Dallas County DA's office finds cache of JFK memorabilia

[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)

Francesca: Not sure if this will help. There is a book out the might cast light on a few names who were players in the early days of the 'Cuban Project' It is also call the "Cuban Project " by Escalantee, Fabin???, I think... Perhaps you have read it. I have not. None the less some of it is very close to what I know, I have been told. A friend a few years ago told me to read about operation Pluto on pages 64-75, I think it was. I found a reference on Amazon along with a tag about the book:

The Tag Intro:

"...This is an intriguing tale of a "regime change" project that failed. The CIA's "Cuba Project" to remove Fidel Castro became the largest ever covert action program conducted by one nation against another. It included assassinations...".

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...45/Mangoose.jpg

Perhaps this is of no help and I do not mean to clutter you work, but thought you might like to have it as "Background".

Edited February 25, 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

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.

I do not know anything about FULBERT/FUBELT myself but only that document on the MF site. Searching under 'FULBERT' didn't bring anything up, but searching under 'FUBERT' did but only that doc.

As you say James R or others may know more.

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)

No I don't think you posted this elsewhere. Is this from a document or your own notes if I may ask?

I think others will be interested in this too. Thanks.

[Francesca Akhtar]

Tosh, seems it was 'FUBELT' not FULBERT:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_FUBELT

Also found this link to some released documents here:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/19980911.htm

[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.

I do not know anything about FULBERT/FUBELT myself but only that document on the MF site. Searching under 'FULBERT' didn't bring anything up, but searching under 'FUBERT' did but only that doc.

As you say James R or others may know more.

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)

No I don't think you posted this elsewhere. Is this from a document or your own notes if I may ask?

I think others will be interested in this too. Thanks.

Its from a still classified document from a debriefing at JM/WAVE's "Quarter Eye" section of the Covert Action Group, (CAG) OMC-235, which was headed up by Ted Schackley. (sp) I have recalled it hear from memory. Of course I am sure some will say, "If its not in print or found in some book, somewhere.., or if Plumlee can't produce it, then it did not happen" We miss so much because of that attitude toward unknown matters not public. It will be in the book "Deep Cover; Shallow Graves"... sch release date Oct 2008. After that then it would of happened and be quoted as fact, I'm sure.

The history of "Quarter Eye" is very interesting in itsself..., but I go off subject..... in short... "Quarter Eye" was the old WWII Navy building used by the Navy's women Waves of WW11, as they were called. It was located on I Streed (I think), in Washington DC. Shortly after the CIA was formed this building was converted and used by them, the CIA, until Langley was built. Some years later when the operations in Florida were launched, that operation was first called WAVE; in reference to the Navy's ladies of WWII. For awhile, in Washington, it was known as 'WAVE Station". Then called Miami Station after operations had been moved down there. When Richmond Naval Air Station on the Campus of Miami University were taken over by the CIA it was called JM/WAVE. (about 1960-61, if I remember right)

Please forgive the drifting... old men are allowed to do that. That is one of the Perks of oldage.

[William Plumlee]

Also found this:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=6

The McAllister Hotel that Tosh mentioned before is referred to on page 7

Francesca:

The following was posted on Nov.21,2004. This was before the declassified document appeared on the MF site.

"... William Galvez was with Castro in the southern part of Cuba at the time of the United Fruit hostages. There was one "Gingo with Matos for a short time before he went back to Gitmo and that was Tom Mosness (pho) also known as "The Cowboy

The rebel in front of me could be the one you speak of. But I had another name in mind a war name perhaps you can tell me that name? The picture was staged for press coverage and Velma Espin (Debora) gave me the M-1 and I fell in behind this person. Carlos was behind me. Later these rebels (Carlos) got me to a safe place and I was picked up by a Texaco PBY from Marathon and then went to Miami.

Carlos's daughter and her boyfried were both killed by Batista' goons at the Humboldt Apartment complex during a meeting. This was after the Palace Attack on Batista. Marquesto, an informant, was responsible for tipping off the police. Some years later Carlos killed Marquesto by throwing him, chained and bound froma C-46 Regina Air Cargo aircraft. I was co-pilot and Rojas was pilot IC. Sergio (?)Sanchez did have a brother who was with Castro in 1958 but not sure if he was at Rauls hidaway at the time of the hostages in 1957.

I was debriefed at Sloopy Joes on Flager St downtown Miami and the Mc Allister Hotel. (Biscanne and Flagger) We meet others across the street at Bay Front Park where we meet with Johnney Farentallo and John Martino and Larry Allen. John Martino went to a rooming house (Nellies? I think it was) to pick up a package and then all of us went to the safe house on SW 9th Terrace in Coral Gables. I had a room at the Green Mansions, Miami Springs across from Eastern Airlines. I worked for Riddle Airlines and Regina Air Cargo of Miami The Dodge Corp was our cut-out cover employment (Dodge Island is where stolden guns were stored from National Guard Armories. They were later flown, by me and others, to the M-26-7 and the Students. ...".

* "Poinsetta"

Tosh ...". (Found at 'Tosh Plumlee' topic, dated Nov. 21, 2004 End

* POINSETTA was a code name we used taken from the song. (The words from the song are: "Poinsetta Your Branches Speak to me of Love... Pale Moon casting Shadows from Above") This meant to ABORT the mission. It would play on Miami Radio stations which we monitored when flying into a hot area or a questionable mission.

It would also play on radio station KLIF in Dallas when we went into Dallas to stop the assassination.., if the abort mission had been called off for any reason.

Have you ran across the name "Mc Mahon" (not sure of the first name) and "John Mc Cord"?

Edited February 26, 2008 by William Plumlee

[Francesca Akhtar]

Tosh, thanks for all the info. I'm still going through it all.

I had not read the Fabian Escalante book but it's on my 'to read' list when I get the time. I think he has brought out two or three books, the latest one on JFK.

Thanks also for reposting those previous posts, I don't remember reading them the first time round. I wasn't aware of the 'poinsettia' info you mention. If you say that this word would have bene used on the Dallas radio station KLIF - do you mean to say that this meant an 'operative' of some sort would have been working there? I just mean how would that have worked? If you can say.

McMahon - -yes that rings a bell. Do you mean Homer McMahon? The guy who worked in the photo lab? From the top of my head I think he said he made prints from a film of the assassination but I can't remeber the exact details. Perhaps someone else can?

As for John Mccord, I take it you mean the Watergate one?

[Chris Courtwright]

Tosh -

Sorry to keep jumping around within this thread, but this talk of radio station's broadcasting abort signals, etc. got me to remembering something else I wanted to ask you:

Do you have any recollection of Ray Carnay, former news director of KBOX in Dallas in the early 1960s? He used to interview Charlie Waters and other anti-Castro Cubans a lot on the air ...

[William Plumlee]

Tosh -

Sorry to keep jumping around within this thread, but this talk of radio station's broadcasting abort signals, etc. got me to remembering something else I wanted to ask you:

Do you have any recollection of Ray Carnay, former news director of KBOX in Dallas in the early 1960s? He used to interview Charlie Waters and other anti-Castro Cubans a lot on the air ...

No. I did not know him, but I did know Johnny Box (I think his first name was John) who owned KBOX he was a friend of Gordon Mc Clindon of KLIF. (Gary Mack might remember those days) Also Johnny Box also owned other radio stations around the country which had agency people place on retainer to monitor anything which might relate to "On-Going" operations of a sensitive nature concerning matters associated with government interest. ("perhaps under the heading of "Mockingbird", my opinion)

There was another person in this loop; Bud Camron Lee who was with Holliday Radio of Golden Colorado. (KXXI) that was an agency operation cover. Jerry Rohdes worked for this station before going with KIMN (?) and KAT Radio also of Denver (1959-64 era)

As to Francesca's question about radio KLIF:

I am not sure about how the coded song came to be played in Dallas on KLIF. I was just told it would be played if matters were not to continue. (We had used that proceedure on other occausions; example MIAMI and SWAN Island Radio, private) M. Rojas, my pilot, I was co-pilot, told me this..., I have never told anyone about that. I have wanted to see if anyone else knew about that song from Miami days and the Dallas connection to it. And if so then I would know something about the person who named the song, or that source, and where they came from..., its kind of like tearing a dollar bill in half and comparing the halves when a contact is made... So far nothing on this.

I did hear that another person knew about a connection to radio KBOX and a song that was a "contact" a way to make contact with the Dallas CIA Contacts DIV and their P.O. drop box. However, the source could not name the song and I decided there was nothing to the sources story.

(another reason for withholding this information was because it touched upon, ("Meathods and Proceedures") a that could get you in trouble with the Agency.)

[William Kelly]

Michael and Tosh,

Thanks for acknowledging the DDA press conference transcript, as it did take a few hours to complete and I'm I'm glad somebody's getting something out of it. If it's not written down and posted or published in print, it's not research, just entertainment.

I hope to refine the transcript to include the names of the reporters who asked questions, specifically the reporters who questioned whether Watkins considered Wade a racist, whether the Dallas Commissioners Court should have jurisdiciton over what should become of the records, and if the documents were being copied by clerks and NOT being reviewed by assistant DAs. I believe it was the same person who asked all three questions.

Tosh's insights into Dallas culture is especially appreciated, and maybe could justifiy a separate thread.

BK

[William Plumlee]

Michael and Tosh,

Thanks for acknowledging the DDA press conference transcript, as it did take a few hours to complete and I'm I'm glad somebody's getting something out of it. If it's not written down and posted or published in print, it's not research, just entertainment.

I hope to refine the transcript to include the names of the reporters who asked questions, specifically the reporters who questioned whether Watkins considered Wade a racist, whether the Dallas Commissioners Court should have jurisdiciton over what should become of the records, and if the documents were being copied by clerks and NOT being reviewed by assistant DAs. I believe it was the same person who asked all three questions.

Tosh's insights into Dallas culture is especially appreciated, and maybe could justifiy a separate thread.

BK

Thanks Bill, but I have gone about as far as I can on this and I am now a little fuzzy on most of that. I do not want to say something from memory and cause a false start in any direction as to research into this matter.

If a thought does come to mind and I feel it important I will try to express it the best I can. If I speculate I will say so.. If I know it as fact, I will also say so and try to document and reference it to the best of my ability. AND TOO, I will try to stay focus on the subject matter and not drift off. There is so much out there. Even I did not know how much until some of these threads were opened up. I thank you for that.

I also feel that we as members are about to turn this around and expose those who would like to see this Forum fail for whatever reasons. I had to step back and take a new look into things. This was because of a very young and very smart researcher who told me, "You Sir, Owe me... You owe me at least that much because you were there".... that bothered me all night.

[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

[William Kelly]

I brought back this transcript of the Press Conference because there is mention of the apparently unrelated Lynn Flint Shaw case, now not so unrelated. - BK

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

[Steve Thomas]

Bill,

Attention Gary Mack.

PLEASEEEE, check and see if "Mary's Box" is part of this cache.

See Earl Golz articles.

Thanks,

BK

Concerning Mary's box:

Preston told The ENQUIRER that the evidence consisted of 33 documents, packed in a cardboard container about the size of a shirtbox and included:

pdf 2155 in Group 46 has an interview with Billy Preston, but no mention is made of this box. It only concerns Ruby's attempt to get a card indicating that he (Ruby) was a part-time deputy. Constable Robie Love turned Ruby down in this attempt.

That's not to say there might not be more from Preston in some later file I haven't seen yet.

Steve Thomas

[William Kelly]

Bill,

Attention Gary Mack.

PLEASEEEE, check and see if "Mary's Box" is part of this cache.

See Earl Golz articles.

Thanks,

BK

Concerning Mary's box:

Preston told The ENQUIRER that the evidence consisted of 33 documents, packed in a cardboard container about the size of a shirtbox and included:

pdf 2155 in Group 46 has an interview with Billy Preston, but no mention is made of this box. It only concerns Ruby's attempt to get a card indicating that he (Ruby) was a part-time deputy. Constable Robie Love turned Ruby down in this attempt.

That's not to say there might not be more from Preston in some later file I haven't seen yet.

Steve Thomas

Hi Steve,

I was going to remind you to look for this info, but I knew you were on top of things.

I'll find a description of the contents of this box if you need it.

Keep it coming!

BK

[Steve Thomas]

Bill,

I'll find a description of the contents of this box if you need it.

BK

Thanks, you already did in an earlier post.

Steve Thomas