Steve Thomas Posted September 6, 2019 Share Posted September 6, 2019 8 hours ago, Paul Brancato said: Steve - I know from personal experience that print media gets things mixed up. It’s not where you look for accuracy in specifics and language. Paul, In working my way through this, I think I did learn something new. In an article in the Abilene Reporter News, November 17, 1965 https://newspaperarchive.com/abilene-reporter-news-nov-17-1965-p-61/ it reads: “Accompanying Colonel Offer to Abilene were Colonel John F. Marshall, East Texas Sector Commander for VIII Corps and Lt. Col. Al Hagler, both of Dallas.” “Col. Offer and Col Marshall are Regular Army Officers, while Col. Hagler is a Reservist.” Reading that article, it appears that Col. Marshall would have been Whitmeyer’s boss. Dallas Morning News 11-16-1965 Lt. Col. George L. Whitmeyer, deputy East Texas sector commander (both newspaper articles are from the same week in November, 1965. One refers to Marshall as the Commander, and the other refers to Whitmeyer as the Deputy Commander of the VIII Corps East Texas Sector). It appears from this VIII Corps Lineage that the VIII Corps was Regular Army, and not part of the Reserves: Steve Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Brancato Posted September 6, 2019 Share Posted September 6, 2019 12 hours ago, Steve Thomas said: Paul, In working my way through this, I think I did learn something new. In an article in the Abilene Reporter News, November 17, 1965 https://newspaperarchive.com/abilene-reporter-news-nov-17-1965-p-61/ it reads: “Accompanying Colonel Offer to Abilene were Colonel John F. Marshall, East Texas Sector Commander for VIII Corps and Lt. Col. Al Hagler, both of Dallas.” “Col. Offer and Col Marshall are Regular Army Officers, while Col. Hagler is a Reservist.” Reading that article, it appears that Col. Marshall would have been Whitmeyer’s boss. Dallas Morning News 11-16-1965 Lt. Col. George L. Whitmeyer, deputy East Texas sector commander (both newspaper articles are from the same week in November, 1965. One refers to Marshall as the Commander, and the other refers to Whitmeyer as the Deputy Commander of the VIII Corps East Texas Sector). It appears from this VIII Corps Lineage that the VIII Corps was Regular Army, and not part of the Reserves: Steve Thomas That does seem to be the case. Whitmeyer by assumption would be active duty VIII Army. But of course print details can be wrong. Always appreciate your sleuthing skills Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Brancato Posted September 13, 2019 Share Posted September 13, 2019 On 9/4/2019 at 12:32 AM, Bill Simpich said: I have been wondering whether Crichton's 488th Army Intelligence Reserve Unit really existed, after reviewing the above. This line of evidence from "Looking Glass and Silver Dollar" by Peter Dale Scott concludes that it did: The Ubiquitous Shadow of the 488th Intelligence Reserve UnitThe explosive phase-one theory swiftly died, but did not lose its historical relevance. It led to the perceived risk that right-wing elements, such as Senator Eastland’s Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, would provoke a war with Cuba and possibly Russia. This fear became Johnson’s excuse for federalizing the murder case and persuading Earl Warren and Richard Russell to join the Warren Commission.44. Thus was established the official phase-two explanation, that Oswald was a misfit who acted alone.Of interest still today is the coincidence that the same the 488th Army Intelligence Reserve unit helped generate the false Marina story, as well as the false Stringfellow report. The interpreter who first supplied the Marina story, Ilya Mamantov, was selected as the result of a phone call between Deputy Police Chief George Lumpkin and Jack Crichton.45. We have already seen that Crichton commanded the 488th; and Lumpkin, in addition to being the Deputy Police Chief, was also a deputy commander of the 488th under Crichton. 46. John Crichton was the kind of figure Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point described as a “connector....people with a special gift for bringing the world together.” 47. Some of his contacts are figures who should be familiar to students of the JFK assassination. His superior in the Army Reserves, Lieutenant Colonel George Whitmeyer, was on 11/22 in the pilot car of the Kennedy motorcade along with DPD Deputy Chief George Lumpkin; the pilot car is of interest because of its unexplained stop in front of the Texas School Book Depository.48. D.H. “Dry Hole” Byrd, owner of the Texas School Book Depository, was a director of Crichton’s firm Dorchester Gas Producing.49. Crichton, an oil engineer and corporation executive, also doubled as a member of the Dallas overworld. Although his 488th intelligence unit consisted almost 50 percent of Dallas policemen, Crichton also used it as a venue in the late 1950s to conduct “a study of Soviet oil fields;” and in the 1990s Crichton would himself explore the oil and gas reserves in the former Soviet Union.50. Also interested in Soviet oil reserves at this time were Ilya Mamantov’s employers and personal friends, the wealthy Pew family in Dallas who were owners of Sunoco. By 2009 the second largest source of crude for Sunoco (after Western Africa) was Central Asia, supplying 86,000 barrels of crude a day. 51. But Crichton’s most significant function as a connector on 11/22 may have been in his capacity as chief of intelligence for Dallas Civil Defense, which worked out of an underground Emergency Operating Center under the patio of the Dallas Health and Science Museum. As Russ Baker reports, “Because it was intended for ‘continuity of government’ operations during an attack, it was fully equipped with communications equipment.” 52. A speech given at the dedication of the Center in 1961 supplies further details: This Emergency Operating Center is part of the National Plan to link Federal, State and local government agencies in a communications network from which rescue operations can be directed in time of local or National emergency. It is a vital part of the National, State, and local Operational Survival Plan. 53.In an earlier draft of this talk I attempted to describe the central importance of America’s emergency communications network (or so-called Doomsday communications network) in four of our country’s recent provocation-deception plots: 11/22, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and 9/11. If one part of the government is deceiving another, it needs its own alternative network to do so. Oliver North, for example, used just such an anti-terrorist network, codenamed Flashboard, to conduct the Iran-Contra arms operations for which he was ultimately fired. 54.There is not time today to develop this theme, other than to note the importance of Crichton’s access to it. But others beside myself have pointed to the meta-importance of those charged with overseeing the Doomsday communications network, known most recently as the Continuity of Government (COG) network. James Mann, for example, has referred to the COG network overseers as “part of the permanent, though hidden, national security apparatus of the United States, inhabitants of a world in which Presidents may come and go, but America always keeps on fighting.” 55.The DPD-Army Connection ReconsideredI devoted a whole chapter of my book Deep Politics to the Dallas Police-Army Intelligence connection. But I now think that I seriously misinterpreted its significance, by seeing its phase-one propensity as an example of right-wing Texas divergence from the phase-two inclination of those responsible for running the country. Today we know that the phase-one zeal in Dallas to implicate Castro, by the use of deceptive falsehoods, had also characterized the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington.Researcher Larry Haapanen has discovered the 488th seems to have had its own direct chain of command linking it to Washington. In an esoteric publication entitled The Military Order of World Wars (Turner Publishing Company, 1997, p. 120), he found that Crichton "commanded the 488th MID (Strategic), reporting directly to the Army Chief of Intelligence and the Defense Intelligence Agency." 56. And in 1970 Haapanen was told by Crichton’s commander in the Texas Army Reserve, Lt. Col. Whitmeyer, that Crichton's unit did its summer training at the Pentagon.It is now clear that Stringfellow’s claims about Oswald as a Communist Party visitor to Cuba, though clearly false, fell well within the guidelines for a provocation-deception as set out in the Northwoods and May 1963 documents. All this Cuban deception planning was in support of JCS OPLANS 312 (Air Attack in Cuba) and 316 (Invasion of Cuba). These were not theoretical exercises, but actively developed operational plans which the JCS were only too eager to execute. As they told Kennedy, “We are not only ready to take any action you may order in Cuba, we are also in an excellent condition world-wide to counter any Soviet military response to such action.” 57.In other words, they were prepared for a nuclear strike against Soviet Russia; even though the JCS, as Air Force General Leon Johnson told the National Security Council in September 1963, believed this would probably result in “at least 140 million fatalities in the USSR.” 58.At the peak of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, according to Khruschchev’s memoir, Robert Kennedy told the Russian ambassador, Anatoly Dobrynin:The President is in a grave situation and does not know how to get out of it. We are under very severe stress. In fact we are under pressure from our military to use force against Cuba…. Even though the President himself is very much against starting a war over Cuba, an irreversible chain of events could occur against his will. That is why the President is appealing directly to Chairman Khrushchev for his help in liquidating this conflict. If the situation continues much longer, the President is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power. The American army could get out of control." 59. Footnotes: 44. Beschloss, Taking Charge, 67-69, LBJ phone call with Richard Russell, 11/29/63; cf. 65.45. 9 WH 106; Scott, Deep Politics, 275-76; Russ Baker, Family of Secrets, 119-22.46. Rodney P. Carlisle and Dominic J. Monetta, Brandy: Our Man in Acapulco (Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press, 1999), 128.47. Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point, 38.48. Discussion in Scott, Deep Politics, 273-74.49. In early November 1963, Byrd and his investment partner, James Ling, made a significant insider purchase of stock in their defense industry investment, LTV. Although required by SEC rules to report this insider purchase, they delayed doing so until well after Kennedy’s assassination. Then in January LTV received the first major LBJ defense contract from the Pentagon – for a fighter plane designed for Vietnam. Cf. Joan Mellen, “The Kennedy Assassination and the Current Political Moment,” Part II, http://www.joanmellen.net/truth-2.html.50. Crichton’s collaborator in the 1950s study, fellow 488th member Lt. Col. Frank Brandstetter, was in turn a friend of men like:1) David Phillips, in charge of Covert Action at the Mexico City Station when Oswald allegedly visited there; Phillips had known Brandstetter since both men were together in Havana in the 1950s (Carlisle and Monetta, Brandy, 146-47)2) Gordon McLendon, wealthy Dallas businessman whom Jack Ruby described as one of his six closest friends (20 WH 39);3) George de Mohrenschildt, the oilman whom some see as a handler for the Oswalds in 1962; and also Dorothe Matlack and Sam Kail, the Army Intelligence personnel who coordinated George de Mohrenschildt’s April 1963 visit with CIA and Army Intelligence in Washington4) Philippe Thyraud de Vosjoli, a French intelligence (SDECE) agent who worked closely with Angleton in Washington. On 11/22 de Vosjoli reportedly panicked on hearing of Kennedy’s death, packed a few clothes into a van, and departed Washington to join Brandstetter in Acapulco. (Tom Mangold, Cold Warrior, 131-33).51. Sunoco, Inc., Annual Report, 2009, 4.52. Russ Baker, Family of Secrets, 121.53. “Statement by Col. John W. Mayo, Chairman of City-County Civil Defense and Disaster Commission at the Dedication of the Emergency Operating Center at Fair Park,” May 24, 1961, http://www.civildefensemuseum.com/fallout/dallaseoc.html.Six linear inches of Civil Defense Administrative Files are preserved in the Dallas Municipal Archives; a Finding Guide is viewable on line at http://www.ci.dallas.tx.us/cso/archives/FindingGuides/08001.html. I hope an interested researcher may wish to consult them.54. Peter Dale Scott, "Northwards Without North: Bush, Counterterrorism, and the Continuation of Secret Power." Social Justice (San Francisco), XVI, 2 (Summer 1989), 1-30: cf. Peter Dale Scott, "The Terrorism Task Force." Covert Action Information Bulletin, 33 (Winter 1990), 12-15.55. James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Viking, 2004), 145. In 1991 a CNN feature on the COG overseers described these overseers even more ominously as a “shadow government,” and opened with “In theUnited States Federal Government there is a super-secret agency which controls this Shadow Government” (CNN, November 17, 1991, quoted in Shirley Anne Warshaw, The Co-presidency of Bush and Cheney [Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Politics and Policy, 2009], 162).56. The Military Order of World Wars (Turner Publishing Company, 1997), 120.57. Memorandum From the Joint Chiefs of Staff to President Kennedy, November 16, 1962JCSM-910-62, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/msc_cuba186.asp: “The Joint Chiefs of Staff are glad to report that our Armed Forces are in an optimum posture to execute CINCLANT OPLANS 312-62 (Air Attack in Cuba)(1) and 316-62 (Invasion of Cuba).(2) We are not only ready to take any action you may order in Cuba, we are also in an excellent condition world-wide to counter any Soviet military response to such action.”58. Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, 239-40.59. Khrushchev Remembers, ed. Strobe Talbott (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970; citation from paperback edition, New York: Bantam, 1971), pp. 551-52; quoted in James K. Galbraith, “Did the U.S. Military Plan a Nuclear First Strike for 1963?” American Prospect, 9/21/24; Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, 27. Bill - I want to keep this thread alive, as for me it’s the most important line of inquiry. Do you know if Larry Haapanen is still with us? Do you have access to his research? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Simpich Posted September 16, 2019 Author Share Posted September 16, 2019 Paul, My understanding is that Larry is still very much alive and active, I don't know how to reach him however - maybe a general appeal to the Forum would work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Simpich Posted September 16, 2019 Author Share Posted September 16, 2019 OK - let's do a quick recap on the 488th. When I started this thread, I pointed towards two members of the 488th, DPD Chief George Lumpkin and DPD Special Services Bureau chief Pat Gannaway. 1. Lumpkin's role in taking Truly to Fritz right after Fritz's arrival at the TSBD with the story "I don't know if it means anything, but I'm missing a man - a young fellow named Lee Oswald." Truly was clutching a piece of paper he had already obtained from a phone call to "Aiken" at the warehouse for employee files were kept, and wrote down Oswald's age, height, weight, phone and address from his application form. (23, 5'9, 150, BL 31628, 2515 W. 5th Street, Irving) 2. The Houston Chronicle's 11/22 report that Oswald was was the only one who couldn't be accounted for,' in Truly's alleged employee roll-call according to Detective Capt. Pat Gannaway. Now let's add what Peter Dale Scott wrote in 2010 about "the coincidence that the same the 488th Army Intelligence Reserve unit helped generate the false Marina story, as well as the false Stringfellow report." 3. Scott points to a number of false reports about Oswald’s alleged rifle, and specifically reports indicating, falsely, that Marina Oswald presumed Oswald’s rifle in Dallas to be the rifle he owned in Russia. (Marina’s actual words, before mis-translation, were quite innocuous: “I cannot describe it [the gun] because a rifle to me like all rifles.”)...The interpreter who first supplied the Marina story, Ilya Mamantov, was selected as the result of a phone call between Deputy Police Chief George Lumpkin and Jack Crichton. We have already seen that Crichton commanded the 488th; and Lumpkin, in addition to being the Deputy Police Chief, was also a deputy commander of the 488th under Crichton." 4. Scott also points to the statement made by "Assistant Chief Don Stringfellow, Intelligence Section, Dallas Police Department, (who) notified 112th INTC [Intelligence] Group, this Headquarters, that information obtained from Oswald revealed he had defected to Cuba in 1959 and is a card-carrying member of Communist Party. The cable sent on November 22 from the Fourth Army Command in Texas to the U.S. Strike Command at Fort MacDill in Florida, the base poised for a possible retaliatory attack against Cuba. ...Stringfellow’s superior officer, Captain W.P. Gannaway, was a member of Army Intelligence Reserve. Later Ed Coyle, himself a warrant officer of the 112th Intelligence Group, testified to the Assassinations Records Review Board that all the officers in the DPD’s Intelligence Section were in army intelligence. Actually they were almost certainly in the 488th Army Intelligence Reserve unit of Dallas: Jack Crichton , the head of the 488th, revealed in an oral history that there were “about a hundred men in that unit and about forty or fifty of them were from the Dallas Police Department.” (Russ Baker, Family of Secrets, p. 122) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B. A. Copeland Posted September 17, 2019 Share Posted September 17, 2019 (edited) Excellent work Bill! I’m going to, as always, read the posts here a couple more times and ask questions if any arise. Now, according to some documents examined by Barto/Blunt, Doug Campbell (possibly you and others?) we now know that the 902 Intelligence Group in Washington coordinated with the CIA concerning Mexico City? That was fascinating info that I personally never knew. His point was that there were certainly other govt. organizations or bodies that knew of the wiretap ops. in MC. Edited June 15, 2020 by B. A. Copeland Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Thomas Posted September 18, 2019 Share Posted September 18, 2019 On 9/16/2019 at 4:33 PM, Bill Simpich said: OK - let's do a quick recap on the 488th. When I started this thread, I pointed towards two members of the 488th, DPD Chief George Lumpkin and DPD Special Services Bureau chief Pat Gannaway. Bill, You may be interested in this. https://archive.org/stream/nsia-HochPaulCorrespondence/nsia-HochPaulCorrespondence/Hoch Paul 0952_djvu.txt An article on "Spies in Dallas?" in a Dallas paper in summer 1963 lends support to speculation about active ONI interest, as it does to many ideas about a nexus of DPD, federal, and private intelligence outfits in Oswald's Dallas milieu. Capt. Pat Gannaway of the DPD (and Army Intelligence Reserve) described the work against subversion and espionage of his Special Services Bureau, requiring "the closest cooperation" with other agencies, including the FBI, "military intelligence teams 'from the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and other federal agencies .... Dallas police have been highly successful in recent years in penetrating so-called subversive or radical groups...." Posted Tuesday, February 5, 2013 Posted by Bill Kelly at 6:50 AM http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/02/spies-in-dallas-police-alert.html Spies in Dallas? Police Alert By JERRY RICHMOND Staff Writer August 5, 1963 “A man would be a fool to say any city in the United States is secure from subversion and espionage.” This statement was made by the man in charge with keeping an eye on activities in Dallas involving espionage, subversion and sabotage for the Dallas Police Department. ‘Sensitive’ Police Captain Pat Gannaway, head of the department’s special services bureau, and a dozen of hand-picked offices under Lieutenant J. R. Revill in the criminal intelligence section of his bureau have been assigned to work with federal and state intelligence officials to guard the Dallas area from penetration by subversives seeking to harm the nation’s security. Within this bureau fall all the things of a sensitive nature, and they…expionage and subversive activities….must be watched at all times,” the veteran police officer and reserve lieutenant colonel in the Army Intelligence corps said. In addition to other country and state agents, the bureau’s work involves close support of Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, military intelligence teams from the Army, Navy and Air Force, and other federal agencies with investigators operating from headquarters here. This combined federal, state and local team has men laced throughout the industrial and strategic points in the city’s life line. The job of the intelligence action in Capt. Ganaway’s bureau, besides keeping check on organized crime, requires the closets cooperation with these other government agencies gathering intelligence on subversive groups and individuals suspected of espionage. Dallas police have been highly successful in recent years in penetrating so-called subversive groups or radical groups which appear likely some day to cause danger to the public. Penetration In many cases undercover agents actually joined these groups to get names, addresses, past activities and future plans or have established networks of informants to acompolish the same result. Private business,, retail credit bureaus, utility companies and even employers often provide invaluable information on suspicious perons who are kept under surveillance for months without their knowledge. With membership in a national police intelligence organization known as LEIU (Law Enforcement Intelligence Unites) the local officers are able to get information almost immediately on suspected subversives when they move into Dallas. This information is exchanged by police units as these persons move from city to city. Captain Gannaway’s men daily face the problem of changing membership in organization under question. He noted the most difficult part of the job is the freedom of movement of known subversives, but added: “That freedom is the dearest thing we have and I would not restrict it even for those who would destroy it.” PLANT SECURTIY Other civilians involved as a group in national security work at the local level are corporation security officers. Floyd Purvis, manger of corporation security for Texas Instruments, pointed out that all plants in the Dallas-Fort Worth area with defense contracts operate under strict Department of Defense security regulations similar to those on military bases. Employees in the plants are carefully screened by security conscious personnel ofificers, and the key jobs are given strict government security clearances. UPGRADING Industry is taking great strides to upgrade security practices. One such group in this aera is the American Society for Industrial Security, an organization in which Mr. Purvis is a local chairman. Such governmental and civilian counter-intelligence activities are selcom publicized until a spy is caught, but local activity by these agencies has placed Dallas and other American cities in the fight against intrigues in a web of espionage. Every citizen has a role in the nation’s security, Capt. Gannaway concluded. Often one small tip from an individual has meant bringing the pieces together for some intelligence agency. Steve Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Simpich Posted September 21, 2019 Author Share Posted September 21, 2019 Members 159 posts Report post Posted Monday at 02:33 PM OK - here's ten bullet points on the real (or imagined?) sins of Lumpkin and Gannaway - please send your comments and additions! I consider Lumpkin and Gannaway part of a small group that includes DPD personnel chief William Westbrook (who allegedly worked with the CIA), sergeant Jerry Hill (a former police reporter), reserve sergeant Kenneth Croy, (who allegedly "found" the Tippit wallet at his death scene and never reported it, and was suspected by the WC as assisting Jack Ruby in getting in position to shoot Oswald) and Lt. George Butler (Gannaway's partner for many years - who interviewed Jack Ruby at length back in 1950 and testified about it to the corruption investigations years later to the Kefauver Committee - Harold Weisberg and others believe Butler gave the order to bring down Oswald prematurely before the escort vehicle was in place, also aiding Ruby in getting in position to shoot Oswald) All six of these men are now deceased, but their friends and families can and should be interviewed. These men should all be treated as suspects - there are small groups like this I can identify at another time - identifying their roles puts together an important building block of the JFK investigation. 1. Both Lumpkin and Gannaway were high-ranking DPD officials that were also members of Army Intelligence. Both men were present at the meeting reviewing the entire operational plan for the motorcade conducted in Curry's office on 11/21/63. Both men played central roles in the events that resulted in Oswald being named as a suspect in the moments before his capture at the Texas Theatre. Lt. George Butler - who was Gannaway’s partner for many years - was the one in charge of the downtown jail at the time of the transfer of Oswald when he was shot by Jack Ruby. 2. Lumpkin was in the pilot car, 3 minutes ahead of the motorcade. It made a suspicious stop - talking to a policeman, unreported in any of the police affidavits - right in front of the book depository in the moments before the assassination. (21 WH 579; Scott, p. 273) 3. In the moments after the assassination, Lumpkin ordered the sealing of the book depository. (21 WH 580). This “sealing” proved to be very ineffective, as not all the doors were covered. (need source). Herbert Sawyer, the officer allegedly watching the doors after the "sealing", was the one who called in at 12:44 and got the radio call going that an unknown white man of nondescript build had told him that the shooter was “Slender white male about 30, five feet ten, 165”. Sawyer was with the Special Services Bureau - his boss was Gannaway. Sawyer was accused of corruption a few years after and resigned in disgrace. 4. Jerry Hill went to work for Westbrook in the personnel division just weeks before 11/22/63. Between the two men, they had access to all the personnel files. Westbrook was the decision-maker on hiring, firing, discipline, and Internal Affairs. Neither man had any business being at a crime scene - but Jerry Hill was one of the two men credited with finding the shells on the sixth floor and is photographed leaning out the window for the crime scene unit to come upstairs. The official report indicates that homicide officers found the shells in the TSBD - when in fact it was Jerry Hill and/or Luke Mooney. 5. "(Deputy Chief) Lumpkin (see Peter Dale Scott - Deep Politics, p. 274) then instructed Revill to organize his team against the east wall...and make a systematic search...a member of Revill's searching party...found the rifle." Why was Lumpkin making these various decisions. Because Lumpkin was head of the Service Division, which included George Doughty's Identification Bureau (this unit got the tip at 3:15 pm that there were cards in Oswald's wallet identifying him as "Alek Hidell" - the rifle was mail ordered in the name of Hidell), Fingerprint Section, Crime Scene Search Section, HQ Section, Warrant Section, Property Bureau and the Records Bureau. Lumpkin controlled the entire crime scene process and the subsequent processing - in other words, he controlled the evidence. 6. Lumpkin's role in taking Truly to Fritz right after Fritz's arrival at the TSBD with the story "I don't know if it means anything, but I'm missing a man - a young fellow named Lee Oswald." Truly was clutching a piece of paper he had already obtained from a phone call to "Aiken" at the warehouse for employee files were kept, and wrote down Oswald's age, height, weight, phone and address from his application form. (23, 5'9, 150, BL 31628, 2515 W. 5th Street, Irving) 7. The Houston Chronicle's 11/22 report that Oswald was was the only one who couldn't be accounted for,' in Truly's alleged employee roll-call according to Detective Capt. Pat Gannaway. That night, Gannaway led a group of officers to visit the home of TSBD employee Joseph Molina - who was singled out a long time ago by Communist Party leader and FBI informant William Lowery who was "the Herbert Philbrick of Dallas". Molina's name as a possible suspect got in the papers - and he wound up suing the Dallas police for defamation! 8. Peter Dale Scott wrote in 2010 about "the coincidence that the same the 488th Army Intelligence Reserve unit helped generate the false Marina story, as well as the false Stringfellow report." Scott points to a number of false reports about Oswald’s alleged rifle, and specifically reports indicating, falsely, that Marina Oswald presumed Oswald’s rifle in Dallas to be the rifle he owned in Russia. (Marina’s actual words, before mis-translation, were quite innocuous: “I cannot describe it [the gun] because a rifle to me like all rifles.”) ...The interpreter who first supplied the Marina story, Ilya Mamantov, was selected as the result of a phone call between Deputy Police Chief George Lumpkin and Jack Crichton. We have already seen that Crichton commanded the 488th; and Lumpkin, in addition to being the Deputy Police Chief, was also a deputy commander of the 488th under Crichton." 9. Scott also points to the statement made by "Assistant Chief Don Stringfellow, Intelligence Section, Dallas Police Department, (who) notified 112th INTC [Intelligence] Group, this Headquarters, that information obtained from Oswald revealed he had defected to Cuba in 1959 and is a card-carrying member of Communist Party. The cable sent on November 22 from the Fourth Army Command in Texas to the U.S. Strike Command at Fort MacDill in Florida, the base poised for a possible retaliatory attack against Cuba. ...Stringfellow’s superior officer, Captain W.P. Gannaway, was a member of Army Intelligence Reserve. Later Ed Coyle, himself a warrant officer of the 112th Intelligence Group, testified to the Assassinations Records Review Board that all the officers in the DPD’s Intelligence Section were in army intelligence. Actually they were almost certainly in the 488th Army Intelligence Reserve unit of Dallas: Jack Crichton , the head of the 488th, revealed in an oral history that there were “about a hundred men in that unit and about forty or fifty of them were from the Dallas Police Department.” (Russ Baker, Family of Secrets, p. 122) 10. On 2/26/64 - in an effort made to resolve chain of possession of backyard photo - Lumpkin "forgets" he made multiple copies and made them available on November 23 and November 24, but Carl Day tells on him, saying that "24 or more" were placed on a table for law enforcement officers - and "anyone" could have got ahold of them. This act directly violated a police order issued on November 22 that "photographs (in the JFK case) were to be disseminated only on authority of the Chief's office". Lumpkin was a deputy chief - not the chief. Days later, even the hangdog WC was asking the FBI for info on the "chain of possession" on the backyard photo - apparently sold to Life by Marina and James Martin for 5K - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Simpich Posted October 20, 2019 Author Share Posted October 20, 2019 Here's an important addition to bullet point #7: Revill said he got the list on 11/22 of TSBD employees that he gave to Gannaway, led with the wrong address of "Harvey Lee Oswald" as "605 Elsbeth" - this address came from from Detective Carroll or Detective Taylor or other "officers involved in the arrest". The list names a number of people as not in the building! Even Dulles claimed he wanted to know the story on the Elsbeth address - which was probably parked in the Army's "Harvey Lee Oswald" intelligence file for some time - and Revill could have got it from Army Intelligence either before or on 11/22. Revill's response for Dulles and the WC on 5/19/64 was that he got it orally from Carroll, who misread the 602 Elsbeth address on LHO's library card when he looked at Oswald's wallet from "back over his shoulder" - Carroll was sitting in the front seat, so it's at least credible. But note how the "Harvey Lee Oswald" is also in there - and that was the Army's file on him. Carroll did not "misread" that - there was all kinds of info in the wallet, none with that name! Also note how the WC refused to address the "Harvey Lee Oswald" on the list, only the "605 Elsbeth". Detective Carroll was with Gannaway's criminal intelligence unit, and also came up with the pistol allegedly Oswald's at the theater. An addition and correction to bullet point #7: Molina was accused by Gannaway's team during the night of Nov. 22 of associating with Communist and subversive elements and indicated that Molina was a friend of Oswald. Molina knew who Oswald was, but had no relationship with him. One spooky fact is that "Prayer Man" was standing next to Molina in the notorious photos. Was Molina being intimidated in some way? I earlier said Molina sued the police - he sued the Radio Station WRR for false statements made by the police - but I see nothing showing he sued the police themselves. Bullet point #11 Stringfellow mistakenly identifies Oswald as being arrested in the balcony. Was this a slip by someone who couldn't remember what he was and wasn't supposed to know? Many have pointed to this as evidence that another man looking like Oswald was apprehended in the balcony and taken out the back door - as witnessed by hobby store owner Bernard Haire - and the man in the balcony was the man who was chased by Johnny Brewer into the theater. Brewer exchanged words before he began his pursuit with 2 unnamed IBM employees who frequented his shoe store in the weeks before 11/22 and would "kill time and lounge around", who were listening to the radio reports of the Tippit shooting right before the Oswald sighting. Brewer had known them throughout the time of his employment - he began working there in August 1962. Were these IBM employees part of the operation? This Stringfellow ID of "Oswald arrested in the balcony" is the opening of the Criminal Intelligence file maintained by Gannaway. For whatever reason, Gannaway ordered a string of interviews on or about Feb. 17, 1964 - probably at the request of the Warren Commission. Ticket taker Julia Postal heard about the announcement of JFK's death on the radio - which was at 1:30 - "just about the time all chaos broke loose". Moments later, as her boss was leaving the building, the Oswald figure entered the theater with Brewer in pursuit. After Postal called the police, the dispatcher told Jerry Hill and others at 1:46 that the suspect was "in the balcony". Bob Carroll of Gannaway's Special Services Bureau gets Oswald's gun inside the theater, who hands it over to an insistent Jerry Hill - who calls in the report to the dispatcher that Oswald was captured at 1:51. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Simpich Posted October 20, 2019 Author Share Posted October 20, 2019 Chief Jesse Curry said that the Dallas police did not know about the defector Lee Oswald living in their midst until after the assassination. It is not credible. The CIA and the FBI knew that he was living there. So did the Cubans in New Orleans. So did the Odio family and their friends and allies living in Dallas. Yet there is no official DPD record or testimony admitting that basic fact. It is not credible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Thomas Posted October 20, 2019 Share Posted October 20, 2019 (edited) On 10/20/2019 at 2:04 AM, Bill Simpich said: Here's an important addition to bullet point #7: Revill said he got the list on 11/22 of TSBD employees that he gave to Gannaway, led with the wrong address of "Harvey Lee Oswald" as "605 Elsbeth" - this address came from from Detective Carroll or Detective Taylor or other "officers involved in the arrest". The list names a number of people as not in the building! Even Dulles claimed he wanted to know the story on the Elsbeth address - which was probably parked in the Army's "Harvey Lee Oswald" intelligence file for some time - and Revill could have got it from Army Intelligence either before or on 11/22. Revill's response for Dulles and the WC on 5/19/64 was that he got it orally from Carroll, who misread the 602 Elsbeth address on LHO's library card when he looked at Oswald's wallet from "back over his shoulder" - Carroll was sitting in the front seat, so it's at least credible. But note how the "Harvey Lee Oswald" is also in there - and that was the Army's file on him. Carroll did not "misread" that - there was all kinds of info in the wallet, none with that name! Also note how the WC refused to address the "Harvey Lee Oswald" on the list, only the "605 Elsbeth". Bill, Mr. DULLES. I think that would be useful. I would like to know that. I would like to know where they got this address also. Mr. REVILL. It would have been the same day because this was made within an hour---- The CHAIRMAN. I think that is all. Thank you, again, lieutenant. Mr. REVILL. I will attempt to find out on that address, and I shall let Mr. Sorrels know, with Secret Service. It's Dulles, not Rankin who keeps pushing Revill where he got this address. Is Dulles concerned that Revill knew about a connection of a Harvey Lee Oswald to Elsbeth St, and how Revill would know about that? Just about the time when Revill would have revealed when he obtained this address, he is cut off. Warren Commission Document# 948 is a memo from Sorrels to Inspector Kelley dated May 19, 1964. https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11344#relPageId=2&tab=page In that memo, Sorrels says that Revill contacted Sorrels (it does not say how this contact was made), and said that Revill told him he got the 605 Elsbeth address orally from Bob Carroll. As the driver of the car that took Oswald from the Theater to the police station, Carroll allegedly looked back over his shoulder and read the address off a Dallas Public Library card that had been removed from Oswald's billfold by one of the officers in the back seat. Carroll allegedly said that he misread the number as 605 instead of 602. This is six days after Revilll's WC testimony, and one month after Bob Carroll told the WC that no mention of an address had been made in the car transporting Oswald to City Hall. Detective Bob Carroll's testimony before the Warren Commission April 3, 1964 http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/carroll.htm Mr. BELIN. Did he give two names? Or did someone in the car read from the identification? Mr. CARROLL. Someone in the car may have read from the identification. I know two names, the best I recall, were mentioned. Mr. BELIN. Were any addresses mentioned? Mr. CARROLL. Not that I recall; no, sir. In their after-action reports filed with Chief Curry on December 3rd, neither Caroll (DPD Archives Box 5, Folder# 2, Item# 73), nor Detective E.E. Taylor, Special Services Bureau, Narcotics Section (DPD Archives Box 5, Folder# 2, Item# 81) make any mention of giving Revill Oswald’s address. http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/box5.htm K.E. Lyon, who was also in the car transporting Oswald to City Hall in his report: Box 5, Folder# 2, Item# 78 makes no mention of obtaining Oswald's address A copy of the Library Card can be found in CD 5, page 492. https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10406#relPageId=497&tab=page The Library Card that does exist in the official records as shown above is in the name of Lee Harvey Oswald, but when the police arrived at Beckley, they were looking for someone named Harvey Lee Oswald. The housekeeper, Earlene Roberts testified to the Warren Commission, that, Mrs. ROBERTS. Well, it was Will Fritz' men---it was plainclothesmen and I was at the back doing something and Mr. Johnson answered the door and they identified themselves and then he called me. Mr. BALL. What did they say?Mrs. ROBERTS. Well, they asked him if there was a Harvey Lee Oswald there. Mr. BALL. And you didn't have that name you didn't ever know his name was Lee Oswald?Mrs. ROBERTS. No---he registered as O. H. Lee and they were asking for Harvey Lee Oswald. The police had been dispatched to N. Beckley at 2:40 PM. Steve Thomas Edited October 21, 2019 by Steve Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Brancato Posted October 20, 2019 Share Posted October 20, 2019 Wasn’t Harvey Lee Oswald inserted into CIA files as a poison pill? That it ended up in military files - Army - is suspicious. I’ve thought for a long time that it is a major clue, along with the false physical description that went out over Police radio within 20 minutes of the assassination. I appreciate the expertise that Steve and Bill bring to their posts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Simpich Posted October 21, 2019 Author Share Posted October 21, 2019 Steve - I think the questions posed to the housekeeper Earlene Roberts at Oswald's apartment is extremely important. You pointed out that these men identified the boarder to her as "Harvey Lee Oswald" at 2:40 pm. She repeated that ID twice, saying that she only knew "O. H. Lee" and they were asking about "Harvey Lee Oswald". (A tip from military intelligence was received by Robert Jones "early that afternoon" that A. J. Hidell had been arrested - he was told the 112th MIG records referred to "Ana J. Hidell". The tip that Jones got came from "Dowdy". "Dowdy" provided more hot tips that night to the 112th, claiming that Marina had id'd the rifle as Oswald's and two men were firing at silhouette targets on 11/20 in Dealey Plaza! Dowdy was actually "Captain George Doughty", described by FBI as "head of the Crime Lab" for Dallas. Doughty was also in charge of the Identification Bureau. Doughty also got the call to go to the Texas Theatre at 1:40 pm, and was joined by polygraph chief Paul Bentley. Jones testified that the info from the Army file that included "Alek Hidell" were passed on at 3:15 to the FBI (180-10116-10200, not on MFF) - and that the tip he was given said nothing about Oswald. However, this 2:40 tip about Harvey Lee Oswald, probably from the now-destroyed Army intelligence file entitled "Harvey Lee Oswald", and probably the source of the Hidell tip, is even earlier than 3:15! (After Jones got this tip, he checked the Military Intelligence index for Hidell and came up with Oswald! Then Jones called the FBI at 3:15) The best indication is that the tip came from George Doughty of the Dallas Police Lab/Dallas ID Bureau/112th MIG. The officers that visited Roberts at 2:40 pm were Lt. Elmo L. Cunningham, with police officers Bill Senkel and William Potts. Roberts referred to them as "Fritz's men" - she had a long-standing familiarity with the Dallas police. (One man's opinion on Fritz and company: Former Dallas DA Travis Kirk opined that Fritz could have easily set up Fritz's death; one of his clients claimed Tippit had raped her; and that Ruby's first attorney Tom Howard had a stable of prostitutes.) Whether or not they were "Fritz's men", Cunningham and Potts were clearly the "Bunko Squad" - the forgery unit, they would examine fraud and con men. Historically, bunko squad men were often used in internal affairs, because capturing a dirty cop is not easy. To catch a con artist - it often takes a con artist. Westbrook was a con artist. So was Cunningham. The ranking officer who was questioning housekeeper about "Harvey Lee Oswald" at the scene at 2:40 pm would have been Cunningham. Lt. Cunningham came straight from the Texas Theatre, where he had been handed Westbrook's list of 21 or 22 witnesses to the capture of Oswald. He had been collecting names with Detectives John Toney, E.E. Taylor (who answered to Gannaway at the Special Services Bureau) and the polygraph chief Bentley (who claimed he found Oswald's wallet in his pocket) Westbrook's list of Texas Theatre witnesses was never seen again. I have found no record that Cunningham or Taylor was ever questioned about this list. Cunningham's report says nothing about the list. Taylor writes in his report that he and Cunningham and Toney put the list together. Toney reports the theatre was locked so they could interview the witnesses. Cunningham had one of his men wait in the car when he went towards the balcony of the theatre - Cunningham and Detective Toney came out with one witness who was questioned, but there is no record of the name of the witness Cunningham and Toney questioned in the balcony nor the "manager" that he and Toney spoke with. Here's a good map for the proximity of the boarding house/Texas Theatre events. Note how Cunningham went straight from questioning witnesses at the Theatre after the 1:50 arrest of Oswald to leading the interview at Oswald's boarding house at 2:40. A couple weeks later, Cunningham went out of his way to try to debunk Kirk Coleman's story that he saw three men fleeing the Walker shooting - even though others support Coleman's story. During June of 1963 Cunningham had gone out of his way to claim that Walker's aide "Bill Duff did not have anything to do" with his shooting. He admitted elsewhere that Duff was a con man and a check passer, but cleared him based on what I consider an inherently unreliable method - the polygraph. Again, Bentley was in charge of polygraphs. I should end with emphasizing Steve's find that Carroll made up his story about "mis-reading 602 Elsbeth" as "605 Elsbeth" by "looking over his shoulder" in the car after Carroll testified to the WC the previous month that he heard nothing in the car about Oswald's address. Like Taylor, Carroll also answered to Gannaway. We don't know if Doughty, Carroll and Taylor were also part of the 488th, but they were certainly Army Intelligence and I assume all part of the 112th. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Thomas Posted October 21, 2019 Share Posted October 21, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, Bill Simpich said: The officers that visited Roberts at 2:40 pm were Lt. Elmo L. Cunningham, with police officers Bill Senkel and William Potts. Roberts referred to them as "Fritz's men" - Whether or not they were "Fritz's men", Cunningham and Potts were clearly the "Bunko Squad" - the forgery unit, Bill, A small note: Walter E. Potts and Billy Senkel were both with the Homicide and Robbery Bureau, and would indeed be considered "Fritz's men" see page 29 of Batchelor's Exhibit https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/pdf/WH19_Batchelor_Ex_5002.pdf They probably wore those white Stetsons that made the Detectives from H&R so recognizable. Cunningham was with the Forgery Bureau - see p. 31 of the same Exhibit. I had never noticed before that there was an Earl Potts in Forgery. I wonder if he was related to Walter. Looks like a number of people came out of Forgery: O.A. Jones, who would spearhead an internal investigation of how Ruby got into the basement Marvin Buhk, who would encounter "Secret Service Agents" at the Library William Chambers, who would interrogate the Three Tramps Patsy Collins and Mary Rattan, who would take so many of the Affidavits. Steve Thomas Edited October 21, 2019 by Steve Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Simpich Posted October 22, 2019 Author Share Posted October 22, 2019 Right, Steve, Peter Dale Scott studied Senkel and Turner for years and has always had a number of concerns about them and their handling of the evidence. They would fit the description of "Fritz's men". Senkel and Turner were also in the lead car of the motorcade with Lumpkin, Lt. Col. George Whitmeyer and Democratic National Committee advance man Jack Puterbaugh. Senkel said "Lumpkin explained that we would be driving ahead of the motorcade about a half -mile." Connally had worked hard to ensure that the Trade Mart was the luncheon site, with Puterbaugh, SS Winston Lawson and others checking it out ahead of time. The motorcade route hit the papers on the 19th. Turner also referred to the man as "Harvey Lee Oswald" in his report. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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