RIP Richard A. Sprague

[Gene Kelly]

Sprague remained loyal to Arlen, until his death.  I don't think the Baron's passing and Sprague's exit were coincidental.   In reading the R. E. Sprague - the other Sprague, a photographic specialist also from Philadelphia - account of the HSCA:

The idea (in undercutting the HSCA) was to use Gonzalez to fire Sprague and the key staff members, first blocking their access to important files and witnesses. The PCG would then have been in a position to either fold up the Committee by March 31st, or to direct its efforts toward finding a Castro-did-it conspiracy in JFK’s case and no conspiracy in the King case.  By the time Gonzalez became chairman, the other eleven members of the Committee and its staff had begun to smell a rat. They noted with curiosity all of the strange coincidences that occurred. During the floor debate on February 2, 1977 over continuing the Committee, Representatives Devine, Preyer, Burke and Fauntroy let the rest of the House know that they believed something peculiar was happening. The appearance of the Justice Department report on that same day disturbed them very much, as did the attacks on Sprague .  The staff were even more disturbed.  A substantial reduction in the proposed budget , reduced to 2.8 million for the remainder of 1977, is what saved the Committee.  The House finally voted to continue the Committee by a very narrow margin, with a swing of 25 votes determining the result. The final weapon used to obtain a vote to continue the Committee on March 30th was the resignation of Dick Sprague.  

[James DiEugenio]

Yes, that is accurate.  And that is what they used to get Sprague to resign.

It was either you go or the committee goes.

Talk about a Hobson's choice.

Edited April 23, 2021 by James DiEugenio

[Gene Kelly]

If a rational (and intelligent) person were to piece this all together, how can they not conclude that HSCA was sabotaged and flawed?   That someone (high up) had something to hide?  And that Blakey was compromised and disingenuous?   

What does surprise me - thinking about the next 50 years - is that Dick Sprague didn't come back at this, and expose the government.   He historically took on all comers ... good/bad, big/small, popular or not.  Maybe he knew it was a lose-lose proposition.   

[Ron Bulman]

1 hour ago, Gene Kelly said:

If a rational (and intelligent) person were to piece this all together, how can they not conclude that HSCA was sabotaged and flawed?   That someone (high up) had something to hide?  And that Blakey was compromised and disingenuous?   

What does surprise me - thinking about the next 50 years - is that Dick Sprague didn't come back at this, and expose the government.   He historically took on all comers ... good/bad, big/small, popular or not.  Maybe he knew it was a lose-lose proposition.   

"someone (high up) had something to hide".  One, Helms "the keeper of the secrets" was still alive and likely still had loyalists high up in the agency.  Two, the director immediately prior to the HSCA, George H W Bush, for only a year, was well received and liked by the company.

Carter fired Bush Immediately.  I'm not sure how wired in so to speak Stansfield Turner was, Admiral, Commander NATO Southern Europe, President of the Naval War College.  The Director of the CIA during the HSCA. 

Somebody called Joannadies out of retirement, and gave him an award for his work.

Bush becomes VP in 1981 then almost President a month later.  President in 1989.

Sprague had to be highly intelligent.  He could probably see the writing on the wall as it happened over the years. 

I'd venture a guess he knew more than he ever said about the HSCA and the assassinations themselves.

 

 

[Gene Kelly]

Good points, Ron. When you read about him (I'm from Philadelphia, so there's plenty of articles) he was not a public person.  Powerful and outspoken in the courtroom, but a low profile otherwise.  In contrast, his contemporaries in the know - Vincent Salandria and R. E Sprague - were more vocal about the inequities of the HSCA investigation.  I had a work acquaintance who was an investigator for HSCA, and he told me that it was literally impossible to get any information out of the CIA.  Sprague was influential in state and city political and civic affairs, but played all sides of the fence.  He led a relatively private life, as this profile in the Penn Law Journal points out:

He has never Googled himself, Sprague said, and he seemed mildly surprised to learn that 29,900 listings pop up when a user types in his name and city into the search engine. “Except for my law work, I really am a private person,” Sprague said. “I’m not a joiner, not a hail-fellow-well-meet type of person. I’ve never joined fraternities or social groups. I really enjoy my privacy.”

“I realized that ... when you’re in elected or appointed office, you are not quite a free soul. You’re subject to the whims of the electorate, or of those of the people who appointed you. Being in private practice makes me the most independent person in the world. You can’t tell the press to drop dead if you’ve been elected. You have some invasion of your personal life, and you can never forget that.”

Sprague once gave a talk entitled “Murder Most Foul: My Most Famous and Interesting Murder Prosecutions” on March 23, 2009 at the University of Pennsylvania Law School that was described as a clinic on how to prosecute a murder case ... and quite the interesting title.  His list of clients during private practice included list of clients included basketball star Allen Iverson, former Mayor Frank Rizzo, former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo, famed defense attorney F. Lee Bailey, John DuPont and the late Inquirer owners, Lewis Katz and H.F. Gerry  Lenfest.  He also had plenty of hobbies: visiting New York’s Metropolitan Opera House listening to his beloved Wagner and Puccini, dumping old clothes in his car and driving to the Blue Ridge Mountains for an afternoon of antiquing and visiting Civil War sites, an amateur photographer, avid tennis player and a fanatical chess player.  He remained active up to his passing at 95 years old, as his son (and legal partner) explained:

“He had such incredible curiosity about so many things,” his son said. “He would love to read about anything from astronomy to science, and before 6:30 on most mornings for many, many years, he had already read all of these newspapers and sent around press clippings from the New York Times and other publications to a whole list of family and friends.”

Gene