1963 Timeline? With key dates, made concise and postable to anchor reading links

[Patrick Block]

I've been reading with interest the threads discussing coming together for some sort of presentation on the year of the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination, and also on the matter of a timeline to be published this year.

In my opinion, the most valuable sort of presentation for public consumption would be some manner of graphically rich combination of multiple timelines and prezies which included clips and photos. A sort of dedicated and updatable website, or maybe a section of an existing site, dedicated to presenting in a straightforward fashion a relatively uncluttered and simple depiction in a modern form what occurred.

If the timelines were carefully thought out and constructed in a fashion to cut the fat down to basics and provable events that matter, that would be much preferable than to the generally scattered attempts that generally are worked up.

Researchers tend to aim at researchers in their presentations. That is not what is called for here. Less is better-clarity, the aim.

This project needs to have a modern appearance- it ought to be colorful and easy to read. It should form a narrative that can be followed without the viewer having too much previous background in the case. The presentation's various parts, the timelines, clips and prezies need to work together in a logical fashion to form a "big picture", but also need to each stand alone as a discernible separate and logical entity on their topic. For instance, an entertaining prezie showcasing JFK's accomplishments and attempts away from colonization towards a more peaceful globe working together would make a useful section, complemented by one showing the military/industrial complex's opposite aims.

I think that the "center" of the product ought to focused on the most provable link to the planners who set the operation into motion and the second group who then covered up the diabolical scheme out of a sense of patriotism.

This is the crux of understanding the assassination, and the place where timelines would best work.

Timeline "A" would follow Oswald through his handling in intelligence operations and the way he was used by the active conspirators to create the "Soviet Assassin with Cuban ties" myth. This sequence of events climaxes with the CIA dropping the Oswald package into the arms of Hoover and the other intelligence agencies around the country just prior to the assassination.

Timeline "B" begins the day of the assassination. Hoover is aghast to find the "Soviet backed Assassin" sitting right in the recent files in his beloved bureau. As much as the CIA is his rival and enemy, he is stuck. If he investigates, he has to deal with the Soviet fake connection, and decides to stick with Oswald at all costs. This begins to take hold the day of the assassination, with a few actual conspirators getting the aid of well meaning others worried about a nuclear war, Doctors are compromised and witnesses threatened on this basis and crucial evidence is altered to pin it on lonely Oswald to save the USA from annihilation. The real conspirators are lost in the mix of who is acting out of malice, and who is simply trying to save the globe. Timeline "A" and "B" come together briefly and having the two timelines running side by side would illustrate what actually occurred beautifully.

Hoover passes the Oswald hot-potato to Johnson in the now singularly running Timeline "B", and Johnson deputizes Warren, Russell, who pass the phony but brilliant investigation crushing patsy down to every level of the "investigation". This allows widespread fraud in the work the commission does.

Most people realize Oswald did not act alone, and are suspicious of the government's version of events, but are confused about how widespread the conspiracy must have been.

Focusing on the fact that there was an active conspiracy and a passive one composed of people who thought they were doing the best thing for the country, needs to be the highlight of explaining what happened.

[Paul Trejo]

I've been reading with interest the threads discussing coming together for some sort of presentation on the year of the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination, and also on the matter of a timeline to be published this year.

In my opinion, the most valuable sort of presentation for public consumption would be some manner of graphically rich combination of multiple timelines and prezies which included clips and photos. A sort of dedicated and updatable website, or maybe a section of an existing site, dedicated to presenting in a straightforward fashion a relatively uncluttered and simple depiction in a modern form what occurred.

If the timelines were carefully thought out and constructed in a fashion to cut the fat down to basics and provable events that matter, that would be much preferable than to the generally scattered attempts that generally are worked up.

Researchers tend to aim at researchers in their presentations. That is not what is called for here. Less is better-clarity, the aim.

This project needs to have a modern appearance- it ought to be colorful and easy to read. It should form a narrative that can be followed without the viewer having too much previous background in the case. The presentation's various parts, the timelines, clips and prezies need to work together in a logical fashion to form a "big picture", but also need to each stand alone as a discernible separate and logical entity on their topic. For instance, an entertaining prezie showcasing JFK's accomplishments and attempts away from colonization towards a more peaceful globe working together would make a useful section, complemented by one showing the military/industrial complex's opposite aims.

I think that the "center" of the product ought to focused on the most provable link to the planners who set the operation into motion and the second group who then covered up the diabolical scheme out of a sense of patriotism.

This is the crux of understanding the assassination, and the place where timelines would best work.

Timeline "A" would follow Oswald through his handling in intelligence operations and the way he was used by the active conspirators to create the "Soviet Assassin with Cuban ties" myth. This sequence of events climaxes with the CIA dropping the Oswald package into the arms of Hoover and the other intelligence agencies around the country just prior to the assassination.

Timeline "B" begins the day of the assassination. Hoover is aghast to find the "Soviet backed Assassin" sitting right in the recent files in his beloved bureau. As much as the CIA is his rival and enemy, he is stuck. If he investigates, he has to deal with the Soviet fake connection, and decides to stick with Oswald at all costs. This begins to take hold the day of the assassination, with a few actual conspirators getting the aid of well meaning others worried about a nuclear war, Doctors are compromised and witnesses threatened on this basis and crucial evidence is altered to pin it on lonely Oswald to save the USA from annihilation. The real conspirators are lost in the mix of who is acting out of malice, and who is simply trying to save the globe. Timeline "A" and "B" come together briefly and having the two timelines running side by side would illustrate what actually occurred beautifully.

Hoover passes the Oswald hot-potato to Johnson in the now singularly running Timeline "B", and Johnson deputizes Warren, Russell, who pass the phony but brilliant investigation crushing patsy down to every level of the "investigation". This allows widespread fraud in the work the commission does.

Most people realize Oswald did not act alone, and are suspicious of the government's version of events, but are confused about how widespread the conspiracy must have been.

Focusing on the fact that there was an active conspiracy and a passive one composed of people who thought they were doing the best thing for the country, needs to be the highlight of explaining what happened.

Patrick, IMHO you have a worthy goal, although you might underestimate the many barriers. Researchers agree on very little, as you may find in your exploration of the Forum.

That said, your dream of a multimedia timeline is interesting. For example, Bill Kelly posted an example of a timeline in the recent article by Bill Simpich:

Printing: THE JFK CASE: THE TWELVE WHO BUILT THE OSWALD LEGEND (Part 7: The hand-off from De Mohrenschildt to the Paines)

In this article by Bill Simpich, just about every other sentence is a hyperlink that takes the reader to an FBI document to be used as a proof-text. This is a great idea, and is just what we need.

The difficulty with any time-line is that many people will clash over a "fact". For example, the CIA offers a timeline of Lee Harvey Oswald that stipulates that on 22 November 1963 at 12:30PM Oswald shot JFK from the 6th floor TSBD building.

That is hotly debated -- and that is only the tip of the iceberg.

If you say -- let's only add to the timeline those items that 90% of people agree upon, your next big challenge will be the maintenance of voting records.

I suspect that we are years away from a "Wikipedia" style of time-line for the JFK case -- although I hope I'm wrong about this.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

[Paul Trejo]

February 13, 1963: The Oswalds attend a dinner party at the home of the De Mohrenschildts. (Perhaps Volkmar Schmidt was there. Volkmar attempts to transfer Oswald's harsh feelings over the Bay of Pigs toward anger over ex-General Edwin Walker.)

February 22, 1963: The Oswalds attend a dinner party at the home of Everett Glover, where they meet Ruth Paine. (Perhaps Volkmar Schmidt was there.)

There were a series of house parities among De Mohrenschildts and their friends around that time. DeMohrenschildt held a half dozen parties at which he showed the film of his walking trip through central America, one of which included Dallas CIA Domestic Contacts officer J. Walton Moore.

When it was decided that Oswald should meet Michael Paine, a party was arranged - possibly the Feb. 13th party, but Michael Paine didn't make it, and Volkmar Schmidt told me that although he was invited he was in Libya at the time, so a second party was arranged for Oswald to meet Paine, this time at Schmidt's house he shared with two other Magnolia Oil Company men - Everett Glover and Norman Fredricksen (whose father, I believe, worked at Radio Free Europe).

The address was 4449 Potomac, in the University Park section of Dallas.

Also present were Richard "Dick" L. Pierce, of the Socony-Mobil Research Field Station and his wife, and George and Jeanne DeMohrenschildt, who dropped by but didn't stay long, as well as Ruth and Michael Paine, though its possible Paine may have missed this affair.

Glover didn't like to call it a "party," but instead referred to it as a "gathering."

I talked with two people who were at that party - Betty MacDonald, another Magnolia employee, and Volkmar Schmidt. I recorded and transcribed their conversations with me, and will try to locate the tapes, but I lost, in an old computer, the transcript of the McDonald interview unless it is posted here somewhere.

She was very open and forthcoming, was quick to point out that she was not the Betty McDonald who was a dancer at the Carousel Club, and knew Schmidt and his housemates from Magnolia. She gave me Schmidt's phone number in Canada at the time, and I reached him there, and he too was pretty open about what occurred there.

Besides Schmidt's deep conversation with Oswald about Hitler and Walker and assassination, the other big thing that happened was that Marina met Ruth Paine, and they became fast friends, and it was that association that led to them eventually living together twice, first when Oswald went to New Orleans and again when they left New Orleans to return to Texas.

For those who believe that DeMohrenschildt's "babysitting" duties were transferred to the Paines, this party is the key date at which the crossover begins.

Here's what the Warren Report says about it: “Marina visited the De Mohrenschildts several times after Christmas. They invited both Lee and Marina to a small dinner party in February 1963; also present were Everett Glover, a chemist employed in Dallas, and is roommate Volkmar Schmidt. On February 22, Glover had a gathering at his house, one of the purposes of which was to permit his friends, may of whom were studying Russian, to meet the Oswalds. They were the objects of much attention. Marina conversed at length with another guest named Ruth Paine, who had recently separated from her husband, Michael Paine, a research engineer at the Bell Helicopter plant in Fort Worth. Mrs. Paine, who was studying Russian, obtained Marina’s address and shortly thereafter wrote Marina asking to see her. Marina responded by inviting Mrs. Paine to visit her.” Warren Report p. 537 Appendix XIII

Peter Whitmey notes: "After writing to Betty McDonald in 1988, she kindly sent me a 90-minute tape of her recollections, which clearly indicated she was not impressed with Oswald in the slightest. Later I sent a copy to the head of research for the FRONTLINE documentary, Miri Navasky, who had learned about it from Edward Epstein, to whom I had mentioned the tape in a letter. Epstein, who had referred to Betty in his book Legend: The Secret Life of Lee Harvey Oswald, was a close friend of her father, Victor Navasky, a writer."

I'll try to find tape, notes and transcript of my phone conversation with MacDonald.

Also see Bill Simpich's article:

Printing: THE JFK CASE: THE TWELVE WHO BUILT THE OSWALD LEGEND (Part 7: The hand-off from De Mohrenschildt to the Paines)

'Ruth Paine met the Oswalds and George de Mohrenschildt at the party of Everett Glover on February 22, 1963. This is known as the "Magnolia party". Glover was a chemist with Magnolia Labs, a geology lab for Socony Mobil Oil -- the same "Socony labs" that Moore referred to when he argued that there was no White Russian community in Dallas. Glover and four other Magnolia employees approached Oswald and got him to talk for several hours about life in the Soviet Union. One of these employees, Norman Fredericksen, was the son of the former director of Radio Free Europe. As discussed in the previous chapter, de Mohrenschildt had many close ties with Radio Free Europe.'

BK

Bill, many thanks for posting the link to Bill Simpich's article:

Printing: THE JFK CASE: THE TWELVE WHO BUILT THE OSWALD LEGEND (Part 7: The hand-off from De Mohrenschildt to the Paines)

I find I agree with everything Simpich wrote -- a rarity in my world. I will explore him further, with emphasis on the General Walker case.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

[Glenn Nall]

Hi, this might already exist but we should surely have a key dates in 1963 link for viewers to see and post around as the 50th anniversary approaches. This could contextualize and snag new readers.

For example I know that the 50th anniversary of the Magnolia Oil Party is coming up in Feb. We should have a thread of key dates with brief descriptions of their significance in the broader historical narrative.

The Magnolia Oil/War Hawk party occurred on 11/22/63.

Actually there were two parties set up for Oswald to meet the Paines as the first party the host Volkmar Schmidt and Michael Paine couldn't make it, but Marina met Ruth and Oswald met Michael and Schmidt at second party, also in Feb.

More to come on this issue.

BK

what was the second? what's this about a Magnolia Oil (War Hawk?) party on 11/22/63...?