Col. Robert Jones

[Thomas Graves]

4 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

"The cable we have on hand is a message dated November 26, 1963 from the Commanding General, U.S. Continental Army Command re-transmitting a message dated November 23, 1963 from someone at Fort Sam Houston, in San Antonio to CINC U.S. Strike Command at McDill Air Force Base in Florida. The November 23rd message summarizes a telephone conversation between a Captain Saxton in Strike Command and a Lieutenant Colonel Fons, Deputy Chief of Staff, Intelligence at 4th Army Headquarters at Fort Sam Houston that took place on November 23, 1963"

.....Steve, one thing we do see in the message traffic from that day is a pattern of constant cross sharing and copying of information between the FBI, DPD, Fourth Army and other groups as well. I don't recall seeing the exact message you describe since it seems to summarize a telephone call. What I can imagine however, based on the wording of the info on Oswald being so similar to what we see in FBI messages and most especially from Hoover himself, is that the original source was FBI, and that Fourth Army HQ was copied on a message that prompted the telephone call. A Lt. Col calling a Captain sounds more like a staff officer calling STRIKE command and getting a duty officer on the line.  Why he would make the call is a good question, its also possible a call or message was sent to the Continental Army Command from Fourth Army and we don't see that.  Given the chaos of the day Fons might just have been distributing the info to other continental commands to be through.  As far as the transmission three days later - heck, the Pentagon comm center might have gotten behind in its traffic (little doubt about that).

What seems clear is that Jones was confirming that the message came from higher staff levels at Fourth Army and it wasn't his fault...you might want to look at the larger set of messages going to Fourth Army that day.  I put a number of them on my DC years ago but more might be available now and the ARRB might have collected more as well.

I doubt that we will ever be able to fully connect the dots in the message traffic though.

Guys,

Does anything mentioned on this thread so far have any possible relevance as to which military intel group in Texas (Army, Navy, Air Force) might have mistakenly provided DPD officer Herbert Sawyer, about 10 minutes after the assassination, with the original-1960 Robert Fain (FBI) and Bill Bright (CIA SR/6) - based Popov Mole-hunting "information," i.e., that the suspected assassin / putative Oswald seen running away from the TSBD by an unidentified "mysto man" was a Robert E. Webster-like 5'10, 165 lbs?  

Was the JFK assassination the ultimate "mole hunt" gone bad?  Somehow?

--  Tommy

Edited February 16, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[Gary Murr]

Steve: "Who is Arthur Nagle?"

According to Dan Wise, Arthur Nagel [note spelling] was a native Texan, born in San Antonio in 1920. Again, and according to this same source, after service in the U. S. Army during WW II, "Nagel was employed at the G2 Intelligence at Fort Sam Houston. He retired in 1972, after a 30 year career in U. S. Intelligence." I have checked via the World War II Army Enlistment Records which indicates that Nagel enlisted on January 25, 1943 at Fort Sam Houston, Army Serial # 38366443. He was assigned as a Warren Officer, Army Branch Immaterial. The Arthur Nagel Community Clinic exists in Bandera, Texas, and the Dan Wise "legacy" page with information on Nagel.can be found at the link provided below. FWIW

Link: http://www.nagelclinic.org/arthur-nagels-legacy.html

Gary

[Steve Thomas]

13 hours ago, Gary Murr said:

Steve: "Who is Arthur Nagle?"

According to Dan Wise, Arthur Nagel [note spelling] was a native Texan, born in San Antonio in 1920. Again, and according to this same source, after service in the U. S. Army during WW II, "Nagel was employed at the G2 Intelligence at Fort Sam Houston. He retired in 1972, after a 30 year career in U. S. Intelligence." I have checked via the World War II Army Enlistment Records which indicates that Nagel enlisted on January 25, 1943 at Fort Sam Houston, Army Serial # 38366443. He was assigned as a Warren Officer, Army Branch Immaterial. The Arthur Nagel Community Clinic exists in Bandera, Texas, and the Dan Wise "legacy" page with information on Nagel.can be found at the link provided below. FWIW

Link: http://www.nagelclinic.org/arthur-nagels-legacy.html

Gary

Gary,

 

Thank you for this. I appreciate it.

 

Steve Thomas

[Paul Brancato]

On 2/17/2017 at 2:46 AM, Steve Thomas said:

Gary,

 

Thank you for this. I appreciate it.

 

Steve Thomas

Steve - bumping this because while browsing the military records you posted on the Intercepted messages thread I started looking at MI units in Germany. Curiously the 511th, in Furth, was headed by a Colonel Robert E Jones from 1962-63. Is this possibly the same Jones as the subject of this thread?

Edited July 21, 2018 by Paul Brancato

[Steve Thomas]

12 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Steve - bumping this because while browsing the military records you posted on the Dinkins thread I started looking at MI units in Germany. Curiously the 511th, in Furth, was headed by a Colonel Robert E Jones from 1962-63. Is this possibly the same Jones as the subject of this thread?

Paul,

 

I think so, yes.

See pp. 6-7 of his HSCA testimony here:

https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/unpub_testimony/Jones_4-20-78/html/jones_0007a.htm

 

Steve Thomas

[Steve Thomas]

21 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Steve - bumping this because while browsing the military records you posted on the Intercepted messages thread I started looking at MI units in Germany. Curiously the 511th, in Furth, was headed by a Colonel Robert E Jones from 1962-63. Is this possibly the same Jones as the subject of this thread?

Paul,

 

Can you give me a bibliographic citation or web address for the 511th. I'd like to read up on them.

 

Steve Thomas

[Paul Brancato]

15 minutes ago, Steve Thomas said:

Paul,

 

Can you give me a bibliographic citation or web address for the 511th. I'd like to read up on them.

 

Steve Thomas

It’s in the material you posted on the intercepted messages thread, the first one before you found links to the 71st.

[Paul Brancato]

15 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

It’s in the material you posted on the intercepted messages thread, the first one before you found links to the 71st.

Steve - if you search Colonel Robert e Jones you find an official bio of someone by that name which might coincide with the bio info from his HSCA testimony. It’s not a match, but it might just be terminology. I’d post the obit I just read but don’t know how. Right below it on my search page is a history of the 511th, which was also linked in Your intercepted messages links.

Sorry I keep editing. If the obit from2007, the colonel identified as head of the 511th in 1962-63 is the same as the one in charge of the 112th in 1963, it would be strange indeed. But given his HSCA testimony I would say it was. The official bio has him going to Vietnam later as part of the Phoenix program, same as Westbrook. 

Edited July 21, 2018 by Paul Brancato

[Michael Clark]

Interesting bio.

http://memorial.tributes.com/our_obituaries/Robert-E.-Jones-84749286

[Paul Brancato]

2 minutes ago, Michael Clark said:

Interesting bio.

http://memorial.tributes.com/our_obituaries/Robert-E.-Jones-84749286

More I look at it the more I see the same Colonel. When exactly was he named Intelligence Head of the 112th? Hancock points out that he was mistakenly called Operations Head or something. Certainly Colonel Jones was not questioned closely enough. He says he attended advanced intelligence at Ft. Holabird in 1960. His bio calls it the War College. The same probably. Worked out of the Pentagon 1962-64 according to his obit official bio, during which time he apparently commanded the 511th in Germany and the 112th stateside, neither of which are mentioned in the obit. 

[Larry Hancock]

I'd suggest you look at the ARRB documents on the 112th, they will give you a great more detail on the unit and on Col. Jones...as I've said before, much of that is on the research CD I did for Lancer...don't know if anyone ever ordered that and studied it or not?  There are likely more documents available today, I know Malcolm Blunt found some, don't know if they made it onto the MFF or not.

[Steve Thomas]

10 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

It’s in the material you posted on the intercepted messages thread, the first one before you found links to the 71st.

Paul,

I wrote, "Can you give me a bibliographic citation or web address for the 511th. I'd like to read up on them."

 

Thanks, I found this little web page devoted to the 511th.

http://krookmcsmile.tripod.com/511thMICompany.html

 

Just as an aside, you might be interested in reading this Field Manual on Military Intelligence Units. It's only about 14 pages long.

 

https://www.usarmygermany.com/Sont.htm?https&&&www.usarmygermany.com/Units/Military%20Intelligence/USAREUR_MilIntel.htm

 

'The General Section of this field manual provides some insight into the organization of theater army military intelligence units. Scan of the pages of Chapter 1 can be viewed by clicking on the Field Manual cover (Left)”

Click on the picture of the Manual cover about 2/3 of the way down the page of the USAEUR web site cited just above.

 

Steve Thomas

 

[Paul Brancato]

14 minutes ago, Steve Thomas said:

Paul,

I wrote, "Can you give me a bibliographic citation or web address for the 511th. I'd like to read up on them."

 

Thanks, I found this little web page devoted to the 511th.

http://krookmcsmile.tripod.com/511thMICompany.html

 

Just as an aside, you might be interested in reading this Field Manual on Military Intelligence Units. It's only about 14 pages long.

 

https://www.usarmygermany.com/Sont.htm?https&&&www.usarmygermany.com/Units/Military%20Intelligence/USAREUR_MilIntel.htm

 

'The General Section of this field manual provides some insight into the organization of theater army military intelligence units. Scan of the pages of Chapter 1 can be viewed by clicking on the Field Manual cover (Left)”

Click on the picture of the Manual cover about 2/3 of the way down the page of the USAEUR web site cited just above.

 

Steve Thomas

 

That’s the one. So do you think it is the same Robert E. Jones? 

[Steve Thomas]

2 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

That’s the one. So do you think it is the same Robert E. Jones? 

Paul,

 

Yes, based on what he told the HSCA. The 66th MI Group was based at Nurnberg (also spelled Nuernberg)

"Nürnberg, English conventional Nuremberg, city, Bavaria Land (state), southern Germany. Bavaria’s second largest city (after Munich), Nürnberg is located on the Pegnitz River where it emerges from the uplands of Franconia (Franken), south of Erlangen."

https://www.britannica.com/place/Nurnberg

 

Steve Thomas

[Paul Brancato]

On 2/15/2017 at 10:39 AM, Paul Brancato said:

Larry - I did read your section on Ellsworth. I think that his sting was deliberately interrupted by DPD because Ellsworth was getting close to an operation that military intelligence wanted to keep under wraps. Didn't you point out the possible connections to Ruby? I resurrected this thread for Steve Thomas, looking at all the retired colonels. I'm glad you posted - I would have mentioned SWHT but was still looking for another version that had more detail that I read somewhere. It may have been from Ellsworth himself. I know he later told the HSCA that he attributed the DPD bust to lack of info sharing. But since Hosty, who along with MI Ed Coyne had met with Ellsworth the morning of the assassination, later reported that Ellsworth was at Dealey Plaza when the shots were fired, on the grassy knoll pretending to be SS, I think there was deliberate tension created for some reason. I've always thought the Ellsworth story worthy of a close look because of its intersection with Masen and his far right connections to alpha 66. Oswald's presence at a meeting in the Alpha 66 safehouse was not looked at by the WC. Peter Dale Scott suspects Oswald was acting as an informant for one or more military branches. I find this surmise believable.

Interestingly, Colonel Ed Coyne, who was meeting with ATF agent Frank Ellsworth and FBI agent Hosty on the morning of the assassination, told ARRB that ATF busted the undercover operation tracing stolen armory weaponry to gun dealer Thomas Masen. I think Ellsworth has a different story.