Greg Doudna

Found it. The story of Treasury Agent Frank Ellsworth's account that John Thomas Masen self-identified as the shooter at the shooting range identified by witnesses as "Oswald" is from George Michael Evica, And We Are All Mortal (1978), pp. 98-109.

Ellsworth in 1963 at the time of the assassination worked undercover investigating Masen, a "Minuteman gunshop owner". Not only did Ellsworth later report Masen was the spitting image of Oswald such that when Ellsworth saw Oswald in the Dallas Police station he first thought it was his man Masen, but Masen was one of only two gun dealers in Dallas known to have sold Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition. The shooter at the Sports Drome Rifle Range that witnesses later said they thought was Oswald (based on claimed physical recognition memory alone, never on a claim that the individual said his name was "Lee" or "Oswald")--just as Ellsworth himself, who knew Masen, when he first got a glance at Oswald in person thought he was seeing Masen--that shooter at the Sports Drome drove an old car (Oswald did not), wore a Marine baseball cap (no such cap known for Oswald), and was a crack shot, remembered as firing very rapidly with accuracy at the bullseye of the target, an accomplished shooter. Furthermore Masen was a JFK-hater, involved with the JFK-hating Minutemen, who possessed quantities of both military-grade and soft-nosed fragmenting Mannlicher-Carcano shells and was suspected by FBI of having been the source of the Mannlicher-Carcano shells found at the sniper's nest on the sixth floor of the TSBD, though that line of investigation was dropped when Masen said he had never sold any of his Mannlicher-Carcano shells to Oswald nor did he, Masen, remember ever having met Oswald. All of this is consistent with gun dealer Masen firing Mannlicher-Carcano shells at the Sports Drome but inconsistent with what is known of Oswald. That witnesses who remembered the Sports Drome shooter with the unusual Mannlicher-Carcano shells were sure they recognized Oswald on TV as the man they had seen is also consistent with Masen, given Ellsworth's personal account of having experienced the same visual confusion.

Those who want to continue to believe that the Sports Drome shooter really was Oswald on the basis of nothing stronger than the later witness claims alone, witnesses none of whom knew or had met either Masen or Oswald previously, none of whom had any basis for the Oswald identification other than memory of claimed visual recognition after seeing Oswald on television, can take up the matter with Evica's book which found the Masen identification as the rifle range shooter credible. Or possibly, if Masen is still alive (I don't know), take it up with Masen himself and tell him your reasons for knowing that he, Masen, was wrong in saying it was he, Masen, the gun dealer known to possess scarce Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition, shooting Mannlicher-Carcano shells at the Sports Drome.

Evica concludes, p. 109:

"John Thomas Masen, under investigation by the Treasury Department, gunsmith, crack shot, Minuteman, H.L. Hunt and Edwin Walker friend, Alpha 66 associate, convicted violator of the Federal Firearms Control Law, and a source for both 6.5 mm. Mannlicher-Carcarno military rounds and 6.5 mm. soft-nosed fragmenting rounds, allegedly seen at the Sports Drome Rifle Range in the company of Minutemen and mistaken for Lee Harvey Oswald, and seen at a North Dallas house and again mistaken for Oswald ... these facts were known to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and to the Warren Commission counsel, and they were either ignored--or suppressed."

Below are photos of Masen and Oswald. If after the assassination and the arrest of Oswald, witnesses remembered seeing the man on the left (Masen) firing Mannlicher-Carcano shells at the Sports Drome, how easy would it be for witnesses to be "certain" that the crack shooter they remembered had been Oswald? Imagine--if those witnesses had so testified in court against an Oswald brought to trial and then Oswald had been convicted in part on the basis of their testimony (used by prosecutors to establish Oswald had both planning and skill in shooting in the runup to the assassination), would JFK assassination conspiracy theorists be so firm in upholding those Sports Drome witnesses' Oswald-identification testimonies against all naysayers (including from the actual Sports Drome shooter himself)? 

A small detail in the two articles calls for correction: in Part 1, p. 7 of printout, an anticipatory promise is made, "as we will see later Ruth Paine quite possibly was a provider of FPCC intelligence".

Looking for that, I found Part 2, a section titled "Ruth Paine (2 deliveries)". The basis for the suggestion that Ruth Paine was a provider of FPCC intelligence is a photo identified as "strange FBI notes that are at NARA", two photos of handwritten notes on pages of notebooks. The first, with a date of Dec. 2, 1963 on it, appears to be notes of Ruth Paine's explanation of the note in what the notes calls a "Russian cook book" that Ruth conveyed via Irving police to Marina. The second, in differently appearing paper and larger handwriting which also appears to be different, has notes with "F.P.C.C." and two or three names associated with "3114 Harlendale" and "Do you know these people are FPCC?"

Mr. Bleau (author) comments of these two handwritten notes:

"These have, to my knowledge, never been fully analyzed, so I can only give a personal impression: Ruth seems to have asked Barger to send a Russian cookbook and toyrs to Marina. In the same breath, there are notes identifying two, if not three, FPCC members in Dallas including two Dalmans who, on Harlandale Street, are a stone's throw away from an anti-Castro Cuban exile meeting place on that street where Oswald was said to have entered.

"We have long suspected that the Paines kept files on Communist sympathizers. Was this some of the fruit of their labor? Did Oswald help supply the names through his short-term Dallas activities?"

It is not correct that the second of those notes, the one dealing with FPCC, has "never been fully analyzed". That photo of those notes has been discussed as the Buddy Walthers report of a tip concerning the house on Harlendale, which Walthers reported to his superiors in the Sheriff's office and the Secret Service the next day after the assassination, Nov 23 (https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/html/WH_Vol19_0276b.htm). This earlier Education Forum discussion from April 2020 discusses those notes as the Buddy Walthers report: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26469-oswald-the-cubans-and-the-house-on-harlandale/. 

In the second post on that thread, David Josephs shows the same photo of the notes with this comment:

"A point of interest has resurfaced again of late; that being a Nov. 23, 1963, report made by Dallas County Sheriff's Department Deputy E.R. "Buddy" Walthers. In his report to Dallas County Sheriff Bill Decker, Walthers said that 'at a house at 3128 Harlendale, some Cubans had been having meetings on the weekends and were possibly connected with the 'Freedom for Cuba Party,' of which Oswald was a member.' Walthers got the name wrong. Oswald was a self-proclaimed member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC0, which he set up while in New Orleans in the summer of 1963."

In short, there is no basis for connecting Ruth Paine as the source of the names on Harlendale and the FPCC question about those names. Ruth Paine was not the source of the Buddy Walther information or report and there is no basis for identifying Ruth Paine with Buddy Walthers' report. 

The other details given by Mr. Bleau in the Ruth Paine section simply establish that Oswald was involved with the FPCC and had FPCC materials in Ruth Paine's garage among his other belongings, in keeping with an association of Oswald with FPCC otherwise known in New Orleans and apparently Dallas as well as brought out by Paul Bleau in the rest of the two parts. 

Therefore the suggestion that "Ruth Paine quite possibly was a provider of FPCC intelligence" has no basis in the documents claimed to support that suggestion.

Incidentally (slight change of subject), for those interested in the detail about the Harlendale house--nothing to do with Ruth Paine--this link given by someone in the earlier April 2020 thread is very interesting: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YX67SM7EXic3k3_Vs7O_0tuXvcNIBGlF/view. It includes photocopied pages 98-105 of a "chapter 10" of some published book which I cannot identify (can anyone identify that book?). A section is titled "Frank Ellsworth's Other Oswald". Frank Ellsworth, the Treasury Agent, investigated what he called an "Oswald double" who was Thomas Masen. Ellsworth identified this individual, Masen--not Oswald--as being the individual reported seen and associated with the Harlendale house Cubans. But more interesting--I have never seen this brought to light previously--Frank Ellsworth, who knew Masen well, is reported to have said that Masen personally confirmed to him, Ellsworth, that he, Masen, was the shooter at the shooting range (the Sports Drome Rifle Range) that has occasioned so many mountains of speculation concerning Oswald being at that shooting range. This does not appear in any of the known discussions of the Sports Drome alleged Oswald sightings to my knowledge.

"Ellsworth revealed to [Village Voice] reporter [Dick] Russell that reports of Oswald with alleged Minutemen at a Dallas area rifle range were actually of his look-alike [Masen] with known Minutemen friends. According to Ellsworth, he [Ellsworth] verified these rifle range appearances with his Other Oswald [Masen]. Warren Report supporters have challenged Commission critics to come up with a name to match the many credible sightings of a 'second Oswald,' and now a name and identity can be supplied. And the most crucial sightings: the rifle range observations, where the Oswald double [Masen] fired an 'Italian carbine] and in the company of others, can now be corroborated."

But here is the point--it was not Oswald, nor was it any double pretending to be Oswald either. That is total window dressing from people other than Masen. There is no indication Thomas Masen ever claimed or pretended to be anyone other than who he was, ever claimed to be Oswald, ever intended anyone to think he was Oswald. The "Oswald double" language is wholly the language and florid imagination of the tellers about Masen combined with the mistaken identifications of witnesses who saw Oswald on TV and thought they remembered him when they actually had seen Masen--who by total accident happened to somewhat physically resemble Oswald. But it was not Oswald. And Oswald's non-presence at the Sports Drome Rifle Range deepens the question of how could Oswald shoot JFK without ever practicing shooting in the runup to the assassination--Oswald was not at the Sports Drome practicing because, in addition to other reasons, the one who actually was there is now known--assuming this report is correct. And why not?--it is an elegant, completely satisfactory, simple solution closing out that rabbit hole which has consumed so many peoples' time.

The source cited for this Masen-confirmed identification of Masen as the Sports Drome rifle shooter is said to be an August, 1976 Village Voice interview of Frank Ellsworth by Dick Russell. 

On 7/16/2021 at 9:46 AM, Gayle Nix Jackson said:

I am trying to keep my mind off other things right now and thought I would present this to the Forum.  In my research, I found that Lucille Connell, a good friend of Sylvia Odio and Father Machann, testified to the WC that Sylvia Odio went to the Lakewood Theater with her younger sister Annie and her cousin, Marcella Insua.  During the movie, Sylvia said she had to go to the Ladies Room, but never came back.  Alarmed, Annie and Marcella searched for her frantically.  They then called Lucille Connell who called Father Machann to see if he knew where she was.  She was found wandering around the Turtle Creek area.  Now, the thing is, who picked her up?  How did she get there?  And why isn't there a record of this? This was April 10th, 1963.  The same date LHO allegedly took a shot at Walker.  The police picked Odio up and took her to Connell's home.  I asked the DPD, FOIA'ed, everything I could do to find evidence of this.  Does anyone else have any info?   I checked the KENNEDY RIPPLES thread to see if I could find any more info but to no avail.  I wrote a chapter I left out of my last book about all this because I couldn't find supporting evidence, just hearsay with no police report.

 

Hi Gayle--I loved your book, Pieces of the Puzzle (2017). in your description of this incident on p. 299 (quoted below) you indicate two sources for the story, one being testimony of Lucille Connell, and the other being what Faith Leicht told you. Since part of the story was a phone call to Father Machann attempting to locate Silvia on the night of the Walker shooting, you asked Father Machann if he could verify that, but Father Machann answered he knew nothing about it.

My question is, when you say 'I'm reading Lucille Connell's testimony about Silvia . . . She mentions a time with Silvia at the movies . . ." -- do you remember what testimony that was and where you read that? (It cannot have been classified if you read it?) I know Lucille Connell was interviewed by the FBI almost immediately, but I cannot find any Warren Commission testimony at all for Lucille Connell, and I cannot verify the Lakewood Theater story in any of the FBI interview reports or later HSCA reporting on Lucille Connell. Could it be possible that your reference in your interview with Father Machann (below) to reading testimony of Lucille Connell, was perhaps some confusion with the anecdote Faith Leicht told you? If it is distinctly memorable to you that you read words of Lucille Connell telling this story and that there were these two, not just one, sources for you telling the Lakewood Theater story, are you able to remember if the "April 10" and "Turtle Creek" elements of the story were in which one, or both, of those sources to you? Do you have notes or recording of Faith Leicht telling you the story that would be able to verify Faith Leicht's inclusion of those details? Can you say approximately how many years after 1963 when Faith Leicht told you that story?

The weak points of the story to me are the inability to verify the specifics of testimony of Lucille Connell; Father Machann's rather emphatic denial that his role in the story ever happened; and your being unable to find other verification.

As a conjecture concerning how the story came about--no idea if this is right but just trying to make sense of it--would it be possible that: (a) Lucille Connell, known otherwise to have been reported by FBI to have made early claims that, according to the later Gaeton Fonzi/HSCA, Lucille Connell subsequently failed to confirm, things which were fairly clearly not true to begin with years before Lucille Connell said she did not remember telling FBI what FBI reported she had said; (b) in that context the present story may possibly be another doubtful Lucille Connell-originated story? and (c) Faith Leicht learned the story from Lucille Connell and Faith Leicht had no independent knowledge of the story other than from Lucille Connell? 

Separate question, as long as you are here: do you know if anyone, in all of history, has ever interviewed Robert Schmidt (Larrie's brother), the one who worked for General Walker? He may still be alive. Is there any chance you could obtain an interview with Robert even at this late date? Anyway thanks for the great interviews and digging you did in Pieces of the Puzzle, so interesting to read.

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Trump spoke of unilateralism, and leaving Afghanistan, Germany and S Korea. Trump lacked the intellect and discipline to accomplish much.

There is no Penn Trump Center advocating global interventionism. 

There have been claims that Trump was not militarily aggressive or interventionist. I see no truth in that. He stated intent to take and keep Syria's oil, with military deployed in Syria to accomplish that end. He sought to invade Venezuela and take its oil, and the only reason he did not was because he was told it could not be done. There is that famous banquet of Latin American leaders in which Trump went around asking each one how they would feel about Trump taking over Venezuela--every single one, without exception, answered negatively, to his disappointment. Trump came into office threatening in the most unbelievably inflammatory language nuclear war on North Korea. He talked about relocating the entire population of Seoul, followed by giving an order to withdraw family members of US personnel from South Korea, an order which was simply not carried out even though Trump gave it, for fear on the part of generals and diplomats that it would spook North Korea into thinking an attack was imminent. Trump later did seem interested in a peace settlement with North Korea though it never happened.

Trump actually threatened a US ally, Iraq, with crippling "sanctions like they've never seen" (this to a country which has had hundreds of thousands of children's lives lost from sanctions) because the Iraqi parliament had asked the US to leave Iraq, which to Trump was a horrible affront meriting extremely severe punishment, wife-beater logic. Trump threatened millions of innocent civilians on the other side of the world with horrible suffering and consequences, collective punishment, for asking a guest to leave their space.

Trump has repeatedly, from beginning to end, criticized previous administrations for not taking and keeping Iraq's oil. 

There were fears that Trump would launch a war following the election.

But it is cited: Trump did not enter into any major wars. True, but not for not trying, in the case of Venezuela (which had done nothing against the US; zero self-defense rationale for invading Venezuela). He wanted to invade Venezuela. He did not get his wished-for invasion of Venezuela, and other military adventurisms such as forcibly taking control of other nations' oil supplies on the other side of the world, for the same reason his attempt to stay in power after losing the election did not succeed, because he was not able to do so, because he had not attained full control of the executive branch. He did not have his own generals in place who would carry out any orders he would give. That is the only reason the Trump presidency is not remembered for having gotten into wars, or staying in the presidency by force indefinitely after losing the election.

I keep thinking of one sincere young woman I remember way back in 2016 who, with utmost earnestness, said she had thought and thought about it every which way, and had come to the conclusion that Trump was simply not a good man.  

Trump's "America First" was not about being peaceful in the world, but about getting what a bully wants in the world.

There is no Penn Trump Center advocating peaceful resolution of international conflicts through the rule of law. With Trump, there are only two options I see: a fascist out of power, or a fascist in power. That's it, as far as Trump is concerned. The same dynamics that were operable with General Edwin Walker and right-wing politics in the early 1960s. 

On 6/22/2021 at 5:16 AM, Larry Hancock said:

Well there is certainly a lot in that post to reply to...grin.   Let's try to break it down:

1. Ruby did have foreknowledge that something was to happen during the motorcade but certainly not something as sensational and dangerous as the murder of the President...and something that could put him at risk. His role up to the point of Oswald's unplanned capture was relatively minor and very much routine for him, including identification of dirty cops for minor roles.  I make the case for that in both SWHT 2010 and Tipping Point.

2. My take is that the recording equipment goes back to 1959 when Ruby was in play as an FBI source - most likely in regard to Cuban gun running.  The FBI was most definitely running a sting against gun runners,  evidence of that is in the arrest of Robert McKewon and his associates.  Whether Ruby contributed anything to that is unknown but his use by the FBI stopped once McKewon's ring was busted.

3. I really don't give any credit to the Jarnigan story, for many reasons including having the conversation in Ruby's club.  Ruby was far too cunning to have that sort of conversation in his club (its as stupid as the Oswald/Cuban Embassy conversation story about Oswald taking money to kill JFK).  My take is that Jarnigan inserted the Connally aspect into the dialog after the fact simply to a) give some credence to his story and b) to avoid questions about why he would not have reported and obvious threat to the President before hand....as a member of the bar that would have been a given.

4. On the other hand the Luce call is something entirely different and part of some deep follow-on research to Tipping Point that David and I are doing.  If it jells it could be very significant but as present is very much a work in progress - and has nothing to do with Ruby.

Thanks Larry. The idea that Jarnigan inserted the Connally aspect into the dialog to give credence to his story would mean his story was of seeing Oswald with Ruby (fabrication), to which he added the Connally murder-for-hire aspect for embellishment (more fabrication) and chose Connally not JFK so as to avoid questions why he had not reported the JFK threat previously. This would be in agreement with the polygraph test indicating lying, and in agreement with Dale Myers' interview of Leavelle in which Leavelle said Jarnigan had admitted to the DPD that he made the whole thing up to get in on the ground floor of Oswald-Ruby connection sightings (however that statement from Leavelle appears to be hearsay; is the hearsay reflecting an actual confession statement by Jarnigan to a prosecutable crime [which however DPD decided not to turn over for prosecution?], or a DPD interpretation of Jarnigan?). Oddly District Attorney Wade told the Warren Commission re the Jarnigan polygraph that he, Wade, believed Jarnigan was sincere in believing what he said he saw even though the polygraph indicated lying (which sounds contradictory, as if Wade was telling the WC he did not believe the polygraph). If Jarnigan fabricated the story in his letter to Hoover (lied to the FBI), as an attorney he would know there were heavy penalties for giving false information to the FBI and in sworn affidavits, yet he did so anyway? Nevertheless, your reasons are sensible and the story does have the ring of uncorroborated "too good to be true".

On your final comment on the Luce call, I will be very interested in your research on that. The question there to me is under what hypothetical circumstances would Oswald be caught unwittingly on a tape saying that he could "kill the Secretary of the Navy" (of all people)? The easy explanation would be that no such tape existed, but if the Luce story was a story of an attempt to plant a story in national news media in real-time after the assassination (which did not succeed, but not because the attempt was not made)--and the odd assassination target reference (Secretary of the Navy) uttered by Oswald was told to Luce because that was what was on tape whereas there was no statement of Oswald on tape re JFK--then the question remains, and I look forward to whatever light you may shed on that. 

12 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Its noteworthy that all the sources on Ruby in Vegas were quite positive,  and that this was all reported and investigated ....but like much else in regard to Ruby they worked very hard at avoiding it.

On a side note and something not brought back up in regard to Ruby in Tipping Point, there is good circumstantial evidence that it was Roselli who made the call to bring in a high powered attorney for Ruby and to cover it up by attributing that (and the funding for the lawyer) to Ruby's brother.  That is in SWHT.

Larry, this is interesting. In light of Roselli being murdered seemingly in association with his testimony to HSCA, and the same with Giancana (and maybe also the questionable suicide of Prio), and Ruby's associations with the same Mob circles part of which you bring out here--and Ruby's killing of Oswald--did Ruby have foreknowledge? There is the informant report of "seeing the fireworks" minutes before the assassination; there is Ruby making some arrangements a month or two prior for shipment and safekeeping of his beloved dogs; the stories of Ruby coming into money at the time of the assassination; the original accidental tipoff via Hosty's son that led to Silvia Odio, in which Ruby had made some legal arrangements just prior to the assassination; and the many Mob phone calls in the prior one to two months. That seems a lot for Ruby not to have had foreknowledge--not knowledge of how or who, but that something was in the works? But then, why would Ruby not himself have been killed just as Oswald and Roselli and Giancana? Is it possible the only reason that did not happen for four years was the accident that Ruby was protected while in custody--if he had been released to the street he would have been dead? Of course Ruby did die of a fast-acting medical condition just before transfer to a different jurisdiction. Some other musings: 

-- Ruby's paranoia, delusions that Jews were being killed screaming in the jail, etc., is it ruled out that that could have been acting? Any time he says something and people respond skeptically, an easy way to discredit or walk it back, just act delusional? (Also a possible legal defense.) 

-- Ruby's final taped interview in which, on his deathbed, he repeated his basic alibi story of acting out of sympathy for Jackie Kennedy etc., and etc.--there could be a rational explanation for that on the assumption that that was not the truth, if Ruby calculated (not thinking of dying immediately): just don't make waves until I get transferred (and am safer), then I can talk . . .

-- his obvious fear for his life, his pleading to Earl Warren to take him some place safe and he would talk (no interest from Earl Warren), his prediction to Earl Warren that he would be dead within days because he had already said too much (did not happen, but a reasonable fear if he did have knowledge and was witnessed signaling he might talk), his plea for the polygraph in hopes that his false story would be discovered . . . that was simply inexcusable, a coverup, that Warren did not get him to safety and find out what he had to say. Ruby was the number one living possible source of information. Any honest effort to crack the case would have gotten him to safety, promised him witness protection, got him to flip and talk, to see if there was anything there. 

-- I have noticed that in your Someone Would Have Talked (per the index), and not sure but may also be the case in The Tipping Point (no index to check), you seem to make no mention of Jarnigan. I know that Jarnigan is widely considered a non-credible witness including in conspiracy research circles, but whereas there are plenty of witnesses that others believe whom I do not think are credible, Jarnigan on the other hand is one I am not so sure should be dismissed. There are two major reasons for dismissing him that I can see, of which I believe one may be a non-issue: the conflict in timing between his claim to have witnessed Ruby and Oswald talking about assassinating Connally, on the same evening that Oswald is known to have caught a bus and hitchhiked to Ruth Paine's house in Irving where Marina was, from the Dallas YMCA. But the night Jarnigan said he was at the Carousel was to celebrate Jarnigan's birthday, and I have found an article which has his birthday on Thursday night Oct 3, the day before Oswald went to Irving Fri Oct 4, which could remove the timeline contradiction, on the assumption that Jarnigan's memory several weeks later was off by one day. The other reason, more substantial, was his spectacular failure on a polygraph test, in which the only answer he was judged to have answered truthfully was when he said yes he had been drinking that night. Was that test straight or crooked? So far as I know no records of that polygraph test have ever come to light for review; and there certainly would have been a law enforcement motive to discredit Jarnigan. A possible argument that his story could be true, not previously raised, I notice from a detail in the article linked to above in this thread that Douglas Caddy posted, William Scott Malone, "The Secret Life of Jack Ruby". The type is too small to read in the link Douglas Caddy gave but here is a link where the article is readable: http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/R Disk/Ruby Jack As Gangster Related/Item 01.pdf. The entire article was eye-opening to me, of Ruby's Mob ties and Cuba history, and no doubt this is all familiar to you, but what caught my eye was the inset story on the fourth page online, p. 48 of the print article, "Rubygate", in which Ruby bought professional spy recording equipment that could be worn as a wristwatch, in the context of his being an FBI informant. This was in 1959. "the saleswoman who waited on Ruby told Secret Service agents after Kennedy's assassination that Ruby had bought 'a wristwatch which held a microphone for the equipment, and also an instrument to bug a telephone,' as well as a 'tie clip and attache case.' Professional spy equipment." 

In the many times I have read Carroll Jarnigan's letter to J. Edgar Hoover in Dec 1963 describing his memory of what he claims he overhead Ruby discussing with Oswald at the Carousel, I have had the strongest suspicion that (if what Jarnigan was saying was for real) it sounded to me almost like someone was wired and getting the other to say incriminating things on tape. But I did not realize there was this direct evidence that Ruby had been in possession of exactly the kind of sophisticated equipment to do that.

As for whether that particular conversation that Jarnigan says he witnessed between Ruby and Oswald happened, I think of this: one thing that stands out in Jarnigan's story is that the discussion (Jarnigan said) was about killing Connally, not JFK. Nothing about JFK, just could Oswald shoot Connally. OK. On the night of the assassination, Clare Booth Luce got a phone call from her Latino anti-Castro friends, and they claimed they had Oswald on tape saying he could kill the Secretary of the Navy. On tape. Offering that to the wife of the publisher of an influential national news magazine that would make Oswald look irrevocably guilty. Presumably there was a tape to be delivered, and presumably it was of Oswald, and presumably it had Oswald speaking of killing the Secretary of the Navy (not Kennedy). Connally had been Secretary of the Navy. What I am noticing is that what the friends of Clare Booth Luce told her they had is exactly what Jarnigan says he heard Oswald say to Ruby. There was no connection between these two stories. Could the tape of Oswald threatening to kill the Secretary of the Navy have originated from Ruby the night that attorney Jarnigan, through a freak accident, overheard Oswald telling Ruby that at the Carousel, then wrote J. Edgar Hoover personally telling him so? There is no known contact or mechanism by which Ruby would have had contact with Clare Booth Luce's sources, but that missing link could be filled in if Ruby was an informant, taped Oswald as part of being a good informant, turned in the tape, and by a law enforcement/intelligence channel (unknown to Ruby) that tape came to be accessible to be offered to the publisher of a national news magazine on the evening of the JFK assassination for the purpose of showing evidence of Oswald's guilt. That is, in this scenario Ruby did nothing other than be a good informant and turn in his tape. 

But why would Oswald say such a thing to begin with? Here I think of the Keystone Cops-sounding story of General Edwin Walker's hired detectives in Oklahoma investigating who shot Walker, and trying to pin it on and incriminate Walker's former employee William McEwan Duff by offering to pay Duff to kill Walker, whereupon Duff went to the FBI, reported the attempted murder-for-hire, and went back, pretended to be interested and informed on the informants to the FBI--both trying to get incriminating information on the other! While it is highly speculative, wouldn't it be basically the same thing if Oswald thought he was infiltrating and informing on a plot of Ruby et al to assassinate Connally, and Ruby thought he was informing on Oswald, just as in the case of Walker's detectives and Duff? It would be a clever way to set up a patsy, get him on tape threatening violence . . .

It all sounds bizarre, except . . . except . . . the alleged tape recording of Oswald saying he could shoot the Secretary of the Navy (where did that come from?) . . . Jarnigan independently saying he witnessed a conversation of Oswald saying exactly that . . . and Ruby had tape recording equipment and the law enforcement informant contacts to have taped Oswald saying that, and then the attempt to get a tape of exactly that unusually specific nature mainstreamed into national news media the very night or weekend of the assassination. According to this, https://www.covertbookreport.com/carroll-jarnagin-did-he-actually-witness-ruby-with-oswald/, Jarnigan feared for his life, claimed there had later been an attempt to kill him by an injection, and hid for a number of years which could account for his not having ended up like Oswald or Roselli, if his story was true. Of course Jarnigan had alcoholism issues, was reported to have failed a polygraph test, and there is no other evidential corroboration of his story than his word (and the circumstantial argument of the subject of the alleged tape recording of Oswald). But Jarnigan was an attorney, he shows no signs of having sought publicity or fame (just the opposite), and as an attorney he wrote personally to J. Edgar Hoover about what he said he had seen, almost immediately following the assassination. What do you think, Larry? 

Jim D., I read the four parts of David Reitzes on the Clinton and Jackson witnesses of Oswald in Clinton and Jackson, and except for the part about a Klan conspiracy (intent to fabricate testimony in concert maliciously), I came out convinced that there is nothing substantial, nothing there, to Oswald or Ferrie or Clay Shaw in Clinton. Witness identifications which start out as highly uncertain and then over time become positive identifications is a first strike against. Witness identifications not documented in the first instance until starting years after the fact instead of attested brought to authorities' attention soon after the assassination is a second strike against. Not a Klan conspiracy, I doubt the Klan issues had much to do with those Oswald identifications, simple malleability of human memory and mistaken identifications given the passage of years of time is sufficient to account for it. 

And the third strike against--I have problems in the idea that the man in Jackson wanting a job in Jackson, being sent to the state hospital, who talked to some people there and then went to try to register to vote in Clinton in the black Cadillac, was Oswald. It is just obviously some local, not Oswald who did not even live there. Neither Marina nor anyone else in Oswald's circle ever heard of Oswald wanting to work in a mental hospital in Jackson when he did not even live there--this just seems nuts to me. There is nothing in Oswald's address book about that. The job-seeker, whoever he was, said he was a vet who had spent time in Guantanamo, Cuba, and talked about how good of an electrician he was--that does not sound like Oswald. To me this is like the alleged Sports Drome shooting range sightings of Oswald, or the Shasteen barbershop claims, or Russo seeing Oswald at a David Ferrie party--I think those were mistaken identifications too. For some reason stories of UFO sightings coming in clusters come to mind. 

Then in addition to the four parts of David Reitzes, this article of Patricia Lambert, a review of Mellen, had this of interest from her (Lambert's) interview of Dr. Frank Silva, the psychiatrist at the East Louisiana State Hospital: 

Dr. Silva was scrupulously precise, painstaking even, in emphasizing that at the time of the assassination he did not relate Lee Harvey Oswald to the man he met at the hospital. He made no connection between that man and the president's [alleged] assassin. '[Oswald's] face was not familiar,' Dr. Silva said. 'I don't think anybody [at the hospital] remembered him, not anybody that I knew.' When the assassination happened, no one said this is the guy who came here. 'No one said anything.' 'If you had shown me a picture of this guy, Lee Oswald [as seen] on television and in magazines, and said had you ever seen this guy, I would have said no, I've never seen him.' (. . .)

Eventually, Dr. Silva (in Baton Rouge) also heard what later would be known as 'the Clinton scenario,' and two elements of it fit the man he met at the hospital. That's when Dr. Silva began to think the man at the hospital 'could very well [have been Oswald].' Dr. Silva became almost, but not entirely, convinced he was Oswald. 'And now,' he said, 'I can even visualize [Oswald's] face as the face of the person I spoke to. But of course it is a secondary recollection. It's not a direct recollection.' 'Of course, I've seen so many pictures of Lee Harvey Oswald, that it would be very easy for me to say [the man] had a T-shirt on...But, you know, after 30 years you just [unwittingly] fabricate things on something... It is something that is tangential and you see almost from the corner of your eye, then you begin to say this is what it was'.

All that troubled Dr. Silva. At one point, clearly searching, working to get it right, trying to excavate the steps that led to his 'secondary recollection,' Dr. Silva pinpointed its precise origin. 'I know [the man at the hospital] said that somebody had thought there were jobs there and he had applied...and they had told him he needed to register to vote.' 'I remember that part. And it's probably the reason I put this person and Lee Harvey Oswald together.' (. . .) But no one knew better than Dr. Silva that he had no real memory of Oswald, only images of him created after the fact. As evidence of the mind's vulnerability to suggestion those images are enlightening. As evidence of Oswald's presence at the hospital, they are meaningless. Dr. Silva knew that too. His final word on the man he met at the hospital, which he said more than once in slightly different ways, was this: 'Whether he was Oswald or not, I don't know.' 'I cannot say'.

Irvin Dymond, Clay Shaw's lead trial attorney, who believed Clinton to be 'a complete fix,' told me that Jim Garrison didn't engage in fraud in the ordinary sense--meaning that he didn't invent evidence out of whole cloth. He 'took what came their way,' Dymond said, and worked with it. What came their way in the hill country north of Baton Rouge was a former military man, identity unknown, interested in Cuba and Castro, who showed up at East Louisiana State Hospital looking for work. That man could have been anyone. Nothing about him was singular (. . .)

A good deal has been written in recent years about false memories. Dr. Silva's experience raises that issue and is instructive. The man at the hospital was real. The later recollection of Oswald, by Dr. Silva's own analysis, coalesced from what he heard about Oswald and the images of him he saw on television. Fortunately, Dr. Silva was too aware and knowledgeable to represent that later recollection as fact. Few are aware, however, or that knowledgeable (. . .)

The three alleged conspirators appearing together in public and Oswald applying for work at that hospital defy belief. Garrison understood that Oswald's actions required a rational explanation. He came up with this: Oswald's 'sponsors' (read plotters) wanted Oswald to work 'a few weeks' at this mental facility, Garrison claimed, so that later, 'with a switch of cards from 'employee' to 'patient,' they could 'have the right psychiatrist' there testify that he had been 'treating' Oswald, thus completing a picture of him as a wandering mental case. That explanation is either silly or deranged, depending on one's generosity; either way it is light years removed from rational thought.

'At that time,' Dr. Silva said, 'there was a doctor [at the hospital whose name Dr. Silva couldn't remember], a real nice guy who had white white hair' whom Dr. Silva 'always connected with the theories about Shaw.' (Shaw's hair was quite gray.) This doctor 'was not a psychiatrist,' Dr. Silva said, he was 'internal medicine or something like that,' and he was at the hospital 'because he was in between jobs or something, and he had a contractor relationship with the hospital.' 'I have the feeling,' Dr. Silva said, 'there was somebody in the hospital that was going to drive [the man] to get registered, and I have the feeling it was this [white haired doctor]'.

(Patricia Lambert, "The Good Witness: Dr. Frank Silva and 'Lee Harvey Oswald'", https://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/silva.htm)

That makes more sense to me than that it was Oswald, David Ferrie, Clay Shaw, etc., all three of them in the same car, in Clinton that day.

Denny, you are right. On p. 339 of the Marcades 2nd edition is a Fruge document of April 4, 1967 that states that between Nov. 21-28 "she stated that she once worked for Jack Ruby as a stripper, which was verified".

He does not make clear that he personally verified it. The first claim that Fruge himself was the verifier seems to be 2006 Anne Dischler saying that. Now Fruge is dead, nobody has any idea who or how the verification happened, what club, or when. But you are right, there is a 1967 claim from Fruge of verification.

Jim D., I have never been to New Orleans or Clinton/Jackson related to JFK. How many times have you been to Big Sandy to do Rose Cherami research? Not a serious question, does not matter. On the foreknowledge, I am sure you are aware the question is whether the claims of foreknowledge are true or later after the fact. It is now known, thanks to Steve Roe, that Rose Cherami fabricated personal involvement in a high-profile murder case in Arizona in 1957. The claims of foreknowledge and participation in a car of JFK assassins in 1963 is a second similar claim in a second high-profile murder case. Since she made it up the first time and it was not true (but sounded convincing), the question is whether she made it up and it is not true the second time too (even though it sounds convincing). I would be interested in you engaging Steve Roe on substantive matters of fact on this. Steve Roe appears to have studied the Rose Cherami case extensively. Why not have a civil discussion of issues of fact, details of evidence, etc. with Steve. 

Denny, I think there is a misunderstanding. When I said "no evidence" that Rose Cherami (Melba Marcades)'s story of working for Ruby was confirmed, I meant evidence that a researcher can look at and verify. You are citing claims of Fruge and Dischler (Dischler getting that from Fruge) that such confirmation existed, with absolutely nothing ever produced or known to us or publicly known to anyone of what that is. I knew about that. I saw that in the 2020 second edition of Dr. Marcades' book about his mother, on p. 328 ("In 2006, Ann Dishler [sic], Fruge's investigatory partner, confirmed Fruge had sources to this claim who wished to remain unidentified"). 

That is not confirmation or evidence, it is hearsay--someone claiming that there was confirmation but you will never be able to know the source, the nature of the source and how the source was in a position to know, or what specifically was confirmed, or look at it.

So with Fruge as the sole--sole--source (including to Dischler) of the unverified claim that it was verified, here is Fruge's earliest known statement about verification, to HSCA in the late 1970s:

Latest Fred Litwin post: "Did Rose Cherami ever work for Jack Ruby?" https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/did-rose-cherami-ever-work-for-jack-ruby. Pretty compelling of no evidence and not very likely. If someone objects to citing Fred Litwin on this, all I can say is why have JFK pro-conspiracy researchers not done this spadework first in discrediting this story.

Melba Marcades, Rose Cherami, claimed to Dr. Weiss and Lt. Fruge that:

* she had worked for Ruby as a dancer, and in that capacity knew of a relationship between Ruby and Oswald for many years

* that it was well-known in her dancer circles that Ruby and Oswald were bed-mates

How can there be any truth to that? All claims of Oswald knowing Ruby relate to the final months of the time after Oswald's return to the US from USSR in 1962-1963, and the disputed witness claims of Oswald Ruby contacts center on only the final weeks before Nov 22, 1963, not a lengthy period before that. 

In 1963 Marcades was 39 years old. 

Has there ever been corroboration of any kind produced--a fellow dancer, testimony, records, anything?--that Marcades worked in a Ruby club? 

Did Jack Ruby have a track record of hiring 39-year old women to be exotic dancers? Does that make sense?

And what is it with her claim that Ruby and Oswald knew each other "for years"? And being gay lovers? When there is no substantive basis at all that Oswald ever was gay or bi. 

Yes her story checked out on the drug smuggling in Houston. But that was her line of work and nothing to do with the JFK assassination. The fact that the drug smuggling checked out says nothing about her credibility on the claims of Ruby and Oswald and her involvement with JFK assassins.

According to Lt. Fruge, Marcades did not simply claim the two men with her were going to assassinate JFK, but that she herself was. She said her purpose of her trip was to get to Dallas to deliver drugs, pick up her child, and kill Kennedy. According to Fruge.

Steve Roe has produced a newspaper article from 1957 of Melba Marcades fabricating a claim to have been a participant with inside knowledge in a high-profile murder case in Arizona, that was completely made up. That newspaper article should be major news to everyone here who is interested in the Rose Cherami case. It is new--it is not in any of the Mary Ferrell documents, any of the Garrison investigation documents. Nor--surprisingly--is it anywhere in either edition of Dr. Marcades' books concerning his mother, even though extensive biographical information otherwise is uncovered and told. 

That Melba Marcades--Rose Cherami--made up a story of being a participant/involved in the Arizona murder case, is like the story of the boy who cried "wolf", warning the people of the village, but the boy's cry was not true. In the story, the boy did that a few times, and then one day (so the story goes) there was a real wolf, and he cried "wolf" but the villagers would not believe him. In this case Marcades cried "wolf" falsely in 1957--and nobody until Steve Roe's report within the past several days has known of this. In 1963 she cried "wolf" again. Her claims of involvement with JFK assassins, being a 39-year old dancer in a Ruby nightclub, knowing of Ruby and Oswald as gay lovers--this is the exact same kind of thing as the 1957 Arizona high-profile fabrication, a second cry of "wolf!" She faked it before, and it looks for all the world like she faked it again in 1963, since it is the same kind of thing repeated. That is the starting-point on her allegations now.

The 1957 story discredits Marcades as a witness in her story in 1963 of involvement in the JFK assassination which is exactly the same genre of story as 1957 (high profile; murder; claim of personal association/involvement). It raises the bar very high--requiring hard unambiguous evidence--before believing her on anything in that story. Not in the drug smuggling part, which is her known world and history, but the JFK assassination and Ruby nightclub parts, for which there is zero on-the-record corroboration apart from the arguments of timeline and foreknowledge.

The 1957 Arizona story is a game-changer. There never was any necessary linkage of the Rose Cherami story, to the reasons for supposing the JFK assassination was a hit in which Oswald's actions are not a full and sufficient explanation. That is, there is nothing essential to the actual issues of the JFK assassination in the Rose Cherami story. There is nothing lost by ditching it. 

Steve Roe's 1957 newspaper article has tipped it for me on the Rose Cherami story. Its a sad human case, the story of Melba Marcades. In my case there was the freak coincidence of the Big Sandy, Texas connection, where she was either struck by a car receiving fatal injuries, or foul play, whichever it was, in 1965, and my own journey in the early 1970s from Akron, Ohio to attend a Bible college for 2-1/2 years located at that very town of east Texas of 1,200 people. During my first year there I bought a used motorcycle and spent countless hours riding it on the back roads around Big Sandy including Hwy 155. I know a number of people, related to the now-defunct college, who live there to the present day. My student job on campus (the campus was located on Hwy 80 two miles east of Big Sandy) my freshman year was in the college's Transportation Department servicing church fleet vehicles, and in that shop I worked with a mechanic who was the Big Sandy fire chief, and a heavy-equipment operator who was Big Sandy's mayor, in their off-hours. But for the JFK assassination, my take on this at this point is: the Rose Cherami story does not look credible to me. It looks like a repeat of Arizona 1957.  

On 5/22/2021 at 6:59 PM, W. Niederhut said:

Greg,

     I worked part-time in the substance abuse field during my psychiatric career, and I was board certified in Addiction Psychiatry.  Hallucinations are not a characteristic symptom of heroin withdrawal.

Thanks W., you are right. 

Steve Roe--the Silver Slipper as the Las Vegas Silver Slipper, and not Rose Cheramie's Silver Slipper--thank you for this because prior to your bringing this out, I thought Silver Slipper = Silver Slipper was striking. But there was no connection between the Silver Slippers. A match, a coincidence, that was nothing. The reason I am glad to learn this is because I think that false information--dud leads--impede rather than advance getting to accurate knowledge of the truth of the JFK assassination, and it is good to have false leads gone.

The other detail I saw of interest in the Mrs. Hoover story was Julio Fernandez, Jr.--not Sr.--as the same name as Clare Boothe Luce's Cuban contact who tried to plant an LHO-implicating story for her and husband to publish, within hours of the assassination. Luce later told Fonzi she had made up the name, but I think it is at least as likely that she was lying the second time to Fonzi on that, as that her claim was truthful that she was lying the first time. Whoever talked to Luce I think had a reasonable chance of having been connected to people connected to the JFK assassination, and those contacts of Luce on that occasion have the appearance of having been covered up (since no WC or any other investigators found them and questioned them under oath). Julio Fernandez Sr. is totally innocent--Mrs. Hoover's reporting on suspicious-looking Cubans visiting his house is just sideshow, anti-foreigner suspicion. Forget Sr., it was Jr. who had been in Florida who would be the only possible person of interest if there was one there. But, he was 19, sounds like an artist afterward and not an ex-Bay of Pigs kind of warrior, nothing obviously incriminating, and Julio Fernandez apparently was a common name, like John Smith. Jr.'s name match with the Clare Boothe Luce story just not substantial enough either, once the Silver Slipper is gone. 

Mrs. Hoover may have sent items culled from Fernandez Sr.'s garbage to a Congressman, but there's nothing there. She was suspicious of everything about Fernandez Sr. People can say "well there could have been something there". Yes, but that can be said about a lot of things. No one has shown anything connected to the JFK assassination in whatever items Mrs. Hoover sent out of Sr's garbage to Congress, therefore--based on what is known there, which is zero--therefore there is zero. Until such time, if ever, it is ever shown that there is something there more than zero (not very likely). 

On Rose Cheramie. I lived 2-1/2 years in Big Sandy, Texas, population 1200, and I have visited the spot on Highway 155 that I think may have been the site of Rose's death, and I know that stretch of road well. I totally agree that site makes no sense as a hitchhiker trying to go west to Dallas or east to Shreveport. I talked to a local who knew something of the story of the man who found her, drove her to a doctor and tried to save her life, and that Rose lived for hours before dying. I arrived in Big Sandy in the early '70s, about seven years after Rose's death. Soon after I arrived I heard a hearsay story indicating how Wild West east Texas was. I want to preface this story by saying I have googled trying to verify or find the actual story behind what I heard but have found nothing online, no verification. But anyway here is the hearsay, told to me by a private college's security officer (I think it was hearsay to him too). Apparently there was a murder conspiracy, a plot, to kill the fire chief of Gladewater (small town about ten miles east of Big Sandy). The way the hit was going to work was a fire was started, and shooters lied in wait for the fire chief to show up when they would kill him. Well, the police chief showed up first on the scene, and he was shot dead by the killers, by mistake, they thinking he was the fire chief. Oops. As noted, I have been unable to find any story that matches this online, but that is what I was told. No connection to Rose Cheramie, other than Wild West context.

With Rose Cheramie, if it was a hit it does not seem to have been a professional one because she was not left dead but alive. But it is hard to read that as an accident either--just puzzling. But anyone in the organized crime/ drug smuggling/ police informant world, an untimely death could be for any reason, who knows if it was JFK related or not, just no way of knowing. We can go crazy with what-ifs unverified by evidence.

I just received and read the updated edition of Michael Marcades's book, the son. With utmost compassion for Dr. Marcades's story of his quest to recover and tell his mother's story, the book itself was a disappointment in being in the genre of ghost-written creative nonfiction--written like a novel. I personally cannot stand that genre. I want old fashioned straight discussion of facts and footnotes and leave out the creative fiction, the imagined conversations and inner thoughts of characters told by the omniscient narrator, etc. What made the book nevertheless worth purchasing was the documents at the end from the medical records of Rose's death, especially to me with my local connection to the scene. But everything else in the creative fiction retelling, mixes fact and fiction, with no judicious analysis of what is true or not true.  

The bar owner at the Silver Slipper lounge, the one of Rose Cheramie, made two identifications from photos several years after the fact which are a bit questionable in reliability, but he also gave the exact proper name of a third man who he saw talking with the two in that bar like he knew them, the night that Rose Cheramie was there. But that full correct name of that third man (so far as I know) was and has never been tracked down. He would likely have known who the other two were if asked, but he never was found and asked. 

What do you think of late-to-the-party witness John Curington? This is a serious question, not rhetorical. Curington is the aide to H.L. Hunt who says he was sent by HL Hunt to check on jail security for Oswald the night before Oswald was shot by Ruby, and that he, Curington, reported back to HL Hunt at Hunt's estate late Saturday night, followed by Curington at Hunt's instruction setting up a meeting between Hunt and Dallas mob boss Joseph Civello that occurred ca. 7 am or so Sunday morning--Curington says he was not present at that meeting but got a couple of hours sleep and then went to church--Ruby killed Oswald later that morning and Curington heard the announcement when he was in church.

Curington first told of checking the jail security for HL Hunt in 1977, with no mention of the Civello connection at that time. In his 2018 book, Motive and Opportunity, and in taped interview with me in 2018, Curington told the Civello connection. As he told it to me (and writes of it in his book), I originally had the impression he was saying he had phoned Civello in the middle of the night at Hunt's request to set up the Hunt/Civello meeting. However subsequently Curington told me he had gone over in person to Civello's house that night (ca. 2 am), rather than the communication being by a phone call. 

Then, in a phone call last December, 2020 (I have written notes of the conversation at the time but no recording), Curington explicitly told me that when he got a phone call from HL Hunt to go check jail security re Oswald late Saturday afternoon Nov 23, he knew Oswald was going to be dead, which is what happened the next morning. In other words, although Curington did not do the hit, Curington told me it was clear to him that a hit was coming down.

Curington is now 93 years old (sound mind). I have talked to him many times since 2018 and a long-time friend of mine has known him closely going back to the 1980s. He is who he says he is with respect to his position and many years with HL Hunt. But what to make of his story? Apart from Curington's book which has not received much publicity or notice; Dr. Cyril Wecht who has to a certain extent taken Curington under his wing; and my 2018 interview with him which has not been greatly publicized (https://independent.academia.edu/GregoryDoudna, scroll down to next to last listing), Curington's story of the Civello middle-of-the-night meetings which Curington said looked like it was setting up the hit on Oswald which happened the next morning has basically gone "nowhere". I see now there is also an oral history interview of Curington recorded 2018 on the Sixth Floor Museum website although I have not heard it. 

It was an eery feeling to have a living person at this late date, not otherwise obviously fraudulent as so many other late-to-the-party witnesses have been shown to be, tell me matter-of-factly, in so many words that he was knowledgeable of and party to circumstances of Oswald's murder being planned starting about eighteen hours before it happened. Curington says he had no meeting or contact with Ruby at that time nor did he see Ruby at the police station (I asked), and that he did not hear either Hunt or Civello speak of killing Oswald. Only (in his call to me last December) that he knew, when HL Hunt asked him late Saturday afternoon to go check out security at the DPD police station where Oswald was held, that a hit was coming down.

What is to be made of a witness who comes out this late in the day with something like this? 

I did not know this at the time I wrote up my interview with him, but late last year (in fact, my email inquiry to Curington about this was what prompted Curington to call me by phone in response, the phone call in which he told me directly that he knew it was a hit coming down) I learned about and tracked down two items which call Curington's story into question. Namely, two major national-circulation magazine interviews of HL Hunt, August 1966 Playboy, and January 1967 Esquire (the Esquire story can be read here: http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/H Disk/Hunt H L/Item 15.pdf). In these interviews HL Hunt specifically says, firsthand, that he was advised by FBI agents the afternoon of the assassination to leave Dallas for his safety, and that he did leave Dallas with his wife, Friday Nov 22, and was not in Dallas that night or the rest of that weekend. There is no wiggle room in this: that is what HL Hunt says happened. If that is correct then he cannot have been at his home Saturday night Nov 23 to receive John Curington's midnight visit reporting on jail security for Oswald, nor can Hunt have received Civello at his estate for a meeting early Sunday morning Nov 24.

I wrote Curington and asked him about this, and he called me back by phone. His response was he insisted that was wrong. He gave me an almost hour-by-hour rundown of what happened in the hours after the assassination ("business continued as normal that afternoon"), that he drove Hunt home that evening at the end of the workday as usual, that he took care of Hunt's mail the next morning, that he was phoned by Hunt the next afternoon (Saturday) with the request to check out the jail security, etc. He said absolutely that Hunt had not left Dallas that weekend, that it simply was not true. As for why these two national magazines would report Hunt saying otherwise, Curington said they must have made it up, and said that is what both he and Hunt experienced all the time from journalists, just making things up. I asked: two national magazines would make up the identical story independently? He said maybe one got it from the other, he did not know, but he insisted it was not true that Hunt left Dallas any time that weekend.

So there it stands. What do I think? Obviously I do not think two national magazines would make up quoted words from HL Hunt out of whole cloth. The only two options are that HL Hunt was telling the truth (and Curington has not been truthful at some point), or HL Hunt was lying. Of course, if Curington's story is true, HL Hunt might have a motive to do so. However, Hunt's story appeared twice in national-circulation print four years after the fact, whereas Curington's first appeared 14 years (without Civello) and 55 years (with Civello) after the fact.

I have thought much about this and do not know for sure, but the weight seems to go against Curington in this "he says vs. he says" case of conflicting witness claims. I will probably be taking down my Curington interview in its present form soon, whether forever or to be put back up with this information as disclaimer I have not yet decided. Curington has come across in person to me as a straight shooter, but I know six decades of time can do strange things to people's memories too.  

I agree with much of what Tracy Parnell says. I do not think it is too relevant what the public thinks. That is not who I think is the relevant audience to address. Half of the public believes in creationism. Half of the public believes in astrology. Half of Trump supporters think there is a question concerning whether Obama was U.S. born. Winning over public opinion is irrelevant. The ones that matter are historians, now and in the future. Peer-reviewed journal articles, or published books which are game-changers for those knowledgeable of the issues. A senior scholar with a lot of wisdom from Hebrew University, Jerusalem, that I knew long ago advised me: don't write scholarly articles for the purpose of winning over mediocre scholars or the public. Instead, you write addressing the best minds in the field fifty years from now--that is who matters. He also said, in politics he was egalitarian believing in equality of persons, but in scholarly ideas he was an elitist, not all arguments are equal.

For a little while I have been working on an argument making a case for exculpation of Oswald in the case of the Tippit killing. It will contain new argument and data not previously raised. Of all charges against Oswald, it is probably fair to say the Tippit killing is perceived as the most difficult case for exculpation of all. I intend to separate it from issues of any other charge against Oswald, such as the JFK assassination, focusing solely on the Tippit killing. My argument will involve no Oswald doubles, no claims of prior plot to frame Oswald, nothing outside of usual and customary law enforcement responses. It will be solely in the genre of "Innocence Project" case arguments for overturning wrongful criminal convictions. Oswald did not live to be charged or convicted of the Tippit killing, but apart from that that is the parallel I will be developing. When I do have it ready to publish, I will gladly offer it to the best critics to my knowledge to shoot it down if possible, such as Myers, or Tracy Parnell or Steve Roe, each of whom I respect, if one or more of those are willing to have a go at it. Strange to say, I do not regard that kind of critical assessment, argued on the basis of evidence, as a negative thing but to be welcomed and valued and appreciated. My target audience and objective will not be to win over the public, or readers of this forum. I will judge success or failure of my Tippit argument based on whether it wins over those in America experienced in issues of wrongful criminal convictions, and historians. But I am not actually talking about legal exculpation (which is not always the same as actual exculpation), but exculpation to historians' standards, in terms of whether the accused actually did it. If it succeeds it succeeds, if it fails it fails. The arbiter that matters to me, in terms of human judgment, being not the public, not people here, but mainstream historians. Tracy Parnell is right: that is whose judgment matters.

Tracy Parnell is right on another thing: there is no unified theory on who killed JFK, not after years of investigation and research decades after the fact. There is strong though not quite unanimous agreement that Oswald was innocent of the JFK assassination, but explanations of the specifics of that go every which way. If Oswald was involved with the sniper's nest on the TSBD sixth floor, how could he be innocent of involvement in the assassination itself? But if he was not involved in the sixth floor sniper's nest, then who was and how did they get into and make their exit from the building without being noticed? Yes, this and that explanation has been conjectured to these questions, but there is no unified theory even conjecturally even on those basic questions. There is unity I would say on this: that the shots fired that day are not explicable in terms of Oswald alone firing, with reasons for that coalescing around a cluster of basic facts and arguments upon which there is some loose agreement. To that extent there is a something approaching a minimal "unified theory" if it can be called that, even if it has not come together formally. But that is about as far as any unity of the best researchers' minds goes at this point, it seems.

If the objective is to change popular and political reality in America by reopening the JFK assassination case, where are the serious journal article submissions to peer-reviewed standards in historians' and forensic journals? Where are the best researchers combining to agree on published, written basic bullet-point statements of agreement as to findings ("unified theory specifics")? 

I think the issue of the JFK assassination will be a matter for the nation's and the world's historians ultimately to solve or not solve, in terms of ultimate arbiters. Through the peer-reviewed journal process, historians' conference presentations, and historians of reputation and standing becoming persuaded on the basis of evidence formally presented and published. 

15 hours ago, Vince Palamara said:

As the saying goes from the movie Frozen: "Let it go."

I was intending to defend Ruth Paine, not on an agenda to take down your book although I can see how it came across that way. I apologize.

delete 

On 4/13/2021 at 4:58 PM, James DiEugenio said:

As per trying to insinuate that somehow Larry or David have ignored the Paines, not really?  In Larry's book SWHT, he uses the whole case of Buddy Walthers and those pesky file carriers, and he sources it well; Talbot writes several pages on the Paines in The Devil's Chessboard. 

I did not say Talbot ignored Ruth Paine. I said he does not think Ruth Paine was dishonest or CIA. "Ruth Paine ... was not ... a witting agent" (p. 535). Ruth's statement that she never had any contact with CIA "that I'm aware of", "is true, as far as it goes" (p. 536). "Ruth Paine was not an operative" (p. 537). Hostile to CIA and Dulles, Talbot is sympathetic to Ruth.

Larry Hancock's Someone Would Have Talked,  2010 2nd ed of 2006, says nothing at all negative concerning Ruth Paine. None of the mentions of Buddy Walthers involve file cabinets or Ruth Paine's garage or Ruth Paine--just isn't there.

In Larry Hancock's most recent Tipping Point (2021), in which after a lifetime of research he attempts to name names and reconstruct what might have happened in the runup to the assassination, Hancock suggests no role of Ruth Paine in the plot, says nothing at all negative or suspicious concerning Ruth Paine's character, in contrast to dozens upon dozens of named persons Larry Hancock believes are suspicious. So Larry Hancock 2010 and now 2021.

John Newman, probably unsurpassed in groundbreaking and formidable research on the CIA and Oswald, leaving practically no stone unturned in working through documents and evidence. John Newman says not one thing negative concerning Ruth Paine in Oswald and the CIA (2008). 

Clearly the reason these three top-tier researchers--Newman, Hancock, and Talbot--never disparage Ruth Paine is quite simply each of them encountered no evidence to support the outlandish things you continually assert of Ruth Paine with no disclosure or acknowledement on your part that what you allege is 100% suspicion and 0% confirmed evidence, in the form of document, witness testimony, or confession, i.e. evidence.

If there was credible evidence that Ruth Paine was sinister--why have not Newman, Talbot, and Hancock, with every intent in the world to pursue CIA machinations underlying a conspiracy in the assassination—the best researchers on earth in this area of inquiry--seen anything of the horrible things you assert as if you know them to be facts? The simple explanation is you deal with suspicion and scenario which simply have failed to be at all obvious to the top tier of researchers who deal with evidence.

In all this time, not one document or witness or confession has shown Ruth to have been a witting CIA asset or operative, to have committed a crime against anyone, or perjury in her testimony. No hard evidence, in all this time, in the year 2021, after all the document releases and intense scrutiny. Would it not be appropriate to show a little more humility concerning the status of your allegations? As in, "I personally suspect xyz, for reasons a,b,c, but I do not claim this is proven, or that it is certain, and certainly there is zero documentary evidence for this..."

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Irrelevant to the issue?

Vince was not under oath when he wrote his book.

Ruth Paine was under oath before the grand jury.

Yes irrelevant. What you are doing is "whataboutism", never mind the (irrelevant here) matter that it is only your spider-sense statement-analysis interpretation that justifies your insinuations, expressed in the form of catty suggested suspicions with eyebrows raised and "hmmm", never quite saying directly what you are getting at but intending others to conclude, for which you have no direct evidence beyond inquisitor mind-reading interpretive logic or conspiratorial dot-connecting-suspicion-reasonings. I note the best researchers, such as Larry Hancock and David Talbot and numerous others, not to mention 100% of the experienced staff investigators of both major investigations, both WC and HSCA, have not accused or voiced suspicions that Ruth Paine was dishonest or part of JFK assassination plotting or whatever, which you never quite say directly in simple declarative sentences, what you firmly believe exactly Ruth to be guilty of.     

On not being "under oath", I can hardly believe you are serious if you are defending as OK if a book presents a fabrication as a known fact, if the book is not "under oath". 

From the little I know of Vince (through reading, not personally) I am quite certain Vince does not hold to such a low moral bar as you seem to be suggesting or defending. I do not actually think you do either.

I have posted a correction in my earlier, with strikethrough lines for transparency of what was corrected. I have also deleted the last line asking for other researchers to comment concerning how to handle cases of inadvertant but damaging publication of untruths about persons. Not that the question is not of interest--not least because it is something that nearly all of us, myself included, do from time to time even with the best of efforts not to do so, and a discussion of "best practices" in such cases when it is discovered or brought to attention would be a worthy topic--but that would probably best be done elsewhere as another topic of discussion. Vince responded promptly and acknowledged and posted the correction honorably.

9 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Garrison did not ask Ruth about her sister's employment by the CIA since he did not know that at the time.

He asked her what agency of government her sister worked for.  

Ruth said she did not know.  (Hmm)

He then asked her if she recalled where she lived. 

Ruth said she did not know. (Double Hmmm)

When Garrison tried to guess if it was Falls Church VA, Ruth gave him a 'well maybe' kind of an answer.

This was false.  The Hokes lived in Maryland.  

So according  to Ruth, under oath, she 

1. Did not know what her sister did or who she worked for while she was visiting her.

2. Did not know what city she visited her in.  Even though she drove down from the Northeast and had to have it mapped out.

3. Did not even know the state her sister lived in!!  

Geez, Greg, how can we remedy how Ruth mislead Garrison under oath? Citizen's arrest maybe?

Irrelevant to issue.

On 4/12/2021 at 6:51 PM, Vince Palamara said:

Deb responds:

"I believe info about Ruth’s trip is in Douglass’ “JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters.” The road-trip Ruth took to visit her sister in 9/1963 is common knowledge; I believe it’s a part of Ruth’s WC testimony or HSCA testimony because it pertained to her dropping off Marina, et al, at LHO’s place in LA. Ruth’s sister’s name was Sylvia Hoke & her employment with CIA is a matter of record. I do not recall saying that Ruth visited her sister at CIA headquarters. She may have. But Ruth stayed with her sister in VA, according to Ruth. IOW, Ruth visited her sister who worked at CIA headquarters. Whether or not Ruth traipsed across the seal on the floor of CIA headquarters is unknown. Here is documentation of Ruth’s sisters’ CIA employment.

 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=103906&fbclid=IwAR3u75a7Jr-POgREbYJ7A0Dl1io8DWznFHZsix3O4qc-PhqJxsieGZXadpQ#relPageId=7

 

Ruth’s sisters’ full name was “Sylvia Hyde Hoke.” I don’t know if she is still living. Ruth’s father also had intelligence connections.

 

Ruth still admits to visiting her sister in Sept. 1963. This is from a Village Voice article July 29, 2020. Seems Ruth is still pumping her cover story.

 

Thank you Vince for obtaining this clarification that there is no truth or basis to the claim of knowledge, as quoted and footnoted to Deb Galantine in your book, that Ruth Paine visited CIA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Here is the full passage with the claim that appears two times in your book without qualification:

"As researcher Deb Galantine wrote to the author:

'Oswald apparently arrived in Mexico City on 9/27/63. But this report [document of Floyd Boring claim of sighting of Oswald in d.c. on 9/27/63] has him in Washington, D.C. on that date. Ruth Paine had recently returned to New Orleans shortly before this date from the Washington D.C. area. She had incorporated a visit to CIA headquarters while in the D.C. area in order to 'see her sister'. I have doubts about Ruth traveling alone on her road trip with two small children. I suspect she took her husband along. So it may be possible that Michael Paine stayed behind in the area. Someone in the D.C./PA/Baltimore area was impersonating Oswald in several places during that time frame." (Honest Answers, p. 236; also pp. 162-163)

I checked Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, and Douglass says nothing of any visit of Ruth to CIA headquarters. The point matters in that Ruth testified to the New Orleans grand jury under penalty of perjury, under questioning from Garrison, that she did not work, directly or indirectly, for the CIA. From the grand jury transcript (ellipses are in the transcript).

Q. Did you or your husband at any time directly or indirectly work for any Federal Law Enforcement Agency?

A. Not I, and I doubt Michael would have without my knowing it.

Q. How about the Central Intelligence Agency?

A. No.

Q. To your knowledge, have you met anyone who worked for the Central Intelligence Agency?

A. I just don't know. Conceivably, but in other words he didn't just come up to me and say here I am . . .

Q. That's what I say, to your knowledge.

A. No.

Q. No one has ever identified himself as an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency?

A. No, not to my knowledge.

The claim appearing in your book, to the extent that your readers read it and believe it to be true, will become one more case of Ruth Paine being unjustly smeared, with this claim perceived to be evidence that Ruth Paine has been untruthful.

So this raises the question: what can be done to remedy this, so that this new "false fact" does not get quoted and requoted and go viral, when it is a fabrication put into print? (I do not mean intentionally Vince.)

Your prompt obtaining and reporting of Deb Galantine's statement that nothing supports that claim, posted on this forum, is honorable. 

19 hours ago, Vince Palamara said:

Hello! Thanks a lot.

As for your questions:

I spoke to Bouck on 9/27/92 and he believed there was a conspiracy, so I got that straight from the horse’s mouth. As it turns out, Bouck also said the same thing to the ARRB (although he added that Oswald was the assassin). I admittedly added that bit from Fulton because it was enticing and directly related to Bouck (of course). As for the merits of the book itself, whether there is any additional novelizations added, highly respected author Dick Russell stuck his neck out and contributed to the book, so that, coupled with what Bouck told me (and the ARRB) and the actual photos and documentation at the end of the book concerning other matters (correspondence with Secret Service agents, photos of him with several important persons, etc.), was enough for me to duly note what Fulton reported about Bouck. The bottom line: since Bouck said what he said to me AND the suspicion about the Cabell brothers is a valid one, I “took a chance” with Fulton and noted what he alleges in his book.

 

Deb’s father both worked on security for JFK’s trips to Billings, Montana in 1960 and 1963 (there are photos of the two together) AND was a CIA agent (I have seen the documentation- Deb is working on a book about her late father so I am not at liberty to share anything as of yet or you know I sure would: I am very open with sharing much documentation, photos and videos galore through the years/decades). So, with that in mind, I trust Deb, as she is a meticulous researcher who has helped me on other matters. That said, I will ask her where she specifically got that (if not from her father).

As for Newcomb and Adams (and Murder From Within): much aware of them and their book. I corresponded with Fred Newcomb and I am Facebook friends with his son Tyler (who came out with the 2011 version of the book). That Greer-shot-the-president theory is pure crap.

 

Vince

Thanks Vince. 

6 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Add on: What rattles me about my "smaller is better" scenario is LOH's wallet showing up at the Tippit murder scene. 

 

This means---

1. Of the thousands of street murders committed every year, only LOH helpfully dropped his wallet at the scene of the crime to aid investigators. 

2. The wallet was planted at the scene. That means someone had the wallet, got clued in about the Tippit murder, then made his way to the scene. Supposedly Phillips was in Dallas on the day....

3. LOH intentionally dropped his wallet, as a signal to handlers to come extract him from the deepening mess he was in (this seems unlikely). 

 

 

Benjamin, you might take a look at this: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26874-the-wallet-at-the-tippit-scene-a-simpler-solution/.

Hi Vince--I ordered your book as soon as it was available and what a wealth of resources is in it, especially the obtaining of so many valuable interviews with Secret Service persons over the years. Here I will ask two questions from my reading if I may, followed by an anecdote which may or may not be of interest.

Question #1 

On p. 119 of your book appears this stunner (below), of interest in light of the discussion on a different thread right now concerning Benjamin Cole's paper proposing an original govt-sponsored plot involving Oswald of a nonviolent false-flag fake assassination attempt to be blamed on Castro, secondarily hijacked into a real assassination. (Cole makes no mention of the below.)

"[Christopher] Fulton interviewed [Secret Service agent] Robert Bouck on the phone and in person in August 1997. Bouck shockingly told Fulton: 'Dallas's Mayor, Earle Cabell, and Sheriff Bill Decker were both CIA assets. They told the police to stand down from their protection of President Kennedy by order of the Secret Service. At the same time, several key men in the president's Secret Service detail were told that there would be a test of the president's security in Dallas, and that there would be a test of the president's security in Dallas, and that there would be a staged event that would lead to the door of the pro-Castro Cubans, and to stand down. The men following that order thought they were doing the right thing for the country. It's how the loyal Secret Service men were made part of the plan and played a role in the assassination. I remember debriefing a CIA man who had been sent to Dallas to abort the false flag assassination attempt; he was shocked and horrified when he saw the president shot in the head ..." (Honest Answers, 119)

You have a footnote for this citing page numbers in Christopher Fulton, The Inheritance (2018). William Kelly, however, quotes the book's publisher as saying Fulton's book is "written in a novelized fashion" with "contrived conversations and fictionalized style". Kelly wishes Fulton "instead of novelizing this story" had written "a true to life non-fictional account, and it would have served us all better". Kelly refers again to "contrived conversations" throughout Fulton's book, and says, "Fulton's long and convoluted conversation with former Secret Service Agent Robert Bouck at JFK's graveside is total BS. I don't believe a word of it was spoken by Bouck" (https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-inheritance-what-became-of-mrs.html). 

So my question to you is: do you personally believe the account in your book of Robert Bouck telling of a Secret Service planned test of presidential security by standing down in Dallas, was said by Bouck? 

And (distinct question), in view of your other interviews and research concerning the Secret Service, what is your assessment of the claim itself--the claim attributed to an interview of Bouck in your book--concerning whether it is true or corroborated? 

Question #2

On p. 163, and again on p. 236, you quote a statement attributed to a researcher Deb Galantine in correspondence with you, that "[Ruth Paine] had incorporated a visit to CIA headquarters while in the D.C. area in order to 'see her sister'", stated as fact. No footnote or documentation is given. Do you believe that claim that Ruth Paine visited CIA headquarters to be true? Did you fact-check that or know where Deb Galantine got that, in terms of evidence? 

Anecdote:

Sometime in 1977 I had an apartment in Goleta, California and had built a window cleaning route after dropping out of a Bible college. I read an interesting feature article in a Santa Barbara newspaper concerning a theory on the JFK assassination, in which a local author argued JFK had been assassinated by the Secret Service under the direction of Johnson and Connally. An agent in a car to the rear had fired a pistol in the air distracting the crowd's attention to the rear, and then the driver of the presidential limousine, Greer, had turned around and shot JFK point-blank with a pistol while everyone's attention was diverted. I was intrigued and looked up the author in the phone book--one of two coauthors actually--called and asked if it would be possible to read the manuscript. As you may realize by now, this was Perry Adams, coauthor with Fed Newcomb of the belatedly and posthumously published Murder Within (2011).

To my disappointment Adams said no, he could not lend out the manuscript. But then he said I could come over to his apartment and read it in his living room if I wanted. Great! I went over, and spent an afternoon reading the mss and talking with Adams about it. At the time I thought he was some kind of professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, but in checking recently I see he was actually employed in the university library, not faculty. Adams explained the thesis: the assassination was a coup; it was an inside job; it was done when the government was out of the country (the cabinet on a plane flying over the Pacific); the crime scene was mobile (the presidential limousine). I asked how could the driver of the limousine shoot JFK with hundreds watching. He said that was the genius of it, hard for anyone to imagine something like that could occur in broad daylight and no one saw it because of sound distraction to the rear. I read the manuscript pages through completely--of how LBJ was slated to be dumped as VP and headed for prison; of how JFK was planning to withdraw from Vietnam; how the press car had been moved way to the back and one reporter hogged the mike after the shooting meaning journalists could not see or report in the crucial moments after; how the parade route was set involving Connally; how the JFK head shot bloody spray hit motorcycle cops to the rear meaning shot from the front; how many witnesses smelled gunpowder in the vicinity of the limousine indicating the shot originated very close at hand, etc. (so the argument). I asked how could Connally be party to the assassination when he himself was shot. He said Connally was double-crossed ("they're going to kill us all!").

I asked if he and his partner (Newcomb) had called and told their argument to Greer and how did Greer react? He said they had called Greer and Greer was not enamored with their argument (that Greer killed JFK), telling them that they should read William Manchester's book (I think it was) for the correct story. He said something about Greer and the other Secret Service from those days got together annually socially.

Perry Adams told me they had been contacted by an aide to Alabama Governor George Wallace asking for a copy. The aide said Wallace believed the JFK assassination was a conspiracy and that Wallace intended to make the JFK assassination an issue in his presidential campaign, though that did not happen. 

Either Perry Adams showed me, or it was in the manuscript, one or the other, a photograph of a published photo of the presidential limousine drivers in a magazine or glossy book of some kind. The caption identifying the two Secret Service in the front seats had a typo: instead of William Greer and Roy Kellerman, the published photo caption read "Roy Killerman". "Killer-man", get it? Adams said Jacqueline Kennedy had been involved in that publication and he mused that she or someone in her circle might have had that caption that way on purpose. However I cannot find any reference to that in the published Murder Within, and I am not certain it was in the manuscript then; it is possible Adams showed that to me and commented about it just as something interesting "extra" not in the manuscript. But I saw the photo and caption with that reading (unfortunately do not remember the name of the book or magazine). 

That was my only contact with Perry Adams (in mid-1977 I moved away from Santa Barbara). Anyway reading your book brought to mind that long-ago encounter.