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On 8/1/2019 at 12:05 PM, Bart Kamp said:

Carl Mather HSCA

Thanks to Malcolm Blunt.

This does clarify one point and bring up another.  First, we did discuss this a little bit not too long ago on another thread.

Bart/Malcom's link clarifies what Bill Kelly pointed out to me. From Joseph Mc Bride's Nightmare, pg. 533.  "The HSCA sought testimony from Carl Mather in 1978.  G. Robert Blakey... applied to U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell for an order compelling Mather's testimony and inexplicably "conferring immunity on Carl Amos Mather" for that testimony..."  But they never called him to testify under oath.  They sent Jack Moriarty and Clarence Day to his residence for the cursory interview summarized in four pages Bart and Malcom provide.

Looking into this I came across a statement by Wes Wise from James Douglass in Unspeakable that Mather in 1963 used his CIA level security clearance at his employer Collins Radio/Rockwell International to refuse to be questioned by the FBI.  They went to his wife and she blabbed.

In 1978 Mather told Moriarty and Day, in his home, at the end, "He does recall that on the date of 11/22/63 (Note: the hand written second "2") he worked all day at the Richardson Texas, Collins Radio shop".

Yet, when he used his CIA clearance and refused to talk to the FBI in 1963, they interviewed his wife and she spilled the beans.  December 14th she told them he left work about 2:30, came home and about 3:30 and they went to console their friend and former neighbor Marie Tippitt and her children.  Carl took the kid's home about 5:00, fed them and put them to bed.  Apparently she stayed and kept consoling Marie.

Note, in Nightmare, Mc Bride notes future Mayor Wes Wise noted, in 1963 when he was given Mathers license number by mechanic W T white, the car was a 1957 Plymouth, like Mather really owned and the FBI confirmed.  The FBI later called it a Red Plymouth, then a Red Falcon.

No wonder Mather was too nervous to eat when Wise bought him the supper for an interview in 1964.  

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On 8/2/2019 at 9:45 PM, Ron Bulman said:

This does clarify one point and bring up another.  First, we did discuss this a little bit not too long ago on another thread.

Bart/Malcom's link clarifies what Bill Kelly pointed out to me. From Joseph Mc Bride's Nightmare, pg. 533.  "The HSCA sought testimony from Carl Mather in 1978.  G. Robert Blakey... applied to U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell for an order compelling Mather's testimony and inexplicably "conferring immunity on Carl Amos Mather" for that testimony..."  But they never called him to testify under oath.  They sent Jack Moriarty and Clarence Day to his residence for the cursory interview summarized in four pages Bart and Malcom provide.

Looking into this I came across a statement by Wes Wise from James Douglass in Unspeakable that Mather in 1963 used his CIA level security clearance at his employer Collins Radio/Rockwell International to refuse to be questioned by the FBI.  They went to his wife and she blabbed.

In 1978 Mather told Moriarty and Day, in his home, at the end, "He does recall that on the date of 11/22/63 (Note: the hand written second "2") he worked all day at the Richardson Texas, Collins Radio shop".

Yet, when he used his CIA clearance and refused to talk to the FBI in 1963, they interviewed his wife and she spilled the beans.  December 14th she told them he left work about 2:30, came home and about 3:30 and they went to console their friend and former neighbor Marie Tippitt and her children.  Carl took the kid's home about 5:00, fed them and put them to bed.  Apparently she stayed and kept consoling Marie.

Note, in Nightmare, Mc Bride notes future Mayor Wes Wise noted, in 1963 when he was given Mathers license number by mechanic W T white, the car was a 1957 Plymouth, like Mather really owned and the FBI confirmed.  The FBI later called it a Red Plymouth, then a Red Falcon.

No wonder Mather was too nervous to eat when Wise bought him the supper for an interview in 1964.  

So, Mather used his CIA level security clearance to refuse questioning by the FBI in 1963.  Then lied about it to the HSCA in 1978 by saying he was at work all day on 11/22/63.  When his wife told them on 12/14/63 that on 11/22/63 he left work at 2:30 to pick up her and the kids to go console Marie Tippitt.

Just as important is that when Dallas Morning News reporter Wes Wise, later Mayor, interviewed TL White in December 1963 and was given the license number he also wrote down the make and year auto mechanic White gave him as a 1957 Plymouth.  Which was what Mather owned. What the FBI drove by and saw in his driveway, with the license plate number on it.  Their reports then changed it to a red falcon

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Ron is there a citation of the FBI interview with the wife...certainly it would be documented.

Its also hard for me to seen any sort of security clearance - which would have been related strictly to his engineering work - accepted by the FBI as justification not to testify in a crime; even his attempt to do that would have been recorded in documented form as well - and copied to the CIA for that matter. 

For that matter I'm not even coming up with what sort of "CIA security clearance" would apply....anything having to do with his employer would be standard security relating to his job or a specific project even if it was under a contract to the CIA and such things are normally done via the FBI, the military etc....not the CIA per se.

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19 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

So, Mather used his CIA level security clearance to refuse questioning by the FBI in 1963.  Then lied about it to the HSCA in 1978 by saying he was at work all day on 11/22/63.  When his wife told them on 12/14/63 that on 11/22/63 he left work at 2:30 to pick up her and the kids to go console Marie Tippitt.

Just as important is that when Dallas Morning News reporter Wes Wise, later Mayor, interviewed TL White in December 1963 and was given the license number he also wrote down the make and year auto mechanic White gave him as a 1957 Plymouth.  Which was what Mather owned. What the FBI drove by and saw in his driveway, with the license plate number on it.  Their reports then changed it to a red falcon

Ron,

For years I believed that the FBI altered the color of Mather’s car so as to deny the credibility of T.F. White’s sighting of “Oswald” in it.  But John Armstrong did some recent digging on this and discovered that it was actually Wes Wise’s mistake reading his own notes that led to the car color confusion.  See John’s write-up here:

WES WISE

This doesn’t change the fact that soon after the assassination T.F. White believed he saw a man who looked like “Oswald” in a car owned by none other than J.D. Tippit’s best friend, an employee of CIA-affiliated Collins Radio.

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2 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Ron is there a citation of the FBI interview with the wife...certainly it would be documented.

Its also hard for me to seen any sort of security clearance - which would have been related strictly to his engineering work - accepted by the FBI as justification not to testify in a crime; even his attempt to do that would have been recorded in documented form as well - and copied to the CIA for that matter. 

For that matter I'm not even coming up with what sort of "CIA security clearance" would apply....anything having to do with his employer would be standard security relating to his job or a specific project even if it was under a contract to the CIA and such things are normally done via the FBI, the military etc....not the CIA per se.

Larry, the part about using his CIA clearance is from James Douglass Unspeakable, pg. 296.  He sources it to his 2005 interview of Wes Wise.

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That's exactly it Jim....and of course there should be a similar FBI report for her husband...and if he refused to give a statement on something like his movements and association with Tippett the FBI would have noted that, as well as his reasons why....and if he mentioned the CIA it would have been expected they would be on the distribution for the report.  Finding that one should tell the story one way or the other.

 

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Ron, that's sort of what I expected but that's not really corroboration....especially if there is no detail as to how and why Wes knew that....did Mather tells Wes that...didn't that raise real issues with Wes as a newsman. Did he take it to the CIA or the FBI as a question?   I appreciate the citation but that was what I was afraid it was going to be and its just too weak for corroboration of what is really a serious claim.

I've always thought the Mather lead was quite important but I could never get any further than what Jim posted - beyond that it just gets to be word of mouth with incredibly little detail for something so seemingly sensational. 

On the other hand, if they interviewed the wife, there really is no excuse for an interview with the husband even if he pushed back...might be an interesting FOIA request given the wife's interview as a reference point.

 

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Carl Mather refused to speak to the FBI.  From HSCA volume 12, p. 39: “Mrs. Carl A. Mather was interviewed by FBI Agent Charles T. Brown on December 5, 1963, at the Mather home at 4303 Colgate Street in Garland, Tex. . . .  No FBI report of an interview or contact with Carl Mather was located.

Mather refused to testify to the HSCA until he was granted immunity.  As of some years ago (I haven’t checked recently) his testimony was still “postponed in full.”  If someone has more recent information on Mather’s HSCA testimony, please let us know.

I’d like to stress that we can never understand this case by relying solely on U.S. government documents.  The record is now pretty clear that Johnson ordered Hoover and Warren to pin the whole thing on “Lee Harvey Oswald” acting alone.  

Mark Lane proved more than half a century ago that the FBI altered numerous eyewitness statements.  Here’s a three-minute YouTube video demonstrating it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODXoISgU-0M

The Warren Commission even altered sworn testimony by FBI agents.  Here’s one example.

Cadigan_Altered.jpg

 

This apparently happened so often a procedure was in place to change testimony even over the objections of WC attorneys.
Dingle.gif

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The lack of the Mather FBI interview....I am betting there was one....and the HSCA immunity in particular is striking and I am going to speculate it has to do with knowledge of Lee Oswald.  There is really no other good reason for it unless Tippett revealed something to him that would be pretty stunning. 

I agree we won't solve the case from documents but as PDS said long ago, holes in the document trail can be quite important and this is a striking one....comparable to the fact that the CIA had soft files on Roy Hargraves and Sylvia Odio which were denied to the HSCA but do show up in a very short list of soft files (which usually mean local office or operational files with copies not necessarily kept at HQ).

Would be interesting to post a short list of HSCA immunity testimonies, I only recall one off the top of my head and that was from the Miami Cuban who torpedoed Garrison's investigation.

Good find and this one probably deserves a thread of its own.

 

 

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I joined the Detroit Police Dept in 1969. It was common practice to write down the appropriate info in a notebook and then towards the end of the day it would be transferred to the official run sheet.I knew coppers who kept these informal notebooks from their entire carer.

 

And I suspect that November 22nd would be a day where such informal and unofficial records would be kept after transferred to the actual activity log. Maybe not but maybe

Edited by Evan Marshall
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