Peter Dale Scott

[William Kelly]

Paper presented by Peter Dale Scott at Dallas COPA, Nov. 20, 2010

http://jfkcountercou...-copa-2010.html

I think it is very important paper, especially in regards to the role of the US Army Reserve officers and the Dallas PD Inteligence Unit.

I'm pretty proud of the fact that Peter cites my blog posting on the Venezuelan Arms Cache as a possible Northwoods Operation.

Footnote #8.

http://jfkcountercou...northwoods.html

Edited November 21, 2010 by William Kelly

[J. Raymond Carroll]

I disagree with Peter here .... If you read the telephone transcripts, LBJ did not want to federalize the case. In fact, he argued against it rather vociferously.

LBJ was a master at concealing his true motives and intentions. His actions speak louder than his words. I don't have the Max Holland Tapes book, but as I recall J. Edgar Hoover said as early as Sunday evening 11/24, that LBJ would create a Presidential commission. I can only assume that Hoover learned of LBJ's plan from LBJ himself.

THen Johnson set the wheels in motion to make it look as though it wasn't his idea. Johnson got exactly what he wanted all along. THis was the Johnson Modus operandi

[William Kelly]

I would not trust Max Holland on anything, especially this.

Rostow's first call came into the WH during the afternoon of the 24th. He told Bill Moyers that LBJ should construct a blue ribbon commission.

What you are talking about is the memo written by Jenkins after a talk with Hoover later that day. Hoover based this speculation on the fact that Rostow had tried to impress upon Katzenbach via THREE phone calls that afternoon about the necessity of appointing a Commission. This is how intent Rostow was to get what he wanted.

But the next morning, in a call to Hoover, LBJ is still resistant to it, calling the idea "very bad". And in fact, LBJ had heard that the W Post would float the idea in an editorial, and he was trying to stop it.

Ten minutes after this Hoover call, Alsop calls LBJ. And this phone call is an absolute masterpiece of subtle coercion. I mean Alsop had to have intelligence training. LBJ brings up every objection he can to the Commission idea, and at every attempt Alsop parries him. Until by the end, Alsop has twisted LBJ from being completely against it, to now actually willing to consider it.

I always thought Gibson's article was one of the most important things to come out of the ARRB. THat is one reason it was first up in The Assassinations.

I wouldn't trust Max Holland either, but the tapes themselves don't lie - and at one point LBJ calls the assassinatin "a local Texas homicide," but I think he had all his bases covered, not only if they wanted to do a local invesigation, but if they did a federal one, or even a Congressional investigation.

As for Hoover, he left his office and went home after talking on the phone to LBJ.

Both lived in the same DC neighborhood, and some say their backyards were joined and they had a little gate so they could go from one to the other without going out on the street. The were close enough that LBJ let his daughters go over and visit Hoover, and I think that when LBJ got back to his home (The Elms) the evening of the assassination, he went over to visit JEH.

I say this because the incident Gerry Blaine describes in his book indicates that LBJ was walking around the premesis unattended by Secret Service agents, because at one point, Blaine, armed with a cocked submachine gun, almost shoots LBJ when he approached Blaine from a direction that Blaine wasn't expecting him. Where was he and what was he doing wandering around in the dark like that? I say he was returning from a nocturnal visit to J. E. Hover so they could have a private conversation for which there is no record.

BK

Edited November 21, 2010 by William Kelly

[William Kelly]

Key JFK assassination elements of PDS's Dallas COPA talk:

Provocation-Deceptions from Army Intelligence Reserve in Dallas, 11/22/1963

To begin with, we know that in Dallas, on November 22, there were people inside the military who falsified their reporting of the Kennedy assassination to create the false impression (or what I have called the “phase-one story”) of an enemy attack.

Provocation-Deceptions from Army Intelligence Reserve in Dallas, 11/22/1963

To begin with, we know that in Dallas, on November 22, there were people inside the military who falsified their reporting of the Kennedy assassination to create the false impression (or what I have called the “phase-one story”) of an enemy attack.

I have written before about these phase-one stories from Dallas concerning the JFK assassination, but I did not realize until recently that all of them came from a single Army Intelligence Reserve unit.

As these deceptions are immediately post-assassination, they do not in isolation establish that the assassination itself was a provocation-deception plot. They do however reveal enough about the anti-Castro mindset of the 488th Army Intelligence Reserve unit in Dallas to confirm that it was remarkably similar to that of the J-5 the preceding May that produced a menu of “fabricated provocations” for the Joint Chiefs.

In 1977 I tried but failed to draw one such false report to the attention of the House Committee on Assassinations. This was an army cable reporting a tip from a Dallas policeman:

Assistant Chief Don Stringfellow, Intelligence Section, Dallas Police Department, notified 112th INTC [intelligence] Group, this Headquarters, that information obtained from Oswald revealed he had defected to Cuba in 1959 and is a card-carrying member of Communist Party.” 31.

The cable sent on November 22 from the Fourth Army Command in Texas to the U.S. Strike Command at Fort MacDill in Florida, the base poised for a possible retaliatory attack against Cuba. 32.

I knew before that Stringfellow’s superior officer, Captain W.P. Gannaway, was a member of Army Intelligence Reserve. 33. Later Ed Coyle, himself a warrant officer of the 112th Intelligence Group, testified to the Assassinations Records Review Board that all the officers in the DPD’s Intelligence Section were in army intelligence. 34.

Actually they were almost certainly in the 488th Army Intelligence Reserve unit of Dallas: Jack Crichton , the head of the 488th, revealed in an oral history that there were “about a hundred men in that unit and about forty or fifty of them were from the Dallas Police Department.” 35.

The Stringfellow message was an example of a phase-one report in the Dallas investigation: a deception report incriminating, falsely, either Cuba or the Soviet Union. It was not isolated. In Deep Politics I showed how it was supported by a concatenation of false reports about Oswald’s alleged rifle, and specifically reports indicating, falsely, that Marina Oswald presumed Oswald’s rifle in Dallas to be the rifle he owned in Russia. 36. (Marina’s actual words, before mistranslation, were quite innocuous: “I cannot describe it [the gun] because a rifle to me like all rifles.”) 37.

On the basis of such false phase-one stories, Dallas Deputy District Attorney Bill Alexander reportedly prepared “to indict Oswald for killing the President 'in furtherance of a Communist conspiracy.'" 38.

Evidence of a Provocation-Deception Plot Involving the Kennedy Assassination

Meanwhile, in Washington, the post-assassination phase-one stories out of Dallas were augmented by a more serious item of pre-assassination false evidence. A letter purporting to be from Oswald, mailed from Irving, Texas on November 12 to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, was intercepted by the FBI. In this letter, the writer spoke of "my meetings [plural] with comrade Kostin in the Embassy of the Soviet Union, Mexico City." The letter also alluded suggestively to the lack of time there "to complete our business." Even more alarmingly, the author revealed his accurate knowledge that the Consul in the Cuban Embassy had been "replaced." 39.

This Kostin letter was completely unlike any other written by Oswald; to begin with, it was not handwritten but typed. For the FBI to verify whether Oswald was the originator of the letter, they should have tested the letter against the Ruth Paine typewriter on which he had allegedly written it. But there is no public record that this was ever done. This omission, along with much other evidence, suggests that the letter was a false artifact, or, as I would now say, part of a provocation-deception plot. 40.

The Kostin letter dovetailed neatly with another piece of false pre-assassination evidence: a report out of Mexico City, indicating that Oswald had visited a KGB agent in the Soviet Embassy there named Valeriy Kostikov. The evidence for this visit was clearly false; it relied on the tape of an alleged phone call by Oswald which in fact had been made by someone else.41. We have documentary evidence that one day after the President's murder this tape was listened to by FBI agents in Dallas, who determined that the speaker was in fact not Lee Harvey Oswald. Yet almost immediately this event was denied by other reports, including cables claiming -- falsely -- that the tape had already been destroyed before the assassination. 42.

There are a number of anomalies in both the FBI and CIA handling of Oswald in the weeks just prior to the assassination, such as the CIA’s withholding of important information about Oswald from the FBI. As one of the relevant CIA officers (Jane Roman) conceded years later in an interview, there was probably an “operational reason” for the CIA to have withheld important information about Oswald from the FBI. 43.

The CIA’s operational interest in Oswald was conceivably part of an operation directed against an enemy target, such as Fidel Castro. But the false Kostin letter, and the false Kostikov phone call, cannot be attributed to such an operation. These were provocation-deceptions designed to deceive, not the enemy, but an American audience, about the assassination in Dallas that had not yet occurred.

The Ubiquitous Shadow of the 488th Intelligence Reserve Unit

The explosive phase-one theory swiftly died, but did not lose its historical relevance. It led to the perceived risk that right-wing elements, such as Senator Eastland’s Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, would provoke a war with Cuba and possibly Russia. This fear became Johnson’s excuse for federalizing the murder case and persuading Earl Warren and Richard Russell to join the Warren Commission.44. Thus was established the official phase-two explanation, that Oswald was a misfit who acted alone.

Of interest still today is the coincidence that the same the 488th Army Intelligence Reserve unit helped generate the false Marina story, as well as the false Stringfellow report. The interpreter who first supplied the Marina story, Ilya Mamantov, was selected as the result of a phone call between Deputy Police Chief George Lumpkin and Jack Crichton.45. We have already seen that Crichton commanded the 488th; and Lumpkin, in addition to being the Deputy Police Chief, was also a deputy commander of the 488th under Crichton. 46.

John Crichton was the kind of figure Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point described as a “connector....people with a special gift for bringing the world together.” 47. Some of his contacts are figures who should be familiar to students of the JFK assassination. His superior in the Army Reserves, Lieutenant Colonel George Whitmeyer, was on 11/22 in the pilot car of the Kennedy motorcade along with DPD Deputy Chief George Lumpkin; the pilot car is of interest because of its unexplained stop in front of the Texas School Book Depository.48. D.H. “Dry Hole” Byrd, owner of the Texas School Book Depository, was a director of Crichton’s firm Dorchester Gas Producing.49.

Crichton, an oil engineer and corporation executive, also doubled as a member of the Dallas overworld. Although his 488th intelligence unit consisted almost 50 percent of Dallas policemen, Crichton also used it as a venue in the late 1950s to conduct “a study of Soviet oil fields;” and in the 1990s Crichton would himself explore the oil and gas reserves in the former Soviet Union.50. Also interested in Soviet oil reserves at this time were Ilya Mamantov’s employers and personal friends, the wealthy Pew family in Dallas who were owners of Sunoco. By 2009 the second largest source of crude for Sunoco (after Western Africa) was Central Asia, supplying 86,000 barrels of crude a day. 51.

But Crichton’s most significant function as a connector on 11/22 may have been in his capacity as chief of intelligence for Dallas Civil Defense, which worked out of an underground Emergency Operating Center under the patio of the Dallas Health and Science Museum. As Russ Baker reports, “Because it was intended for ‘continuity of government’ operations during an attack, it was fully equipped with communications equipment.” 52. A speech given at the dedication of the Center in 1961 supplies further details:

This Emergency Operating Center is part of the National Plan to link Federal, State and local government agencies in a communications network from which rescue operations can be directed in time of local or National emergency. It is a vital part of the National, State, and local Operational Survival Plan. 53.

In an earlier draft of this talk I attempted to describe the central importance of America’s emergency communications network (or so-called Doomsday communications network) in four of our country’s recent provocation-deception plots: 11/22, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and 9/11. If one part of the government is deceiving another, it needs its own alternative network to do so. Oliver North, for example, used just such an anti-terrorist network, codenamed Flashboard, to conduct the Iran-Contra arms operations for which he was ultimately fired. 54.

There is not time today to develop this theme, other than to note the importance of Crichton’s access to it. But others beside myself have pointed to the meta-importance of those charged with overseeing the Doomsday communications network, known most recently as the Continuity of Government (COG) network. James Mann, for example, has referred to the COG network overseers as “part of the permanent, though hidden, national security apparatus of the United States, inhabitants of a world in which Presidents may come and go, but America always keeps on fighting.” 55.

The DPD-Army Connection Reconsidered

I devoted a whole chapter of my book Deep Politics to the Dallas Police-Army Intelligence connection. But I now think that I seriously misinterpreted its significance, by seeing its phase-one propensity as an example of right-wing Texas divergence from the phase-two inclination of those responsible for running the country. Today we know that the phase-one zeal in Dallas to implicate Castro, by the use of deceptive falsehoods, had also characterized the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington.

Researcher Larry Haapanen has discovered the 488th seems to have had its own direct chain of command linking it to Washington. In an esoteric publication entitled The Military Order of World Wars (Turner Publishing Company, 1997, p. 120), he found that Crichton "commanded the 488th MID (Strategic), reporting directly to the Army Chief of Intelligence and the Defense Intelligence Agency." 56. And in 1970 Haapanen was told by Crichton’s commander in the Texas Army Reserve, Lt. Col. Whitmeyer, that Crichton's unit did its summer training at the Pentagon.

It is now clear that Stringfellow’s claims about Oswald as a Communist Party visitor to Cuba, though clearly false, fell well within the guidelines for a provocation-deception as set out in the Northwoods and May 1963 documents. All this Cuban deception planning was in support of JCS OPLANS 312 (Air Attack in Cuba) and 316 (Invasion of Cuba). These were not theoretical exercises, but actively developed operational plans which the JCS were only too eager to execute. As they told Kennedy, “We are not only ready to take any action you may order in Cuba, we are also in an excellent condition world-wide to counter any Soviet military response to such action.” 57.

In other words, they were prepared for a nuclear strike against Soviet Russia; even though the JCS, as Air Force General Leon Johnson told the National Security Council in September 1963, believed this would probably result in “at least 140 million fatalities in the USSR.” 58.

At the peak of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, according to Khruschchev’s memoir, Robert Kennedy told the Russian ambassador, Anatoly Dobrynin:

The President is in a grave situation and does not know how to get out of it. We are under very severe stress. In fact we are under pressure from our military to use force against Cuba…. Even though the President himself is very much against starting a war over Cuba, an irreversible chain of events could occur against his will. That is why the President is appealing directly to Chairman Khrushchev for his help in liquidating this conflict. If the situation continues much longer, the President is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power. The American army could get out of control." 59.

NOTES

12. Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Courses of Action Related to Cuba (Case II),” Report of the J-5 to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1 May 1963, NARA #202-10002-10018, 12.

13. Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 568; James A. Nathan, The Cuban missile crisis revisited, 283; Waldron and Hartmann, Legacy of Secrecy, 9.

14. Memorandum From the Joint Chiefs of Staff to President Kennedy, November 16, 1962, JCSM-910-62, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/msc_cuba186.asp: “The Joint Chiefs of Staff are glad to report that our Armed Forces are in an optimum posture to execute CINCLANT OPLANS 312-62 (Air Attack in Cuba)(1) and 316-62 (Invasion of Cuba).(2) We are not only ready to take any action you may order in Cuba, we are also in an excellent condition world-wide to counter any Soviet military response to such action.” This proposal to invade Cuba came three weeks after Kennedy’s assurances he would not invade Cuba.

15. Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, 239-40.

16. Scott, American War Machine, 199-203, etc.

17. Scott, War Conspiracy (2008), 292-98.

18. Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Courses of Action Related to Cuba (Case II),” Report of the J-5 to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1 May 1963, NARA #202-10002-10018, 38.

19. NARA #202-10001-10149.

20. E.g. 104-10307-10007, 63. The documents come from JCS, CIA, and the files of Army Secretary Cyrus Vance, who had been charged by the Kennedys with overseeing the plan. Cf. Waldron and Hartmann, Legacy of Secrecy, 3-13.

21. Waldron, Legacy of Secrecy, 3.

22. 202-10002-10018, 4.

23. Briefing Sheet for the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, for JCS meeting on 6 May 1963, 202-10002-10079, 3.

24. 104-10307-10007, 4.

25. 104-10307-10007, 4.

26. Robert J. Hanyok, “Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying Fish: The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2-4 August 1964,” Cryptologic Quarterly, declassified in National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 132, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/relea00012.pdf.

27. Robert J. Hanyok, “Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying Fish: The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2-4 August 1964,” Cryptologic Quarterly, declassified in National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 132, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/relea00012.pdf,

28. Robert J. Hanyok, “Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying Fish: The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2-4 August 1964,” Cryptologic Quarterly, declassified in National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 132, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/relea00012.pdf.

29. Edwin Moise, Tonkin Gulf, 254 (“honest mistake”); James Bamford, Body of Secrets, 299 (“blunder”).

30. Scott, War Conspiracy, 112, 125-26

31. Scott, Deep Politics, 275; HSCA Critics Conference of 17 September 1977, 181.

32, Scott, Deep Politics, 275; Scott, Deep Politics II, 80, 129; Scott, War Conspiracy, 382.

33.Scott, Deep Politics, 276; Scott, Deep Politics II, 78.

34. Edward J. Coyle, interview with ARRB staff person Timothy Wray, October 25, 1999ARA Record 607/11093, 3.

35. Quoted in Baker, Family of Secrets, 122. One of these, DPD Detective John Adamcik, was a member of the party which retrieved a blanket said to have contained Oswald’s rifle; and which the Warren Commission used to link Oswald to the famous Mannlicher Carcano. Adamcik was later present at Mamantov’s interview of Marina about the rifle, and corroborated Mamantov’s account of it to the Warren Commission.

36. Warren Commission Exhibit 1778, 23 WH 383.

37. Warren Commission Exhibit 1778, 23 WH 383; discussion in Scott, Deep Politics, 168-72

38. Scott, Deep Politics II, 73n, 152.

39. Warren Commission Exhibit 15, 16 WH 33, discussion in Peter Dale Scott, “Overview: The CIA, the Drug Traffic, and Oswald in Mexico,” History-Matters.com, http://www.history-matters.com/pds/DP3_Overview.htm.

40. Warren Commission Exhibit 15, 16 WH 33, discussion in Peter Dale Scott, “Overview: The CIA, the Drug Traffic, and Oswald in Mexico,” History-Matters.com, http://www.history-matters.com/pds/DP3_Overview.htm: “What is particularly suspect about the November 9 Kostin letter is its timing. After being intercepted by the FBI on its way to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, the letter was summarized and communicated to Dallas, where the news arrived on November 22. [FBI Agent James] Hosty thus only learned of it right after the assassination. Had he learned earlier, Oswald might have been put under [FBI] surveillance; and the assassination could not have unfolded as it did.” For more arguments against the authenticity of the Kostin letter, see

41. Jerry Rose, The Fourth Decade, November 1999,5

42. Peter Dale Scott, “Overview: The CIA, the Drug Traffic, and Oswald in Mexico,” History-Matters.com, http://www.history-matters.com/pds/DP3_Overview.htm; Scott, Deep Politics, 39-44.

43. Jefferson Morley, Our Man in Mexico, 196-98; Scott, The War Conspiracy, 387-88.

44. Beschloss, Taking Charge, 67-69, LBJ phone call with Richard Russell, 11/29/63; cf. 65.

45. 9 WH 106; Scott, Deep Politics, 275-76; Russ Baker, Family of Secrets, 119-22.

46. Rodney P. Carlisle and Dominic J. Monetta, Brandy: Our Man in Acapulco (Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press, 1999), 128.

47. Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point, 38.

48. Discussion in Scott, Deep Politics, 273-74.

49. In early November 1963, Byrd and his investment partner, James Ling, made a significant insider purchase of stock in their defense industry investment, LTV. Although required by SEC rules to report this insider purchase, they delayed doing so until well after Kennedy’s assassination. Then in January LTV received the first major LBJ defense contract from the Pentagon – for a fighter plane designed for Vietnam. Cf. Joan Mellen, “The Kennedy Assassination and the Current Political Moment,” Part II, http://www.joanmellen.net/truth-2.html.

50. Crichton’s collaborator in the 1950s study, fellow 488th member Lt. Col. Frank Brandstetter, was in turn a friend of men like:

1) David Phillips, in charge of Covert Action at the Mexico City Station when Oswald allegedly visited there; Phillips had known Brandstetter since both men were together in Havana in the 1950s (Carlisle and Monetta, Brandy, 146-47)

2) Gordon McLendon, wealthy Dallas businessman whom Jack Ruby described as one of his six closest friends (20 WH 39);

3) George de Mohrenschildt, the oilman whom some see as a handler for the Oswalds in 1962; and also Dorothe Matlack and Sam Kail, the Army Intelligence personnel who coordinated George de Mohrenschildt’s April 1963 visit with CIA and Army Intelligence in Washington

4) Philippe Thyraud de Vosjoli, a French intelligence (SDECE) agent who worked closely with Angleton in Washington. On 11/22 de Vosjoli reportedly panicked on hearing of Kennedy’s death, packed a few clothes into a van, and departed Washington to join Brandstetter in Acapulco. (Tom Mangold, Cold Warrior, 131-33).

51. Sunoco, Inc., Annual Report, 2009, 4.

52. Russ Baker, Family of Secrets, 121.

53. “Statement by Col. John W. Mayo, Chairman of City-County Civil Defense and Disaster Commission at the Dedication of the Emergency Operating Center at Fair Park,” May 24, 1961, http://www.civildefensemuseum.com/fallout/dallaseoc.html.

Six linear inches of Civil Defense Administrative Files are preserved in the Dallas Municipal Archives; a Finding Guide is viewable on line at http://www.ci.dallas.tx.us/cso/archives/FindingGuides/08001.html. I hope an interested researcher may wish to consult them.

54. Peter Dale Scott, "Northwards Without North: Bush, Counterterrorism, and the Continuation of Secret Power." Social Justice (San Francisco), XVI, 2 (Summer 1989), 1-30: cf. Peter Dale Scott, "The Terrorism Task Force." Covert Action Information Bulletin, 33 (Winter 1990), 12-15.

55. James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Viking, 2004), 145. In 1991 a CNN feature on the COG overseers described these overseers even more ominously as a “shadow government,” and opened with “In the

United States Federal Government there is a super-secret agency which controls this Shadow Government” (CNN, November 17, 1991, quoted in Shirley Anne Warshaw, The Co-presidency of Bush and Cheney [stanford, Calif.: Stanford Politics and Policy, 2009], 162).

56. The Military Order of World Wars (Turner Publishing Company, 1997), 120.

57. Memorandum From the Joint Chiefs of Staff to President Kennedy, November 16, 1962JCSM-910-62, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/msc_cuba186.asp: “The Joint Chiefs of Staff are glad to report that our Armed Forces are in an optimum posture to execute CINCLANT OPLANS 312-62 (Air Attack in Cuba)(1) and 316-62 (Invasion of Cuba).(2) We are not only ready to take any action you may order in Cuba, we are also in an excellent condition world-wide to counter any Soviet military response to such action.”

58. Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, 239-40.

59. Khrushchev Remembers, ed. Strobe Talbott (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970; citation from paperback edition, New York: Bantam, 1971), pp. 551-52; quoted in James K. Galbraith, “Did the U.S. Military Plan a Nuclear First Strike for 1963?” American Prospect, 9/21/24; Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, 27.

[Guest Tom Scully]

'Jim DiEugenio' date='21 November 2010 - 07:35 AM' timestamp='1290321339' post='212703']

"I would not trust Max Holland on anything, especially this.

Rostow's first call came into the WH during the afternoon of the 24th. He told Bill Moyers that LBJ should construct a blue ribbon commission.

What you are talking about is the memo written by Jenkins after a talk with Hoover later that day. Hoover based this speculation on the fact that Rostow had tried to impress upon Katzenbach via THREE phone calls that afternoon about the necessity of appointing a Commission. This is how intent Rostow was to get what he wanted.

But the next morning, in a call to Hoover, LBJ is still resistant to it, calling the idea "very bad". And in fact, LBJ had heard that the W Post would float the idea in an editorial, and he was trying to stop it.

Ten minutes after this Hoover call, Alsop calls LBJ. And this phone call is an absolute masterpiece of subtle coercion. I mean Alsop had to have intelligence training. LBJ brings up every objection he can to the Commission idea, and at every attempt Alsop parries him. Until by the end, Alsop has twisted LBJ from being completely against it, to now actually willing to consider it.

I always thought Gibson's article was one of the most important things to come out of the ARRB. THat is one reason it was first up in The Assassinations."

All quotes from the Eugene Rostow thread.:

According to Donald Gibson, the author of The Kennedy Assassination Cover-up, Eugene Rostow played an important role in the creation of the Warren Commission. He argues that "this Commission would have been more accurately named the Rostow Copmmission or the McCloy-Dulles Commission." ...

...It is highly probable that it was Rostow's call(s) that Katzenbach was referring to in his 1978 testimony when he said that he was "sure" that he had talked to "people outside the government entirely who called me."

Apparently Rostow was making his suggestion in the context of discussions with at least one other person. He said to Moyers: "Now, I've got a party here. I've [or We've] been pursuing the policy, you know, that people need to come together at this time."

Rostow does not identify the individual or individuals with whom he has been talking.

Moyers briefly interrupted this line of discussion by stating his concern that recent events were undermining the credibility of U.S. institutions. He then returned to Rostow's suggestion, saying: "All right. Now, your suggestion is that he [President Johnson] appoint a Special Commission of distinguished Americans, primarily in the field of law, I presume to look into the whole question of the assassination."

Rostow says "That's right and a report on it" and then the conversation ended with Moyers assuring Rostow that he will discuss this with President Johnson." Rostow acted very quickly on what was a momentous decision and he did so even though he had no obligation or responsibility to do anything.

In Volume III of the Hearings of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, there is a copy of a memo written by LBJ aide Walter Jenkins to the President which reports on a phone conversation that Jenkins apparently had with J. Edgar Hoover." According to the memo, Hoover said over the phone that: "The thing I am concerned about, and so is Mr. Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin. Mr. Katzenbach thinks that the President might appoint a Presidential Corrunission of three outstanding citizens to make a determination."

Hoover goes on to state misgivings about the idea of a commission. It is, of course, of interest that Hoover and, apparently, Katzenbach already have Oswald as the assassin. Did Rostow discuss this with the "groggy" and insufficiently active Katzenbach? The timing of this memo is of immediate interest.

The time on the memo is 4:00 P.M., November 24. Hoover has already spoken with Katzenbach and received from him information concerning the idea of a commission. Apparently, Hoover spoke with Katzenbach prior to 4:00 P.M. We now have a considerably shorter time frame.

Oswald died at 2:07 Eastern Standard Time. Before 4:00 Katzenbach had spoken with Hoover about a commission. Katzenbach was acting as a result of his conversation(s) with Rostow. We are now down to something well under one hour and fifty-three minutes for Rostow to hear of Oswald's death, consider all the factors, discuss it with at least one other person, and begin to act. The entire time span for Rostow's actions is almost certainly less than ninety minutes, allowing only twenty or so additional minutes for him to talk to Katzenbach and for Katzenbach to talk to Hoover. We don't know who was with Rostow at the time of Oswald's death. Did Rostow act as an individual or was he representing a collective decision when he moved so rapidly to have a Presidential commission established? This probably cannot be answered in a definite way without a candid statement from Rostow and, perhaps, others. There are, however, indications in the events of November 25 to 29 that Rostow and then Katzenbach were acting on behalf of a group of people.

As we have seen, the idea of a commission was suggested to at least two people close to LBJ, Bill Moyers and Walter Jenkins, on the afternoon of the 24th. The suggestion was relayed to LBJ by someone before 10:30 A.M. the next day, November 25. This is clear from the transcript of Johnson's phone conversation with J. Edgar Hoover at 10:30.[/color]

John,

Although the 1993 WaPo article excerpt displayed below contains some contradictions as far as whether Katzenbach was "groggy" and "who called who", as far as whether Rostow initiated a call which "roused" Katzenbach....or not.... there is confirmation in the 1993 piece of LBJ's 1971 version of events. Rostow called George Ball before he called Bill Moyers; George Ball worked for Dean Rusk, and LBJ names Rostow, Alsop, and Rusk as the three who first lobbied him for creation of a blue-ribbon commission. Disinfo from Johnson and Katzenbach? Who knows?

Kind of curious that Rostow was "having a party" while most other events of that weekend of national mourning, including the scheduled, steeped in tradition" Yale-Harvard football game being postponed from Nov. 23 to Nov. 30, had been cancelled or postponed. I lived near Yale campus for more than 30 years and sold programs at Yale bowl as a teen....and that

was the only instance when that all important game of the season was ever postponed.

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=pre...range=1978,2006

Judge Anderson, Rostow Lead for Circuit Court

Pay-Per-View - Hartford Courant - ProQuest Archiver - Jan 18, 1964

U. S. District Judge Robert Anderson and Eugene Rostow, dean of the Yale Law ... nomination by President Johnson as a judge of the U. S. Circuit Court of ... Related web pages

JOB'S A PHANTOM, BUT RACE IS REAL; Connecticut Democrats Vie for...

$3.95 - New York Times - May 10, 1964

Judge Anderson has not yet been advanced to the Circuit Court, and there is still speculation concerning Dean Rostow for the Circuit Court. ...

http://books.google.com/books?id=Yl2FB7ep_...e%22&pgis=1

The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969‎ - Page 26

by Lyndon Baines Johnson - History - 1971 - 636 pages

The idea of a national commission was first mentioned to me by Eugene Rostow

of the Yale Law School.

He called the White House the day Oswald was shot and suggested that with the

prime suspect now dead, a blue-ribbon commission was needed to ascertain the

facts. Dean Rusk and columnist Joseph Alsop soon made the same recommendation

to me....

Warren Commission Born Out of Fear; Washington Wanted to Stop Speculation Series: THE ASSASSINATION FILES Series Number: 1/3;

Walter Pincus, George Lardner Jr.. The Washington Post . Washington, D.C.: Nov 14, 1993.

There was instant recognition in CIA headquarters here on the afternoon of Nov. 22, 1963, when news wires burning with reports of President John F. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas that morning flashed word that Lee Harvey Oswald had been arrested.

The CIA's Western Hemisphere Division already had a file on Oswald, documenting his travel to the Soviet Union and recent contacts with the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City - including an intercepted telephone conversation in which a man identifying himself as Oswald had mentioned meeting with a known KGB operative whose specialties included assassination. The CIA station chief in Mexico had twice cabled information about Oswald's suspicious Soviet contacts there, the first in early October.

The FBI also had a file on Oswald, listing his activities in New Orleans in support of the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee. And, shortly after his arrest, Dallas authorities found pro-Soviet, pro-Cuba literature in Oswald's apartment.

As policymakers across the Potomac learned of Oswald's Soviet connections, they were filled with dread. "There was fear that the Soviets could be responsible," then-Deputy Attorney General Nicholas deB. Katzenbach said in a recent interview. "And that could be a major problem."

"We were just scared to death that this was something bigger than just the act of a madman," recalled George Ball, the undersecretary then running the State Department in Dean Rusk's absence.

Neither Katzenbach, nor Ball, nor other top foreign policy and defense officials charged with maintaining domestic security and international stability believed the Soviet Union was behind the assassination of the president. The Soviets, they thought, simply had too much to lose from the repercussions of such an act, and were as mindful of the delicate balance of superpower relations as the Americans....

John,

I was hopng to read some comments from you in response to this in my recent post on thie thread:

...."We were just scared to death that this was something bigger than just the act of a madman," recalled George Ball, the undersecretary then running the State Department in Dean Rusk's absence.....

....The acting attorney general began calling friends and colleagues he hoped would share his belief that a blue-ribbon commission was needed. One call interrupted Katzenbach's friend, Yale Law School Dean Eugene Rostow, in the midst of a party at his house. Rostow called Ball to talk it over, and then called the White House to talk with Johnson aide Bill D. Moyers.......

Do you think that it was Rusk's influence on George Ball, along with Rostow's, as LBJ wrote in 1971 (quoted in my last post), or was George Ball a stronger influence to appoint a "blue ribbon panel", but not admitted as such by LBJ?

I am wondering if WaPo's Walter Pincus misinterpreted the reference to "a party here", by Rostow, as an actual social gathering in progress, on the eve of JFK's funeral, vs. a presence of an individual, alongside Rostow, or recently present, prior to Rostow speaking with Katzenbach on the telephone

According to Donald Gibson, the author of The Kennedy Assassination Cover-up, Eugene Rostow played an important role in the creation of the Warren Commission. He argues that "this Commission would have been more accurately named the Rostow Copmmission or the McCloy-Dulles Commission."

The release of the White House telephone transcripts, thirty years after the assassination, make it possible to now construct a much more complete account of the Warren Commission's origins. Those transcripts tell the story that Katzenbach hinted at in his 1978 testimony, a story LBJ had also hinted at in 1971. Had the appropriate questions been asked of Katzenbach in 1978, it is at least possible that Katzenbach himself would have filled in some of the gaps left in the record for over three decades.

It appears that the idea of a Presidential commission to report on the assassination of President Kennedy was first suggested by Eugene Rostow, Dean of the Yale Law School, in a telephone call to LBJ aide William Moyers during the afternoon of November 24, 1963. Although the time of this call is missing from the White House daily diary, it is possible to identify the period during which the call was made. Rostow refers to the killing of Oswald, so the call had to be after 2:07 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, the time Oswald was pronounced dead. The call appears in the White House daily diary prior to a conversation at 4:40 P.M, between President Johnson and Governor Pat Brown of California." There is a memorandum which clearly indicates that Rostow called the White House well before 4:00 p.m., EST.

Rostow told Moyers that he was calling to make a suggestion that a "Presidential commission be appointed of very distinguished citizens in the very near future." Rostow recommended that such a commission be Bi-partisan and above politics - no Supreme Court justices but people like Tom Dewey and Bill Story from Texas and so on. A commission of seven or nine people, maybe Nixon, I don't know, to look into the whole affair of the murder of the President because world opinion and American opinion is just now so shaken by the behavior of the Dallas Police that they're not believing anything."

Rostow does not explain how he has determined the nature of world or American opinion within minutes or an hour or so of the murder of Oswald. As we saw in the preceding chapter, the Dallas police were a model of objectivity and open mindedness compared to Alan Belmont of the FBI and at least much of the major media.

Rostow also said that he had already spoken "about three times" that day to Nick Katzenbach but he was making his suggestion directly to Moyers because of his uncertainty that Katzenbach would pass it on. Rostow explains that Katzenbach "sounded too groggy so I thought I'd pass this thought along to you".

It is highly probable that it was Rostow's call(s) that Katzenbach was referring to in his 1978 testimony when he said that he was "sure" that he had talked to "people outside the government entirely who called me."

Apparently Rostow was making his suggestion in the context of discussions with at least one other person. He said to Moyers: "Now, I've got a party here. I've [or We've] been pursuing the policy, you know, that people need to come together at this time."

Rostow does not identify the individual or individuals with whom he has been talking.

Moyers briefly interrupted this line of discussion by stating his concern that recent events were undermining the credibility of U.S. institutions. He then returned to Rostow's suggestion, saying: "All right. Now, your suggestion is that he [President Johnson] appoint a Special Commission of distinguished Americans, primarily in the field of law, I presume to look into the whole question of the assassination."

Rostow says "That's right and a report on it" and then the conversation ended with Moyers assuring Rostow that he will discuss this with President Johnson." Rostow acted very quickly on what was a momentous decision and he did so even though he had no obligation or responsibility to do anything.

In Volume III of the Hearings of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, there is a copy of a memo written by LBJ aide Walter Jenkins to the President which reports on a phone conversation that Jenkins apparently had with J. Edgar Hoover." According to the memo, Hoover said over the phone that: "The thing I am concerned about, and so is Mr. Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin. Mr. Katzenbach thinks that the President might appoint a Presidential Corrunission of three outstanding citizens to make a determination."

Hoover goes on to state misgivings about the idea of a commission. It is, of course, of interest that Hoover and, apparently, Katzenbach already have Oswald as the assassin. Did Rostow discuss this with the "groggy" and insufficiently active Katzenbach? The timing of this memo is of immediate interest.

The time on the memo is 4:00 P.M., November 24. Hoover has already spoken with Katzenbach and received from him information concerning the idea of a commission. Apparently, Hoover spoke with Katzenbach prior to 4:00 P.M. We now have a considerably shorter time frame.

Oswald died at 2:07 Eastern Standard Time. Before 4:00 Katzenbach had spoken with Hoover about a commission. Katzenbach was acting as a result of his conversation(s) with Rostow. We are now down to something well under one hour and fifty-three minutes for Rostow to hear of Oswald's death, consider all the factors, discuss it with at least one other person, and begin to act. The entire time span for Rostow's actions is almost certainly less than ninety minutes, allowing only twenty or so additional minutes for him to talk to Katzenbach and for Katzenbach to talk to Hoover. We don't know who was with Rostow at the time of Oswald's death. Did Rostow act as an individual or was he representing a collective decision when he moved so rapidly to have a Presidential commission established? This probably cannot be answered in a definite way without a candid statement from Rostow and, perhaps, others. There are, however, indications in the events of November 25 to 29 that Rostow and then Katzenbach were acting on behalf of a group of people.

As we have seen, the idea of a commission was suggested to at least two people close to LBJ, Bill Moyers and Walter Jenkins, on the afternoon of the 24th. The suggestion was relayed to LBJ by someone before 10:30 A.M. the next day, November 25. This is clear from the transcript of Johnson's phone conversation with J. Edgar Hoover at 10:30.

Again John, (see post #7)

Do you think Walter Pincus and George Lardner Jr. of the Washington Post cleared up in 1993 the question of who the fourth person Rostow talked to on November 24 was?

http://books.google.com/books?id=7n_sF3PSv...rch_s&cad=0

The Kennedy assassination cover-up page 85

By Donald Gibson

...Eugene Rostow was either the originator of the idea or he was the first active promoter, or both.

We don't know the identity of the individual or individuals with whom he was discussing this on the

afternoon of November 24...

...Some potentially important gaps remain. Perhaps most important is the identification of the person

or persons with whom Rostow was conversing on the 24th...

Warren Commission Born Out of Fear; Washington Wanted to Stop Speculation Series: THE ASSASSINATION FILES Series Number: 1/3;

Walter Pincus, George Lardner Jr.. The Washington Post . Washington, D.C.: Nov 14, 1993.

..."We were just scared to death that this was something bigger than just the act of a madman," recalled George Ball, the undersecretary then running the State Department in Dean Rusk's absence.

Neither Katzenbach, nor Ball, nor other top foreign policy and defense officials charged with maintaining domestic security and international stability believed the Soviet Union was behind the assassination of the president. The Soviets, they thought, simply had too much to lose from the repercussions of such an act, and were as mindful of the delicate balance of superpower relations as the Americans....

..Sunday, Nov. 24...

....The acting attorney general began calling friends and colleagues he hoped would share his belief that a blue-ribbon commission was needed. One call interrupted Katzenbach's friend, Yale Law School Dean Eugene Rostow, in the midst of a party at his house. Rostow called Ball to talk it over, and then called the White House to talk with Johnson aide Bill D. Moyers....

The entire of the 1993 WaPo article by Walter Pincus is now available on page 191, here, complete with the quotes from that article, directly above this sentence.:

http://www.archive.org/stream/effectivenessofp00unit/effectivenessofp00unit_djvu.txt

U.S. GOVEliNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

75-321 CC WASHINGTON : 1994

ISBN 0-16-043551-X

THE EFreCTTVENESS OF PUBUC UW

102-526, THE PRESIDENT JOHN F.

KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS

COLLECTION ACT OF 1992...

Edited November 21, 2010 by Tom Scully

[John Navin]

"...he found that Crichton "commanded the 488th MID (Strategic), reporting directly to the Army Chief of Intelligence and the Defense Intelligence Agency." 56. And in 1970 Haapanen was told by Crichton’s commander in the Texas Army Reserve, Lt. Col. Whitmeyer, that Crichton's unit did its summer training at the Pentagon..."

This is the most intriguing material, not LBJ/Hoover/et all. Crichton links the Dallas Police with the 488th which is linked to the D.C. intelligence community. What an operation. I'd guess that that's the right hand at work and the left hand is the same intelligence people linked (probably via drugs and money laundering a la BCCI precursors such as the Hand Bank) to Jack Ruby's friends in the organized crime sphere. The right hand doesn't necessarily know what the left hand is up to, but someone way up in the intelligence realm is coordinating.

Case closed.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Sorry. Posted in error.

Edited November 21, 2010 by J. Raymond Carroll

[J. Raymond Carroll]

I say he was returning from a nocturnal visit to J. E. Hover so they could have a private conversation for which there is no record.

BK

And I have long suspected the same thing. Of course I don't necessarily trust Max Holland either, but he did perform a great service in publishing the telephone transcripts. I don't have the transcripts handy, but there is an indication in one of the earliest Hoover-LBJ phone calls that the two had already spoken, though not on the telephone.

Jim's comment is interesting:

In the phone call Rostow refers to someone in the room with him.

When that person is identified, do not be surprised if it turns out that he/she was secretly acting on behalf of LBJ.

Johnson's fingerprints are all over this. If we were to believe LBJ, he never wanted to be be vice-president, he never wanted to bomb Vietnam, and he never wanted to create a presidential commission. Yet he did all these things.

If we believe LBJ, it is astonishing how easy it was to push him around and make him do things he never wanted to do.

I heard Johnson biographer Robert Dalleck on TV a few years ago, telling an LBJ joke:

How do you know when LBJ is lying?

Answer: When his lips are moving.

[Guest Tom Scully]

Tom:

Thanks for all that factual data.

The tapes do speak for themselves and it is clear that LBJ was very resistant to having Washington take over the inquiry. And according to Summers' book on Hoover, he was always disappointed that LBJ switched gears on this. The point Bill brings up about getting involved in a local matter was actually a point Johnson brought up in his long and convoluted discussion with Alsop in defense of his wanting to keep the investigation in Texas.

I think what happened is that under pressure from the Post, Rostow, and the coercion by Alsop, Johnson understood that the ground was shifting very strongly against keeping anything local. Simply because the murder of Oswald live on TV was so outrageous. Johnson understood that in the face of the powerful Establishment winds, his friendship with Hoover would have to be placed in the back seat.

And no I don't think it was Ball. In the phone call Rostow refers to someone in the room with him.

Jim, my problems with interpreting Rostow's reference to a "party here" are that you seem to be alone in the

school believing it was a reference to someone located physically in New Haven in Rostow's presence, which is fine if it was my only doubt. Other problems with it for me are, who would be of such an influential stature who was already there at Rostow's house or was close enough to be summoned there, almost immediately?

The most persuasive thing for me is that no one knew, not Gibson, not Simkin, that a conversation between Rostow and George Ball has taken place as a lead up to Rostow's call to Moyer. It also happens to make perfect sense for the idea to come together with input from the acting Secretary of State, if concern over foreign relations implications of the sudden loss of the possibility of pulling more out of Oswald was sinking in during the ninety minutes after Oswald's murder. Pincus describes their reaction as "scared". They had had a dress rehearsal of nuclear brinkmanship just thirteen months before.

Rostow could have been acting on instructions by Ball not to quote him, if for no other reason, because Ball was only in a temporary position of head at the State Dept., and recognized that his input was about a decision historic in its weight, and it would only complicate things if he were seen to be overshadowing Rusk, who already felt like the redheaded stepchild in JFK's administration.

The call to Ball stayed behind the curtain for the first 30 years. Finally, the detail that Rostow was speaking to Ball before he called Moyer was not including in this lengthy Newsweek piece released at about the same time as Pincus's WaPo article. The Newsweek article was authored by Evan Thomas, but researched by Pincus.

http://www.newsweek.com/1993/11/21/the-real-cover-up.print.html I am impressed that Pincus kept the contact between George Ball and Rostow during that fate filled ninety minutes, as his own scoop. If my hunch is correct, Pincus thought it covered new ground and did not share it with Evan Thomas.

[William Kelly]

They were close enough that LBJ let his daughters go over and visit Hoover, and I think that when LBJ got back to his home (The Elms) the evening of the assassination, he went over to visit JEH.

I say this because the incident Gerry Blaine describes in his book indicates that LBJ was walking around the premesis unattended by Secret Service agents, because at one point, Blaine, armed with a cocked submachine gun, almost shoots LBJ when he approached Blaine from a direction that Blaine wasn't expecting him. Where was he and what was he doing wandering around in the dark like that? I say he was returning from a nocturnal visit to J. E. Hover so they could have a private conversation for which there is no record.

Bill, c'mon this is nothing but pure speculation on your part.

The truth is that:

1. Hoover had little idea of what was happening at the time. And, according to Summers' book, he did not figure it out until months later.

2. He had no idea about Mexico CIty--not one iota at all.

3. He did not need to be part of the plot since everyone knew how much he hated the Kennedys, especially RFK. Therefore it would be predictable he would go along with the cover up.

I have never seen any credible evidence that Hoover or the FBI was in on the plot before the fact. This stems I think from that disinfo tract the Torbitt Document which says that the plot was carried out through Division FIve of the FBI.

Which it was not. But if so, show me the evidence it was.

BTW, at times Peter's work reminds me of the Torbitt Document. In that it piles up, in a cursory manner, agency after agency, name after name, and then you spend ten minutes trying to figure out what the heck he means.

Jim,

I didn't say he was part of the plot. I was speculating that he was meeting privately with Hoover to exchange information and try to figure out what they were going to do. At the time of the assassination, according to Hoover's daybooks, [http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/docset/getList.do?docSetId=1903 ] he was meeting with two catholic priests, a Monsg. Frederick Stevenson, who I think is still alive, and a Father Leonard, probably defrocked Leonard Feeley, the radical Jesuit fundamentalist. Hoover was also working the phones with former Pres. Eisenhower, who informed him that CBS was planning on doing a show attacking him, and Hoover got Fred Friendly on the phone to set him straight about that. None of these things indicate Hoover had any idea the assassination was going to happen. The last time he even met with JFK was Oct. 31, three weeks earlier. So I agree with what you are saying, but also believe that LBJ and Hoover had a thing going between them. After the assassination, LBJ asked Hoover to assign an FBI man to be with him whenever he flew on AF1 because he didn't trust the SS.

As for PDS, I think that his work is strategically important, and gives necessary philosophical basis for conspiracy investigations, but his Dallas COPA talk is significant in calling attention to the fact that the assassination was planned as a deception operation, and that a key to figuring out what happened is the interactions between the DPD Intelligence Unit and the 488th Army Reserves, led by Jack Crichton and including Whitmeyer, Lumpkin, Stringfellow, Coyle, Jones, Reich, et al.

And those in the lead car driven by Lumpkin, included Jack Puterbaugh and two Dallas homicide detectives - Billy L. Senkel and F. M Turner. Who are those guys and what are they doing in the lead car? And what was it Lumpkin had to say to one of the three cops stationed 60 feet under the Sniper's Nest Window when he stopped to talk in the course of leading the motorcade?

BK

Edited November 21, 2010 by William Kelly

[J. Raymond Carroll]

I have never seen any credible evidence that Hoover or the FBI was in on the plot before the fact.

I too know of no good reason to suspect Hoover, but I am not sure that was what Bill meant. One of the chief concerns of the assassination planners was how to fool J. Edgar Hoover. If they could fool J. Edgar, they could expect to fool most Americans.

There is plenty of reason to suspect LBJ, however, and I submit that LBJ himself was keeping close tabs on how Hoover was reacting (I think you can sense that in the telephone transcripts). So a meeting between the two men that evening, as Bill suggests happened, does not necessarily imply at all that Hoover was involved in the plot.

The perfect way to fool J. Edgar was to make it seem as though the assassination was the work of a "Commie," or communism in general, and LBJ was checking up to make make sure that J. Edgar was swallowing the bait.

[Guest Tom Scully]

According to the info in this book, LBJ and Hoover lived on the same side of the same street, with two houses

in between their homes. Google driving directions says their addresses were 171 feet apart.

http://books.google.com/books?id=y2DspYRi7G4C&pg=PA258&lpg=PA258&dq=j+edgar+hoover+4936+30th+Place,+NW,+Washington.&source=bl&ots=lqZcLf8BsL&sig=hjZU4bZRJsFg3ir4zN-MWEbeXwQ&hl=en&ei=lZfpTMeGOoH6lwf6-KidDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=j%20edgar%20hoover%204936%2030th%20Place%2C%20NW%2C%20Washington.&f=false

Driving directions to 4921 30th Pl NW, Washington D.C., DC 20008

5 secs

30th Pl NW

171 ft

4936 30th Pl NW

Washington, DC 20008

1. Head south on 30th Pl NW

171 ft

4921 30th Pl NW

Washington D.C., DC 20008

Jim,

Much of PD Scott's earlier work provides unparalleled background on Ruby. I do not see how you can state so certainly that Division 5 had no involvement in Ruby's background, or in the issuances of high level defense industry security clearances to General Dynamics corporate officers Henry Crown and Patrick Hoy. Neither should have been able to pass the required background checks.

No one else has done work like Scott, and I cannot emphasize enough that the plots behind the murder of JFK and the murder of LHO were compartmentalized. Organized crime could have had a role in one, but not in the other.

http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/17th_Issue/rambler4.html

Crime and Cover-Up (p. 44): Here Scott discusses links between Ruby, Roselli, and Ramsey Clark. "One of Ruby's...`close personal friends' and character witnesses for his liquor license was Hal Collins (22 H 928), brother-in-law of prominent local attorney Robert L. Clark, the brother and uncle respectively of U.S. Attorneys General Tom and Ramsey Clark (CD 4.371)

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=DM&p_theme=dm&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0ED3CEC6E664EF1F&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM

1.) '42 GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE COLLINS DIES

Author: The Dallas Morning News (DAL) + _____

Publish Date: November 11, 1986

Word Count: 162

Document ID: 0ED3CEC6E664EF1F

Hal H. Collins, the former Mineral Wells resort owner who challenged Coke Stevenson for the Texas governor's mansion in 1942, died Friday afternoon at his home in Dallas. He was 93.

Collins was born in Kountze, Hardin County, the son of state Sen. V.A. Collins. He sold Ford cars across the state and was mayor of Taylor in Williamson County before buying the Crazy Water Company in Mineral Wells in 1929.

The company operated a popular resort hotel and bottled and sold...

... Collins is survived by two sons Hal H Collins Jr of Houston and Larry D Collins of Dallas daughters Mary Ann Collins Clark of La Jolla Calif Ruth Collins ....

...and all of that is the lead in for all of this.:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=16473&view=findpost&p=212388

We do not have to prove anything, and we are under no obligation to come up with alternative scenarios.

All we have to do is paint a picture of the conflicts of interests and the unethical ways the investigations

and determinations were arrived at, and we can muddy the history to the point where the government's version

loses the support of all but the most indoctrinated or who still has a business plan that requires supporting it no matter what....the corporate media.

[Don Jeffries]

I agree with Ray here; part of LBJ's perpetual politicking style was to cover all his bases, all the time. If you've listened to many of his previously released audio tapes from the Oval Office, you will notice how transparently phony LBJ is, especially in his conversations with RFK or Jackie or those closest to them. I can't imagine anyone actually falling for him wildly exaggerated, insincere "charm." In all the conversations, one thing is blatantly obvious; at all times, LBJ was cognizant of being recorded, and conducted himself accordingly.

At any rate, I can certainly imagine him waiting to see which way the winds were blowing, in the immediate aftermath of the murder of Oswald. I do not believe he was the mastermind, or even one of the primary movers and shakers, behind the assassination of JFK. However, I also find it extremely unlikely that he wasn't briefed about what was going to happen beforehand. I think the record shows that LBJ had few admirable qualities, so it is difficult to imagine him summoning up any moral fiber and uttering a peep of protest in any case.

With all due respect, I also must disagree with Jim on the question of Hoover. As the architect of the coverup, I picture JEH as one of the most significant figures in the conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Of course, we can't prove that, much as we can't prove that any individual was involved with absolute certainty, but I think it's reasonable speculation that Hoover would have been in on things from the very beginning. With the way he felt about the Kennedys, like LBJ, there was certainly no chance that he would offer any discouraging words.

[William Kelly]

Tom:

I have studied Peter's work at length and in depth.

I have even read his early work that was unpublished, The Dallas Conspiracy.

Many, many people are impressed by Peter's work when they first get into the case. As I was at the time.

He is very erudite, very well read, and he incorporates a lot of material from many sources into his work.

My problem after reading much of his work was this: what does it all come to? What does he mean? What does he really think?

This hit home to me when I was speaking with him on one occasion in Chicago back in I think 1993. At that time I had come up with some newly declassified documents dealign with Walter Sheridan, Irvin Dymond, and Aaron Kohn. It was one of the very first looks behind the scenes into the massive effort to derail Garrison. This included the Leemans affidavit contained in the Biles book. I read the document aloud and it very much impressed everyone there as powerful and new evidence. As one of his last comments, Peter tried to explain it by saying something like: You had a choice of either nailing Hoffa or letting Garrison proceed. I didn't understand this then. And I don't understand it now. WHat Sheridan did in New Orleans had little or anything to do with Hoffa, since as it later came out, Sheridan did not think the Mob killed Kennedy either. He was just out to crush Garrison, and he was clearly in cahoots with the CIA to do it.

Then, when I published my review of Ultimate Sacrifice, I made a couple of comments about Peter in it. He got really outraged about it. He even said that somehow I was being unfair to Waldron. And that somehow I should have sent him the review personally. I told him that a.) I did not think it was possible to be unfair to that bad of a book, which, in some respects appeared to be deliberately deceptive e g. the use of Edwin Black's excellent material on Chicago. Second, that I know Waldron read it since someone posted it during his online interview on this forum.

In fact, as one can see here, all Peter says about Ultimate Sacrifice is that it is "overstated". Which is really a questionable call on such a bad book.

So, after many other things like this--including the unpublished manuscript he and Hoch and Thompson did on the HSCA-- I have revised my views on Peter from my early days.

I first heard of Peter Dale Scott with his editing of the anthology The Assassinations with Paul Hoch (and another guy whose name I keep forgetting). Following his published work, and the whole Deep Politics hypothesis, I found that he provides a sound and significant strategic and philosophical foundation for conspiracy research and investigations into historic events.

Among conspiracy researchers (and Lone Nutters) there are lawyers, scientists and historians, and I found Peter is among those academics who apply a high level of research and understanding to focus on what is most important.

While we don't always agree on everything, for the most part I think he's right. One of the things we disagree about is the signifiance of Waldron's work, and his acceptance of most of it but saying others aspects are "overstated."

Well there never was a C-Day, or a C-Day coup or an invasion of Cuba, though there apparently are many contingency plans for those things. That Waldron & Co. would contrive all of that nonsense in order to build up a case against the Kennedys, and maintain it even after they are informed that the leader of their coup was in Africa at the time, a point is reached where you must back off the hypothesis and take all of the new information into consideration.

Of course the contingency plans for a coup in Cuba that Waldron & Co. call attention to, I believe were originally located and their signifiance recognized by another researcher, and among those Joint Chiefs of Staff records are the Valkyrie Plan, that also attempted to utilize the disenchanted officers in the Cuban military to stage a coup (which also didn't happen), but it was this plan that I believe was redirected from Castro to JFK and utilized at Dealey Plaza. \

But it has nothing to do with Carlos Marcello or the mafia plots that were hatched years earlier and went nowhere. We know the Mafia didn't kill JFK for many reasons, including the fact that G. Robert Blakey, one of the biggest advocates of this theory, hired the best Mob Specialist he knew - Ralph Salerno, and his conclusion was the Mob didn't kill JFK because they had the mob leaders wiretapped and knew what their response to the assassination was.

As for Garrison, he was neither a hero nor a goat, but a lawyer who was brave enough to establish a grand jury to evaluate the evidence and testimony in the assassination, but he also screwed up big time by indicting totally innocent people like Edgar Eugene Bradley (Shaw wasn't totally innocent), and I don't understand why you have to either look on Garrison as a fraud or a saint, as he was neither.

Getting back to Peter Dale Scott, besides his questionable endorsement of Waldron's work, I also am dissapointed in the fiasco with inviting John Simkin into Paul Hoch's little network that includes Dale Myers, and then chastise Simkin for posting excerpts of Myers on the forum, an incident that has so far kept Simkin out of the JFK assassination research at a time he is really needed.

While I too have revised my views and feelings about Peter, as I have with Myers and Waldron, Peter is still producing exceptional work on the assassination and giving important insight into other Deep Political incidents that deserve equal attention.

For now however, I think it most important to take what he has given us in his COPA talk, and for us to focus on the JFK excerpt that I previously posted, and try to answer some of the questions he raises, especially about the role of the US Army Reserves (488th) and military intelligence units (112th) who had a strong presence at Dealey Plaza.

Some of the questions I think can be answered, like did Oswald write that letter he refers to and did he use Mrs. Paine's typewriter to do it?

Why did the lead car, driven by George Lumpkin, stop at the corner of Houston and Elm and what was the nature of the conversation between those in the car and one of the three traffic officers standing under the Sniper's window?

And how come none of those in the car or none of the three DPD officers mention this incident in any of their reports?

In addition to what Peter has to say about the Army Reserve officers in Dallas who were also in the Dallas PD, I'd like to add that among Vince Palmara's work on the Tampa motorcade is a report that says that the US Army Reserve unit there was responsible for the security of the overpasses and high rise building windows along that motorcade route. If that was the case in Tampa, was it the policy to use those Army Reserve units in other cities? And why were they ordered to stand down in Dallas, yet participate in the motorcade and take pictures (ala Powell)?

And now in re-reading the section of the Kennedy Detail about LBJ almost getting shot by Blaine back at the Elms, I found this short passage - "Paul Rundle, the agent who'd come from the Denver office prior to Blaine and Hill, was put in charge of securing Johnson's residence. There would be three perimeters of security. The first, outer layer would be manned by the D.C. metropolitan police, the next perimeter would be manned by the National Guard, and the third and final layer of protection would be the Secret Service agents from the presidential and vice presidential details, supplemented by agents from nearby field offices."

There they are again - the Army - National Guard - (Reserves) providing the second perimeter of security at LBJ's residence.

So maybe PDS is on to something with his focus on these units, and perhaps we should look at them a little closer too.

Bill Kelly

Edited November 22, 2010 by William Kelly

[William Kelly]

Tom: According to the info in this book, LBJ and Hoover lived on the same side of the same street, with two houses

in between their homes. Google driving directions says their addresses were 171 feet apart.

Quote

http://books.google....ington.&f=false

Driving directions to 4921 30th Pl NW, Washington D.C., DC 20008

5 secs

30th Pl NW

171 ft

4936 30th Pl NW

Washington, DC 20008

1. Head south on 30th Pl NW

171 ft

4921 30th Pl NW

Washington D.C., DC 20008

Thanks for that Tom. So my speculative theory that LBJ took a nocturnal stroll 171 feet over to J.E. Hoover's pad on the night of the assassination just might hold water.