Col. J. D. Wilmeth

[William Kelly]

I thought I had heard and read everything about the assassination so I was quite surprised to learn that a Col. J.D. Wilmeth visited Marina at the Paine residence on November 17 (or 19th), 1963.

JFKCountercoup2: Col. J.D. Wilmeth Visits Marina Nov. 17

Thanks to Robert Feldman and his interesting Where's The Change blog.

Where's The Change?: 50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Colonel J.D. Wilmeth's Pre-JFK Assassination Visit To Paine-Oswald Residence

http://wherechangeob...ination_22.html

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2013 50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Colonel J.D. Wilmeth's Pre-JFK Assassination Visit To Paine-Oswald Residence

Coincidentally, just three days before JFK was ambushed on November 22, 1963, Colonel J.D. Wilmeth just happened to visit the house in which the wife of Texas School Book Depository temp worker Lee Oswald lived with Mrs. Ruth Paine, as revealed in Ruth Paine's testimony before the Warren Commission.

During Ruth Paine's March 21, 1964 testimony before Warren Commission Assistant Counsel Albert Jenner Jr., the following exchange took place:

MR. JENNER: Do you recall an incident in which there was a telephone call by Col. J.D. Wilmeth to your home, in which he spoke with Marina?

MRS. PAINE: Yes; I do...I would say this was a week or less before the assassination. He called and asked--he called from Arlington, Tex., which is between Fort Worth and Dallas, and asked if he could come over some time...To talk with Marina, that he had heard she was living at my house...My best judgement is that he actually came then on the 19th of November.

MR. JENNER: All right. And how long did he stay?

MRS. PAINE: Oh, perhaps an hour..."

FOR MORE ON WILMETH SEE:

JFKCountercoup2: Col. J.D. Wilmeth Visits Marina Nov. 17

Edited March 20, 2013 by William Kelly

[B. A. Copeland]

Whoa....great find Mr Kelly....who on earth is this guy I wonder...as the great Mr Weisberg said "this case is beyond the reach of any one person"....amazing the very fine details still being revealed after 50 years...

[Robert Howard]

Searching googlebooks under simply "Col. Wilmeth," is illuminating. At the

risk of banging my own drum, I have mentioned previously the large number

of Colonel's in the whole JFK conundrum, which, I suppose, is neither here

nor there if one views the Paine/Wilmeth/Oswald dynamic, in isolation. Even

the most dispassionate individual would have to consider in light of Col.

Orlov's friendship with George DeMohrenschildt and that first meeting with Marina

Oswald, some semblance of a "what a retrospective look at Dallas before

the assassination being more than what is known," even in 2013.

The Wars of Myron King: A B-17 Pilot Faces WWII and U.S.-Soviet Intrigue ...

Chapter 12 - Orchestrating A Court-Martial

James L. McDonough - 2009 - 246 pages

It was about this time within a couple of days at the very latest that Lieutenant

Colonel Wilmeth learned that among several incidents generating Soviet

displeasure with American servicemen in territory under Soviet control was

Wilmeth's own failure, more than once to leave Lublin when requested to do so

by the Soviets. Without a doubt, based on several cables based on the USMM

and Poltava, dated April 9 and 10 this matter was weighing on Wilmeth’s

mind.....[General Deane appointed Wilmeth as Judge Advocate General

in the King Trial...]

Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TX) - July 22, 1997

James D. Wilmeth

FORT WORTH - James D. Wilmeth, 86, a retired Army colonel, died Sunday, July 20, 1997, in Fort Worth.

Funeral: 11 a.m. Tuesday at Greenwood Funeral Home. Burial: Greenwood Memorial Park.

Col. Wilmeth was born Oct. 30, 1910, in Ballinger. He was a graduate of Fort Worth Central High School,

the United States Military Academy at West Point and the University of Texas at Austin.

Col. Wilmeth served in World War II in North Africa and in Europe and was also a member of the U.S. Military

Mission to Moscow. He also served in Korea and Japan.

He was awarded the Army Commendation Ribbon with one Oak Leaf Cluster, the Bronze Star Medal,

the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern

Campaign Medal, the World War II Victory Medal, the Army of Occupation of Germany Medal and the

Army of Occupation of Japan Medal.

After his retirement from the military he was a professor of Russian at the University of Texas at Arlington

for 17 years and established the Russian Language and Soviet Studies program.

After his retirement from UTA, he and his wife traveled extensively throughout the United States, Canada,

Europe, Asia and Australia. Mr. Wilmeth was a member of Hemphill Presbyterian Church.

Survivors: Wife, Frankie K. Wilmeth of Fort Worth; son, James D. Wilmeth Jr. of Scottsdale, Ariz.; and

nephews, R. Drew Furguson and wife, Jody Anderson, of Fort Worth and Jerry Knoll and wife, Dianne,

of Oklahoma City, Okla. Greenwood Funeral Home 3100 White Settlement Road, 336-0584.

And so it goes.......when Oswald returned from the Soviet Union in June 1962, the person who met him at the pier was Spas Raikan, of the Travelers Aid Society who ostensibly had been asked by the State Department to meet the Oswald's; American Friends of the Anti-Bolshevik Nations.To me the Wilmeth/Paine contact is more of the same......

Edited March 21, 2013 by Robert Howard

[William Kelly]

Okay, let me get this straight.

In early November 1963 Col. James Dudley Wilmeth USA(Ret), professor of Russian language at UT Arlington, seeks out Marina Oswald so he can hear her speak Russian, the same reason Ruth Paine gave for seeking out Marina and befriending her.

Col. Wilmeth is a neighbor of Clarke Benham, a Bell Helicopter engineer who works with Michael Paine, who gave Ruth Paine's phone number to Wilmeth, and calls early in the week before the assassination. I like Ruth Paine's testimony on this when she acknowledges the phone call from Wilmeth, but then asks if they were interested in Wilmeth's visit to the Paine home,

Mr. Jenner. Have you completed all you wish to say about that incident?

Mrs. Paine. Yes. Are you going to ask me if he came?

Well Wilmeth came calling Nov. 19 as they were preparing dinner, a "social call" that lasted about an hour and a half. Wilmeth considered having Marina address his Russian language class, but called Ruth Paine on the afternoon of Nov. 22nd, and considering the circumstances, said he wouldn't bother them again.

Col. Wilmeth is a local Ft. Worth boy who attended UT Austin and West Point, served in North Africa and Europe during WWII, and after the war was assigned to the US Military Mission to Moscow, where he worked on POW issues and developed his interest in the Russian language. Wilmeth also served in Korea and Japan and after retirement from the military taught Russian at UT Arlington.

When Wilmeth is questioned about his visit to the Paines, the report mistakenly says Wilmeth learned Russian while spending "two years with US military in Mexico," and J. E. Hover himself decides this mistake in a report is worthy of calling attention to it and correcting, making sure the Warren Commission knows that it's MOSCOW not MEXICO, just in case Wilmeth is called to testify. He is not called, but at Hover's insistence the official record is corrected.

Wilmeth's neighbor and the link to Michael Paine is Clarke Benham, Paine's Bell Helicopter co-worker (US Navy, U Michigan) whose wife also teaches (chemestry) with Wilmeth at UT Arlingtion.

Michael Paine and Clarke Benham are together with Raymond Franklin Krystink at Bell Helicopter when news of the assassination mentions the Texas School Book Depository, which sparks Krystink to mention that Paine's friend Oswald works there. The three of them huddle around a little radio, and when Oswald's name is mentioned, Michael Paine says, "He's not supposed to have a gun," or something to that effect.

Kryntink knew Oswald worked at the TSBD because they met earlier at an ACLU meeting. Michael Paine took Oswald to the meeting and Oswald joined the organization. According to Kryntink, Oswald spoke up at the meeting and they talked about the Pope, Walker and Adlai Stevenson. Kryntink says that Oswald implied that he had heard Walker talk and was present at the Stevenson incident.

Krystinik mentions all this in his testimony, but I think he fails to mention that after meeting Oswald at the ACLU meeting, he went to Jack Ruby's Carousel Club with some other Bell Helicopter employees.

Then it comes out - years later, that once Oswald was identified, Michael Paine called home from his Bell Hel office, a conversation that was either picked up by a window washer or a tap on the phone - but in either case, the conversation was picked up and Michael Paine said something about knowing Oswald didn't do it and they knew who did, a conversation said to be with either his father in California or wife in Irving. He then drove to Iriving.

And Col. Wilmeth is not questioned further, but acknowledged visiting Ruth Paine and Marina for a social visit for an hour and a half on November 19, and neither Clark Benham nor Ruth or Michael Paine are questioned by the HSCA or ARRB.

Is that the story?

Well at least they got Krystinik:

JFKCountercoup2: Raymond Franklin Krystinik

Edited March 21, 2013 by William Kelly

[Robert Howard]

With grateful thanks to the Hoover Institute....lol

Question to Forum Members....Have you ever seen a photo of Spas Raikan? see URL below

Warren Commission Document 1241 - FBI Connally Jr. Report of 29 Jun 1964 NEWARK 4 pages re: Oswald - Russia/Cuba
SPAS THEODORE RAIKAN, employed Traveler’s Aid, NYC on 6/13/62 assisted OSWALD and his family........
Oswald’s Bulgarian Connection: The Spas Raikin Papers
Spas Raikin as a student in Bulgaria in 1946, during a summer job building a railway line. Such “volunteer” labor was compulsory for university students in communist Bulgaria.
http://www.hoover.org/library-and-archives/acquisitions/105816
The Hoover Archives has received the papers of Spas Raikin, a Bulgarian-American historian, and émigré anti-communist activist. Raikin, who will celebrate his ninetieth birthday later this year, was for several decades a professor at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania and is the author of some twenty books on Bulgarian history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His papers, contained in ninety-nine binders, document Raikin’s historical research and writing as well as Bulgarian émigré activities in the United States. Binder nr. 71, however, is different from the others. It documents an episode in Raikin’s life that has a place in world history: his meeting with Lee Harvey Oswald in the port at Hoboken, New Jersey on June 13, 1962, when Oswald was returning from the Soviet Union.
Spas Raikin, born to a poor peasant family, herded cows and sheep until he was admitted to the Plovdiv Theological Seminary. He graduated with honors and went on to study in the School of Theology in Sofia University and teach in the Sofia Theological Seminary. Once the Bulgarian Communists had solidified their power, they intensified their religious persecution, drafting Raikin into the army, where he served his time in a military labor camp. In 1951, he and several of his friends escaped from the camp and formed a partisan group in the Rhodope Mountains in southern Bulgaria. Evading the Communists, they managed to cross into Greece, where he received a scholarship from the World Council of Churches to study theology at the University of Athens. He went on to study at the universities in Geneva, Basel, and King’s College in London, finally taking a graduate degree in political science at Columbia University in New York. In New York, Raikin became a social worker who helped resettle Bulgarian refugees in the United States under a State Department Program, as well as a staff member in the Travelers Aid Society. It was in that capacity that he was directed to meet Lee Harvey Oswald upon his return from Russia. Raikin found a hotel room for Oswald, his wife, and baby, and handed him a check, that paid for their move to Forth Worth, Texas. His account of this event is in the Warren Commission Report and is discussed in dozens of works on the Kennedy assassination. Binder 71 of the Raikin Papers includes copies of documents, notes, and clippings on the event and its aftermath.
Spas Raikin’s academic career was mostly with the East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania, where he taught from 1966 until his retirement in 1991. He published some twenty books on Bulgarian history, politics, and culture from the late nineteenth century into the twentieth.. He was also active in Bulgarian and East European anticommunist exile organizations. Professor Raikin’s productive and eventful life and research are documented in his voluminous papers in the Hoover Archives. Along with the even larger Kyril Drenikoff Papers, acquired by Hoover a generation earlier, they will be a valuable resource for scholars of Bulgarian history and politics in the twentieth century.

I thought it was interesting.....

Edited July 16, 2013 by Robert Howard

[Thomas Graves]

With grateful thanks to the Hoover Institute....lol

Question to Forum Members....Have you ever seen a photo of Spas Raikan? see URL below

Warren Commission Document 1241 - FBI Connally Jr. Report of 29 Jun 1964 NEWARK 4 pages re: Oswald - Russia/Cuba

SPAS THEODORE RAIKAN, employed Traveler’s Aid, NYC on 6/13/62 assisted OSWALD and his family........

Oswald’s Bulgarian Connection: The Spas Raikin Papers

Spas Raikin as a student in Bulgaria in 1946, during a summer job building a railway line. Such “volunteer” labor was compulsory for university students in communist Bulgaria.

http://www.hoover.org/library-and-archives/acquisitions/105816

The Hoover Archives has received the papers of Spas Raikin, a Bulgarian-American historian, and émigré anti-communist activist. Raikin, who will celebrate his ninetieth birthday later this year, was for several decades a professor at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania and is the author of some twenty books on Bulgarian history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His papers, contained in ninety-nine binders, document Raikin’s historical research and writing as well as Bulgarian émigré activities in the United States. Binder nr. 71, however, is different from the others. It documents an episode in Raikin’s life that has a place in world history: his meeting with Lee Harvey Oswald in the port at Hoboken, New Jersey on June 13, 1962, when Oswald was returning from the Soviet Union.

Spas Raikin, born to a poor peasant family, herded cows and sheep until he was admitted to the Plovdiv Theological Seminary. He graduated with honors and went on to study in the School of Theology in Sofia University and teach in the Sofia Theological Seminary. Once the Bulgarian Communists had solidified their power, they intensified their religious persecution, drafting Raikin into the army, where he served his time in a military labor camp. In 1951, he and several of his friends escaped from the camp and formed a partisan group in the Rhodope Mountains in southern Bulgaria. Evading the Communists, they managed to cross into Greece, where he received a scholarship from the World Council of Churches to study theology at the University of Athens. He went on to study at the universities in Geneva, Basel, and King’s College in London, finally taking a graduate degree in political science at Columbia University in New York. In New York, Raikin became a social worker who helped resettle Bulgarian refugees in the United States under a State Department Program, as well as a staff member in the Travelers Aid Society. It was in that capacity that he was directed to meet Lee Harvey Oswald upon his return from Russia. Raikin found a hotel room for Oswald, his wife, and baby, and handed him a check, that paid for their move to Forth Worth, Texas. His account of this event is in the Warren Commission Report and is discussed in dozens of works on the Kennedy assassination. Binder 71 of the Raikin Papers includes copies of documents, notes, and clippings on the event and its aftermath.

Spas Raikin’s academic career was mostly with the East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania, where he taught from 1966 until his retirement in 1991. He published some twenty books on Bulgarian history, politics, and culture from the late nineteenth century into the twentieth.. He was also active in Bulgarian and East European anticommunist exile organizations. Professor Raikin’s productive and eventful life and research are documented in his voluminous papers in the Hoover Archives. Along with the even larger Kyril Drenikoff Papers, acquired by Hoover a generation earlier, they will be a valuable resource for scholars of Bulgarian history and politics in the twentieth century.

I thought it was interesting.....

[emphasis added by T. Graves]

Interesting post, Robert.

Now I'm wondering about two things:

1) Where Oswald cashed the "check" that Raikan handed him in Hoboken, New Jersey. Or was it an easier-to-cash money order, instead?

2) If any of the old yearbooks in the East Stroudsburg University library have a photograph of Professor Raikan. Or, for that matter, if his photo appears on the back cover of any of the books he published.

Keep up the good work,

--Tommy

Edited July 18, 2013 by Thomas Graves

[William Kelly]

And please be advised that Dimitri deMohrenschildt, brother of George, was closely affiliated with the Hoover Institute.

[Robert Howard]

Commission Document 176 - FBI O'Flaherty Report of 13 Dec 1963 NEW YORK 38 pages re: Oswald
We escorted Mr. Oswald to the Western Union Office 428 Broadway,
who issued $150 and gave client a check made out for $50 to be
cashed at the 1st National Bank on Broadway and Canal. We then
escorted client to the 1st National Bank, where after first being
told that they could not cash the check eventually agreed at the bank manager’s

insistence that they could cash it. Client was issued $50
Robert: In addition to Spas Raikan, and Oswald there was an INS Inspector named Frederick J. Weiderschein, who is also in the mix. WEIDERSCHEIN is for myself, equally compelling as Spas Raikan, because of the fact there does not seem to be much about him.....

on the World Wide Web, unless I have lost my search skills, and don't know it....

Equally important is CE 1444 page 860, which also references the Travelers Aid Society meeting with Oswald

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=1317&relPageId=890

I would like to know if this account as described, was an acting job [ie the manner Oswald is treated by parties involved at the Travelers Aid gathering] as some sort of sewer rat, or if they had rehearsed this encounter, much had been made in the media that Oswald had offered secrets to the Soviets, [never proven] but had never taken the final step to renouncing his citizenship.......

Edited July 19, 2013 by Robert Howard