Can we trust the Ferrell Foundation?

[Dawn Meredith]

Kathy and all, I have emailed Rex on this - it will be pretty embarrassing if nobody has at least raised the question with him up to this point. And as you say, good practice would be presenting a trusted copy of the original from a source such as the Archives and then requesting he investigate what was posted on the MFF site....and of course the documents there do come through separate channels including the ARRC. He will have to do some research on that as well as whether the document(s) in question came from multiple sources eg WC, HSCA, via what channel.

I think at this point there are a number of individuals including Barb, Pamela and possibly Dawn who might have some comments on Judyth herself as a source but at least in this case if Rex has some real detail to investigate I'm sure he will make an effort to resolve it.

Have not trusted Judyth in a very long time. I did in 04 and tried to help her with a matter, but then began having doubts that continued. She has a need to insert herself into every aspect of this case and I now doubt she even worked with "Harvey". (Based on the work of David Josephs and phony IRS documents she has produced).

[Larry Hancock]

I have contacted Rex about this and he would be happy to investigate it. The Oswald time card document images on the MFF site were made from scans of actual documents provided by the ARRC.

In looking back at this thread the only solid accusation I could find was that Judyth claims that Oswald time card NARA documents contain the initials J somewhere on them and that those J's have been

deleted from the images on the MFF site - but are still on the NARA originals. Kathy asked for a posting of the NARA original which nobody seems to have done. Rex needs to know if this is the

only claimed alteration (the title of this thread seems to suggest something much broader?), if there are more. He would also like to know where the original NARA document has been posted

for comparison - of course he can obtain that document and compare them if it comes to that but he also needs to confirm what document is in question to do that so record numbers

would be helpful. Please post more details here or email them to me. A very strong charge has been made with this thread and it needs to be resolved. Rex will also be pursuing the subject with Jeff Morley.

[Pat Speer]

It's no secret that the documents on the Mary Ferrell website are not new, and that many of them include redacted sections that are no longer redacted.

I'm just guessing, but perhaps Judyth and/or Karl have found a document with a redacted section online, that isn't redacted when you order it from the archives.

Edited July 2, 2015 by Pat Speer

[Karl Kinaski]

I have no accsess to the NARA document in question. Here are the details of the document in question.

CD 589, EXHIBIT D-110 –ELEVEN TIME CARDS, REILY, FBI REPORT 03 MAR 1964: TIME CARDS FOR MAY 17 AND MAY 31 HAVE THEIR ‘J’S’ REMOVED, AS WELL AS “MADE 40″ WHICH I WROTE ON BOTH OF THOSE CARDS. UNDER SEARCH OF FBIO DOCUMENTS, AT THAT SITE, PLUG IN “CD 589 03 MAR 1964″ TO SEE THE ALTERED DOCUMENTS. CONTRAST WITH THE UNALTERED ORIGINALS SHOWING ALL THE ‘J’ INITIALS AND ‘MADE 40′ NOTATIONS CLEARLY. (THESE WERE OBTAINED BY SIXTY MINUTES AND NANCY ELDRETH YEARS EARLIER FROM THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES –FROM FBI FILES, SPECIAL PERMISSION AT THAT TIME NEEDED).

Several month ago a made a screenshot of the JVB Facebook site, where she posted the original NARA document. The document is blurred, but one can see the "J" and the "40" on it, while those "J" and the "40" on the very same Mary Ferrell document is absent...

Here is the screenshot:

And here is the Mary Ferrell version of the very same document: the "J" and "made" and "40" on the right and left timecard in Bakers handwriting are missing, while it is visible in the card in the middle which is the handwriting of another person. (Don't say it is a bad scan, because all the other figures and letters on that Ferrell document are very sharp.)

Edited July 2, 2015 by Karl Kinaski

[Karl Kinaski]

Larry Hancock: I have contacted Rex about this and he would be happy to investigate it. The Oswald time card document images on the MFF site were made from scans of actual documents provided by the ARRC.

That would blame the ARRC for altering the evidence. IMO the Ferrell Foundation should better check every document provided to them from such tainted government investigation-bodys as the WC, the HSCA or the ARRC...why don't take scans of documents directly from NARA?

KK

Edited July 2, 2015 by Karl Kinaski

[Larry Hancock]

Karl, I will provide your reference to Rex for investigation. As to sourcing, I'll ask but my initial reaction is to go back to the process. Initially the primary source for what was posted was Mary's document collection, obtained from NARA the old fashioned way, by individual requests. That collection was expanded on by scanning of the bulk collection of documents provided by NARA to the ARRC as a result of a legal battle in which they were given access to copies of documents. That's my general knowledge of the process. There certainly is no process (or resource) to examine each document against the original item held at NARA.

At this point it appears that what exists is a scan of a document which Judyth posted with claims that it represents the original at NARA... That is presented compared to a document scanned by Rex and posted on MFF ...after being obtained from the ARRC. Obviously there are two questions......what does the original at NARA really look like and are their changes to it in the MFF scan....I suppose there is also the question of who handled the original document to obtain the scan presented by Judyth.

I'll refer this to Rex but of course anyone seriously interested can contact or visit NARA themselves as well. Just out of curiosity, could you elaborate on why marks relating to Judyth was supposed to be on Oswald's time card in the first place, is the claim that the markings were placed there by Oswald or Judyth herself?

Anyway, this is going to take some time to investigate, I'll pass this on to Rex for starters.

[Larry Hancock]

Thanks for posting that Kathy, honestly with the sort of comments there are from others on the forum who have been close to this whole story I'm not investing any more time in it personally. However since a very serious charge has been made against the MFF as a source and since nobody seems to have taken this directly to Rex before, I'm sure he is going to look into it. I will certainly pass on what he may find, and for that matter what the folks at NARA might find if he manages to get them interested - he did point out to me that all the original WC documents are on microfilm as well so its even possible to check the microfilm against any paper document at the archives.

I appreciate your looking it up and posting the link so folks who are new to this subject can get at least a bit of the history....

[Jon G. Tidd]

Is the argument here that because Rex Bradford is a good guy, one should believe all that MFF presents is true and accurate?

[Larry Hancock]

John, I don't know that there is an argument, there had been a claim that someone, at some point, altered an original document provided to the Warren Commission. the original should be on microfilm and

paper copy file at the National Archives. That claim needs to be investigated to determine if it is true and if the document scan on the MFF site does indeed not reflect the original document. Given that there

are a several steps in between the original document, the document that was transmitted to the ARRC and the document scan on the MFF site that investigation is going to take some time and will have

to go back to NARA and most likely involve getting some NARA assistance to review the originals for comparison purposes.

At this point, I've not seen anything presented beyond the assertion about a single set of Oswald time cards.

This should not need to be a matter of personalities, it should be a matter of research.

[Pat Speer]

In looking at the originals as posted by Karl, and contrasting them with the images he's posted from the MFF website, I have come to suspect no foul play was involved.

The writing in question is quite faint, but one can see some remnants of this writing on the MFF images. This suggests, at least to me, that no one has tried to remove this writing. As many of the images on the MFF website come from photocopies. It seems quite possible, then, that the faint writing was lost in the process of photocopying at NARA, but that someone at MFF published a scan of this copy with increased contrast.

When I first started researching the case, I'm ashamed to admit, I spent a small fortune photo-copying images. As a consequence I believe the distortion of an image in this manner is quite possible, even likely.

As to the alternative--that someone at NARA or Mary Ferrell has taken it upon themselves to hide some scrawl on a timecard from the public--that's pretty silly, IMO. It's pretty obvious, at least to me, that no one at NARA or MFF follows the case as a closely as those on this forum. And I seriously doubt anyone at NARA or MFF had any inkling as to the possible importance of these timecards until a few days ago, let alone when these images were first put up online.

Edited July 3, 2015 by Pat Speer

[John Kirsch]

Does anyone know how Mary Ferrell acquired the documents in her archive? Did she acquire the documents by submitting FOIA requests directly to government agencies or did someone else submit FOIA requests and pass on the released material to her?

[David Boylan]

I think Mary received documents from many sources. I even sent her docs many years ago.

[Larry Hancock]

John, my impression is that the bulk of Mary's documents came from her requests but as David said other researchers did share as well. I don't know anyone other than Anna Marie Kuhns Walko who actually marked documents they had themselves obtained from NARA. I should point out that a very large number of the documents on the MFF web site now came from the ARRC who got them directly from releases to NARA. Again, if anyone wants details I suggest you contact Rex Bradford directly, he would have the most accurate information.

[Jon G. Tidd]

What is the AARC? Is it the same as the ARRB?

[John Kirsch]

Larry, thanks for your response. FYI: I submitted an FOIA to the CIA for records about Ferrell and got back a "rejection" response. I had asked, among other things, for copies of any FOIAs she had submitted to the CIA and the agency told me specifically that it had no record of having received any FOIA request from her.

I also submitted an FOIA to the FBI for any records on Ferrell and got back a "no responsive records" response. (I'm appealing that response.) The bureau did not tell me specifically, in its cover letter, that it had found no records of any FOIA requests from Ferrell and in looking back over my initial FOIA I see that I didn't specifically ask the bureau to provide copies of FOIA requests from Ferrell. (I've learned that I have to tell these agencies, esp. the FBI, exactly what to look for and where to find it and even then they sometimes ignore me.) Re: the possibility of the MFF site having received documents as the result, presumably, of FOIA requests from the AARC to NARA -- do you know offhand if those FOIAs (I assume they were FOIAs) were written and submitted by Bernard Fensterwald, who, I understand, founded AARC?