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Posted

Ok, I found this doc on Butler, Morris and Lowery.

To: W.C. Sullivan Date 1/20/64

From W. A. Branigan

Subject: Lee Harvey Oswald, IS –R-CUBA

By airtel 1-13-64, Dallas Office reported that on 1-4-64 William James Lowery, Jr. a former security informant of the Dallas Office, reported that he had been contacted by Earl Lively, Jr., of Dallas, Texas. Lowery stated Lively is reported writing an anticommunist book which will stress the Fair Play for Cuba Committee connections of Lee Harvey Oswald. Lively showed Lowery a letter from Herbert Philbrick, former Communist Party member who has testified on behalf of the Government concerning communist activities. According to Lively, Philbrick plans to be in Dallas soon and desires to meet Lowery.

Lively further informed Lowery that he desired Lowery’s assistance in writing his book. He stated that Dr. Robert Morris, former counsel to the Senate Internal Security Committee under Senator McCarthy, was assisting him and Lt. George Butler of the Dallas Police Department was also assisting him. Lively added that Lt. George Butler of the Dallas PD was going to try to get any information he could that the FBI turned over to the Dallas Police Department in connection with the Lee Harvey Oswald case.

In connection with Lowery mentioned above, ha was a member of and active in the Communist Party on a local and state basis from September 23, 1945 to September 23, 1963. He has also testified for the Government before the Subversive Activities Control Board.

Our indices indicate Earl Lively, Jr., probably is identical to Earl William Lively, Jr. In 1962, Office of Special Investigations, Air Force (OSI), furnished us information that Lively was a member of the Air National Guard and at that time was a student of the Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. He was investigated by OSI since a national agency check revealed he was a subscriber to “The Worker” and the “Midweek Worker,” both communist publications. Individuals interviewed by OSI reported Lively was extremely anticommunist and as being extremely rightist in his political views. They reported in their opinion Lively subscribed to communist publications only to obtain background information on the Communist Party line. They also reported Lively extremely anti-Fidel Castro.

OBSERVATIONS:

In view of the serious allegation that Lt. Butler of the Dallas Police Department is involved in scheme to furnish FBI data to Earl Lively, Jr., desirable we have SAC, Dallas personally discuss this allegation with the head of the Dallas Police Department and impress upon him the undesirability of Lt. Butler being involved with such a scheme as alleged by our source. Inasmuch as Lowery has testified for the Government before the Subversive Activities Control Board, and is no longer a security informant, we will not jeopardize an important informant situation by discussing his allegation with the head of the Dallas Police Department.

ACTION:

Attached is a teletype to SAC, Dallas, instructing the SAC, Dallas, to personally contact the head of Dallas Police Department and alert him to the information furnished by Lowery and impress upon him the undesirability of individuals in his department divulging to unauthorized individuals data furnished the Dallas Police Department by the FBI. We are also instructing SAC, Dallas, to request the that the head of the Dallas Police Department determine whether Lt. George Butler of the Dallas Police Department is involved in a scheme to furnish FBI data to Lively as alleged by Lowery.

Posted

George Butler is indeed an interesting character and has already been discussed here:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=1615

George Butler was born in Texas in 1907. He joined the Dallas Police Force and in October, 1946, Paul Rowland Jones, an underworld crime boss, contacted Lieutenant Butler and offered him money to help him establish his gambling operation in Dallas. Butler arranged a meeting between Jones and Sheriff Steve Guthrie. Jones offered Guthrie an annual sum of $150,000. This conversation was recorded and Jones was eventually convicted of attempted bribery. Jones appealed his three-year sentence on grounds that he had been entrapped by a well-established corrupt law-enforcement system in Dallas.

According to Seth Kantor: "Butler's... knowledge of organized crime was so intimate that he had been the key man in the department contacted by the Chicago mob when the chose to move into Dallas in 1946 and make police payoffs" and later he was "loaned by the Dallas police department to aid three different U.S. Senate investgatory groups as an expert on gangster operations".

In his dealings with organized crime Butler got to know Jack Ruby. Ruby's sister, Eva Grant had been involved with Paul Rowland Jones and Waldron Duncan in an attempt to transport opium between Chicago and Dallas. Later Butler was to claim that Ruby had been a sleeper (a member of organized crime who maintained the image of a law-abiding citizen. Steve Guthrie told the FBI that Ruby was a front-man in Dallas for the Chicago syndicate.

On 24th November, 1963, Jesse Curry decided to transfer Lee Harvey Oswald to the county jail. Will Fritz placed Butler in immediate charge of the transfer. Despite his role in the transfer of Oswald to the county jail and his long term relationship with Ruby, Butler was not interviewed by the Warren Commission. In his testimony to the commission, Thayer Waldo of the Fort Worth Star Telegram, claimed that during the transfer Butler "was an extremely nervous man, so nervous that when I was standing asking him a question after I had entered the ramp and gotten down to the basement area, just moments before Oswald was brought down, he was standing profile to me and I noticed his lips trembling as he listened and waited for my answer. It was simply a physical characteristic. I had by then spent enough time talking to this man so that it struck me as something totally out of character."

On 9th December, 1963, Jack Revill wrote to Jesse Curry claiming that Butler: "related that he had information that Lee Harvey Oswald was the illegitimate son of Jack Ruby. Lieutenant Butler further stated that he had information that Jack Ruby had applied for a visa to Mexico about the same time that Lee Harvey Oswald visited that country. He suggested that we contact the Mexican Consul to confirm this information."

Thayer Waldo told the Warren Commission that Butler had for many years provided him with important information about the Dallas police department. Waldo also contacted Mark Lane and informed him that he had discovered that Jack Ruby, J. D. Tippet and Bernard Weismann had a meeting at the Carousel Club eight days before the assassination. Waldo added that he was too scared to publish the story and other information that he had about the assassination. Lane introduced Waldo to Dorothy Kilgallen. Her article on the Tippit, Ruby and Weissman meeting appeared on the front page of the Journal American.

I believe that this information about the meeting at the Carousel Club originally came from Butler. It is possible that it was Butler who provided Dorothy Kilgallen with the information about the Jesse Curry's tapes. Butler also provided information to W. Penn Jones Jr. According to Jones, Butler told him that 50% of the Dallas Police Department were also members of the Ku Klux Klan.

Sylvia Meagher later claimed that Butler gave contradictory information to the FBI and to the press about Ruby’s past criminal associations and activities.

The Dallas Police website had some information on George Butler (for many years he was President of the Dallas Police Association. In fact, the Dallas Police Association headquarters building has been officially named the “George E. Butler Building” in his honour. However, this page is currently unavailable:

http://www.dallaspa.org/Dallas_Police_GEButler.asp

Posted (edited)

If you know that the International Rescue Committee

http://www.theirc.org/

is a CIA front, this starts to make sense too:

Oswald to his "dear mother", 1/2/62 "Important to contact 'INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE.' Don't send your own money." Volume XVI, Exhibit #189, pages 554-556.

By the way Sheriff Guthrie said something like: If I wanted to know what was playing in organized crime, I always went to Jack Ruby's Silver Spur.

Wim

Oh wait, I found it again:

"Anytime I wanted to find any member of the syndicate who was doing business in Dallas," Sheriff Gutherie said, "I just went to look for them at Jack Ruby's Silver Spur."

http://www.americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_201.html

The Warren Commission was such a joke.

Edited by Wim Dankbaar
Posted
By airtel 1-13-64, Dallas Office reported that on 1-4-64 William James Lowery, Jr. a former security informant of the Dallas Office, reported that he had been contacted by Earl Lively, Jr., of Dallas, Texas. Lowery stated Lively is reported writing an anticommunist book which will stress the Fair Play for Cuba Committee connections of Lee Harvey Oswald. Lively showed Lowery a letter from Herbert Philbrick, former Communist Party member who has testified on behalf of the Government concerning communist activities. According to Lively, Philbrick plans to be in Dallas soon and desires to meet Lowery.

Dave, Lowery was a co-founder of the Dallas GI Forum along with Joe Molina. Edmond Villasana, Felix Botello, Joe Landin, and Augustin Estrada. For reasons not made clear, Molina dropped out of the organisation in July, 1962.

Lowery had testified against a guy called John Stafford, a CP official. Revill questioned Molina about Stafford.

RFK had actually intervened in local investigations on Stafford because of Federal proceedings against him - these being completed in Sept 1963. Lowery's testimony was that he had infiltrated this and "other groups" on behalf of the FBI. The FFBI actually went to press denying it.

I think Molina may have given the WC a scare with this testimony:

Mr. MOLINA. I know there's a fella that I talk with that belongs to the or

had worked with the FBI that knows my position in this thing.

Mr. BALL. I never heard anybody accuse you of any wrongdoing in connection

with this matter.

Mr. MOLINA. In fact, Bill Lowery worked with the FBI.

Mr. BALL. You don't have to worry about that; no one is accusing you of

anything.

Mr. MOLINA. Except the local people here.

Lowery had actually put Molina up for President of the GI Forum, and himself as Sergeant At Arms. According to Dulles, "infiltration" meant putting yourself into position of power in order to steer the group in the direction you wish. Lowery nominating Molina to me means only one of two things: Molina was (a) extremely maleable and naive or (B) was part of the infiltration.

Going back to the list of GI Forum founders, you might also recognise the name Felix Botello. His name was on a membership list of a Minuteman-like paramilitary group with connections to Edwin Walker. Botello was also a FBI informant.

  • 11 months later...
Posted

Namebase entry for George E. Butler:

http://www.namebase.org/main2/George-E-Butler.html

DiEugenio,J. Destiny Betrayed. 1992 (218)

Duffy,J. Ricci,V. The Assassination of John F. Kennedy. 1992 (103)

Groden,R. Livingstone,H. High Treason. 1990 (188)

Kantor,S. The Ruby Cover-up. 1992 (11, 136-7, 205-6, 286, 413)

Marrs,J. Crossfire. 1990 (385-6, 479)

Russell,D. The Man Who Knew Too Much. 1992 (592-3)

Scott,P.D. Crime and Coverup. 1977 (41-2)

Scott,P.D. Deep Politics. 1993 (128, 137, 151-3, 160-2)

Posted (edited)

I believe that this information about the meeting at the Carousel Club originally came from Butler. It is possible that it was Butler who provided Dorothy Kilgallen with the information about the Jesse Curry's tapes. Butler also provided information to W. Penn Jones Jr. According to Jones, Butler told him that 50% of the Dallas Police Department were also members of the Ku Klux Klan. (John Simkin)

It might be interesting to note, that in August of 1941, Butler received a 30 day suspension for punching a black youth while in custody.

FWIW.

James

Edited by James Richards
Posted
George Butler is indeed an interesting character....

I couldn't agree more about Butler's interesting role in the DPD, but Dankbaar made a statement about him being on the CIA payroll, which is a very specific fact to assert, and could only be known with certainty through documentation.

Butler was on the CIA payroll, just like John Carl Day. Wim

Wim, How do you know this? Dave

I don't want David's specific question lost in a discussion about Butler, so I am reiterating it here: what is the evidentiary basis for an unqualified assertion that "Butler was on the CIA payroll?"

Tim

Posted
George Butler is indeed an interesting character and has already been discussed here:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=1615

George Butler was born in Texas in 1907. He joined the Dallas Police Force and in October, 1946, Paul Rowland Jones, an underworld crime boss, contacted Lieutenant Butler and offered him money to help him establish his gambling operation in Dallas. Butler arranged a meeting between Jones and Sheriff Steve Guthrie. Jones offered Guthrie an annual sum of $150,000. This conversation was recorded and Jones was eventually convicted of attempted bribery. Jones appealed his three-year sentence on grounds that he had been entrapped by a well-established corrupt law-enforcement system in Dallas.

According to Seth Kantor: "Butler's... knowledge of organized crime was so intimate that he had been the key man in the department contacted by the Chicago mob when the chose to move into Dallas in 1946 and make police payoffs" and later he was "loaned by the Dallas police department to aid three different U.S. Senate investgatory groups as an expert on gangster operations".

In his dealings with organized crime Butler got to know Jack Ruby. Ruby's sister, Eva Grant had been involved with Paul Rowland Jones and Waldron Duncan in an attempt to transport opium between Chicago and Dallas. Later Butler was to claim that Ruby had been a sleeper (a member of organized crime who maintained the image of a law-abiding citizen. Steve Guthrie told the FBI that Ruby was a front-man in Dallas for the Chicago syndicate.

On 24th November, 1963, Jesse Curry decided to transfer Lee Harvey Oswald to the county jail. Will Fritz placed Butler in immediate charge of the transfer. Despite his role in the transfer of Oswald to the county jail and his long term relationship with Ruby, Butler was not interviewed by the Warren Commission. In his testimony to the commission, Thayer Waldo of the Fort Worth Star Telegram, claimed that during the transfer Butler "was an extremely nervous man, so nervous that when I was standing asking him a question after I had entered the ramp and gotten down to the basement area, just moments before Oswald was brought down, he was standing profile to me and I noticed his lips trembling as he listened and waited for my answer. It was simply a physical characteristic. I had by then spent enough time talking to this man so that it struck me as something totally out of character."

On 9th December, 1963, Jack Revill wrote to Jesse Curry claiming that Butler: "related that he had information that Lee Harvey Oswald was the illegitimate son of Jack Ruby. Lieutenant Butler further stated that he had information that Jack Ruby had applied for a visa to Mexico about the same time that Lee Harvey Oswald visited that country. He suggested that we contact the Mexican Consul to confirm this information."

Thayer Waldo told the Warren Commission that Butler had for many years provided him with important information about the Dallas police department. Waldo also contacted Mark Lane and informed him that he had discovered that Jack Ruby, J. D. Tippet and Bernard Weismann had a meeting at the Carousel Club eight days before the assassination. Waldo added that he was too scared to publish the story and other information that he had about the assassination. Lane introduced Waldo to Dorothy Kilgallen. Her article on the Tippit, Ruby and Weissman meeting appeared on the front page of the Journal American.

I believe that this information about the meeting at the Carousel Club originally came from Butler. It is possible that it was Butler who provided Dorothy Kilgallen with the information about the Jesse Curry's tapes. Butler also provided information to W. Penn Jones Jr. According to Jones, Butler told him that 50% of the Dallas Police Department were also members of the Ku Klux Klan.

Sylvia Meagher later claimed that Butler gave contradictory information to the FBI and to the press about Ruby’s past criminal associations and activities.

The Dallas Police website had some information on George Butler (for many years he was President of the Dallas Police Association. In fact, the Dallas Police Association headquarters building has been officially named the “George E. Butler Building” in his honour. However, this page is currently unavailable:

http://www.dallaspa.org/Dallas_Police_GEButler.asp

I believe the head of the Dallas area KKK was the Reverend Roy E. Davis. Davis was the editor of The Fiery Cross.

From http://www.cuban-exile.com/doc_051-075/doc0062e.html

Q: Was Dixon's name mentioned at anytime, the one in Dallas of the K.K.K.

A: The only man in Dallas that he mentioned that was a good patriot down in Texas, and engineering a lot of activity there was a Mr. Davis a reverend Dr. Davis, a preacher, head of the Klu Klux Klan. He was a man who didn't worry about human life, that he worried about his nation now. I know of Davis for several years. This Milteer now says that he doesn't want too much talk about Kennedy anymore, now he is alledgeling his war against the Jews, and their associates. But the Klu Klux Klan and the Officials which were Mims and Bolings didn't seem too please with the assassination of the President. Their main purpose was to eliminate Martin Luther King and some of the negro leaders. But I don't know, they didn't give him any assurance of anything, except that they would go along with him with his political party, and that they would put out the pamphlets, when they were properly written and given to them. But they didn't indicate in anyway that they had known or assisted in the assassination of the President. But Milteer didn't give them too much chance to talk and discuss, he just issued orders, he carried on the conversation on what had been done, and what had to be done. And of course, these men from Denmark and Orangeburg seemed more enthused to go along with him on the assassination and that they appreciated the assassination of the President than Mims and Boling.

-----------------------------

The Dallas PD first suspected that Davis was the publisher of the Wanted For Treason posters but an unnamed Dallas PD officer said it wasn't Davis because "he knew Davis and he didn't do it."

Dave

  • 2 years later...
Posted
By airtel 1-13-64, Dallas Office reported that on 1-4-64 William James Lowery, Jr. a former security informant of the Dallas Office, reported that he had been contacted by Earl Lively, Jr., of Dallas, Texas. Lowery stated Lively is reported writing an anticommunist book which will stress the Fair Play for Cuba Committee connections of Lee Harvey Oswald. Lively showed Lowery a letter from Herbert Philbrick, former Communist Party member who has testified on behalf of the Government concerning communist activities. According to Lively, Philbrick plans to be in Dallas soon and desires to meet Lowery.

Dave, Lowery was a co-founder of the Dallas GI Forum along with Joe Molina. Edmond Villasana, Felix Botello, Joe Landin, and Augustin Estrada. For reasons not made clear, Molina dropped out of the organisation in July, 1962.

Lowery had testified against a guy called John Stafford, a CP official. Revill questioned Molina about Stafford.

RFK had actually intervened in local investigations on Stafford because of Federal proceedings against him - these being completed in Sept 1963. Lowery's testimony was that he had infiltrated this and "other groups" on behalf of the FBI. The FFBI actually went to press denying it.

I think Molina may have given the WC a scare with this testimony:

Mr. MOLINA. I know there's a fella that I talk with that belongs to the or

had worked with the FBI that knows my position in this thing.

Mr. BALL. I never heard anybody accuse you of any wrongdoing in connection

with this matter.

Mr. MOLINA. In fact, Bill Lowery worked with the FBI.

Mr. BALL. You don't have to worry about that; no one is accusing you of

anything.

Mr. MOLINA. Except the local people here.

Lowery had actually put Molina up for President of the GI Forum, and himself as Sergeant At Arms. According to Dulles, "infiltration" meant putting yourself into position of power in order to steer the group in the direction you wish. Lowery nominating Molina to me means only one of two things: Molina was (a) extremely maleable and naive or (:) was part of the infiltration.

Going back to the list of GI Forum founders, you might also recognise the name Felix Botello. His name was on a membership list of a Minuteman-like paramilitary group with connections to Edwin Walker. Botello was also a FBI informant.

Greg , Do you have the actuall testimony of Lowery ( against Stafford) where he admits that he did work for FBI?

Thanks -Bill

Posted
Greg , Do you have the actuall testimony of Lowery ( against Stafford) where he admits that he did work for FBI?

Thanks -Bill

Bill, I was aware that was part of the testimony he gave, though I can't recall ever having read it.

The Stafford case was interesting also in that in 1963, RFK had called off local and state authorities from investigating him at least until after the Subversive Activities Control Board was done picking his bones.

This brings to mind Walker's allegation that RFK had intervened to get local authorities to release LHO after his arrest for the "attempt" to assassinate the good General.

Posted
Greg , Do you have the actuall testimony of Lowery ( against Stafford) where he admits that he did work for FBI?

Thanks -Bill

Bill, I was aware that was part of the testimony he gave, though I can't recall ever having read it.

The Stafford case was interesting also in that in 1963, RFK had called off local and state authorities from investigating him at least until after the Subversive Activities Control Board was done picking his bones.

This brings to mind Walker's allegation that RFK had intervened to get local authorities to release LHO after his arrest for the "attempt" to assassinate the good General.

Greg , That crossed my mind for a second, even tho I know that the RFK story was bogus. It never happened . Nor was Os being called before any Committee at that time. Then the story grew a tail, and it suddenly included Ruby in the arrest etc. etc.!

I 've come to look at this as a bit of a payback by Walker, for his sudden vacation in Sringfield, MO. in 62' :eek . Paid for by RFK.

It was also good propaganda for the Commie/Jew conspiracy angle, which was being heavily promoted at the time.

Thanks, Bill

Posted

There is, a pretty solid historical basis for Lt. George Butler being a key person in the Dallas aspects of the assassination, it's all in the historical paper trail of compelling information provided by sources as diverse as Penn Jones to Peter Dale Scott. There is a plethora of new documents that have been released, as most of us know and files regarding George Butler are not in short supply. Search maryferrell.org, for one and you will find a considerable amount......

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