound from a shot fired from the front?

In response to this 

1 hour ago, Greg Doudna said:

(The throat wound maybe an entrance wound from a shot fired at ca. Z330 from the storm drain, exited rear of the head?)

you replied this:

1 hour ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Not according to the cervical x-ray, which shows a hairline fracture of the right T1 transverse process, and an air pocket overlaying C7 and T1 — consistent with a frontal throat shot.

Could you explain how you see the right T1 transverse process hairline fracture and the air pocket as refuting the slight upward and slightly from the right (enough to miss the windshield) trajectory that a shot would have hitting JFK's throat from the front at Z330, and exiting back of the head, fired from the storm drain? 

1 hour ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Pellet guns.  And the pellets were removed prior to the autopsy.

Are there any other cases of assassination by pellets?

OK. Are you sure you mean multiple pellets not one for that back shot? How many shots are you talking about for that single hole in JFK's upper back?

Could you say when you think a pellet in that wound in the back would have been secretly surgically removed prior to the autopsy, and for what purpose?

How about instead, no secret surgical removal, but, that missile coming from an air gun it did not penetrate the skin fully, and did, as the original Siebert and O'Neil FBI report reconstructed, come out by itself perhaps during the medical procedures at Parkland?

And as for who would be interested in hitting JFK in the back with a CO2 handgun in the midst of a serious intent to assassinate and kill, perhaps a "decoy" shot from the 6th floor TSBD--the first shot to get people's heads turned that way from the sound toward the sound, toward the TSBD, the first shot that the witnesses said sounded "different" than the others?

The rest of the shots other than the one to JFK's back all from real rifles to kill. (The throat wound maybe an entrance wound from a shot fired at ca. Z330 from the storm drain, exited rear of the head?)

JFK's reaction to being hit in the back that first shot with the air gun, the Thorburn reaction (not from being hit in the throat)? 

3 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Meltdown complete.

The central question remains — what kind of weapon leaves a shallow wound in soft tissue?

An air pistol? https://survivalmag.net/best-air-pistols/ 

55 minutes ago, David Josephs said:

You can stop right there MG.  

David I too am skeptical of the single bullet going through-and-through from the back in the rear out the neck in front. I am wondering if it is possible a bullet fired at about Z330 when there is a "jiggle" and some support from witnesses for a post-Z312 shot, could have been fired from the storm drain, entered the throat and exited the rear of the head. The position of the limo at Z330 would be about right to have that shot be possible and "just right"; the off-right location of the storm drain would be a trajectory avoiding a hit of the windshield; the angle of JFK's head (following Z312) and the slightly upward trajectory from the storm drain would agree with reports that a probe went all the way through from the back of JFK's head to JFK's throat wound; it would agree with the strong statements of appearance from the witnesses that the throat wound looked like an entrance; it would agree with credible witness accounts of hearing or seeing shooting activity coming from that storm drain.

(Lest there be misunderstanding, I do not suppose any entrance or exit to that storm drain of a shooter via tunnels. The shooter would gain entrance to that storm drain in broad daylight the morning of the assassination by means of a vehicle stopping and stalling immediately over that storm drain, enabling and blocking from view a person descending into the storm drain through the manhole cover and then cover up again; then with that accomplished the stalled vehicle would move, shooter now safely there. It is confirmed from a police report that a pickup truck was stalled in exactly that location at about 10 am or so the morning of the assassination, in exact agreement with what would be necessary to this scenario. On exit, I assume any shooter there, if so, would need to remain there until after dark when with assistance could get out unobserved. Presumably with sandwiches and a canister of coffee to pass the time! There would be a risk if any officer thought to check, by looking into, the storm drains, to see if anyone was there, but there is no report that ever happened, an unfortunate oversight in retrospect.) 

BUT--I have a MAJOR problem and this is why I am more sympathetic than others to why a lot of people have thought (rightly or wrongly) that there was a bullet through-and-through entering the back wound to exit out the front of the neck. What is the solution to this problem?

The problem is: the back wound is an entrance, so where did that bullet go? It isn't in the body itself (lots from the autopsy on that). Only two possibilities: either it was a shallow-penetration and came back out the back, as the FBI thought and as supported by the stories of probes not going in very deep in that wound. Or, it exited through the throat. I realize Varnell and Prudhomme have proposed the bullet went in and then dissipated completely (Prudhomme's dum-dum bullet) so thoroughly that there was no bullet core to be found in the body. I am no ballistics expert but gut feeling is that is a stretch, in the absence of some other ballistics experts (not non-expert people like me attempting to do intelligent-layman reasoning) actually saying that would be very credible (for a bullet to go in JFK's back and break up so thoroughly as to not be detected by the autopsists). (I accept Prudhomme has ballistics expertise but I mean second and third expert opinions in support of Prudhomme.)

Pat Speer and some others have argued in favor of the original FBI Gaemberling report view that the bullet that went into the back was a very shallow penetration (and that the bullet penetration was so shallow that the bullet in fact came back out). 

The probes reported at the autopsy support that. Fair enough, but how? How do you think that happened, David?

Because: Prudhomme argued, pretty convincingly to me, that any freak "short shot" that was underpowered by mistake would have simply fallen short of the limo altogether and never made it to JFK's body at all.

And yet that shallow penetration is looking at < 300 fps speed, very slow. No rifle, or pistol either that I can find, fires at that slow of a bullet speed.

And the book, The Bastard Bullet, cites medical gunshot wound people who say the penetration needed for the bullet to come back out would have to be even more shallow than realized: if the bullet went into the flesh fully the skin closes up behind it and it is not going to come back out naturally even during chest massage, as the FBI report reconstructed. The bullet would practically have to have gone in only partway, part of it still sticking out, for it to come back out naturally. 

I read Pat Speer's discussion on this on his website (https://www.patspeer.com), but I did not see (or else did not understand if it was there) an explanation for how a shallow penetration was possible, i.e. from the fps speed being so slow to account for that but still have the bullet hit JFK's body at all.

I recently spent some time trying to check another possible explanation--which turned out to be fruitless but if it helps anyone else I'll tell what happened. I thought and thought: what could account for a shot fired not penetrating very deep, and I thought of bullet-resistant clothing. Worn by heads of state today more commonly than publicized. So good in tailoring today that it almost can't be obviously noticed.

First I wondered if that spica tape said to have been wrapped around JFK's trunk could possibly have had unreported bullet-resistant properties, or some bullet-resistant properties built into that tape used on JFK's trunk. The idea being that the bullet comes in at speed but some barrier protects JFK's back from the bullet entering much. Not kevlar but some textile. 

But from all accounts the spica tape, taping up his back brace, was around the lower part of his trunk and thighs, not as high as his upper body or shoulders area at all. Plus spica tape itself would not stop a bullet the way needed.

JFK's bloodied shirt is known and there is nothing bullet-resistant about that shirt.

JFK's suit jacket I believe is also known and nobody ever found anything unusual about it, thicker or heavier, or padded with silk. Padded silk could slow down or stop a bullet, but there is no sign of padded silk worn by JFK on his upper back. 

And I cannot find a hint of mention of JFK wearing protective or bullet-resistant clothing (surely the Secret Service, and Vince Palamaro, would know something of that if it were so), even though it would have been better in retrospect if JFK had.

And so I'm out of ideas there on that. I cannot find a mechanism for what would account for a shallow penetration of a bullet fired from the rear. 

Donald Thomas said the back entrance wound was from a bounce or ricochet off the street, losing speed in that way before a piece of shrapnel from that went into JFK's back at low speed. Could that be it? That would almost necessarily assume someone fired intentionally at the street to miss (but endanger a lot of people still?), or the light-pole freak deflection idea. 

I can see how people would believe the shored-wound throat exit idea for the bullet entering into the back though--not because there are not problems in that, but because of perception of greater unsolved problems if it didn't.

2 hours ago, David Josephs said:

Greg, I genuinely appreciate the level of time, detail and research you put into these posts.  I hope our disagreeing on their ultimate meaning and my critique of your speculations/hypothesis is not taken personally.

Your request about alternatives which you can accept as reasonable sounds eerily like Dulles demanding alternate explanation "if not OSWALD".   That is not necessary to disprove a hypothesis...  only the examination and authentication of the truths on which the hypothesis is based.

Of course it is possible THAT was the gun used by Crafard, or Braden - depending on whose story you choose.  Just like when we delve into the story about the origin of the information that Oswald was a paid FBI informant.  The information appears credible coming from both credible, and a bit less so, sources.

Yet things are not true just because speculation about them can be organized in such a manner to make the most sense.  The other thing we seem to overlook is that the people you are quoting were professional XXXXX of the first order.  Even to the point of lying about anything and everything just for the sake of lying - these men were Mafia and mafia related...  

Over the couple of decades posting there are a few red flags in arguments that stand out:

1. "why would they"'s - being incredulous is not an argument
2. "Has there ever been anything like..." - the lack of precedent does not preclude the creation of a new one
3. "what better explanation is there?" - the burden of proof lays in the presenter of the hypothesis.  A "better" explanation does not negate the validity of the original hypothesis.  Occum's razor is not always the sharpest tool in the bag.
4. The complete lack of source material reference links/images/docs - unlike many others, you do provide snips and pieces to help a reader understand from where you derive your conclusions, yet how hard is it really to give credit where it is due with a link or a mention? 
   
   Most of us are standing on the shoulders of those who came before and just trying to raise the bar even farther.  More than likely someone has offered the same thoughts with the expectation that the future would pick up the cause when new and more revealing information is unearthed.

We'd get nowhere here without intelligent discourse among members and the challenging of things put forth as facts..  it is only those who seek to disrupt for the pleasure of it that we need to beware of, identify and censure.

In the earliest days of my foray into the JFK malaise I was sure the SBT was possible given what I initially saw in frames 224-230 and set out to better understand why so many said is was not so.  

What a long, strange trip it's been.  And it ain't over by a long shot.

I look forward to further discussions - and thanks as I had not been aware of this other pistol story before and find it fascinating.  TBH, and secretly, I kinda hope you're right about it.  Time may tell, if we're lucky.

Thanks David! 

Reflections

David Josephs does have a point that what I outlined, an alternative possible theory of the case, is a scenario which falls far short of proof. For those who do not consider it possible that eyewitnesses could sincerely mistakenly identify a wrong man, or that a police department in a big city in southern USA could "stitch someone up"--give a case that little extra added boost needed to put someone away who police believed needed to be put away--to use the term for it in the United Kingdom ... any question concerning Oswald's guilt in the Tippit case is unthinkable.

And yet in all the scoffing at my proposal that the paper-bag revolver could be the murder weapon of Tippit, I have not heard anyone suggest a viable, reasonable, innocent possible scenario for how a handgun is thrown in a paper bag on a city street in the middle of the night, in which that handgun is not involved in some crime in which shots were fired and someone does not want the gun found in their possession or association (that is why the weapon is ditched). Has there ever been a revolver disposed of in that manner which is known not to have been involved in a serious crime?  And what better recent crime would one look at in this case than the only known recent homicide by handgun in Dallas, the one that occurred a few hours earlier, the killing of officer Tippit?

On the one hand there is that weapon and its disappearance and coverup. On the other hand there is--separately--a certain case for a specific suspect, namely Ruby's recent hire at the Carousel Club, Curtis Craford. (An unusual hire in that, according to Craford's testimony, Ruby never paid him other than in housing and food [obviously there was cash changing hands not reported to the IRS or Texas Employment Commission, what was going on there].)

The only reason to put those two together--the possible murder weapon of Tippit, and the possible suspect, is because they each have independent argument suggestive of involvement in the murder of Tippit, and then I showed plausibility of that suspect being in the location the paper-bag revolver was dropped a couple hours before the paper-bag revolver was found, and also just before that suspect left Dallas later that morning.

But why suspect Craford, apart from what has already been named: that he later said he was a hitman who had been involved with a California mobster; that his brother told Whitmey soberly that he believed the hitman past was true of his brother; that he was employed by Jack Ruby who, to put it mildly, was mixed up in still-unclear ways in things assassination- and Oswald-related from a gangland point of view; and that Craford matches the physical descriptions of the killer of Tippit of witnesses and has a track record of witnesses confusing him with Oswald thus raising the possibility of mistaken eyewitness identifications saying it was Oswald.

But still, Craford made the hitman admission many years later, how does one know it was true, and not tall tale and made up? Let me count a few ways pointing to it being true. First, the rest of what Craford told Whitmey comes across as credible or plausible, not obvious tall tale. Second, as uncontested fact Craford tried to deceive the Warren Commission in his testimony in omitting an entire half-year period from his timeline when he was in California, the period he later said was when he had the mobster/hitman history. Third, his brother believed it of Curtis. 

But some may see that still as weak. That was in 1961 and who knows if it was true, it will be objected--how is that evidence for 1963? And just because someone working for Ruby has an unsavory past or criminal record (probably two-thirds of Carousel Club people working with Ruby had brushes with the law in their past) doesn't mean they killed Kennedy or Tippit. There is also no later crime record of Craford for any serious crime (a couple of later minor offenses in Oregon is all, on his record). If he had been a hitman there is no evidence he continued after he left Dallas in 1963. 

Here is what weighs to me, not all may agree: it depends what you think of the Carroll Jarnagin story. Jarnagin was the Dallas attorney who said on Fri Oct 4, 1963 he was at the Carousel Club and overheard Ruby and Oswald in the next table discussing a contract killing of Governor Connally (no mention of killing President Kennedy, though there was, according to Jarnagin, mention by Ruby of Ruby's mob backers wishing they could get to Robert Kennedy but they could not).

Because the Oswald claim was not credible and because Jarnagin failed a polygraph test, most people dismiss the story entirely, think he made the thing up out of whole cloth. But this was an attorney, who wrote of this seriously to J. Edgar Hoover personally after the assassination, never showed sign of trying to profiteer or monetize his story, and who according to family members was honest and in fear of his life for years after. 

In this as in all witness testimonies judgement calls are made. Here is mine on Jarnagin: the Oswald identification is clearly not correct even though Jarnagin after Nov 22 was convinced it was. It wasn't Oswald, but at the same time I don't think he made it up. I think he misidentified Craford as Oswald, and liberally had memory-manufacturing issues in trying to remember and write down after Nov 22 everything he could about that night of Oct 4, when he was intoxicated and now thought it was Oswald and interpreted his dream-like alcohol-influenced memories of that evening of Oct 4 in that light.

But he wasn't wilfully lying. Well what about the failed polygraph, it will be asked? His classmate from law school, District Attorney Wade, had that polygraph done, and then testified to the Warren Commission that even though Jarnagin failed it, Wade interpreted that as Jarnagin believed what he was saying but the polygraph had found what Jarnagin believed wasn't true.

(Imagine that theory of polygraph testing applied to asking a creationist whether the earth was created 6000 years ago--by Wade's theory the polygraph can find out a claim isn't true even when the person believes it!--an amazing ability of polygraphs according to Wade's interpretation of the Jarnagin polygraph. Or maybe Wade said that to help his old law school classmate save face, a white lie under oath.)

Bottom line: I don't buy that Jarnagin made the whole thing up, or that the polygraph report establishes that Jarnagin did. Polygraphs are not 100% reliable; there was motive to have Jarnagin's story discredited as a simple disposition of his story; there is no known underlying paperwork on that polygraph which could be reviewed by other experts; and last but not least the Jarnagin story understood as a mistaken identification of Craford (unknown to Jarnagin) independently makes a lot of sense.

I found, not recognized before for what it is, an independent account of what I identify as an account of Craford from an employee of the Carousel Club in the summer of 1963, in the James Estes story (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/29006-decipherment-of-the-james-odell-estes-story-carousel-club-july-aug-1963/). Estes' story of Craford and Jarnagin's both, I understand as distorted memories of Craford and Ruby.

I don't see James Estes and Jarnagin the way I see Beverly Oliver, who I believe intentionally made some things up and knew it. Neither Estes nor Jarnagin showed indication of wanting to profit, neither known to have ever given even a speech or written an article about it. Both Estes and Jarnagin claimed believably to have lived lives of fear thereafter because of what they thought they had seen.  

In the gangland world of Ruby and the Carousel Club, there just aren't going to be very many "perfect" witnesses. That is going to be a given. Its just like many crime victims are not perfect people, but that doesn't mean they deserve to have crimes done to them. Although others may judge differently, I think Estes and Jarnagin each tried to convey what they believed was true, which must of course be interpreted. 

I see the Estes and Jarnagin stories as adding glimpses of light on Craford beyond what is familiarly known of Craford. (Again for any who have missed it, the later research of Peter Whitmey on Craford: https://www.jfk-assassination.net/creatingapatsy.htm.)

From Estes: Craford knows Ruby more than admitted in his Warren Commission testimony. Craford takes an airplane flight for a couple days to do a job for a large amount of money, unspecified where or what. Craford carries a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver all the time on his person in Dallas. Craford with Ruby has something to do with a contact with Governor Connally (if Connally is not a mistaken identification on Estes' part). 

From Jarnagin: Craford knows Ruby more than admitted in his Warren Commission testimony. Craford discusses carrying out a contract killing--of the same Governor Connally of Estes' story--in exchange for money from mob sources with Ruby as conduit. Is talk of assassination of Connally "code" for the Kennedy assassination in the works? Or did Ruby and Craford really mean Connally? (Assuming Jarnagin did not mishear or misinterpret the parts identified as references to Connally.)

Both Estes and Jarnagin stories have that curious "Connally" theme (and neither have anything about an assassination of JFK). Both Estes and Jarnagin independently remember their Craford figures as going by the same name, "Lee", which I interpret as misremembering of "Larry" but it is odd that both have the same error. Both Estes' and Jarnagin's timeline of their Craford figures' associations with Ruby agree, against the standard timeline of Craford only becoming first acquainted with Ruby at the Texas Fair. One difference: I don't believe Estes mixed in anything to his story itself from reading information about Oswald, whereas Jarnagin clearly did so in his story of what actually was Craford and Ruby.

And so from these two--imperfect and flawed as they are as witnesses, but attempted to tell the truth the best they could--there is additional information on Craford than in his Warren Commission testimony: Craford on Oct 4, 1963 was overheard talking of participation in the contract killing business. Craford carried a .38 revolver the same kind of weapon that killed Tippit and was found abandoned in the paper bag 18 hours later and then Craford left town. Craford was mixed up with Ruby in shady things.  

That is background which makes Craford a suspect more than some others may consider. This is what I see. 

The killer of Oswald may have been in that theater when the police arrested the wrong man by mistake in the killing of Tippit. Deputy sheriff Courson at the Theatre, there in Oak Cliff wearing yesterday's plain clothes (by his own account in Sneed), was probably the unidentified officer Myers seems to think is credibly told by a high-level source to have been at the Tippit crime scene when Tippit was killed, allegedly involved in an affair (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27362-tippit-a-second-officer-present-at-the-tippit-killing/). Courson knew Ruby, his job for the sheriff's department was to go to night clubs and socialize with known criminals, and he spent time, getting paid to do so, in the Carousel Club. He tells of that in Sneed.

It was Courson, by his own account in Sneed, who let the "man in the balcony" in the Texas Theatre, who Courson said he thought looked like Oswald (though it wasn't), go by him scot-free. 

Courson for all we know could have recognized Craford and let him go. Courson though in Oak Cliff where all the other officers were that day--at the Tippit crime scene; at the Library; at the Texas Theatre--never wrote a written report like the other officers and deputy sheriffs did; never was called to testify; never gave a known speech or interview about it in all the years until his story in Sneed only (that is the only known firsthand account from Courson, ever). 

Maybe Ruby was not innocent in the events of the assassination which included an execution of officer Tippit, and maybe Craford working for Ruby wasn't either, is the idea. 

That's all.  

43 minutes ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

@Greg Doudna was your question to me about the toolmarks about the bullets related to the Tippit shooting or the MC rifle?  

I may have misunderstood, maybe that was the MC, but I would like to know what you might have to say about the test bullets not matching between HSCA and the earlier WC, if you have comment on that. Your comments on biases of experts make sense.  

13 minutes ago, David Josephs said:

 

This comes from Armstrong's notebooks compiled over 10 years of visiting the National Archives.  He and Malcolm worked with Carol Hewitt to sus out the vast amounts of data they compiled.  This being about Igor (not Ivan, my mistake)

Rather than take his (Igor) wife Martha with him, he ran away with a teenage girl named Anne Dulin and committed bigamy by marrying Anne in South Carolina. This elopement did not please Anne's stepfather, Stan Cukowski from Village Green, PA, who reported the matter to juvenile authorities and who in the course of his complaint mentioned that Vaganov claimed to have urgent business in Dallas and was traveling in a red Ford Thunderbird with a 2-way radio, a .38 pistol, and a rifle. 

Benavides describes a red ford falcon he sees at the Tippit scene and the FBI picks up Vaganov almost as quickly as the DPD snags Oswald.

See the final paragraph.  Not at the Tippit scene but parked in front of Ruby's...  more and more interesting, no?

Mr. BENAVIDES - No; I guess that is all I can think of right now.
I think there was another car that was in front of me, a red Ford, I believe. I didn't know the man, but I guess he was about 25 or 30, and he pulled over.

David, the red car Benavides saw was Tatum’s red car, not Vaganov.

3 minutes ago, David Josephs said:

Tatum does not say point blank, only that he stood over him... the barrel would be at leas 3-5 feet from Tippit so I see no conflict.  And who goes over to someone they have shot already in the head to shot again in his stomach?  That makes sense to you?

No you are misunderstanding me. The gunman never went around the back of the car to shoot at Tippit on Tippits side of the car. That was somebody else Tatum saw but it wasn’t the gunman. Tatum thought it was but he was mistaken. See a comment I wrote on Bill Brown’s “light jacket” thread I wrote earlier this morning on just this. 

Also, Craford in his Warren Commission testimony did not clearly recant his earlier FBI interview naming of the Stemmons Freeway as you keep insisting (and if he did it would be of little actual consequence since what Craford claims is not decisive here). He said he wasn’t sure of Stemmons in his later WC testimony, but that’s what he told the FBI in the first place when he named it. He wasn’t saying for sure they didn’t go on the Stemmons. You’re nitpicking my friend.

Also David you’re citing the Tatum coup de grace idea of Moriarty of HSCA. I used to think that until Steve Roe pointed me to the autopsy and I studied gunshot wound information excluding that head shot was contact or point blank, it was from distance. Plus, Tatum himself never claimed to see a shot at point blank range. And what Tatum did claim of the gunman running around the back of the car has been well refuted for reasons given by Myers in a blog post, namely no other witnesses saw that or heard that kind of time gap before a final shot. It’s obvious to me now Tatum must have confused seeing a witness, not the gunman. That means the head shot to the brain tippit received was from the gunmans position feet away across the car. Then it is either a lucky hit (if it’s a non skilled handgun shooter like Oswald) or else it was intentional from a skilled shooter. 

Vanagov for sure was not the gunman because Vanagov was 6’2” as I recall, much taller than all the witnesses said. 

David, the way to get to Central Expressway and Hall, location of the billboard, from the Carousel Club, if one wants to get there the easy way by freeway, is get on the Stemmons going south, then turn east on the central expressway and that takes you right there. 

The route you have drawn getting there is through city streets, zigzagging and stop and go. I agree if the zigzag stop n go through city streets was done that would not go past where the paper bag with revolver was tossed which would be on the way to the freeway route of getting there (probably a lot quicker by freeway all the way and less chance of getting lost at night too). 

1 hour ago, David Josephs said:

Again Greg, a great hypothesis but little is offered to support it... what people "could" have done is not the same as what they actually did.  Dallas was not some podunk town but a huge city with more than 1 crime perpetrated between 11/22 and 11/24. 

I think your hypothesis is a solid one and I'd like to take some time and dig into it, if you'll bear with me as I do so and will get back to you.  I'd love to find the connecting pieces in support of this find.  Stay tuned. 

Can you find a murder by handgun in the Dallas area within recent days of Nov 23, 1963? I cannot. Only Tippit, 18 hours before discovery of the paper-bag revolver of same caliber which killed tippit.

Can you think of a reasonable innocent explanation for a revolver tossed in a paper bag on a street at night?

I can’t. 

There is one and only one reason why that paper-bag revolver was not suspected to be the murder weapon in the only known recent homicide by handgun in the Dallas area: because, in the words attributed to LBJ, they already “had their man”, Oswald. 

The FACT that that paper-bag revolver was disappeared and undisclosed with no known forensic testing or whereabouts of that item of physical evidence, suggests coverup. 

Craford not meets three key and necessary criteria in the profile of the tippit killer: mistaken for Oswald in the view of witnesses (witnesses) although he isn’t Oswald (fingerprints); skilled gunman (evidence of bullet in right temple); and reputation for contract killing (tippit killing was an ambush and execution not an impulse or passion killing).

But he has other characteristics which might also be part of the killer’s profile: 

— he is photographed with an identically colored waistlength jacket a week later to the one abandoned by the tippit killer (off-white light tan). 

— he has thick, wavy dark brown hair, in agreement with some reported witness descriptions of “bushy” and “wavy” and “dark” hair of the killer.

— he is employed by Ruby

— he fled Dallas Saturday morning Nov 23, which WC counsel Burt Griffin reportedly found poorly-explained.

— And he can be placed in a car at the exact location where somebody tossed the murder weapon in a paper bag, about three hours before it was found there.

Either Tippit was killed by Oswald or by somebody else who witnesses confused with Oswald. The main exculpatory arguments for clearing Oswald are no reason for him to have gone to the scene of the crime; excluded match to fingerprints; and not a skilled enough shot to put a bullet through a brain as was done to Tippit. 

if it isn’t Oswald then it is reasonable to look at Craford who checks all the boxes of the profile of the killer.

Craford has an alibi but only one, Andy Armstrong at the Carousel Club. If Andy Armstrong was willing as a favor to provide that alibi even though not true, then there is no other alibi clearing Craford from being a suspect (unless one takes the position that it is so clear oswald did it that Craford is by definition exculpated on that grounds alone). 

I did not realize a year ago that Lamar and Ross, where the paper bag with revolver was found, was not simply in proximity, but EXACTLY on the route to the Stemmons Freeway driven by Ruby with Craford in the back seat just before that paper bag was found at daylight. 

Here is why I think the paper-bag revolver found by a citizen at 7:30 am Sat Nov 23, 1963 near a curb at Ross and Lamar in downtown Dallas (https://www.jfk-assassination.net/weberman/tfdrev.htm) was the murder weapon of Tippit.

Because: a handgun tossed in a paper bag on a city street in the middle of a night is a disposal of a weapon that has been used in a murder--and from the fruit, presumably not yet decayed, and the busy traffic location of the street, it was recent. The perpetrator does not want that weapon found on his person or in his belongings or in association with him which is why it is ditched. And the only recent murder by handgun in the entire Dallas area was the Tippit killing hours earlier. q.e.d.

Because: it is the same kind or caliber of handgun that killed Tippit, .38 Smith & Wesson rechambered to fire .38 Special bullets.

Because: the killer of Tippit came from the direction of Jack Ruby's apartment; the killer of Tippit called Tippit over (not vice versa); the killer of Tippit was a skilled shooter, hitting Tippit intentionally in the head (right temple) from across the front hood of the car; the killer of Tippit had a physical description resembling Oswald; the killer of Tippit sought to kill Oswald next in the theater after Tippit. i.e. the killer of Tippit (I say) looks like Curtis Craford employed by the man demonstrably intent on killing Oswald who two days later did; of known lookalike witness mistaken identifications for Oswald; skilled shooter with a handgun; and (according to Peter Whitmey years later who found him and interviewed him) self-confessed hitman in those days.

And, who left Dallas within hours of the Tippit killing, just after somebody (maybe he himself) had ditched the paper-bag revolver where it was found.

On the night of Nov 21-22, Craford was seen by Mary Lawrence at a restaurant near the Vegas Club with Ruby in the early morning hours of Nov 22. She thought it was Oswald with Ruby but it was clearly Craford. Ruby would have been Craford's ride home that night. (Craford did not have a car.) Ruby said he had employees over to his apartment occasionally. Suppose Ruby brought Craford home with him that night instead of to the Carousel Club, after Ruby and Craford left the restaurant where Mary Lawrence saw them. Ruby's housemate George Senator is sleeping when they get in. George Senator said he left the next morning (Ruby still sleeping in his room) and Senator did not return to the apartment until late Fri night. After Ruby left the apartment some time later that morning, Craford would remain alone in Ruby's apartment. From there he could easily walk to the location where Tippit was killed, as the gunman in fact was seen walking there from the direction of Ruby's apartment.

Now back to the paper-bag revolver. There is a strange but true story, told in detail in the Warren Commission testimonies of George Senator and Craford, of Ruby intent on photographing a billboard in the dead of night in the early morning hours of Sat Nov 23. First he woke up George Senator at 3 am, wanting him to go to with him on the excursion to photograph a billboard. Then Ruby called Craford at the Carousel Club, also to go photograph a billboard, and Ruby and Senator picked up Craford at the Carousel Club at about 4 in the morning. George Senator tells of this in his Warren Commission testimony, also Craford told of it in his testimony too and earlier to the FBI.

The location of that billboard is known, at a freeway and Hall, southeast of the Carousel Club. But to get there most conveniently from the Carousel Club by freeway would be by getting on the Stemmons Freeway going south, then freeway east to the billboard location. That is, from the Carousel Club one would drive either west or northwest to get on the nearby Stemmons Freeway (then headed south on the Stemmons), in order to get to a location far to the southeast of the Carousel Club. 

And that driving reconstruction is not simply logical, it is confirmed by Craford who told the FBI when they caught up with him in Michigan a week later. Craford told the FBI about the nocturnal billboard-photographing expedition of Ruby. Craford said Ruby drove on the Stemmons Freeway.

Well now one can look at a map of downtown Dallas. Ruby, George Senator, and Craford are starting from the pickup of Craford at the Carousel Club at 1311-1/2 Commerce. This is about 4 am starting out, of a trip that eventually ended with Craford being returned to the Carousel Club around 5:30 am.

Lamar and Ross, the location of the paper-bag, is about 0.4 miles, about 6 blocks, northwest of the Carousel Club.

How does one get on the Stemmons Freeway from the Carousel Club? There are two possibilities: one going west on Commerce through Dealey Plaza. The other one goes west on Commerce to Lamar, turn north on Lamar and it goes north and then winds west, goes under the Stemmons and on the other side one turns left on the onramp going south on the Stemmons. It is a direct shot on Lamar, very conveniently done on the map.

About midway there on that direct route to the Stemmons Freeway from the Carousel Club going north on Lamar, is the location where the paper-bag revolver was found, Lamar and Ross. Ross is a cross street that Ruby's car driving north on Lamar would go through. It is about 40% of the way on Lamar between turning north on Lamar from Commerce, and Lamar's arrival at the southbound entrance to the Stemmons Freeway.

Ruby did not return Craford to the Carousel Club by the Stemmons Freeway, the same way he had gone. (After photographing the billboard Ruby drove Senator and Craford to a coffee shop and a post office then Craford to the Carousel Club.) 

So Ruby's car with two passengers, one of whom is a confessed hitman riding in the back seat alone who will within hours leave Dallas hitchhiking to Michigan, the other, George Senator in the front seat (these were the seating positions in the car according to George Senator), drive by--at 4 am--the exact spot where the paper-bag revolver was found at 7:30 am that morning.

That paper-bag revolver could have been tossed out a window of Ruby's car, by a passenger in Ruby's car. 

The apple and the orange in the bag with the revolver would make a good alibi or reason to be carrying the paper bag, especially if there were others in the car one did not want to know one was tossing a revolver out the window. The apple and the orange could be in the paper bag, and the revolver not put in the paper bag until the last minute (in the back seat of the car with no one noticing). The apple and the orange would be the reason one would have for having the paper bag before that moment.

After ditching the Tippit murder weapon, Craford then left Dallas that morning, having disposed of the murder weapon before he left.

It may have been a fluke that the revolver in the paper bag revolver was found at all. If no one had looked inside the paper bag it could have been swept up by street cleaners and the revolver never noticed. But if the revolver was found, so long as it wasn't traceable to the perpetrator no harm done if it was found, from the point of view of the perpetrator.

The Dallas Police had that revolver on Sat morning Nov 23, 1963, even though the press and the world never knew it (nor did the Warren Commission, or any researchers until decades later with FBI document releases). Paul Hoch discovered by accident only in the 1990s the FBI document which told of the Lamar and Ross find-spot of the revolver.

The FBI knew of that revolver by no later than Monday Nov 25, 1963 (the date on the FBI document Paul Hoch found) likely because the Dallas Police may have asked the FBI Dallas office to run a check on the serial number. 

But that revolver itself, and all Dallas Police paperwork on it, disappeared, since no trace of it in Dallas Police records has ever been found since. Either there was physical destruction of paperwork, or it was filed somewhere else where it would never be discovered or known again. What became of that revolver and its whereabouts are unknown.

The suspect in the Tippit killing can be placed in a car driven by Jack Ruby at the very location where the paper-bag revolver was found that morning, in the middle of that night, at about 4 am. Means and opportunity for that revolver, the murder weapon in the Tippit killing, to have been tossed from a passenger in Jack Ruby's car as it drove through that intersection.

This is why I think that was the murder weapon of Tippit, and Oswald's revolver was not, even though Oswald had a revolver on him of the same kind when he was arrested. 

13 minutes ago, Norman T. Field said:

Yeah, Tippit was shot with an semi - automatic pistol, not a revolver. 

If that were true, why were no hulls found at the car where the shooting occurred, and instead found in Barbara and Virginia Davis's front yard?  

Are you suggesting someone collected all the automatic hulls from at the car, and then surreptitiously re-planted all those hulls fired, to the Davis sisters-in-law yard? 

If it was an automatic, who would care and why would anyone bother with surreptitiously moving them away from the location of the car where they would have been fired and ejected, after the killer fled, to be found two houses away (still labeled "automatic" or totally different replanted hulls?)? For what point?

I think Myers has done a pretty good analysis of what the witnesses saw the gunman doing fiddling with the gun in hand as being unloading and reloading a manual, not an automatic. And also debunking the idea that Gerald Hill's initial report that the hulls found in the Davises' yard were automatics was from Hill reading "auto" on hulls (the same hulls you think were supposedly re-planted so nobody would notice they were automatics even though still labeled as such?) 

I think the murder weapon of Tippit was the so-called paper-bag revolver that Dallas Police had that weekend then disappeared it, which was a snub-nosed .38 Smith & Wesson revolver, which the FBI found probably was part of an allotment of those revolvers which had been rechambered in England to fire the slightly smaller but superior .38 Special bullets of the kind that killed Tippit (according to the autopsy).

Bill -- and Michael --

Jimmy Burt's original story to the FBI that he drove a car and parked it the wrong way on the Tippit car side of the street cannot be dismissed, since Frank Wright reported seeing that very car, parked the wrong way on the Tippit car side of the street. 

Also, as Michael brings out, Frank Wright doesn't see Burt and Wm Smith in his front yard when he goes out, but DOES see a man standing near the prone body of Tippit run to the Jimmy Burt car (parked the wrong way = Jimmy Burt's car described to FBI) and drive off.

Then there are timing issues.

A lot would make sense if (a) Burt and Wm Smith were covering up if e.g. Wm Smith was illegally driving that car (suspended license, whatever); and (b) both of them were already in the car, maybe parked near Burt's house, when they saw the gunman and Tippit down the street so as to be able to drive and get there immediately--within seconds. Solves the timing issue, solves why Frank Wright saw the car there by the time he got out to look rather than seeing both of them in his front yard. 

Then imagine Frank Wright saw one of them down the street standing near the prone body of Tippit, then run and drive off in that car as Wright described, and Tatum was seeing the same thing, but Tatum misinterpreted it with that business of thinking it was the gunman running around the back end of of the Tippit patrol car. If Tatum saw Burt or Wm Smith do that and then point to Tippit to the other that could look from Tatum's distance like pointing a gun at Tippit ... Tatum, scared at that point, drives his car forward in a hurry and therefore misses seeing what Frank Wright saw next--the same man run to get into the Jimmy Burt car and drive off. 

The main point is Frank Wright confirms--witnessed--the Jimmy Burt/Wm Smith car described by Jimmy Burt to the FBI. Therefore the Jimmy Burt car briefly parked the wrong way next to the Tippit patrol car moments after the shooting told by both Jimmy Burt to the FBI and seen by Wright, is fact. They (Burt and Wm Smith) did not get to the scene by walking or running there, as Wm Smith claimed, because the car is fact. And the motive for denying the role of the car (on the part of Wm Smith and in the changing stories of Burt) would be because of unwillingness to admit something illegal (but unrelated to the Tippit killing), such as illegally driving.

What do you think Bill?

If it was only Jimmy Burt telling the FBI he drove there that way it would be unclear since their stories differ. But in this case, Frank Wright--credible-- independently saw that Jimmy Burt/Wm Smith car there, and the "parked the wrong way" detail (Burt; Wright) independent stories removes any doubt that is the same car. 

So the issue is not whether they got there by car, they did. The issue is why Jimmy Burt and Wm Smith are somehow denying or covering up the role of the car, and some illegal and potentially parole-violating or whatever consequences such as illegal driving with a suspended license (or whatever) would be a good reason for Burt and Wm Smith to dissemble over the role of the car, trying not to get self or their friend in trouble with the law over that.