Oswald's "Interrogation" and the WC.

[Paul Jolliffe]

2 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

The question I’ve always had was how many of the people sitting in during the interrogations were aware of the recordings and therefore had to keep their mouths shut for year after year.

  

The answer: all of them.

 

[Jim Hargrove]

Yeah, but only if all of them knew about a recording system.  Less than a decade after the Kennedy assassination, Richard Nixon’s White House voice-activated taping system became famous.  What also became famous was the fact that very few people knew about it.

Fritz was not a rube, but I have no idea what kind of sophisticated crap he may have had access to.  Assuming he recorded Oswald, how can we know how many others knew?

[Paul Jolliffe]

Oh, you didn't need to have special access to "sophisticated crap" in 1963 to be able to record a suspect innocuously. Dallas was not some hick town - it was in the heart of oil country, and I'll bet the DPD had plenty of money sloshing around to get what they wanted. 

The real question is: would Captain Fritz follow the FBI lead and eschew taping devices in favor of a hand-written summary of the witness statement? (The advantage for the FBI was that if the suspect said something the FBI did not want to hear, they simply did not write it down. Problem solved!)

Note that Fritz and Curry did not claim they did not have a recorder, they claimed that there was not room for one during the "Oswald" interrogations.

I'll bet they had one, and your guess that "Oswald" at some point started to give up his "informant" status information to the cops, is a shrewd one. (One that I too, have long suspected.)

Tape recorders were so widespread by 1963 they had their own fan magazine:

https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Tape-Recording/60s/Tape-Recording-1963-04.pdf

 

[Ron Bulman]

I've wondered about this before.  At some point it seems likely that Oswald would have told FBI agents Bookhout or Hosty or SSA Sorrels, just contact.... (Phillips? or...), he can vouch for me, straighten this out.  When they clammed up, did nothing, nothing happened, he knew he was Really screwed.

[Paul Jolliffe]

11 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

I've wondered about this before.  At some point it seems likely that Oswald would have told FBI agents Bookhout or Hosty or SSA Sorrels, just contact.... (Phillips? or...), he can vouch for me, straighten this out.  When they clammed up, did nothing, nothing happened, he knew he was Really screwed.

This brings us back to those mysterious phone calls on Saturday afternoon and early evening. One of which lasted 30 minutes, and for which apparently there exists no official record of the number dialed nor the recipient. (Not to be confused with the later, infamous "Raleigh" call.)

Strange sudden respect by the authorities for the suspect's privacy, just as he is contacting . . . someone.

Rmember, too, that right around this very time on late Saturday afternoon, Dean Andrews received a call from "Clay Bertrand", asking that Andrews go to Dallas to provide legal counsel for "Oswald" . . .

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

Paul:

What Saturday calls are you speaking of?

[David Josephs]

I believe TL Baker was responsible for the typed version of these notes....

Mr. BALL. Did somebody assist you in the preparation of that notebook? 
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir. 
Mr. BALL. Who was that? 
Mr. FRITZ. I had several officers assist me with this, and some secretaries, of course, that helped us with it. I had my lieutenant, T. L. Baker, help me to put this book together, this larger book, I think you have a copy of it there, and to make some additional books like this.
Of course, we worked the whole office ever since it happened so it is hard to say just who helped. 

[Steve Thomas]

29 minutes ago, David Josephs said:

I believe TL Baker was responsible for the typed version of these notes....

Mr. BALL. Did somebody assist you in the preparation of that notebook? 
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir. 
Mr. BALL. Who was that? 
Mr. FRITZ. I had several officers assist me with this, and some secretaries, of course, that helped us with it. I had my lieutenant, T. L. Baker, help me to put this book together, this larger book, I think you have a copy of it there, and to make some additional books like this.
Of course, we worked the whole office ever since it happened so it is hard to say just who helped. 

David,

 

In January, 1964, Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr turned over a copy of the DPD case file to the Warren Commission that had been given to him by the Dallas Police..

It consisted of three bound folders labeled a, b, and c. This comprises Commission Document 81 (CD81) and consists of 840 pages.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10483

 

Volume b was the Investigation of the Assassination of the President and starts on page 311 of this larger 3-volume case file.

I think that is the "larger book" that Fritz is referring to.

I have no idea what "additional books"  Fritz is referring to in addition to his "little notebook like this".

 

Steve Thomas

 

 

[Paul Jolliffe]

3 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Paul:

What Saturday calls are you speaking of?

Jim,

These calls:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11839#relPageId=20&tab=page

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11839#relPageId=21&tab=page

Note that somehow, these two calls (one not completed in the later afternoon, the other one definitely complete around 8 pm) that although the "telephone sheet is usually used for writing names of prisoners who use the phone" somehow Officer Popplewell "missed writing Oswald's name down on the sheet."

Huh.

Funny how that works. "Oswald" makes a phone call to a mysterious party, and somehow the normal Dallas Police Procedures are not followed and the initial indication of the call disappears from the record. 

Gosh, what bad luck.

The suspect of the century makes a 30 minute call from the Dallas City Jail, and the call was not to Marina, not to Marguerite, not to Robert, not to the press, but to whom?

 I'd bet a million dollars that call was tapped.

We're wondering whether Fritz might have taped "Oswald's" statement in the interrogation room, but I guarantee they were listening in on the the 30 minute call to the unknown party on Saturday evening. 

 

 

[Evan Marshall]

 

interrogates a couple of hitmen but no presidential assassins while at Detroit Homicide. I find both nature of the inquiry, the number of people present for the interrogations, and the record kept all  totally unacceptable

My interrogations ran a much as 14 pages and there only two of us in the room. I'm convinced in Dallas that some of the folks present were there to ensure LHO didn't open doors best left closed.

[Stephanie Goldberg]

Popplewell's affidavit says that he was contacted by the FBI 'about four months ago' from the date of the affidavit, August 20, 1964.  So the FBI found a piece of paper with a phone number in Oswald's pocket after he died and didn't follow up until roughly April 1964?   Wouldn't they have traced the number way before then?

[David Josephs]

16 hours ago, Evan Marshall said:

 

interrogates a couple of hitmen but no presidential assassins while at Detroit Homicide. I find both nature of the inquiry, the number of people present for the interrogations, and the record kept all  totally unacceptable

My interrogations ran a much as 14 pages and there only two of us in the room. I'm convinced in Dallas that some of the folks present were there to ensure LHO didn't open doors best left closed.

Mr. BALL. Did you have any tape recorder? 
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I don't have a tape recorder. We need one, if we had one at this time we could have handled these conversations far better. 
Mr. BALL. The Dallas Police Department doesn't have one? 
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I have requested one several times but so far they haven't gotten me one. 

 

p.91 Bart Kamp “Anatomy of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Interrogations”

In Larry Sneed’s No More Silence Holmes says the following about the usage of his so-called abilities using his memory: “There was no tape recording of the interrogation or stenographer or anyone taking notes. That was the way that Fritz operated. The interrogation itself was rather informal with Captain Fritz being in charge. He would ask Oswald various questions and pull out different things such as the map with the X’s on it and the card that had been taken out of Oswald’s billfold that had A.J. Hidell on it and things like that. Then he would say, “Well, Sorrels, do you have anything you want to ask him?” But Kelley and Sorrels had very little to ask; they didn’t have the documentation that I had. We were free to ask or interject anything we wanted. Of course, we were all experienced interrogators, and when you went to trial in those days, especially in federal court, you had to show any notes you took to the defense. So they got to look at every note that you had against their client. But we old-time investigators would just do it by memory. I could still quote nearly every word that boy said to this day and that’s been over twenty years ago. That’s the way I was trained to interrogate anybody, and so was Fritz. If they’re telling the truth, you’d talk to them by the hour, and if they couldn’t tell it the same way twice or a third time, or a tenth time, you’d catch them because you’d know exactly what he had said the first time. You didn’t need notes; you didn’t need a secretary or a stenographer. Of course, you do now, but back then you really had to use your own wits to convict people.

What complete junk...  At least our man Harry Holmes is consistent...  "That was the way Fritz operated"   ????   
Can you image trying to tell a judge the accused "confessed" - verbally - or said anything for that matter which was not written down contemporaneously...  I guess if 6 people in the room all say the accused said a certain something, it would have to be seriously considered... but one of the largest police Depts in the country and no interrogation notes??

wonder why they had so many stenographers working for the DPD  

That's A LOT of Secret Service men in there...  and of course the "Unknown FBI agent" at Ruby's interrogation...  speaking of which... what about the notes from THOSE interviews?

 

 

[Tony Krome]

3 hours ago, David Josephs said:

Mr. BALL. Did you have any tape recorder? 
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I don't have a tape recorder. We need one, if we had one at this time we could have handled these conversations far better. 
Mr. BALL. The Dallas Police Department doesn't have one? 
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I have requested one several times but so far they haven't gotten me one. 

Holmes says the following about the usage of his so-called abilities using his memory: “There was no tape recording of the interrogation or stenographer or anyone taking notes. That was the way that Fritz operated.

If that's the way Fritz operated, why persistently request a tape recorder??

[David Josephs]

1 hour ago, Tony Krome said:

If that's the way Fritz operated, why persistently request a tape recorder??

[Joe Bauer]

5 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

If that's the way Fritz operated, why persistently request a tape recorder??

Exactly.

Ridiculous.

And this guy has a reputation as a savvy interrogator?

Read Buell Wesley Frazier's account of his face off with the "master" interrogator where he tells Fritz if he hits him ( Frazier) with his raised fist, he's goin to be in one hell of a cat fight.

Fritz walked out.