The CIA and the Book Depository

[Paul Brancato]

Lance attacks, and lumps us all together like none of us have any good sense. That’s the problem with wacky conspiracy stuff. It gives ammunition to people like Lance. I haven’t read anything being discussed on this thread so.I don’t have an opinion. But I do very strongly believe that false conspiracy theories do us all a disservice. When I studied UFO’s, something I think Lance has some experience with, I saw this clearly. Most of it is claptrap, and I for one don’t think it’s entirely an accident that genuine mysteries are flooded with fake news.

[James DiEugenio]

There are wacky conspiracy theories out there Paul.  For example like Morningstar.  I always thought the thing about Hunt' s ear as good as a fingerprint was another one.  I could go on from there into some more recent ones.  But I won't.  Because that would be playing Lance's game.

When I challenged Lance on the whole Aguilar/Thompson discovery about Bardwell Odum, do you recall what he did?

He first said he understood it needed more exploration.  He then accused me of emitting saliva over my keyboard as I typed it.  He then attacked me on another thread about an interview I did with John Volz about Marcello.  When I countered him, he then decided to leave.  But he really has not as this is not the first time he has returned.  Typical bully behavior.

First, Bill Weston is not Wheaton.  Second, Bill Weston is not in any way an irresponsible, fringe type like Morningstar or, in my book, Nigel Turner.  Weston has been doing articles as far back as the nineties for Jerry Rose, in the Third and Fourth Decade.  His pieces were and are always sourced correctly and bring up interesting, usually ignored points, about Oswald.

Bill has been writing about the Glaze letters for a long time.  This is not the first time.  I think its a lead that should have been explored a lot earlier.  Because if its true, it opens up a new window on the case.  Only a T---L could could not find it interesting that Shelly said one thing about talking to Oswald before he left and Oswald said something else.  And then Shelly goes down to the DPD station and helps ID Oswald and stays there for hours and writes up two statements.

Only someone like Lance could shove that all under that huge carpet the Warren Commission had to dispose of troubling matters, like CE 399.  And only someone like Lance could completely ignore it.  And then compare that as an evidentiary matter with UFO's.

But I have to ask:  is this going to be Lance's M. O. from here on in?  He announces he is leaving because someone takes a legitimate issue with him, and then he says, oh I forgot something, comes back and then leaves another one of his abusive dumps, and then scampers away again.  Does that not typify a hit and run driver?

One last point.  Its one thing to attack the WR.  Sylvia Meagher, Weisberg etc all did that effectively many years ago.  Its another thing to try and explain what really happened.  There will always be risks in that since the people who do it are and usually have been private citizens.  Some of their ideas are good ones, others are not so good.  Some are outright bad.  But that does not mean we should not try.  Maybe its a hit, maybe its a miss.  Private citizens should not have to do this, but we do. Because the state will not. And when they could have, back in 1964, and 1976-78, we saw what happened, two cover ups.  In the first one, the FBI was involved up to its neck in the cover up. Just ask the late Bill Turner., a ten year FBI agent. 

So that leaves it up to people like us.  To dump on that effort like Lance does is, I think, really underhanded and kind of despicable.  Especially in light of the fact that this lawyer has done exactly zilch in any positive way on the case expect to imply support for that equally despicable cover up of the Warren Report.  Which, as a lawyer, he knows  would never get admitted in a court of law.

 

 

 

Edited April 23, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[Cory Santos]

7 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

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

The Sexton Company leased it up until about 1961.

From what I found he bought it in 1937.   However, It appears the book depository started around April 1963.   What a coincidence.

[Ron Bulman]

1 hour ago, Cory Santos said:

From what I found he bought it in 1937.   However, It appears the book depository started around April 1963.   What a coincidence.

Yes it is.  From what I've read The Texas School Book Depository  Company, housed in the Dal-Tex building across the street for may years previously, moved across Houston street to the former Sexton building owned by Byrd.  Empty over a year, last a grocery supply warehouse, originally The Southern Rock Island Plough Company.  Built in 1898 at 5 stories it burned down when struck by lightning in 1901.  Rebuilt in 1902 to 7 stories.  But for a lightning strike there would have been no sixth floor to fire distraction shots from in 1963.  Or one for Bill Shelly to supervise as miscellaneous manager.  

As Truly and Shelly moved across the street in April 1963 with the TSBD Co. I have to wonder if there might have been remaining connections maybe management wise given some of us still think there may have been a shot from the Dal-Tex building.

[Guest]

One additional thought which shall serve as an addendum to my new tradition of an annual post: When Bill Shelley revealed all to Elzie Glaze in 1974, he was then a lad of 48 and most assuredly still working at the TSBD.

Forty-eight strikes me as pretty much the prime of life for one of them there “CIA operatives.” I’ll bet he still had lots of juicy “counterespionage assignments” left in him, wouldn’t you agree?

Does it seem likely that someone who actually was a CIA operative and still working at Assassination Central (i.e., the TSBD) would have said “and then I went to work for the CIA” to a 21-year-old peewee “journalist”?

Do you think he cleared it with Langley?  “Sure, go ahead, Bill, at this point who cares?” With Truly, perhaps? “Well, Bill, I’d rather you didn’t, but go ahead if you must.”

Do you think Shelley would have said this to a 21-year-old peewee “journalist” and no one else? Do you think said peewee “journalist” would have simply sat on this bombshell for years?

How would the DPD have known that Shelley had revealed all to Glaze? Why would they have cared? If anyone were going to stand in the street pointing pistols at Glaze's window, I might have expected it to be the CIA (although the scenario does sound "just a bit" amateurish for either the DPD or the CIA).

Does the Wheaton piece actually make sense to you? Oh, it does?

BTW, Shelley’s supposed statement that he was an “intelligence officer during the war” was clearly wrong. I find it rather disconcerting that he would get this critical fact about his own life wrong, but perhaps you don’t. I suppose one could confuse being "an intelligence officer during the war" with "being a high school Junior ROTC cadet in Dallas" if one were COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY DELUSIONAL. I find it rather more likely that Glaze didn't carefully think through the whoppers he was inventing.

Jim D. regards this all as an “interesting lead,” and I feel sure you agree. How does Shelley tie into Harvey and Lee - is anyone working on that?

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

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

16 minutes ago, Lance Payette said:

Does the Wheaton piece actually make sense to you? Oh, it does?

Even after having it pointed out that “Wheaton” and “Weston” are not the same person, the “Wheaton” error continues.

How does someone so condescending make such elementary errors? Even after being corrected?

[Michael Clark]

1 hour ago, Lance Payette said:

One additional thought which shall serve as an addendum to my new tradition of an annual post: When Bill Shelley revealed all to Elzie Glaze in 1974, he was then a lad of 48 and most assuredly still working at the TSBD.

 

Forty-eight strikes me as pretty much the prime of life for one of them there “CIA operatives.” I’ll bet he still had lots of juicy “counterespionage assignments” left in him, wouldn’t you agree?

 

Does it seem likely that someone who actually was a CIA operative and still working at Assassination Central (i.e., the TSBD) would have said “and then I went to work for the CIA” to a 21-year-old peewee “journalist”?

 

Do you think he cleared it with Langley?  “Sure, go ahead, Bill, at this point who cares?” With Truly, perhaps? “Well, Bill, I’d rather you didn’t, but go ahead if you must.”

 

Do you think Shelley would have said this to a 21-year-old peewee “journalist” and no one else? Do you think said peewee “journalist” would have simply sat on this bombshell for years?

How would the DPD have known that Shelley had revealed all to Glaze? Why would they have cared? If anyone were going to stand in the street pointing pistols at Glaze's window, I might have expected it to be the CIA (although the scenario does sound "just a bit" amateurish for either the DPD or the CIA).

Does the Wheaton piece actually make sense to you? Oh, it does?

BTW, Shelley’s supposed statement that he was an “intelligence officer during the war” was clearly wrong. I find it rather disconcerting that he would get this critical fact about his own life wrong, but perhaps you don’t. I suppose one could confuse being "an intelligence officer during the war" with "being a high school Junior ROTC cadet in Dallas" if one were COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY DELUSIONAL. I find it rather more likely that Glaze didn't carefully think through the whoppers he was inventing.

Jim D. regards this all as an “interesting lead,” and I feel sure you agree. How does Shelley tie into Harvey and Lee - is anyone working on that?

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

 

An annual reach for the peanut jar? Good luck with that, Lance.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Lance Payette said:

One additional thought which shall serve as an addendum to my new tradition of an annual post: When Bill Shelley revealed all to Elzie Glaze in 1974, he was then a lad of 48 and most assuredly still working at the TSBD.

 

Forty-eight strikes me as pretty much the prime of life for one of them there “CIA operatives.” I’ll bet he still had lots of juicy “counterespionage assignments” left in him, wouldn’t you agree?

 

Does it seem likely that someone who actually was a CIA operative and still working at Assassination Central (i.e., the TSBD) would have said “and then I went to work for the CIA” to a 21-year-old peewee “journalist”?

 

Do you think he cleared it with Langley?  “Sure, go ahead, Bill, at this point who cares?” With Truly, perhaps? “Well, Bill, I’d rather you didn’t, but go ahead if you must.”

 

Do you think Shelley would have said this to a 21-year-old peewee “journalist” and no one else? Do you think said peewee “journalist” would have simply sat on this bombshell for years?

How would the DPD have known that Shelley had revealed all to Glaze? Why would they have cared? If anyone were going to stand in the street pointing pistols at Glaze's window, I might have expected it to be the CIA (although the scenario does sound "just a bit" amateurish for either the DPD or the CIA).

Does the Wheaton piece actually make sense to you? Oh, it does?

BTW, Shelley’s supposed statement that he was an “intelligence officer during the war” was clearly wrong. I find it rather disconcerting that he would get this critical fact about his own life wrong, but perhaps you don’t. I suppose one could confuse being "an intelligence officer during the war" with "being a high school Junior ROTC cadet in Dallas" if one were COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY DELUSIONAL. I find it rather more likely that Glaze didn't carefully think through the whoppers he was inventing.

Jim D. regards this all as an “interesting lead,” and I feel sure you agree. How does Shelley tie into Harvey and Lee - is anyone working on that?

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

 

Shelley did not "reveal" anything in 1974, but in 1969.

In 1974 he was not even working for the TSBD any more.

 

Edited April 23, 2020 by Bart Kamp

[Ron Bulman]

On 4/23/2020 at 12:33 PM, Bart Kamp said:

Shelley did not "reveal" anything in 1974, but in 1969.

In 1974 he was not even working for the TSBD any more.

 

Bart, I thought you had written something specifically on Shelly but I was looking at DPUK and didn't see it.  Is his info incorporated into one of the articles there?  I know I've read more on him somewhere.

Edited April 25, 2020 by Ron Bulman

[Pete Mellor]

Greg Parker's post on D.P.U.K.'s FB page referencing this thread:-

Amazing how both sides of the "debate" are avoiding directly answering each other.

They are all stuck in the same LN/CT tar-pit.

Lance makes some good points while still assiduously missing the target.

So why are these points being avoided like... oh I don't know, some sort of pandemic that needs social distancing?

On the CT side, the CIA is not allowed to run operations internally. That should be enough to set off alarm bells right there. But does it? Of course not.

As I have pointed out in the past, Jack Cason had been a former Commander of the American Legion, Post #53 in Dallas. http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do…

As I have also pointed out, both Roy Truly and his long-time side-kick Bill Shelley, worked in defense plants during WWII. Truly testified that he work for North American Aviation.

Mr. BELIN. And then what?
Mr. TRULY. I worked on through that time until the present time. During the war I worked in the North American plant at Arlington.
Mr. BELIN. That is the North American Aviation?
Mr. TRULY. North American Aviation plant at Arlington, for around 14 months, at night. But I continued to hold my job.
Well, I would go down to work 2, 3, 4 hours a day. Shortly after that, I took charge of all the shipping.
Well, I have been superintendent of the operation since some time in the late 1944.

Shelley did not name which facility he worked at but North American Aviation seems a safe assumption since Shelley ended up working at the TSBD after the war and both were very much into show dogs.

So you have a director who had been a long time Commander of a local American Legion Post and another director and a section manager who had both worked in a defense plant.

What's the big deal about that?

The FBI.

The FBI Plant Informant Program ran from 1940 to 1969. In 1942, this program had nearly 24,000 confidential informants in nearly 4000 defense plants.

The American Legion Contact Program ran from 1940 to 1954. This program used Legion members as confidential sources. But even after it closed the program, FBI Field Offices were instructed to maintain contact with Legion Officials. Background checks were conducted on such sources.

You can read more about both programs here https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html…

It seems a safe assumption that both Truly and Shelley had been involved in the FBI Plant Informant program and that Cason had been involved in the Legion Contact Program - and it follows that a close working relationship with the FBI continued between all players and the company they worked for.

Given that the FBI did background checks on potential informants in these type programs, the Glaze letter stating that two female employees were questioned by the FBI during the process of applying to work for the company may well be within the bounds of possibility.

Shelley claiming to be CIA on the other hand was nothing but braggadocio to impress a gullible cub reporter. He had very likely though, been an FBI informant during the war - along with Truly and Cason - and they and the company simply maintained ties to the FBI, bringing the TSBD into the fold of places housing "confidential informants".

The CIA angle is garbage - and therefore, so far as the piece on Kennedy and King goes - it is a matter of garbage in - garbage out.

The only question is, can either side at the 13" Head Forum bring themselves to admit they were ALL wrong?

I won't hold my breath.

 

maryferrell.org

 

showDoc.html

 

[Steve Roe]

On 4/22/2020 at 11:08 AM, Lance Payette said:

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.

Thank you Lance for injecting some common sense to this silly Bill Shelley - CIA fantasy. I ran across the same FACTS as you mentioned. The Conspiracy world is running out of fantasies, and none of them jive with each other. 

[Ron Bulman]

On 4/23/2020 at 12:33 PM, Bart Kamp said:

Shelley did not "reveal" anything in 1974, but in 1969.

In 1974 he was not even working for the TSBD any more.

 

What did he reveal in 1969?

[Guest]

That he was agency Ron.

Or better yet allegedly said.....

Edited April 26, 2020 by Bart Kamp

[Ron Bulman]

This part caught my attention in particular.

Carolyn Arnold, a secretary for Vice-president Ochus Campbell, told a friend in 1994 that she had been, and still was, terrified. She said that “there is a whole lot more to tell about the TSBD than what has been published—that the whole building should be suspected as more or less of a ‘safe base’ to operate from that day in November 1963.”[9]

She was still terrified 30 years later.  VP Ochus Campbell was Truly's boss.  He told a reporter from the NY Herald (?) he saw Oswald in the supply closet door beneath the the stairs by the front entrance as they came back in.  Campbell worked for building owner Harold Dry Hole Byrd.  Member of the Dallas Petroleum Club, friends there with among others George De Mohrenschildt, George H W Bush, Clint Murchison...  Who also established the Civil Air Patrol that recruited David Ferrie and LHO, received an award for doing so from General Curtis LeMay.  Of course he was acquainted with Mayor Earle Cabell, a CIA asset.  And his brother CIA third in command of it Airforce General Charles Cabell, fired by JFK over the Bay Of Pigs.

Carolyn Arnold stated she saw "Oswald between the front door and the double doors leading to the warehouse, located on the First Floor".  As She Was standing in front of the building, shortly before the parade passed.  

30 years later she still thought the TSBD was a safe place to operate from on 11/22/63? For Who?  No wonder she was still terrified.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Ron Bulman

[Ron Bulman]

The part about TSBD President Jack Cason serving five days a week at Fort Wolters in Mineral Wells gave me cause for thought.  He stayed there all week.  He didn't "work" at the TSBD at all during this time.  The roads from Dallas to MW in the early 1940's would have made a trip each way to - from almost impossible.  80 miles each way, likely well over 2 hours each way on two lane roads (one each way) through the heart of several towns.

So he was stationed there.  In some sort of military capacity, likely not as a private.  Not volunteering at the mess hall or assigned to clean latrines.

On a personal note.

Uncle Donald, my dad's older brother went through basic training at Fort Walters.  Dad spoke of going to visit him there on a weekend before he was shipped off to the Philippines.  Where he was wounded by shrapnel some of which he carried the rest of his life.

In the very early 1970's dad took me hunting on a lease west of Mineral Wells.  We passed Fort Wolters every time, then a helicopter training facility for pilots in the Vietnam war.  We often saw them, singles, 1-2-3 or more flying in formation.  He once left me in a tree stand, an oak, 12-15 feet off the ground.  I heard a thumping and buzzing sound then appeared over a hill a chopper headed straight for me, with about a half dozen in tow.  I didn't really know much about the war at the time, I was about 14-15.  It was still unnerving. 

When we moved to s/w of Mineral Wells in 2001 my first job in the area for a year and a half was at a company on the now Fort Wolters Industrial Complex.

Last, I have a 3x great grandma born in South Carolina in 1772, before the American Revolution who came to Palo Pinto County at the age of 84 in 1856 and died there in 1858 who is buried there.

TSBD prez Cason didn't make that drive every day in the 1940's. He was assigned to duty in some capacity.  I'd guess at a officers level or above given his position 20 years later. 

Edited April 29, 2020 by Ron Bulman