The CIA and the Book Depository

[Ron Bulman]

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Hey Ron, do I understand you correctly? That Shelly and Truly worked at the (pre-TSBD) building for almost 18 years when it was a grocery distribution company, and then continued working there after the grocery company moved out and the TSBD moved in, in 1963? If so, that is most unusual.

EDIT: Oh, probably you meant that for those 18years they both worked for the (TSBD) business that would move into the TSBD building in 1963.

 

No Sandy.  I believe what it said, without re reading was that first Truly, then Shelly went to work for whatever the company was named before it was the Texas School Book Depository in the 1940's.  While it was located in the first floor of the Dal-Tex building across the street.  The grocery company moved out of what we now know as the TSBD in 1961 or 1962. The TSBD "company" moved across the street into Harold Byrd's building in early 1963.  Almost deceptively confusing.

[Sandy Larsen]

I wonder if CIA principals would move a cover business to a new address for the sole purpose of eliminating a president.

 

[Rob Couteau]

How ironic that William Harvey ended up working at Bobbs-Merrill, the publisher of the first edition of Sylvia Meagher's "Accessories After the Fact."

[James DiEugenio]

LOL. as they say that is cosmic.  Harvey and Meagher working for the same boss.

[Joseph McBride]

If you listen to the early Dallas police radio reports of the assassination,

a number of the cops refer to the TSBD as "the Sexton Building."

[James DiEugenio]

Thanks Joe, more evidence that the move was recent.

 

[Cory Santos]

I recall that Byrd bought the building or the school depository moved in around April 1963.   I cannot recall the specifics.   Does this sound familiar?

[Joseph McBride]

From my book INTO THE NIGHTMARE: 

[Guest]

I visited here only to remove the photograph that had been serving as my avatar (at the direction of my CIA handlers, of course), but this is too good to pass up:

According to scholar Wheaton:

A memorandum by Warren Commission general counsel J. Lee Rankin said that Oswald’s CIA payroll number was 110669.[2]

[2] Midnight/Globe, February 14, 1978. The memo said that Oswald’s FBI informant number was S172 and that his CIA number was 110669. Mae Brussell showed copies of this document to the editors of Globe.

Uh-huh.

The Midnight Globe was the shlock tabloid predecessor of the schlock tabloid we now all know and love as the Globe: “Globe is a supermarket tabloid first published North America on November 10, 1954 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, as Midnight by Joe Azaria and John Vader and became the chief competitor to the National Enquirer during the 1960s. In 1978 it changed its name to the Midnight Globe after its publisher, Globe Communications, and eventually changed its name to Globe.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globe_(tabloid).

The Globe is your go-to source for revelations such as “Elvis was Abducted by Aliens!!!” and “Lee Harvey Oswald was JFK's Illegitimate Son!!!”

I happen to have in my vast library the 2-14-1978 edition of the Midnight Globe.  In a piece entitled “DID FORD SPY FOR FBI IN JFK PROBE?” appears the statement, “Mae Brussell showed GLOBE copies of a document entitled ‘Rumors that Oswald was an Undercover Agent.’ In this memorandum from J. Lee Rankin, the Warren Commission's general counsel, Oswald's FBI agent number is stated to be S172 and his CIA number is listed as 110669.”

Well, not exactly.

Rankin’s 1964 memo is, of course, a matter of public record: NARA Record Number 180-10001-10143, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=60439#relPageId=3&tab=page, and has been quoted or cited in umpteen sources.

This being the case, why would any reputable author in 2020 cite a 1978 piece in a schlock tabloid like the Midnight Globe rather than Rankin's memo itself?  Enquiring minds want to know.

Enquiring minds suspect it is because said author (that would be Wheaton), like said schlock tabloid, wanted to create the impression that 110669 was in fact Oswald’s CIA number and that this fact had been acknowledged by Rankin – whereas the source document, Rankin’s memo, makes clear that this was a second- or third-hand allegation from less-than-credible sources who would have had no way on earth of knowing whether Oswald had a “CIA number” or what it was. Neither Rankin nor anyone else attached any credibility to it.

But in Conspiracy World, “Oswald had a CIA number and it was 110669” is now a settled conspiracy factoid – and, by God, we have a 1978 edition of the Midnight Globe to prove it!

Oh, Bill Shelley, the supposed CIA operative who is the focus of Wheaton's piece – what about him?

William Hoyt Shelley was born in Gunter, Texas on April 12, 1926. (I am choosing to trust his obituary, grave marker and Social Security Death Index listing rather than the Prayer Man site, which erroneously states he was born in Colorado on July 19, 1925.) He lived his entire life in the Dallas area, dying in 1996 at age 70.

He graduated from Crozier Technical High School in Dallas. He had no further education.

When the United States officially entered World War 2 on December 11, 1941, Shelley was 15 YEARS OLD. When the war officially ended on September 2, 1945, he was 19 YEARS OLD.

Every extant photo of Shelley in military uniform is of him AS AN ARMY JUNIOR ROTC CADET AT CROZIER TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL.  He was a peewee lieutenant IN THE JUNIOR ROTC. He never served in the military.

Wheaton characterizes being a Junior ROTC cadet as being “an officer during the war.” By this standard, little old Air Force ROTC cadet me, at the University of Arizona in 1968 (it was mandatory at the time), “served during the Vietnam War” even though attending two one-hour classes a week for a couple of semesters sure didn’t seem like it. Why is no one thanking me for my service?

Wheaton further speculates that, as a Junior ROTC cadet, Shelley may have “received intelligence training and perhaps even given some assignments in counterespionage.” Intelligence training? Counterespionage assignments? HE WAS A HIGH SCHOOL JUNIOR ROTC CADET IN DALLAS, TEXAS. You can read all about the Junior ROTC program, which was little more than a military version of the Boy Scouts, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_Reserve_Officers'_Training_Corps and decide for yourself whether Wheaton knows what he's talking about.

Shelley began working for the company that later became the Texas School Book Depository Company on October 29, 1945, when he was 19 YEARS OLD.  He worked for them 40 YEARS, if we can believe his obituary.  At the time of the assassination, he had already worked for them 18 YEARS (not 16, as Wheaton states).

According to Shelley’s WC testimony, he “worked in defense plants a little bit during the war,” presumably either during the summer as a gung-ho Junior ROTC cadet or a very recent high school graduate. (Whatever other “defense plants” there may have been, North American Aviation built WW2 aircraft at a plant in Dallas.)

The grave marker of Shelley and his wife bears the inscription, “Lovers of Kerry Blue Terriers."

High school graduate … Junior ROTC cadet … obscure 40-year employee of an obscure Texas school book distributor … lover of Kerry Blue Terriers.

Is this the portrait of a “CIA agent” … “CIA operative” … “intelligence operative” … a guy “leading a double life as a schoolbook man as well as an intelligence operative” … indeed, as “Oswald’s handler” (these all being Wheaton’s characterizations)? Is this the stuff of which CIA operatives are made?

Only in Conspiracy World, baby, only in Conspiracy World.

Wheaton confidently makes his claims about Shelley solely on the basis of the same claims made in correspondence by one Elzie Glaze. Glaze supposedly discovered his bombshells while "working as a journalist" in Dallas in 1974.

In 1974, Glaze was 21 YEARS OLD. Yet Shelley supposedly met with him on “numerous” occasions, even allowing him to tape record them, while revealing that he had been “an intelligence officer during World War II and thereafter joined the CIA." This revelation first appeared in a Glaze letter written IN 1989.

Alas, all of Glaze’s notes and tapes “inexplicably disappeared.” Even more ominous, one day Glaze “looked out the window and saw an estimated twenty Dallas policemen pulled up in front. They lingered for nearly an hour, shouting in a highly threatening manner and pointing their pistols at his window. Frightened for his life, he immediately left the city.” (Alas, Elzie the journalist didn't take a photo or make a tape of the hour-long police harassment.  He also didn't run far, since he spent his entire career in the same part of Texas.)

Does this all sound plausible – believable – to you? Of course it does, because you live in Conspiracy World. To those of us who live in the real world, it sounds like one more nutcase who came out of the woodwork with a tale that anyone not caught up in conspiracy mania would regard as laughable.  That professional conspiracy salesman Jim D. would regard Wheaton's article as worthy of serious consideration, and that you credulous folks would lap it up like mother's milk, is ... well, pathetic.

As always, it's been fun. See you in 2021, perhaps.

Edited April 22, 2020 by Guest

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

Your repeated references to “scholar” Wheaton, while quoting a man named Weston, illustrates your amazing capacity for attention to detail.

Noted.

[Guest]

Not a bad try Lance, but you are right in condemning this article at K&K, it is the usual conspiracy dreck which I gladly will nail to the cross in due course. Work has gotten in the way to post my objection(s)

Just like the Raleigh Call it is nothing short of a complete joke.

Edited April 25, 2020 by Bart Kamp

[James DiEugenio]

Geez, thanks Bart.  And OMG how many times does Lance say he is retired from this forum?  And how many times has he returned?

 

Sort of like a so called reformed alcoholic.

 

When did either of you two  talk to Mr. Glaze?

Edited April 22, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

2 hours ago, Robert Charles-Dunne said:

Your repeated references to “scholar” Wheaton, while quoting a man named Weston, illustrates your amazing capacity for attention to detail.

Noted.

This is the guy who tries to lord it over us all and oh yes, he only came back to remove his avatar and just happened to see that particular article.

[James DiEugenio]

For the record, Byrd purchased the TSBD way back in 1939.

The Sexton Company leased it up until about 1961.

[James DiEugenio]

Only a t---l like Lance would trust the WC on the "Oswald was an FBI/CIA agent info".

Here is one summary of how unreliable it is, and even this is not complete.

http://22november1963.org.uk/memo-was-oswald-an-fbi-agent

 

 

Edited April 22, 2020 by James DiEugenio