Were Dallas Police officers involved in the murder of President Kennedy ?

[Bill Simpich]

 

Steve and Paul and all interested - I posted "virtual handouts" at Project JFK - Events.

If you go there, you can download highly analyzed chronologies with hundreds of links that I have put together; several power point presentations, and much more.

I am sharing these key materials for free, and urge others to post their material at Project JFK or elsewhere.  (We can't post it here, just not enough bandwidth.)

My two JFK books can always be revised. 

From now on - I'm sharing my research online and encouraging others to do the same.  We can build up a head of steam this year.

 

I think we should all be seeking out filmmakers, screenplay writers, graphic artists, everyone in the visual arts.

People need to see this material.  Those of us on the Forum like to read - we are way in the minority!

I get it, most people want to see it for themselves.   I will start a new thread for these materials sometime next week, but wanted to get this out now.

 

Again - if you want to see these key materials - download them at Project JFK - Events 

[Topic 1] - State Secret preface - (pdf) Download

[Topic 2] - Summary of The 12 Who Built the Oswald Legend (pdf) Download

[Topic 2a] mffpdf_145772 (Note:  Enclosure to Allen Dulles "exonerating" Michael Paine, 12/2/63 -  I believe the author is Mary Bancroft) (pdf) Download

[Topic 2b] Powerpoint on Oswald, Connally, Hosty, Ruth Paine:  appropriateaction2020now [Autosaved] [Autosaved] (pptx) Download

[Topic 3] Cryptonyms and Pseudonyms at the Mary Ferrell Foundation - two samples (pdf) Download

[Topic 4]  16 page chronology on the Deaths of Oswald and Tippit - with links on Lt. George Butler, FBI informant/Communist Party Dallas chief Bill Lowery, the Special Service Bureau_ Red Squad, &_Army Intelligence members within the Dallas Police (pdf) Download

[Topic 4a] Powerpoint - Counter-Narrative on 11/22 - Focus on Westbrook's role re the Death of Tippit sept1114 (pptx) Download

[Topic 4b] lumpkingannaway (10 bullet points on the role of Lumpkin, Gannaway, and colleagues) (pdf) Download

[Topic 4c] oswalddeathbutler (10 page chrono/shorter version of Topic 4, above - focus is on Butler) (pdf) Download

[Topic 4d] loweryrubycameraman (png) (clip of Detective Lowery, who believed Ruby posed as cameraman to enter basement) Download

[Topic 5] How the Warren Commission Covered Up JFK's Murder (pdf) (my article refuting WC counsel David Belin's ten key arguments claiming LHO was guilty) Download

[Topic5a] Powerpoint presentation supporting the article in Topic 5, above. (pptx) Download

Topic #6 - Dallas Police Dept_Special Service Bureau_Red Squad,_Army Intelligence outline (pdf) Download

[Topic 6a] lumpkingannaway (docx) (12 bullet points on Lumpkin, Gannaway, et al. - expanded version of 4b, above/ Download

[Topic 6b] lumpkinsawyer (png) (1953 memo re Lumpkin as Special Services Bureau chief and Herbert Sawyer as his #2, chief of Vice) Download

Three additional posts - you will see why I added all three (pdf) (One:  The Tony Krome comparison photos of Ruby Friday and Sunday) Download

[Extra a] Two:  Color basement diagram of Ruby shooting Oswald (png) (Note:  The personnel key to this diagram is here.) Download

[Extra b] Three:  dallasbasementbroadangle (png) (Broad angle diagram that links the Western Union office with the Dallas police basement.) Download

 

P.S.  

Steve Thomas,

Great tip on CD 81!   I credited you more than once in my talk Thursday night.  I love that story about having to pay the Dallas Police Assn. $100 to get the documents on this.

The 3 authors who wrote the report on the death of Oswald  were Westbrook, OA Jones (forgery squad, also known as the bunko squad in many towns), and Herbert Sawyer (back in 1953, he was chief of the vice squad - and #2 at the Special Services Bureau right behind Lumpkin, who was chief till he got elevated to DPD deputy chief about that time)

 

Edited August 7, 2021 by Bill Simpich

[Steve Thomas]

3 hours ago, Bill Simpich said:

 

P.S.  

Steve Thomas,

Great tip on CD 81!   I credited you more than once in my talk Thursday night. 

Bill,

Thank you. That was very kind.

Steve Thomas

Edited August 7, 2021 by Steve Thomas

[Joe Bauer]

I remember quite a bit about 11,22,1963 ( even though I was just 12 at the time ) because every second of that weekend was charged with an electrified shock and sadness.

 It was so instantly traumatic and unbelievable it had that "time standing still" effect.

The news of JFK was all anyone talked about. Families, friends, co-workers, even strangers.

It was all that was talked about on the TV news 24/7. Radio news too and newspapers were nothing but blaring headlines for a week about it. All other activities and events of those first 7 days seemed much less important. 

It was much more entire society effecting than 9-11 imo.

There was much more of a deeper and personally felt emotional loss with not just the brutally bloody in broad daylight slaying of our young and popular president but also a gut wrenching empathy for his young beautiful wife who experienced the horror of being just inches from her husband's head when it exploded and also her being instantly and tragically widowed with two young children.

I wanted to describe the powerful emotional reality ( commonly felt by almost every American ) of those first JFK assassination days to frame these next postulations and questions.

Mixed in with the mass national shock and sorrow being felt was also great anger.

There was a national anger toward not just the city of Dallas but I believe even the entire state of Texas.

Much of our nation knew about the very hateful anti-JFK sentiment in the South including Texas, which specifically harbored the most far right JFK hating extremist groups centered there in the Dallas area - JBS, Minute Men, etc.

Reading that weekend about the "JFK Wanted For Treason" fliers and newspaper ads posted right there in Dallas just one day ahead of 11,22,1963 reinforced this national perception of extreme right hate of JFK there in spades imo.

I think many Americans sensed the KKK influence there as well. And that these extreme right political organizations and the KKK groups "hated" JFK to a degree you imagined them actually celebrating his death.

JFK's comment to his wife that they were now in "Nut Country" as they arrived in Texas was more a commonly shared belief nationally than was reported imo.

The only thing that tens of millions of shocked and angry Americans had to cling to in their great desire to know who did this monstrous act and why and a desire for justice to those responsible, was the arrest of a living suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald.

At least we had "someone" who could be the key to unlocking this great and diabolical mystery.

Then just 46 hours after JFK was gunned down, this last hope for possible answers was gunned down himself, right before the eyes of desperate for the truth millions of Americans on live TV and right inside of the Dallas PD building!

With Oswald handcuffed and escorted by two policemen literally holding him by his arms!

Talk about another epic shock to America!

And along with that shock was an immediate feeling of deep suspicion and soon also welling anger.

An anger towards Texas, Dallas and specifically those immediately responsible for Oswald's personal safety and security - including the Dallas PD.

Whose job it was to protect the most important criminal suspect in America's history and whom everyone sensed was the only hope for discovering anything close to the truth about who else may have been involved in JFK's slaying. 

I am sure most Americans saw and heard talk of how racist and JFK hating many deep South people were back then. Newsreels of such with the race incidents throughout the South back then with police beating back race protesters and school integration groups with billy clubs, high pressure water sprays, teeth baring German Shepherd dogs, etc were common in the national news.

KKK sentiment and involvement with the segregationists was generally accepted as reality. People assumed many Southern police forces were rife with KKK sentiment personnel as well. Kennedy was hated by these types. Hated to a murderous wishing degree imo.

I think most Americans outside of the deep South viewed this scenario as being reality.

And I believe this widespread view fueled a suspicion of Oswald's death in the hands of the Dallas PD more than if Oswald's killing happened in other areas of the country North of the Confederate states geographical line?

Looking back, I think our main national media purposely down played the national anger toward Texas, Dallas and the Dallas PD, especially right after Oswald's absurdly improbable murder in the DPD building while he was handcuffed to the police themselves.

I could imagine millions of Americans deeply caring about truth and justice in JFK's killing jumping up out of their seats as I did when they watched Ruby shoot Oswald in the DPD basement on live T.V. and yelling shocked things like "Dear God!", "You've got to be kidding me!" or "I don't believe it!" and my own shout out "NO WAY, NO WAY, NO WAY!"

And then the anger. Palpable anger towards the DPD.

You idiots! You stupid f---ing incompetent Idiots!

GD it...you just blew our only chance at getting to the truth about JFK's murder!

This anger, this outrage was real and hugely widespread.

As was an accompanying sense of suspicion.

More so than our national news and media would ever report in it's true numbers and intensity during the height of the events imo.

Obviously, they were told to downplay this national sentiment reality for the usual government "keep the public calm" pressure reasons.

Just reflecting on the reality that I remember seeing and being in back then in November, 1963.

And to expound upon my own anger not just toward the DPD and their losing the only hope we had at finding the JFK assassination truth, but how every person in charge of Oswald's security that weekend wasn't just fired, but criminally charged!

Oswald's murder while in police custody did more harm to this country than we officially have ever acknowledged. A loss of trust in our government beyond any other 20th century time and event.

And not one responsible person even lost their job in this unprecedented, mind boggling truth losing damage negligence loss catastrophe?

Well, the world is often an unfair, crazy, confusing and darkly suspicious place, is it not?

 

 

 

 

Edited August 29, 2021 by Joe Bauer

[Jim Hargrove]

My belief is that Captain Westbrook and Reserve Sgt. Kenneth Croy, both of DPD, were actively involved in the framing of LHO and the murder of J.D. Tippit and that Croy may have helped Ruby into the police building to kill LHO.

Minutes after JFK was shot, Croy said he asked several Dallas cops if he could be of any help, was told no, and then went to his parents’ house and on to Austin’s Barbecue to have lunch with his estranged wife.  Westbrook claimed that he sat around headquarters for a few minutes, and then couldn’t get a police car or a ride with anyone and had to spend nearly a half hour walking to the Book Depository.  Really, boys?

Despite these inauspicious beginnings, Westbrook and Croy were soon performing near miracles of forensic police work. Within minutes of the Tippit hit, Westbrook was at 10th and Patton showing the LHO throwdown wallet to FBI SA Bob Barrett and several DPD cops.  Croy later said he was the first policeman at 10th and Patton, saw Tippit loaded into the ambulance, and got the throwdown wallet from an “unknown witness” which he then gave it to Westbrook.

But wait, there’s more!

Minutes after that, Westbrook was the first police officer to arrive at the Texas Theater. There are numerous images of his unmarked squad car parked directly in front of the building. Westbrook was standing next to Oswald when he was arrested!

To top off the trifecta of miracles, lowly Reserve Sgt. Croy was standing right next to Jack Ruby seconds before LHO was shot.  

There’s one more issue to resolve, though.  Why did both Westbrook and Croy have such unbelievable explanations of how they spent their time immediately after JFK was hit?

My bet is that they were the two men seen by Earlene Roberts in a DPD squad car honking the horn in front of Oswald’s rooming house at the very time Oswald was changing his clothes.  Neither would want to have to explain that, eh? 

Far more details about the above are here:

THE PRE-ARRANGED MURDER OF J.D. TIPPIT

[Steve Thomas]

On 8/7/2021 at 2:28 PM, Jim Hargrove said:

Despite these inauspicious beginnings, Westbrook and Croy were soon performing near miracles of forensic police work.

Jim,

Ray Hawkins and T.A. Hutson both participated in the apprehension of Lee Oswald.

Ray Hawkins call sign was 211

T.A. Hutson call sign was 284

 

J.D. Tippit is shot.

Multiple units respond.

A search of the houses in the vicinity is undertaken.

The search of the houses proves fruitless.

A suspect is spotted at the Library.

Multiple units respond.

 

Sometime between the search of the houses and the sighting of a suspect at the Library, Hawkins and Hutson make a stop at a Mobile Gas Station at 10th and Beckley to make a phone call, supposedly in response from a request from Dispatch to call in.

I do not find any reference to this phone call in the Dispatch tapes.

 

Mr. HUTSON. We proceeded west on 10th Street to Beckley, and we pulled into the Mobil gas station at Beckley and 10th Street.
Mr. BELIN. That is a Mobil gas station?
Mr. HUTSON. Yes.
Mr. BELIN. All right.
Mr. HUTSON. And Officer Ray Hawkins and Officer Baggett went inside of the Mobil gas station. And I am not positive, but I think they used the telephone to call in.
I am not positive, but I believe they gave us a call for us to call. I mean their number to call in.
At the time they were in the service station, I heard the dispatcher give a call that the suspect was just seen running across the lawn at the Oak Cliff Branch Library at Marsalis and Jefferson.
I reached over and blew the siren on the squad car to attract the officers' attention, Officers Baggett and Hawkins, and they came running out of the service station and jumped in the car, and I told them to report to, I can't remember, Marsalis and Jefferson, the suspect was seen running across the lawn at the library.

When Kenneth Croy testified to the Warren Commission on March 26, 1964, he said,

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/croy.htm

Mr. GRIFFIN. Where do you live?
Mr. CROY. 1658 Glenfield Dallas, Tex.

“Mr. GRIFFIN. What is your occupation?
Mr. CROY. I have several.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Let's have them in order.
Mr. CROY. I am in the real estate business. I have a Mobil service station...”

 

On December 1, 1963, Kenneth Croy gave an Affidavit on his actions in the basement of the Dallas Poice Heaquarters on November 24, 1963 when Oswald was shot. He listed his address as 2634 West Illinois,

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=217812#relPageId=148&search=%22key_to%20personnel%22

 

 

Steve Thomas

Edited August 25, 2023 by Steve Thomas

[Jim Hargrove]

Steve,

According to Croy's WC testimony, he just happened to hear a police dispatcher talking about the Tippit shooting while in his car at Colorado Blvd. and Zang, and that is how he was able to get to 10th and Patton before any other police.  But the timings simply do not work.  From John A's writeup on our website:

Quote

 

Croy told the Warren Commission that he was at the intersection of Colorado Blvd. and Zang, driving his personal car and listening to his police radio, when he heard the dispatcher broadcast the shooting of Tippit. However, as noted in the typewritten transcript, the dispatcher gave 4 different addresses on Jefferson Blvd. and 10th Street. How did Croy know to drive directly to 10th & Patton? Croy said that he drove to the scene of the shooting (10th & Patton), which is a five minute drive, and watched as Tippit's body was loaded into the ambulance.  But what could Croy have heard over his police radio while at Colorado and Zang, a 4-5 minute drive from 10th & Patton? There are 3 possibilities:

1) If Croy listened to the radio calls from Benavides or Bowley to the police dispatcher from Tippits patrol car (circa 1:08-1:09 PM), he could have arrived at 10th & Patton 5 minutes later (circa 1:13-1:14 PM), but this was several minutes after the ambulance left the scene and 1-2 minutes before Tippit was pronounced dead at Methodist Hospital. There is no evidence that Croy drove his personal car to 10th & Patton, as he told the Warren Commission. Not a single witness at 10th & Patton saw police Sgt. Croy arrive by car. Where did he park?

2) If Croy heard the first police dispatch, circa 1:08-1:09 PM (based upon calls from citizens), he could have arrived at 10th & Patton 5 minutes later (circa 1:13-1:14 PM), but this was several minutes after the ambulance left the scene and 1-2 minutes before Tippit was pronounced dead at Methodist Hospital. There is no evidence that Croy drove his personal car to 10th & Patton, as he told the Warren Commission. Not a single witness at 10th & Patton saw police Sgt. Croy arrive by car. Where did he park?

#3) If we rely on the time as noted in the altered police transcripts, the time of the dispatch is 1:18 PM. The earliest Croy could have arrived at 10th & Patton would have been at 1:23 PM, long after the ambulance left the scene, and eight minutes after Tippit was declared dead at Methodist Hospital.

If  Sgt. Croy had arrived at 10th & Patton in his personal car, in uniform, he would have been approached by many witnesses as soon as he got out of his car. But this did not happen, because Croy did not drive to 10th & Patton. Reserve officer Croy most likely arrived at 10th & Patton in police car #207 with personnel officer Capt. Westbrook. Both men sat in the police car and watched momentarily as LEE Oswald shot and killed Tippit at 1:06 PM. Westbrook got out of the car, briefly looked at Tippit lying dead or dying in the street, and then quickly returned to the car. Westbrook left the scene in police car #207 while Croy quietly remained at the scene. During the next few minutes Sgt. Croy kept a low profile, and a few minutes later watched as Tippit's body was loaded into the ambulance (circa 1:09-1:10 PM). After helping load Tippit's body into the ambulance, T.F. Bowley said that he talked with a police sergeant at the scene and then left (see page 3 of the affidavit below).

 

 

[Steve Thomas]

1 hour ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Steve,

According to Croy's WC testimony, he just happened to hear a police dispatcher talking about the Tippit shooting while in his car at Colorado Blvd. and Zang, and that is how he was able to get to 10th and Patton before any other police.  But the timings simply do not work.  From John A's writeup on our website:

 

Jim,

From the Dispatch tapes - Between 1:16 and 1:19 PM:

DIS 211:

211.

 

DIS: 211.

 

211: We're clear, Industrial and Stemmons. We'll go out there.

 

DIS: 10-4, 211

 

We arrived in Oak Cliff and there were several squads in the general vicinity of where the shooting had occurred---different stories had come out that the person was--the suspect had been seen in the immediate vicinity.
Mr. BALL. Did you go to 10th and Patton?
Mr. HAWKINS. We drove by 10th and Patton--we didn't stop at the location.
Mr. BALL. Where did you go then?
Mr. HAWKINS. We circled the vicinity around Jefferson and Marsalis

 

Jefferson and Marsalis is where the Library is.

 

Why did Hawkins not stop at the site of the shooting when he hd been ordered by the Dispatcher to proceed there? Why did he head east from the direction of the shooting, and then circle the vicinity for close to eighteen minutes?

 

From the Dispatch tapes - 1:34 PM

 

22: They've got him holed up, it looks like, in this building over here at the corner.

 

22: (?) ...were you be?

 

85: 85, library.

DIS: 10-4.

 

211: 211 out at that location.

DIS: 10-4.

 

Hawkins is circling the area around Jefferson and Marsalis (where the Library is). (which is about six blocks east of where Tippit has been shot)

He heads west and picks up Hutson in the neighborhood of 10th and Patton. They continue west on 10th till they get to Beckley and 10th, where they make a phone call at a Mobil Gas Station. While they're in there on a phone call, Dispatch announces that a suspect has been seen at the Library, so they head back east again.

 

Why did he interrupt his search for the suspect of a fellow police officer to make a personal phone call?

 

Hutson wasn’t positive that they went to the Mobil Gas Station to make a call. Did they go there for another reason? Did Croy own that gas station? Was Hawkins looking for Croy? Did Dispatch direct Hawkins to call Headquarters on a landline?

Like I said, I don't find any record of this call from Dispatch instructing Hawkins to call in, or any record of Hawkins calling into Dispatch telling them that he was "out".

Mr. HUTSON. And Officer Ray Hawkins and Officer Baggett went inside of the Mobil gas station. And I am not positive, but I think they used the telephone to call in.
I am not positive, but I believe they gave us a call for us to call. I mean their number to call in.

 

Steve Thomas

[Jim Hargrove]

18 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Hawkins is circling the area around Jefferson and Marsalis (where the Library is). (which is about six blocks east of where Tippit has been shot)

He heads west and picks up Hutson in the neighborhood of 10th and Patton. They continue west on 10th till they get to Beckley and 10th, where they make a phone call at a Mobil Gas Station. While they're in there on a phone call, Dispatch announces that a suspect has been seen at the Library, so they head back east again.

Why did he interrupt his search for the suspect of a fellow police officer to make a personal phone call?

Hutson wasn’t positive that they went to the Mobil Gas Station to make a call. Did they go there for another reason? Did Croy own that gas station? Was Hawkins looking for Croy? Did Dispatch direct Hawkins to call Headquarters on a landline?

That’s sort of reminiscent of the phone call Tippit apparently made at the Top 10 record store right after McWatters’ bus passed the GLOCO station without dropping off Oswald.  Why was Tippit sitting idly in his car at the station immediately after the shooting of JFK?  Why did he stop to make the phone call?

Croy testified that he owned a Mobil station but didn’t give an address.  If he actually owned the station that Hawkins and Baggett entered, I suppose it might or might not mean something.  Besides the odd choice of driving to Jefferson and Marsalis instead of 10th and Patton, do you have any other reasons to be suspicious of Hawkins (and Baggett)?

I doubt these two played the pivotal roles that Croy and Westbrook performed.  After all, we’re to believe that Croy got the 10th and Patton throw-down wallet from an “unknown witness” and then gave it to Westbrook who, as luck would have it, not only showed off the wallet in view of a television camera man but also “found” that Eisenhower-style jacket allegedly owned by LHO.  Westbrook then led the charge to the Texas Theater and was standing right next to LHO during the arrest. 

Croy, of course, was standing right next to Ruby when Oswald was shot.  These guys sure knew where to stand!  Croy testified that he tried to grab Ruby but failed to reach out to him in time.  Remarkable!

[Gil Jesus]

On 8/7/2021 at 3:28 PM, Jim Hargrove said:

My belief is that Captain Westbrook and Reserve Sgt. Kenneth Croy, both of DPD, were actively involved in the framing of LHO and the murder of J.D. Tippit and that Croy may have helped Ruby into the police building to kill LHO.

Minutes after JFK was shot, Croy said he asked several Dallas cops if he could be of any help, was told no, and then went to his parents’ house and on to Austin’s Barbecue to have lunch with his estranged wife.  Westbrook claimed that he sat around headquarters for a few minutes, and then couldn’t get a police car or a ride with anyone and had to spend nearly a half hour walking to the Book Depository.  Really, boys?

Despite these inauspicious beginnings, Westbrook and Croy were soon performing near miracles of forensic police work. Within minutes of the Tippit hit, Westbrook was at 10th and Patton showing the LHO throwdown wallet to FBI SA Bob Barrett and several DPD cops.  Croy later said he was the first policeman at 10th and Patton, saw Tippit loaded into the ambulance, and got the throwdown wallet from an “unknown witness” which he then gave it to Westbrook.

But wait, there’s more!

Minutes after that, Westbrook was the first police officer to arrive at the Texas Theater. There are numerous images of his unmarked squad car parked directly in front of the building. Westbrook was standing next to Oswald when he was arrested!

To top off the trifecta of miracles, lowly Reserve Sgt. Croy was standing right next to Jack Ruby seconds before LHO was shot.  

There’s one more issue to resolve, though.  Why did both Westbrook and Croy have such unbelievable explanations of how they spent their time immediately after JFK was hit?

My bet is that they were the two men seen by Earlene Roberts in a DPD squad car honking the horn in front of Oswald’s rooming house at the very time Oswald was changing his clothes.  Neither would want to have to explain that, eh? 

Far more details about the above are here:

THE PRE-ARRANGED MURDER OF J.D. TIPPIT

Jim, didn't I read someplace where Westbrook took a job with the CIA after leaving the Dallas Police ?

[Steve Thomas]

1 hour ago, Jim Hargrove said:

That’s sort of reminiscent of the phone call Tippit apparently made at the Top 10 record store right after McWatters’ bus passed the GLOCO station without dropping off Oswald.  Why was Tippit sitting idly in his car at the station immediately after the shooting of JFK?  Why did he stop to make the phone call?

 

Jim,.

I obviously can't prove it, but it does make me wonder if they weren't calling the same people, as in "I can't find him. He's not here."

Steve Thomas

[Pete Mellor]

44 minutes ago, Gil Jesus said:

Jim, didn't I read someplace where Westbrook took a job with the CIA after leaving the Dallas Police ?

As researcher Greg Parker has pointed out on his research forum, Westbrook’s role as a Police advisor in South Vietnam meant that he was working for the U.S.A.I.D. (United States Agency for International Development); which therefore meant that he was working for the CIA.

[Jim Hargrove]

1 hour ago, Gil Jesus said:

Jim, didn't I read someplace where Westbrook took a job with the CIA after leaving the Dallas Police ?

Dallas Morning News, Saturday, Aug. 20, 1966, p. 4:

[Steve Thomas]

2 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

Jim, didn't I read someplace where Westbrook took a job with the CIA after leaving the Dallas Police ?

Gil,

I have not found any direct connection between Westbrook and the South Vietnamese police training program at Michigan State University, but it wouldn't surprise me if one existed.

Creating the Oswald Legend – Part 5

Written by Vasilios Vazakas

in Kenndys and King

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/creating-the-oswald-legend-part-5

CIA POLICE TRAINING and THE CIS

Coming back to Captain Westbrook, a most astonishing revelation was that after he retired from the Dallas Police Department in 1966, Westbrook became a Police advisor in South Vietnam. As researcher Greg Parker found out, Westbrook was employed as a security advisor in Saigon by the U.S.A.I.D. (United States Agency for International Development).[16]

The CIA was running a police program. Its purpose was to train friendly overseas police and to allow CIA to “plant men with local police in sensitive places around the world.” Also, to bring to the United States “prime candidates for enrollment as CIA employees.”

John Gilligan, director of USAID under Jimmy Carter, said that “At one time, many USAID field offices were infiltrated from top to bottom with CIA people. The idea was to plant operatives in every kind of activity we had overseas, government, volunteer, religious, every kind.”[19] John Hannah, Nixon’s director of USAID admitted publicly that the USAID had funded CIA operations in Laos and that both organizations had co-operated in Ecuador, Uruguay, Thailand, and the Philippines.[20]

 

[16] Yusuf hasan, http://jfkthelonegunmanmyth.blogspot.com/2014/09/a-few-words-on-former-dpd-captain.html

[20] Colby & Dennett, Thy Will Be Done, Harper Perennial, 1995, p. 743.

 

This is a very interesting article:

The University That Launched a CIA Front Operation in Vietnam

How the friendship between a Vietnamese politician and an American academic led Michigan State University into a vast experiment in nation-building and pulled America deeper into war.

By ERIC SCIGLIANO March 25, 2018

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/25/vietnam-war-secret-msu-michigan-state-217705/

 

“Diệm promptly requested aid from his key backers, the U.S. government and Michigan State University, and asked his old friend Wes Fishel to come aboard as an adviser. Fishel did, officially serving as liaison to Diệm on the staff President Dwight Eisenhower’s special emissary in Vietnam.

Their political partnership suited the times. America’s cold warriors were scrambling to turn fragile postcolonial states into bulwarks against Marxist ideology and Soviet influence. Many universities enlisted in this effort, eager to turn theory into practice, take their missions to a global level, and rake in federal dollars. By the mid-1950s, the U.S. government was sponsoring 42 university aid missions around the world.

None enlisted more eagerly than Michigan State, whose Vietnam group became the largest of those missions. The school’s longtime president, John Hannah, was an idealist, an empire-builder and former assistant secretary of defense with deep ties in Washington, D.C. Over the 28 years he led the school, Hannah transformed the backwater Michigan State College into one of the nation’s largest universities and an important research institution, growing its enrollment more than sixfold.”

“But this nuts-and-bolts civics work took a second seat to the police program. MSU’s law enforcement instructors, mostly retired police officers and officials, worked earnestly to train Vietnam’s various police agencies in everything from professional deportment and arrest procedures to forensics and firearms. They had some success with the Saigon police, particularly in helping them tame the city’s notoriously chaotic traffic. (I delighted in watching the white-gloved officers signaling atop their crossroads podiums with the aplomb of orchestra conductors.) “

 

Steve Thomas

 

 

Edited August 9, 2021 by Steve Thomas

[Steve Thomas]

36 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Dallas Morning News, Saturday, Aug. 20, 1966, p. 4:

 

Jim,

Thanks for this. I'll have to keep my eyes open for the other man mentioned in this article, R.A. Thompson.

In 1963 he was listed in Batchelor's Exhibit 5002 as a Captain in the Traffic Division. Traffic Control

David Harkness, W.E. Barnett and Marvin Wise worked for him.

see p. 14 of Batchelor's Exhibit https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/pdf/WH19_Batchelor_Ex_5002.pdf

CIA guy huh?

Steve Thomas

[Paul Brancato]

8 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Jim,

Thanks for this. I'll have to keep my eyes open for the other man mentioned in this article, R.A. Thompson.

In 1963 he was listed in Batchelor's Exhibit 5002 as a Captain in the Traffic Division. Traffic Control

David Harkness, W.E. Barnett and Marvin Wise worked for him.

see p. 14 of Batchelor's Exhibit https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/pdf/WH19_Batchelor_Ex_5002.pdf

CIA guy huh?

Steve Thomas

Steve et al - I received Jack Crichton’s oral history transcript. The key sentence, in describing how Colonel Lumpkin, Deputy police chief, called him on the evening of Nov 22  to ask if he knew a Russian interpreter for Marina. Quote - “ He (Lumpkin) was Deputy Chief of Police at that time. But he also had an Intelligence unit. And I, at that time, I was CO of the 488th Strategic Intelligence Unit. And I had previously been a CO of a counter-intelligence detachment here in Dallas and about 100 people in that unit and about 40 or 50 of them were from the Dallas Police Department. So I knew a whole bunch of these guys. And Lumpkin and I were especially good friends. And Lumpkin …. I answered the phone, and George said “Jack, do you have anybody in your unit who can come down and act as the interpreter in interrogating Marina Oswald?” And I said “No, I’ve got some good translaters but nobody that fluent”. He said “We need somebody desperately”. And I didn’t realize it at the time, but the Dallas …Dallas had charge of the ….what was going on in Dallas then. It was not a federal offense to shot the president then, that where the occasion occurred, the local community had authority. So I said “Well, George, I have a friend named Ilya Mamantov, who is a Russian. He is a geologist with Sun Oil Company, and maybe he’ll do this”. He said “Call him right away”. So I called Ilya. He happened to be at home, and he said “Well, I will be happy to act as interpreter”. And he said “I know the Oswalds, and I might be able to tell the police something about them”. And said “I’d be happy to”. So, George sent a squad car out and picked Ilya up, and sirens screaming”. When reading the rest of the oral interview it becomes clear that Crichton was well read in JFK assassination literature. 

Edited August 9, 2021 by Paul Brancato