Dallas County DA's office finds cache of JFK memorabilia

[Francesca Akhtar]

Tosh thanks for the information - a lot to take in! But very interesting indeed...

Re: the McAllister, I found some more documents that fit right in with what you say.

This one seems to refer to Morales checking there (he was Zamka wasn't he?) and is dated 1959:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...bsPageId=472954

One of a newspaper article relating to Marco Diaz Lanz:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...bsPageId=977113

The print unfortunately is very small.

And this one is very interesting and mentions a radio station, GP Hemming and LHO.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=5

The following pages after that are also interesting as they appear to relate to Oswald in Miami amongst other things.

[James Richards]

Nice work, Francesca. I have always wondered if Waters was in fact George Damon who was to later morph into Claude Barnes Capehart?

James, can you expand on this man? I've not heard of either name before. Thanks

Francesca,

There was a thread on Capehart some time back.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...amp;hl=Capehart

I have several documents on George Damon who is indeed an interesting character. If you have access to Mary's archive, (unfortunately I don't) a detailed search might bear fruit.

Cheers,

James

[William Plumlee]

Tosh thanks for the information - a lot to take in! But very interesting indeed...

Re: the McAllister, I found some more documents that fit right in with what you say.

This one seems to refer to Morales checking there (he was Zamka wasn't he?) and is dated 1959:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...bsPageId=472954

One of a newspaper article relating to Marco Diaz Lanz:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...bsPageId=977113

The print unfortunately is very small.

And this one is very interesting and mentions a radio station, GP Hemming and LHO.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=5

The following pages after that are also interesting as they appear to relate to Oswald in Miami amongst other things.

Yes That is what I thought. Frank Struges was also know as Frank Forini, "The Blade", as I have stated before to investigators in the mid to late seventies. I talked to Thomas Downing and his Investigators about the Hotel McAllister and a 1963 meeting at Bay Front Park between Roselli, Martino, Sturges, Farrentello, and myself, in 1975 before the HSCA was even formed.

John Martino and I met with John Roselli and Frank around 1962-63, in reference to leaks concerning covert operations and none sanctioned training operations being conducted in south Florida and other places, and how it was putting our operations and operatives in jeopardy. Roselli was very upset at Martino and asked, "How could this happen?". He told Martino to get his act together or there would be trouble. Frank wanted nothing to do with any of it at the time (his quote.."... I'm not CIA and I am not concerned with what you do, just get the damn money to them and leave me out of this..". I was there and I heard this from his own lips. The time line date I remember as being in the spring of 1963 when I had a room at the Mc Allister and just before Rosellie gave me the $15,000 to buy aircraft in Tucson, which later ended up in a bus locker in West Palm Beach and was found by the FBI and CIA and given back to Rosellie sometime after June/July of 1963. There had been many meetings before this particular spring meeting. Point being the Mc Allister was a CIA safe place as well as a transit place for stagging and rotating personal on assignments.

I am not sure about the Damon/Waters. I did know Damon and he was an associate of Warbell. (memory)

As to the radio broadcast. GPH and crew were trying to raise money from the Cubans to finance their, or his, operation in south Florida. The CIA was the one who turned the federal government onto GPH and crew and in time shut them down and arrested some of them. GPH at this time made application to go to work for the CIA and was turned down as being "..a loose canon and not to be trusted..". (documented)

In 1959 and 1960. Larry Allen and John SMITH, and Rex Beardsley, had rooms at the McAllister and ran a gun running operation from there for the CIA. This was before JM/WAVE was formed and before the "Miami Station" was set up and maned.

There is a detailed classified field report still classified which is a detailed assassination team's outline for hit on a leader in the Dominican Republic. This was planned out of the McAllister. A team was sent in and they were successful.

I cannot go into detail because it is still classified, but I have been told it is soon to be released. I will only say it is very detailed and used people from Dallas as the team members. I was not one of them, but I was the pilot. (INFO BEFORE THE FACT)

On another classified CIA operational (CAG) Covert Action Group, from TFW-Section C; concerning kidnapping of forigen leaders is also about to be released. I have been warned to "Back off this". (AGAIN BEFORE THE FACT)

A representitive from the CIA and the Pentagon and I will be meeting in May at Langley to discuss some of these new releases and other documents. (referenced before the fact) No secrets here.

Edited February 23, 2008 by William Plumlee

[Courtney Redd]

sometime soon we are going to make a joint presentation to the Dallas DA office, and try to show them, especially the assistant DAs that there is enough new evidence and witnesses and that the Grand Jury is the place to take it.

This is very exciting! I hope Mr. Watkins and his staff will see that this isn't just history, but as you said, an open, unsolved homicide case. I hope so much that they can be convinced and can overlook the criticisms and backlash that will follow if they do decide to take further steps. We all know what happened to Jim Garrison. I hope Mr. Watkins has the courage Jim Garrison did.

I know it won't happen overnight, but this truly is exciting news and I hope good things come out of it. After all, the truth is on our side.

Edited February 23, 2008 by Courtney Redd

[William Kelly]

DALLAS District Attorney Craig Watkins

Press Conference – February 18, 2008 10 am (CST)

Dallas County DA Craig Watkins: Good morning. This is an interesting and historic day for Dallas County. For those of you who have not been following this story, about a year ago we were made aware of a safe on the tenth floor of this building, and in that safe contained information about the Jack Ruby trial and the Oswald assassination. We started looking at this stuff about a year ago and determined after we started looking at it that we had to catalog it, and we have been doing that for just about a year.

Now just a little history on this deal. Every District Attorney to my knowledge has been made aware of the contents of that safe, and every DA up until the new administration, had decided that they wanted to keep it secret, for whatever reason, they kept it secret. We decided this information is too important to keep secret. Our motto has always been that here, under this new administration, everything is open. We don't have anything to hide. So we are making public everything that we have found in that safe.

Now two documents that really stick out in this safe include an alleged conversation between Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald. Now we are going to make those copies available to you. And in fact this is a copy of a transcribed conversation between Mr. Ruby and Oswald at the Carousel Club.

Now we don't know if this is an actual conversation or not. But what we do know is that as a result of this find, it will open up the debate as to whether or not there was a conspiracy to assassinate the President.

Another interesting document that we found in that safe was a contract signed by the (then) current DA Henry Wade for a movie production deal. This contract was signed on April 27, 1967 and it would have made Mr. Wade a rich man. But we don't know why this movie was never produced.

And aside from the fact that we have all this historic information about the Kennedy assassination, and what went on with the trial and investigation, there are other things that are very interesting in that safe.

In fact it takes us back to 1960, and the tone and the climate, not only in the criminal justice system, but our country, as it relates to race. And in some of those documents you would be surprised at how people of color are categorized. For example, I have a letter here from the Hunt County District Attorney at the time. His name was Cameron McKinney.

And he writes a really glowing letter to Mr. Hill and says….I am sorry Mr. Wade,…

"My my my goodness, Excellent, Perfect, Congratulations, sincerely Cameron McKinney."

Now this came from Hunt County…Greenville, I think is in Hunt County. Now on that letterhead you have Hunt County on the top of that, and right under that, in 1964, one of their claims to fame in Hunt County, is on the letterhead…they have "the blackest land and whitest people."

That tells you how far we've come in criminal justice, not only in this state but this country.

Now we also have another letter, it looks like from a police officer to Mr. Wade which deals with race. This is not dated, but I would assume that this letter was sent sometime in 1964.

You know when I went through all this information, it took me back. Even though I wasn't born at this time, it did take me back because I do remember seeing all the movies, and the situations people of color had to go through just to be treated fairly. This is black history month, so I thought it appropriate for us to address these issues at the DA's office and for the public to understand how far we've come, and how far we need to go.

Now this is from a law enforcement officer, a person who arrests folk, puts them in jail and is suppose to be fair. He says, "Dear sir, That Dego Wop Melvin Beli needs a psychiatrist more than that Kite, thought he could make a million dollars on the publicity by making a grandstand and make the police look silly…. It would make Hollywood. You did a good job sir."

Now throughout every document, and which is disheartening to me, and I don't understand it, you see that racist tone that goes throughout our criminal justice system in the 1960s.

And when I was elected in 2006, and all the racist's innuendos that I had to deal with. And so I specifically want the public to pay attention to what we have done in Dallas County to make ourselves look this way. Why we have to bring credibility to the criminal justice system, when a person's color was more important than his guilt or innocence.

And so as you're district attorney of Dallas County, I implore you to look at all these documents and ask yourself a question, why? Why did we do that? And then say to yourself, thank God we are past that. Thank God we can look at individuals and not at his color but his content.

We here in the DA office, finally, are in a position to do what is right, and bring justice to this county and to hopefully it will spread down to Harris County of all places, and throughout this state.

I'm glad to take questions.

Q1: Are you saying Henry Wade is racist?

CW: Well I didn't say that.

Q2: Are you suggesting that?

CW: I'm not suggesting anything. All I'm saying is that you look at the documents and you take whatever suggestions you want to take, from the writings of all the DAs who wrote him letters back in the 60s, from his own writings, look at his documents you make your own conclusions.

Q3: What is your conclusion?

CW: Obviously you know what it is. You look at these documents and you make your conclusions. But at this point it is history and let's make sure it stays history.

Q4: Was it ever communicated to you why these documents were kept secret all these years?

CW: It was never communicated to me why, but I have my own assumptions, but it's just an assumption. And I don't want folks to think this is the reason why they were kept secret. Now these documents don't shine a very good light on our criminal justice system.

And so all of those folks that may have been elected after Mr.Wade may have wanted to protect that. Now I was not a part of that. I'm not associated with the failed policies of the past. So I am shining a light on the past on those failures to show you how far we've come and how far we have to go.

Q5: Approximately how many documents are we talking about, and have you gone through them all yourself?

CW: I haven't gone through them all myself. These are the documents. We have started scanning these, and we are not done yet and don't expect to be done for a while. But you are all welcome to see these documents and come to any conclusions that you may come to.

Q6: Mr. Watkins, why do you lend the authority of your office to publicly acknowledge some of these documents that are highly suspect on the historical record, and have nothing to do with the evidence in Ruby's case, and fuel conspiracy type stories and fantasies?

CW: Well, I mean I don't appreciate that question the way you ask it. I believe that these documents are the people's documents. They can make their own conclusions as to whether they are suspect or not. I am not telling you that these documents are all true or are all fake. But I think, for historical purposes, we HAVE to make these documents public.

Q7: The purported conversation between Oswald and Ruby, is highly suspect, do you agree? So why do you lend the authority of your office for something like that?

CW: I am not lending my authority to this suspected conversation. All I am doing is providing you the information that we found. Now I didn't say it was true. I didn't say it was false. I said that it was in a file in a safe, and it needed to be look at, it needed to be open with anything else. So we're not trying to start this whole conspiracy argument over again. All we're doing is opening up the doors, and ending the secrecy that has been going on in this office for years, and let the public know that this office is not mine, it was not Bill Hill's or John Vance's or Henry Wade's, this office belongs to the people of Dallas County, and they should have access to this information.

Q8: What are your personal beliefs about conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination, do you think there's more to it?

CW: Well I have my own beliefs and assumptions, but I don't really believe that is relevant to this conversation we're having today. I think the people…..

Q9: Your beliefs are important. You're the DA of this county.

CW: In your mind you may think that. But I'm not making any kind of assumptions.

I am not going to tell you what I think about that because that's not for me to do.

There are folks who know more about this than I do, experts who can look at these documents and give you their opinions. I don't think my opinion means anything on these documents. We are releasing them as they should have been a long time ago, and we will let the citizens of this great county and this country to decide what it all means.

Q10: Craig, first of all it sounds like these are personal documents between Henry Wade and the producers, or whatever. If these are personal documents why are they in a public safe? Why didn't he take them with him?

CW: They were in a public building in a public safe that's part of a public office, and as such, we think these documents are public documents. And I can't answer the question as to why Mr. Wade had them locked them away in a safe. I don't know.

Q11: As for the movie deal, as far as you know did he get any money at all after signing that contract?

CW: I don't know. I don't know if he did or not.

Q12: Did you talk to any other DAs who had been here before you as to why they hadn't release them?

CW: No.

Q13: What else surrounded the fake or not fake transcript, are there other documents like that?

CW: That was pretty much the only one at this point that I have seen. Now the individuals who have been in the process of cataloging this may have come across other documents that I am not aware of. But that question is left best answered by those folks who have been doing this for the past year. Yes sir?

Q14: Do you plan on turning the JFK stuff over to say the Sixth Floor Museum, the JFK related stuff?

CW: We are in the process of deciding which organization is best served to keep these records, to preserve them and to make them public. We haven't made that decision yet.

Q15: Do you think the federal authorities will have an interest in them?

GW: I'm sure they will. No one knew about them until yesterday. So I'm sure the phone will be ringing off the hook from all across the country from those who want to view them and they will have the opportunity to view these documents.

Q16: Will these documents change the conclusions about the assassination?

CW: I don't know if they will change your conclusion or the conclusions that have been made. I do think it will stimulate a debate as to whether or not that was the proper conclusion.

Q17: Were these documents available to investigators at the time, and do you believe of all the investigations into the assassination, the people who needed to see the documents saw them?

CW: I have no clue. I don't know who was doing the investigation. All I can assume is that they did, and they were put into a safe at the end of a case.

Q18: How surprised were you when you found them and read through them?

CW: I really was not surprised. This office has been shrouded in secrecy for so many years, so I knew that we would find ourselves in this position at some point, so no, I was not surprised.

Q19: Craig, when you opened the safe, you must have said, there's a safe on the tenth floor, gee, what's in there? At what point did you decided to open it and look inside?

CW: It didn't come to our attention that way. When we got here, some investigators, like they have done with all DAs subsequent to Mr. Wade, explained to the elected official that there was a safe, and supposedly information in that safe concerned the Kennedy assassination. And I was told by those investigators, that those subsequent DAs wanted to keep it secret. And they didn't open it.

Q20: At what point did you decide to open it?

GW: When they told me we had a safe.

Q21: So you just learned about the safe?

QW: A year ago, when I got elected.

Q22: Okay, when did the safe actually open? If you learned about it a year ago and today was…What was the timeline on this?

CW: I took office January 1^st, and I guess maybe a week after that I found out about the safe.

Q23: Who were the investigators?

CW: I don't want to say.

Q24: Did they work for Dallas County?

CW: Yes, they work for Dallas County.

Q25: …Suggests that the Ruby family had information about the President's ….. to Dallas prior to,….(unintelligible)……suggestion that what you see is more than what you know than what we're going to get?

CW: Well, I mean, I'm not making any assumptions. I'm just laying it out for you to look out. And for all you experts out there who follow this Kennedy thing, you can look at these documents and go back in your memory files and determine what all this means.

Q26: But you haven't had an expert examine them?

CW: No we have not.

Q27: So, what …..decision…?

CW: I never said, and in fact when you asked me that, I said and the ALLEGED conversation, so I don't know if it was a true conversation or not.

Q28: Have you contacted the Ruby family or the Kennedy family, and let them know what you found?

CW: Not yet, no.

Q29: Do you have plans to?

CW: Obviously.

Q30: In the interests of transparency, are you going to file a felony case against Lynn Flint Shaw?

CW: Hey, we're talking about Kennedy right now, we're not talking about that.

Q31: …real time?

CW: Yea, well that conversation is best left for another day. I'm here talking about the Kennedy assassination, not Lynn Flint Shaw.

[see:http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/013008shaw.73532592.html]

Q32: You say it will be open for the public to read, when will it be available for the public to do that?

CW: Well I foresee that we will have all this stuff completed and cataloged within the next month, and after that we will have an organization that we will release this to, and one of the stipulations is that that organization must make it public before we will release it to them

Q33: I want to go back to the timeline for just a second. You opened it a year ago. Today you are releasing it. What happened between a year ago and now? Have people been looking at it for a full year, or within the last month did you decide to….?

CW: We have been looking at this for a year.

Q34: When did you make the decision to go public, did you think of it immediately?

CW: We chose the date a couple of months ago, thinking that we would be finished cataloging all the information. We stuck to that date, which is today.

Q35: But I mean at what point did you decide to go public with it?

CW: We knew we were going to go public with it at some point, but we had to get everything organized and catalogued, and so when we got close to being finished we chose this date thinking we would be finished cataloging by this date but unfortunately we are not.

Q36: Did anybody advise you not to go public?

CW.: No.

Q37: Have you gone through everything, and cataloged it all or are there still documents you have to go through?

CW: There are still documents we need to go through that have not seen yet.

Q38: We see all these documents there….. How many documents would you say are JFK related in general?

CW: I would say 90% of those documents, 99% of it deals with JFK, Ruby and Oswald.

Q39: With the number of media people here, did you anticipate this level of attention?

CW: Obviously we are talking about the Kennedy assassination and conspiricists have been swarming this area for years, and so we knew that this would stir media attention.

Q40: You say there's documents related to this….. chance to go through them, or do you think there's more?

CW: We don't know what we haven't seen yet. Once we look at it, I can tell you what it is. But at this point I don't know what it is.

Q41: How many are Kennedy related?

CW: About 90%,

Q42: You've gone thorough 90%

CW: Yes.

Q43: Was the transcript of the alleged conversation mixed in with the other documents or separate from others?

CW.: It was actually mixed in with other documents.

Q44: The holster and the brass knuckles, who did they belong to?

CW: Jack Ruby, that is the holster of the gun he shot Oswald with, and those are brass knuckles that he had on him when he was booked at Dallas County Jail.

Q45: Can you describe any other material that's not….?

CW: We have some film that we haven't looked at; we have some recordings that we haven't listened to. We have a lot of membership cards to the Carousel Club, Jack Ruby's club. We have a lot of business cards of the Carousel Club, things of that nature.

Q46: Clothing?

CW: Clothing, Jack Ruby's clothing. Lee Harvey Oswald, we have his clothing. Autopsy photos.

Q47: From the day they were arrested?

CW: Yes

Q48: Were they in any kind of order, or were they just thrown together?

CW: No they were in no order. The safe they were in is about two thousand pounds, six feet long and six feet tall, and they were kind of just thrown in there.

Q49: You're talking about evidence here, is it your call or the Commissioner's Court, their call on how to dispose of this? And secondly why wouldn't you want to turn it over to the Sixth Floor, which is legitimate, it has its own collection now and can look deeply into the history, and put it on display for the public, where of course hundreds of thousands of people visit every years, why wouldn't you turn it over to them?

CW: Well, as for the Commissioner's Court, this is the property of the District Attorney's office and we can do with it as we please. And secondly, we have not decided not to turn it over to the 6^th Floor Museum. What we are going to do is talk to a number of several different organizations. The Sixth Floor Museum may be the best place to turn them over. But we would like to keep the possibilities open to make that determination.

Q50: What are the other alternatives, the Smithsonian?

CW: Smithsonian……there's other places, a whole list of them.

Q51: You're not going to keep it in Dallas?

CW: We don't know that yet.

Q52: Are you going to sell it?

CW: No. We're not going to sell it. (Laugh)

Q53: So it won't turn up on E-bay? (Laugh)

CW: No.

Q54: One other question. You say there's been people working on this for over a year. Can you describe the group that has been looking at it, besides yourself, and what they've been doing?

CW.: Basically, most individuals that have dealt with this, they really haven't had time to actually read the documents. Most of the time has been spent scanning the documents, and cataloging the documents, so the majority of individuals probably could tell you very little about the content in those boxes.

Q55: So it's not that an assistant DA looking at them, it could be clerical or administrative staff?

CW: Yes.

Q56: What condition are the documents in?

CW: They're still in pretty good shape, 1960s shell paper; everything is typewritten from a typewriter, handwritten. It's in pretty good shape.

Q57: Aside from the alleged conversation, did anything jump out at you, I mean really shock you?

CW: No, that's pretty much it. That's pretty much it.

Q58: Craig, what shocked you more, the Jack Ruby documents, the material things, the clothing and holster or the racist tone you found in some of the letters?

CW: I think what really shocked me the most was the tone of the times. You know I was born some four years after the assassination, and I have seen all the documentaries on civil rights issues and I was surprised at how prevalent it was in our society.

Q59: What happens now? Is everybody allowed to go look at the documents?

CW: You all can go downstairs and can take a picture of the safe. We're not going to let you go through the boxes today, but you can take pictures. Once we complete the catalog process and we find a place to store these documents, then you will have the opportunity to view everything.

Q60: We are looking at month or more before that happens?

CW: I don't know how long it will take to happen. We'll do it as soon as possible.

Q61: Did it change your perception of the assassination?

CW: My perception. No it didn't. Allrighty. Thank you.

END OF TAPE

Edited February 24, 2008 by William Kelly

[Michael Hogan]

Bill, your transcription efforts are appreciated.

[William Plumlee]

DALLAS District Attorney Craig Watkins

Press Conference – February 18, 2008 10 am (CST)

Dallas County DA Craig Watkins: Good morning. This is an interesting and historic day for Dallas County. For those of you who have not been following this story, about a year ago we were made aware of a safe on the tenth floor of this building, and in that safe contained information about the Jack Ruby trial and the Oswald assassination. We started looking at this stuff about a year ago and determined after we started looking at it that we had to catalog it, and we have been doing that for just about a year.

Now just a little history on this deal. Every District Attorney to my knowledge has been made aware of the contents of that safe, and every DA up until the new administration, had decided that they wanted to keep it secret, for whatever reason, they kept it secret. We decided this information is too important to keep secret. Our motto has always been that here, under this new administration, everything is open. We don't have anything to hide. So we are making public everything that we have found in that safe.

Now two documents that really stick out in this safe include an alleged conversation between Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald. Now we are going to make those copies available to you. And in fact this is a copy of a transcribed conversation between Mr. Ruby and Oswald at the Carousel Club.

Now we don't know if this is an actual conversation or not. But what we do know is that as a result of this find, it will open up the debate as to whether or not there was a conspiracy to assassinate the President.

Another interesting document that we found in that safe was a contract signed by the (then) current DA Henry Wade for a movie production deal. This contract was signed on April 27, 1967 and it would have made Mr. Wade a rich man. But we don't know why this movie was never produced.

And aside from the fact that we have all this historic information about the Kennedy assassination, and what went on with the trial and investigation, there are other things that are very interesting in that safe.

In fact it takes us back to 1960, and the tone and the climate, not only in the criminal justice system, but our country, as it relates to race. And in some of those documents you would be surprised at how people of color are categorized. For example, I have a letter here from the Hunt County District Attorney at the time. His name was Cameron McKinney.

And he writes a really glowing letter to Mr. Hill and says….I am sorry Mr. Wade,…

"My my my goodness, Excellent, Perfect, Congratulations, sincerely Cameron McKinney."

Now this came from Hunt County…Greenville, I think is in Hunt County. Now on that letterhead you have Hunt County on the top of that, and right under that, in 1964, one of their claims to fame in Hunt County, is on the letterhead…they have "the blackest land and whitest people."

That tells you how far we've come in criminal justice, not only in this state but this country.

Now we also have another letter, it looks like from a police officer to Mr. Wade which deals with race. This is not dated, but I would assume that this letter was sent sometime in 1964.

You know when I went through all this information, it took me back. Even though I wasn't born at this time, it did take me back because I do remember seeing all the movies, and the situations people of color had to go through just to be treated fairly. This is black history month, so I thought it appropriate for us to address these issues at the DA's office and for the public to understand how far we've come, and how far we need to go.

Now this is from a law enforcement officer, a person who arrests folk, puts them in jail and is suppose to be fair. He says, "Dear sir, That Dego Wop Melvin Beli needs a psychiatrist more than that Kite, thought he could make a million dollars on the publicity by making a grandstand and make the police look silly…. It would make Hollywood. You did a good job sir."

Now throughout every document, and which is disheartening to me, and I don't understand it, you see that racist tone that goes throughout our criminal justice system in the 1960s.

And when I was elected in 2006, and all the racist's innuendos that I had to deal with. And so I specifically want the public to pay attention to what we have done in Dallas County to make ourselves look this way. Why we have to bring credibility to the criminal justice system, when a person's color was more important than his guilt or innocence.

And so as you're district attorney of Dallas County, I implore you to look at all these documents and ask yourself a question, why? Why did we do that? And then say to yourself, thank God we are past that. Thank God we can look at individuals and not at his color but his content.

We here in the DA office, finally, are in a position to do what is right, and bring justice to this county and to hopefully it will spread down to Harris County of all places, and throughout this state.

I'm glad to take questions.

Q1: Are you saying Henry Wade is racist?

CW: Well I didn't say that.

Q2: Are you suggesting that?

CW: I'm not suggesting anything. All I'm saying is that you look at the documents and you take whatever suggestions you want to take, from the writings of all the DAs who wrote him letters back in the 60s, from his own writings, look at his documents you make your own conclusions.

Q3: What is your conclusion?

CW: Obviously you know what it is. You look at these documents and you make your conclusions. But at this point it is history and let's make sure it stays history.

Q4: Was it ever communicated to you why these documents were kept secret all these years?

CW: It was never communicated to me why, but I have my own assumptions, but it's just an assumption. And I don't want folks to think this is the reason why they were kept secret. Now these documents don't shine a very good light on our criminal justice system.

And so all of those folks that may have been elected after Mr.Wade may have wanted to protect that. Now I was not a part of that. I'm not associated with the failed policies of the past. So I am shining a light on the past on those failures to show you how far we've come and how far we have to go.

Q5: Approximately how many documents are we talking about, and have you gone through them all yourself?

CW: I haven't gone through them all myself. These are the documents. We have started scanning these, and we are not done yet and don't expect to be done for a while. But you are all welcome to see these documents and come to any conclusions that you may come to.

Q6: Mr. Watkins, why do you lend the authority of your office to publicly acknowledge some of these documents that are highly suspect on the historical record, and have nothing to do with the evidence in Ruby's case, and fuel conspiracy type stories and fantasies?

CW: Well, I mean I don't appreciate that question the way you ask it. I believe that these documents are the people's documents. They can make their own conclusions as to whether they are suspect or not. I am not telling you that these documents are all true or are all fake. But I think, for historical purposes, we HAVE to make these documents public.

Q7: The purported conversation between Oswald and Ruby, is highly suspect, do you agree? So why do you lend the authority of your office for something like that?

CW: I am not lending my authority to this suspected conversation. All I am doing is providing you the information that we found. Now I didn't say it was true. I didn't say it was false. I said that it was in a file in a safe, and it needed to be look at, it needed to be open with anything else. So we're not trying to start this whole conspiracy argument over again. All we're doing is opening up the doors, and ending the secrecy that has been going on in this office for years, and let the public know that this office is not mine, it was not Bill Hill's or John Vance's or Henry Wade's, this office belongs to the people of Dallas County, and they should have access to this information.

Q8: What are your personal beliefs about conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination, do you think there's more to it?

CW: Well I have my own beliefs and assumptions, but I don't really believe that is relevant to this conversation we're having today. I think the people…..

Q9: Your beliefs are important. You're the DA of this county.

CW: In your mind you may think that. But I'm not making any kind of assumptions.

I am not going to tell you what I think about that because that's not for me to do.

There are folks who know more about this than I do, experts who can look at these documents and give you their opinions. I don't think my opinion means anything on these documents. We are releasing them as they should have been a long time ago, and we will let the citizens of this great county and this country to decide what it all means.

Q10: Craig, first of all it sounds like these are personal documents between Henry Wade and the producers, or whatever. If these are personal documents why are they in a public safe? Why didn't he take them with him?

CW: They were in a public building in a public safe that's part of a public office, and as such, we think these documents are public documents. And I can't answer the question as to why Mr. Wade had them locked them away in a safe. I don't know.

Q11: As for the movie deal, as far as you know did he get any money at all after signing that contract?

CW: I don't know. I don't know if he did or not.

Q12: Did you talk to any other DAs who had been here before you as to why they hadn't release them?

CW: No.

Q13: What else surrounded the fake or not fake transcript, are there other documents like that?

CW: That was pretty much the only one at this point that I have seen. Now the individuals who have been in the process of cataloging this may have come across other documents that I am not aware of. But that question is left best answered by those folks who have been doing this for the past year. Yes sir?

Q14: Do you plan on turning the JFK stuff over to say the Sixth Floor Museum, the JFK related stuff?

CW: We are in the process of deciding which organization is best served to keep these records, to preserve them and to make them public. We haven't made that decision yet.

Q15: Do you think the federal authorities will have an interest in them?

GW: I'm sure they will. No one knew about them until yesterday. So I'm sure the phone will be ringing off the hook from all across the country from those who want to view them and they will have the opportunity to view these documents.

Q16: Will these documents change the conclusions about the assassination?

CW: I don't know if they will change your conclusion or the conclusions that have been made. I do think it will stimulate a debate as to whether or not that was the proper conclusion.

Q17: Were these documents available to investigators at the time, and do you believe of all the investigations into the assassination, the people who needed to see the documents saw them?

CW: I have no clue. I don't know who was doing the investigation. All I can assume is that they did, and they were put into a safe at the end of a case.

Q18: How surprised were you when you found them and read through them?

CW: I really was not surprised. This office has been shrouded in secrecy for so many years, so I knew that we would find ourselves in this position at some point, so no, I was not surprised.

Q19: Craig, when you opened the safe, you must have said, there's a safe on the tenth floor, gee, what's in there? At what point did you decided to open it and look inside?

CW: It didn't come to our attention that way. When we got here, some investigators, like they have done with all DAs subsequent to Mr. Wade, explained to the elected official that there was a safe, and supposedly information in that safe concerned the Kennedy assassination. And I was told by those investigators, that those subsequent DAs wanted to keep it secret. And they didn't open it.

Q20: At what point did you decide to open it?

GW: When they told me we had a safe.

Q21: So you just learned about the safe?

QW: A year ago, when I got elected.

Q22: Okay, when did the safe actually open? If you learned about it a year ago and today was…What was the timeline on this?

CW: I took office January 1^st, and I guess maybe a week after that I found out about the safe.

Q23: Who were the investigators?

CW: I don't want to say.

Q24: Did they work for Dallas County?

CW: Yes, they work for Dallas County.

Q25: …Suggests that the Ruby family had information about the President's ….. to Dallas prior to,….(unintelligible)……suggestion that what you see is more than what you know than what we're going to get?

CW: Well, I mean, I'm not making any assumptions. I'm just laying it out for you to look out. And for all you experts out there who follow this Kennedy thing, you can look at these documents and go back in your memory files and determine what all this means.

Q26: But you haven't had an expert examine them?

CW: No we have not.

Q27: So, what …..decision…?

CW: I never said, and in fact when you asked me that, I said and the ALLEGED conversation, so I don't know if it was a true conversation or not.

Q28: Have you contacted the Ruby family or the Kennedy family, and let them know what you found?

CW: Not yet, no.

Q29: Do you have plans to?

CW: Obviously.

Q30: In the interests of transparency, are you going to file a felony case against Lynn Flint Shaw?

CW: Hey, we're talking about Kennedy right now, we're not talking about that.

Q31: …real time?

CW: Yea, well that conversation is best left for another day. I'm here talking about the Kennedy assassination, not Lynn Flint Shaw.

[see:http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/013008shaw.73532592.html]

Q32: You say it will be open for the public to read, when will it be available for the public to do that?

CW: Well I foresee that we will have all this stuff completed and cataloged within the next month, and after that we will have an organization that we will release this to, and one of the stipulations is that that organization must make it public before we will release it to them

Q33: I want to go back to the timeline for just a second. You opened it a year ago. Today you are releasing it. What happened between a year ago and now? Have people been looking at it for a full year, or within the last month did you decide to….?

CW: We have been looking at this for a year.

Q34: When did you make the decision to go public, did you think of it immediately?

CW: We chose the date a couple of months ago, thinking that we would be finished cataloging all the information. We stuck to that date, which is today.

Q35: But I mean at what point did you decide to go public with it?

CW: We knew we were going to go public with it at some point, but we had to get everything organized and catalogued, and so when we got close to being finished we chose this date thinking we would be finished cataloging by this date but unfortunately we are not.

Q36: Did anybody advise you not to go public?

CW.: No.

Q37: Have you gone through everything, and cataloged it all or are there still documents you have to go through?

CW: There are still documents we need to go through that have not seen yet.

Q38: We see all these documents there….. How many documents would you say are JFK related in general?

CW: I would say 90% of those documents, 99% of it deals with JFK, Ruby and Oswald.

Q39: With the number of media people here, did you anticipate this level of attention?

CW: Obviously we are talking about the Kennedy assassination and conspiricists have been swarming this area for years, and so we knew that this would stir media attention.

Q40: You say there's documents related to this….. chance to go through them, or do you think there's more?

CW: We don't know what we haven't seen yet. Once we look at it, I can tell you what it is. But at this point I don't know what it is.

Q41: How many are Kennedy related?

CW: About 90%,

Q42: You've gone thorough 90%

CW: Yes.

Q43: Was the transcript of the alleged conversation mixed in with the other documents or separate from others?

CW.: It was actually mixed in with other documents.

Q44: The holster and the brass knuckles, who did they belong to?

CW: Jack Ruby, that is the holster of the gun he shot Oswald with, and those are brass knuckles that he had on him when he was booked at Dallas County Jail.

Q45: Can you describe any other material that's not….?

CW: We have some film that we haven't looked at; we have some recordings that we haven't listened to. We have a lot of membership cards to the Carousel Club, Jack Ruby's club. We have a lot of business cards of the Carousel Club, things of that nature.

Q46: Clothing?

CW: Clothing, Jack Ruby's clothing. Lee Harvey Oswald, we have his clothing. Autopsy photos.

Q47: From the day they were arrested?

CW: Yes

Q48: Were they in any kind of order, or were they just thrown together?

CW: No they were in no order. The safe they were in is about two thousand pounds, six feet long and six feet tall, and they were kind of just thrown in there.

Q49: You're talking about evidence here, is it your call or the Commissioner's Court, their call on how to dispose of this? And secondly why wouldn't you want to turn it over to the Sixth Floor, which is legitimate, it has its own collection now and can look deeply into the history, and put it on display for the public, where of course hundreds of thousands of people visit every years, why wouldn't you turn it over to them?

CW: Well, as for the Commissioner's Court, this is the property of the District Attorney's office and we can do with it as we please. And secondly, we have not decided not to turn it over to the 6^th Floor Museum. What we are going to do is talk to a number of several different organizations. The Sixth Floor Museum may be the best place to turn them over. But we would like to keep the possibilities open to make that determination.

Q50: What are the other alternatives, the Smithsonian?

CW: Smithsonian……there's other places, a whole list of them.

Q51: You're not going to keep it in Dallas?

CW: We don't know that yet.

Q52: Are you going to sell it?

CW: No. We're not going to sell it. (Laugh)

Q53: So it won't turn up on E-bay? (Laugh)

CW: No.

Q54: One other question. You say there's been people working on this for over a year. Can you describe the group that has been looking at it, besides yourself, and what they've been doing?

CW.: Basically, most individuals that have dealt with this, they really haven't had time to actually read the documents. Most of the time has been spent scanning the documents, and cataloging the documents, so the majority of individuals probably could tell you very little about the content in those boxes.

Q55: So it's not that an assistant DA looking at them, it could be clerical or administrative staff?

CW: Yes.

Q56: What condition are the documents in?

CW: They're still in pretty good shape, 1960s shell paper; everything is typewritten from a typewriter, handwritten. It's in pretty good shape.

Q57: Aside from the alleged conversation, did anything jump out at you, I mean really shock you?

CW: No, that's pretty much it. That's pretty much it.

Q58: Craig, what shocked you more, the Jack Ruby documents, the material things, the clothing and holster or the racist tone you found in some of the letters?

CW: I think what really shocked me the most was the tone of the times. You know I was born some four years after the assassination, and I have seen all the documentaries on civil rights issues and I was surprised at how prevalent it was in our society.

Q59: What happens now? Is everybody allowed to go look at the documents?

CW: You all can go downstairs and can take a picture of the safe. We're not going to let you go through the boxes today, but you can take pictures. Once we complete the catalog process and we find a place to store these documents, then you will have the opportunity to view everything.

Q60: We are looking at month or more before that happens?

CW: I don't know how long it will take to happen. We'll do it as soon as possible.

Q61: Did it change your perception of the assassination?

CW: My perception. No it didn't. Allrighty. Thank you.

END OF TAPE

"....Now this came from Hunt County…Greenville, I think is in Hunt County. Now on that letterhead you have Hunt County on the top of that, and right under that, in 1964, one of their claims to fame in Hunt County, is on the letterhead…they have "the blackest land and whitest people."...".

I was raised in Dallas and had relatives who lived in Sulphur Springs and Greenville Texas. Greenville had an arched sign over the highway at the city limits which read; " WELCOME to GREENVILLE. The Blackest Land and the Whitest People". Below that sign was another which read. (forgive) "If your a n, Your Black Ass had better be out of this County By Dark". KKK and a picture of a noose was tied at the base of the sign. Yes we have come a long way. I am not sure when those signs were taken down. I think it was sometime after the early seventies.

I have a story about Dallas. When I was 10 years old. (1947) I was riding a street car on Cole Ave, near Cole Park in North Dallas, and a Black lady friend was riding in the back of the street car. She worked for my mother as a maid. We all loved her and she loved us and in Texas in the forties that was not a good thing. In fact she really raised me because in the war years my mother worked, as most mothers, at Haggar Slacks making uniforms for the servicemen. (Haggers was near Love Field) "Ma Bell", as we called her was a real gentle religious woman. (others my age called her "n Bell") I went back to sit with her. I crossed the line being a seat that was turned backwards.

She said, "OH! Mr. Bobby you shouldn't be here". "Your my friend". I said. The street car stopped and the conductor came back and demanded I go back up front. I said NO; and he hit me in the mouth, grabbed me and pulled me to the front of the street car. I called him a SOB and he hit me again. "Your Folks Au'ta Whip You with a barbed whip and teach you a thing or two, Boy.

After a few minutes and the street car did not move; a Dallas Policeman came on board and physically removed me from the street car and took me to a real jail. My father had to come down to Police HDQ and get me out. My father had to listen to a lecture from the police Captain about how to control me and teach me about the ways of the Real Texas. The parting words to my father were, "...We'll be Watching.., You Hear?...".

True story.

Bill thanks for posting the above. I feel the reason that these boxes being kept secret, as I said earlier, was because of the race tone which is found in some of those letters and information and not because of any thing that points to new information on JFK. Dallas tried to rebuild its image after the assassination and to have this public would not be accepted and the money would not come into Dallas during the big building boom of the sixties, seventies and eighties.

You can forward this to Crig Watkins, if you like... I understand he likes a good story.

Edited February 24, 2008 by William Plumlee

[William Plumlee]

Tosh thanks for the information - a lot to take in! But very interesting indeed...

Re: the McAllister, I found some more documents that fit right in with what you say.

This one seems to refer to Morales checking there (he was Zamka wasn't he?) and is dated 1959:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...bsPageId=472954

One of a newspaper article relating to Marco Diaz Lanz:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...bsPageId=977113

The print unfortunately is very small.

And this one is very interesting and mentions a radio station, GP Hemming and LHO.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=5

The following pages after that are also interesting as they appear to relate to Oswald in Miami amongst other things.

Francesca:

I am not sure if my memory serves me right on this. I am working off recall as to Capehart; so if this does not fit in the record then please forgive. I have a "cobweb" of old memories. My motive is to try and help if I can.

There is a report (perhaps still classified) from the Santiago, Chile, CIA Station Chief (Harry Huckser) concerning one Charlie Capehart also known as "Blue" or "Blu", who was associated with special operations of a covert nature (not sure of the dates, (I can't remember for sure and will leave this blank for now) At one point he worked as a "Roughneck" in the oil and gas sector in the USA when he was "on the Farm" ( The Farm was a term used when an operative was not assigned to any operations at the time; another term used was "Free-Agent". Sometimes one could be, "at the Farm, or on the farm", for years before he was contracted out to a sanction operation.

(memory) At one point he was assigned to the "Dominican Desk" of the WH Div. of the TFW (Task Force-W) out of Miami Station. and was associated with Lester Murphy and others. Just what his assignment was I do not know. I was surprised his name popped up here. I will try to find out more on him and share with you. It was rumored he was in Dallas as a "**Spotter" I can not confirm that. (** Congress Thomas Downing, 1976) I can not recall at this time others who were associated with that operation who had connections to Capehart. Cut-Out names were used during those operations associated with TFW. Lester Murphy was "free lansing", contract employee.., for the Agency at tht tiime, I think.

On another note as to "Zamba". I was one of six pilots used in those operation to transport covert operatives into position on sensitive missions. As to Zamba being Morales? I can not say for sure. I would have to check the timeline for Morales. I feel this might have been a little before Morales. JM/WAVE was not yet formed and Miami Station was still understaffed. (impression)

Edited February 24, 2008 by William Plumlee

[Francesca Akhtar]

Nice work, Francesca. I have always wondered if Waters was in fact George Damon who was to later morph into Claude Barnes Capehart?

James, can you expand on this man? I've not heard of either name before. Thanks

Francesca,

There was a thread on Capehart some time back.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...amp;hl=Capehart

I have several documents on George Damon who is indeed an interesting character. If you have access to Mary's archive, (unfortunately I don't) a detailed search might bear fruit.

Cheers,

James

Thanks James, I must have missed that thread first time round. Another interesting character! I'll have a look in the MF site later to see what I can find.....

[Francesca Akhtar]

I am not sure if my memory serves me right on this. I am working off recall as to Capehart; so if this does not fit in the record then please forgive. I have a "cobweb" of old memories. My motive is to try and help if I can.

There is a report (perhaps still classified) from the Santiago, Chile, CIA Station Chief (Harry Huckser) concerning one Charlie Capehart also known as "Blue" or "Blu", who was associated with special operations of a covert nature (not sure of the dates, (I can't remember for sure and will leave this blank for now) At one point he worked as a "Roughneck" in the oil and gas sector in the USA when he was "on the Farm" ( The Farm was a term used when an operative was not assigned to any operations at the time; another term used was "Free-Agent". Sometimes one could be, "at the Farm, or on the farm", for years before he was contracted out to a sanction operation.

(memory) At one point he was assigned to the "Dominican Desk" of the WH Div. of the TFW (Task Force-W) out of Miami Station. and was associated with Lester Murphy and others. Just what his assignment was I do not know. I was surprised his name popped up here. I will try to find out more on him and share with you. It was rumored he was in Dallas as a "**Spotter" I can not confirm that. (** Congress Thomas Downing, 1976) I can not recall at this time others who were associated with that operation who had connections to Capehart. Cut-Out names were used during those operations associated with TFW. Lester Murphy was "free lansing", contract employee.., for the Agency at tht tiime, I think.

On another note as to "Zamba". I was one of six pilots used in those operation to transport covert operatives into position on sensitive missions. As to Zamba being Morales? I can not say for sure. I would have to check the timeline for Morales. I feel this might have been a little before Morales. JM/WAVE was not yet formed and Miami Station was still understaffed. (impression)

Thanks again for your recollections. It's interesting to me that you mention Henry Hecksher as of course he was linked to Nagell - the 'BOB' he refers to in Dick Russell's book. To your knowledge was Hecksher closely associated with Capehart?

'Stanley Zamka' was an alias of Morales so I assumed that was him mentioned in the McAllister hotel document , unless I'm wrong and it was someone else using that name?

Might be better I'm thinking to post further info on Capheart/Damon on the thread about him blow so it's all in one place and easy to find:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...amp;hl=Capehart

Edited February 24, 2008 by Francesca Akhtar

[William Plumlee]

I am not sure if my memory serves me right on this. I am working off recall as to Capehart; so if this does not fit in the record then please forgive. I have a "cobweb" of old memories. My motive is to try and help if I can.

There is a report (perhaps still classified) from the Santiago, Chile, CIA Station Chief (Harry Huckser) concerning one Charlie Capehart also known as "Blue" or "Blu", who was associated with special operations of a covert nature (not sure of the dates, (I can't remember for sure and will leave this blank for now) At one point he worked as a "Roughneck" in the oil and gas sector in the USA when he was "on the Farm" ( The Farm was a term used when an operative was not assigned to any operations at the time; another term used was "Free-Agent". Sometimes one could be, "at the Farm, or on the farm", for years before he was contracted out to a sanction operation.

(memory) At one point he was assigned to the "Dominican Desk" of the WH Div. of the TFW (Task Force-W) out of Miami Station. and was associated with Lester Murphy and others. Just what his assignment was I do not know. I was surprised his name popped up here. I will try to find out more on him and share with you. It was rumored he was in Dallas as a "**Spotter" I can not confirm that. (** Congress Thomas Downing, 1976) I can not recall at this time others who were associated with that operation who had connections to Capehart. Cut-Out names were used during those operations associated with TFW. Lester Murphy was "free lansing", contract employee.., for the Agency at tht tiime, I think.

On another note as to "Zamba". I was one of six pilots used in those operation to transport covert operatives into position on sensitive missions. As to Zamba being Morales? I can not say for sure. I would have to check the timeline for Morales. I feel this might have been a little before Morales. JM/WAVE was not yet formed and Miami Station was still understaffed. (impression)

Thanks again for your recollections. It's interesting to me that you mention Henry Hecksher as of course he was linked to Nagell - the 'BOB' he refers to in Dick Russell's book. To your knowledge was Hecksher closely associated with Capehart?

'Stanley Zamka' was an alias of Morales so I assumed that was him mentioned in the McAllister hotel document , unless I'm wrong and it was someone else using that name?

Might be better I'm thinking to post further info on Capheart/Damon on the thread about him blow so it's all in one place and easy to find:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...amp;hl=Capehart

I think Capehart worked Chile when Hecksher was CIA Station Chief down there. I always thought that Morales was known as 'Zamba' and too, which Morales are we talking about, the "Big Indian" or the other one... there were two Morales attatched to Miami Station.., if I remember right. Perhaps some can clear this for me if I'm wrong.

P.S. I tried to post my reply on the above referenced site. But it did not work... "site could not be found"

Edited February 24, 2008 by William Plumlee

[Francesca Akhtar]

I am not sure if my memory serves me right on this. I am working off recall as to Capehart; so if this does not fit in the record then please forgive. I have a "cobweb" of old memories. My motive is to try and help if I can.

There is a report (perhaps still classified) from the Santiago, Chile, CIA Station Chief (Harry Huckser) concerning one Charlie Capehart also known as "Blue" or "Blu", who was associated with special operations of a covert nature (not sure of the dates, (I can't remember for sure and will leave this blank for now) At one point he worked as a "Roughneck" in the oil and gas sector in the USA when he was "on the Farm" ( The Farm was a term used when an operative was not assigned to any operations at the time; another term used was "Free-Agent". Sometimes one could be, "at the Farm, or on the farm", for years before he was contracted out to a sanction operation.

(memory) At one point he was assigned to the "Dominican Desk" of the WH Div. of the TFW (Task Force-W) out of Miami Station. and was associated with Lester Murphy and others. Just what his assignment was I do not know. I was surprised his name popped up here. I will try to find out more on him and share with you. It was rumored he was in Dallas as a "**Spotter" I can not confirm that. (** Congress Thomas Downing, 1976) I can not recall at this time others who were associated with that operation who had connections to Capehart. Cut-Out names were used during those operations associated with TFW. Lester Murphy was "free lansing", contract employee.., for the Agency at tht tiime, I think.

On another note as to "Zamba". I was one of six pilots used in those operation to transport covert operatives into position on sensitive missions. As to Zamba being Morales? I can not say for sure. I would have to check the timeline for Morales. I feel this might have been a little before Morales. JM/WAVE was not yet formed and Miami Station was still understaffed. (impression)

Thanks again for your recollections. It's interesting to me that you mention Henry Hecksher as of course he was linked to Nagell - the 'BOB' he refers to in Dick Russell's book. To your knowledge was Hecksher closely associated with Capehart?

'Stanley Zamka' was an alias of Morales so I assumed that was him mentioned in the McAllister hotel document , unless I'm wrong and it was someone else using that name?

Might be better I'm thinking to post further info on Capheart/Damon on the thread about him blow so it's all in one place and easy to find:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...amp;hl=Capehart

I think Capehart worked Chile when Hecksher was CIA Station Chief down there. I always thought that Morales was known as 'Zamba' and too, which Morales are we talking about, the "Big Indian" or the other one... there were two Morales attatched to Miami Station.., if I remember right. Perhaps some can clear this for me if I'm wrong.

P.S. I tried to post my reply on the above referenced site. But it did not work... "site could not be found"

Thanks. I was talking about the 'Big Indian' David Morales. I don't know about him or the other one being known as 'Zamba', only 'Zamka' but perhaps someone more knowledgeable can help - Larry or James maybe? I did not know of two morales at JM/Wave but again I am not as knowledgeable as others on this.

Sorry the reason you couldn't post on the Capeheart thread is that I'm a fool and I pasted the link wrong!

The correct link is:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...amp;hl=Capehart

That should work. I came up with some hits on MF that I will post on there.

[William Plumlee]

I am not sure if my memory serves me right on this. I am working off recall as to Capehart; so if this does not fit in the record then please forgive. I have a "cobweb" of old memories. My motive is to try and help if I can.

There is a report (perhaps still classified) from the Santiago, Chile, CIA Station Chief (Harry Huckser) concerning one Charlie Capehart also known as "Blue" or "Blu", who was associated with special operations of a covert nature (not sure of the dates, (I can't remember for sure and will leave this blank for now) At one point he worked as a "Roughneck" in the oil and gas sector in the USA when he was "on the Farm" ( The Farm was a term used when an operative was not assigned to any operations at the time; another term used was "Free-Agent". Sometimes one could be, "at the Farm, or on the farm", for years before he was contracted out to a sanction operation.

(memory) At one point he was assigned to the "Dominican Desk" of the WH Div. of the TFW (Task Force-W) out of Miami Station. and was associated with Lester Murphy and others. Just what his assignment was I do not know. I was surprised his name popped up here. I will try to find out more on him and share with you. It was rumored he was in Dallas as a "**Spotter" I can not confirm that. (** Congress Thomas Downing, 1976) I can not recall at this time others who were associated with that operation who had connections to Capehart. Cut-Out names were used during those operations associated with TFW. Lester Murphy was "free lansing", contract employee.., for the Agency at tht tiime, I think.

On another note as to "Zamba". I was one of six pilots used in those operation to transport covert operatives into position on sensitive missions. As to Zamba being Morales? I can not say for sure. I would have to check the timeline for Morales. I feel this might have been a little before Morales. JM/WAVE was not yet formed and Miami Station was still understaffed. (impression)

Thanks again for your recollections. It's interesting to me that you mention Henry Hecksher as of course he was linked to Nagell - the 'BOB' he refers to in Dick Russell's book. To your knowledge was Hecksher closely associated with Capehart?

'Stanley Zamka' was an alias of Morales so I assumed that was him mentioned in the McAllister hotel document , unless I'm wrong and it was someone else using that name?

Might be better I'm thinking to post further info on Capheart/Damon on the thread about him blow so it's all in one place and easy to find:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...amp;hl=Capehart

I think Capehart worked Chile when Hecksher was CIA Station Chief down there. I always thought that Morales was known as 'Zamba' and too, which Morales are we talking about, the "Big Indian" or the other one... there were two Morales attatched to Miami Station.., if I remember right. Perhaps some can clear this for me if I'm wrong.

P.S. I tried to post my reply on the above referenced site. But it did not work... "site could not be found"

Thanks. I was talking about the 'Big Indian' David Morales. I don't know about him or the other one being known as 'Zamba', only 'Zamka' but perhaps someone more knowledgeable can help - Larry or James maybe? I did not know of two morales at JM/Wave but again I am not as knowledgeable as others on this.

Sorry the reason you couldn't post on the Capeheart thread is that I'm a fool and I pasted the link wrong!

The correct link is:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...amp;hl=Capehart

That should work. I came up with some hits on MF that I will post on there.

Francesca:

Do you have anything on Operation FULBERT or FUBELT Chile? I think it was launched around 1970 or there abouts.

Edited February 24, 2008 by William Plumlee

[Francesca Akhtar]

Francesca:

Do you have anything on Operation FULBERT or FUBELT Chile? I think it was launched around 1970 or there abouts.

I just had a look on the MF site but the only document that comes up mentioning it is quite heavily blanked out:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=3

[William Plumlee]

Francesca:

Do you have anything on Operation FULBERT or FUBELT Chile? I think it was launched around 1970 or there abouts.

I just had a look on the MF site but the only document that comes up mentioning it is quite heavily blanked out:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=3

Francesca:

I take it you did find some information on Operation FULBERT. Right? I have not checked as yet because of time. I just recalled the name and thought I would ask. I wonder if James has anything on that? I think there could be some tie-in names in that operation which could help... But NOT sure. Thanks for the update. I will go on the CIA site when I have time and see what I can find (Electronic Briefing Room) I have been at this all day again. I am just trying to keep a promise I made to a friend on Posting.

Something has just came up which is of interest to me. It concerns an old friend, Tom Mosness (I'll double check the spelling) Any help would be apreciated.

P.S. I am not sure if I posted this on another thread or not. I am tired and corn-fused. If I did then please forgive.

"... note:

In one field report a photo was shown to a questionable source and another was put beside it with the name Damon written in the margin. (which was not the name of the person in the photo) The source at first said he did not know any of those in the picture. Later he droped the name Damon and connected it with an operation that did not exist. A few days later this source contacted the Miami Station and told a story that Damon was CIA and worked for him in south Florida. A picture was shown this source without the name written in the margin. He ID'ed the photo as Damon. It was not. He was asked to state the name of the operation in south Florida. He could not do that. CI-3 source mention a fake name and the source ID'ed that name as the operation. The source was dismissed at that point.

As to Damon being Waters I doubt that as I recall..., Damon was taller and Damon was a code name at the time for operation DAMON, or DEMON ??? memory; concerning Dominican Security Forces. I did know a Damon or of a Damon but this was years later, and I do not think he was associated with the earlier operations (my speculations)

Edited February 25, 2008 by William Plumlee