If Roger Craig was right…..

[Steve Thomas]

14 hours ago, Pete Mellor said:

Steve, I noticed this publication is missing from my collection.  Kurtz being a History prof. attracted me to purchase.  Your quote of the book is 1993, I notice that there is a 3rd edition in 2013.  How do you rate 'Crime of the Century'?

Pete, 

I'm sorry, I have 't read it.

Steve Thomas

[Pete Mellor]

3 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Pete, 

I'm sorry, I have 't read it.

Steve Thomas

🤣 ok cool.  I'm off to Amazon to take a punt anyway, going for the 2013 3rd edition.

[Pete Mellor]

6 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Kurtz made up his witnesses. I wrote about this roughly a decade ago and he never attempted to defend himself. So, you may ask, why should he explain himself to you? Well, he's an historian. He has an understanding of the historical record. And he damn sure knows that a writer who cites numerous interviews with people who were already dead at the supposed time of these interviews better explain himself, or risk having his work thrown in the trash bin. 

While his analyses of the case may have some merit, you can pretty much throw everything he ever said regarding his own experience with the case, such as seeing Ferrie or Shaw with Oswald or talking to the CIA or talking to doctors who told him the whole thing was a cover-up, in the trash. 

 

Cheers Pat, initially missed your post, caught up just in time!

[Pete Mellor]

So, back to the original question....If Roger Craig was right.

Clearly Ruth Paine was NOT in Dealey Plaza to pick up any LHO.  She didn't own a Nash Rambler & Craig identified the driver as a husky curly haired Latin, plus Ruth's car was green & the Rambler was white.

However, as Larry posted above, a Rambler pulled over on Elm around 12:40 and picked up a LHO lookalike.  Unfortunately due to 3 lanes of moving traffic, Craig couldn't intercept and question the Rambler & its occupants.  (I find it interesting that Craig went to the entrance of the TSBD seeking any officer who was in charge of the investigation to report the Nash getaway & was introduced to a person at the front steps of the Depository who stated he was Secret Service!)

I must admit that similar to many aspects of this case I cannot make any definitive conclusion.  I have read research articles that purport to demolish Oswald's bus & taxi journey to Oak Cliff & theories of Oswald's Rambler journey to the Texas theatre & all sorts in between.

Craig's later appearance with Fritz at DPD Homicide produced this very controversial response from the accused assassin,

“That station wagon belongs to Mrs. Paine — don’t try to drag her into this.”  Sitting back in his chair, Oswald said very
disgustedly and very low, “Everybody will know who I am now.” 

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/C Disk/Craig Roger/Item 14.pdf

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Pete Mellor said:

Cheers Pat, initially missed your post, caught up just in time!

To be clear, Crime of the Century is pretty good, aside from a few questionable interviews and dubious claims of personal knowledge. This was supposed to be Kurtz's big statement. In 2007, however, he came out with The JFK Assassination Debates, in which he now cited dozens of interviews with important people, some of them making claims they never made to anyone else. It was odd to me that many of these interviews preceded Crime of the Century's second edition, not to mention its first edition, and that Kurtz would only mention them in a book that came out decades after he'd made his grand statement in Crime of the Century. I then double-checked the dates of these interviews, and found that a dozen or so supposedly took place after the death of those interviewed. In the book, he said he was placing the notes on these interviews in an archive at the University where he had long been employed. But, alas, no such notes ever showed up and no response from the University came other than to say they had what they had, and that no new material was en route. As I recall, Larry Hancock backed me up on this, and said that he had also tried to get access to some of Kurtz's supposedly breakthrough interviews (he said he'd befriended a New Orleans CIA agent who'd told him Oswald was CIA) but that he also had run into a block wall. One can only conclude, then, that the notes of the interviews never materialized because the interviews themselves never existed. 

I write about this in Chapter 19d at patspeer.com.

 

While comparing Crime of the Century with The JFK Assassination Debates, I noticed something that defies an innocent explanation, IMO.

The bibliography to 1982's Crime of the Century, a book Kurtz obviously spent some time on, listed the following interviews:

Roger Craig 8-18-72 (Curiously, one of the end notes refers to a 10-6-72 interview of Craig.)

Helen Forrest (Mrs. James Forrest) 5-17-74

Jerry Herald 4-17-78

Fred Bouchard 5-18-78

George Wilcox 9-9-79

Van Burns 9-1-80

Numerous other interviews, the transcripts of which are in the author’s possession.

This bibliography listed hundreds of sources--books, articles, government reports, etc. But, of the numerous interviews Kurtz claimed to have conducted, only these six were listed. Strikingly, none of these interviews (with the possible exception of Dallas Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig) were of a well-known witness or high-ranking member of the government.

The 1993 edition of Crime of the Century, moreover, listed an additional hundred or so sources--books, articles, audio visual materials, etc... And yet, no more interviews were listed.

So who were Craig, Forrest, Herald, Bouchard, Wilcox, and Burns? Well, Herald was a free-lance news photographer in 1964. He purportedly told Kurtz the real story behind a few of the stories to come out of Dallas in the aftermath of the shooting. Bouchard, on the other hand, was a supposed ballistics expert, who supposedly told Kurtz some details about the supposed assassination weapon. Okay, we have little reason to doubt these interviews occurred.

The other interviews were more suspicious. No information is provided on Wilcox, other than that he supposedly saw Oswald with David Ferrie. Van Burns was a sociology professor at Southeastern Louisiana University. His interview with Kurtz was unexplained in the 1982 edition of Crime of the Century, but explained by Kurtz in his 1993 introduction, when he reported that Burns was yet another witness claiming he saw Oswald with Ferrie. (In The JFK Assassination Debates, of course, Kurtz fails to even mention these supposedly important witnesses that he himself uncovered.)

That leaves Craig and Forrest. Craig was a Dallas County Deputy Sheriff, one of the first to run towards Dealey Plaza. He told the Warren Commission he saw Oswald run out to a car after the shooting, but was not believed by the commission, nor by his superiors in the Sheriff's office. It seems possible he spoke to Kurtz in 1972. This brings us to Forrest. She is purported to have not only backed up Craig's story, claiming she was in the plaza after the shooting and saw a man who looked like Oswald run out to a car, but to have backed up Kurtz's ultimate conclusion the first shot was fired from the second floor of the school book depository, by telling him she saw someone with a rifle on the second floor of the depository around noon, a half hour before the shooting.

Now, this is puzzling. Kurtz claimed to have discovered a key witness who saw something no one else claimed to see, but provided no details as to what she saw (I mean, really, WHERE on the second floor did she see this man with a rifle?), and no details as to how he came to interview her. While many researchers have innocently quoted Kurtz's claims about Mrs. Forrest, for that matter, no researcher, outside Kurtz, has ever claimed to have spoken to her or been able to ascertain the validity of 1) her account, and 2) Kurtz's claims of her account. For all we know, she was a schizophrenic Kurtz met at Mardi Gras. For all we know, Kurtz had a fever dream about the big band singer Helen Forrest, in which she sang about Oswald and a man with a rifle, while backed up by the Harry James Orchestra.

Now compare and contrast the list of interviews provided in Crime of the Century to a list of interviews cited in The JFK Assassination Debates--which I have created from Kurtz's end notes. (Where I have found the date of death of the interviewee, I have added it in parentheses. Names without DODs do not necessarily mean the interviewee is still alive, only that I couldn't readily ascertain the interviewee's date of death.)

6-6-68 Robert O Canada (DOD--12-6-72, age 59)

3-6-70 Charles Gregory (DOD 4-76, age 56)

1-10-71 Clem Sehrt (DOD 6-1-74, age 64)

5-5-72 Roger Craig (DOD 5-15-75, age 39) (Note that the date of this interview fails to match either of the dates presented in Crime of the Century.)

5-17-72 Bernard Fensterwald (DOD 4-2-91, age 69)

9-6-72 Henry Kmen (DOD 9-1-78, age 62)

8-18-73 Consuela Martin

10-9-75 Milton Helpern (DOD 4-22-77, age 75)

5-15-77 Craig Craighead

5-8-78 Billy Abel

7-8-78 Jesse Curry (DOD 6-22-80, age 66)

6-8-79 Henry M. Morris (DOD 4-91, age 69)

3-15-81 Hunter Leake (DOD 5-5-93, age 82)

3-18-81 Samuel Wilson (DOD 93, age 82)

3-18-81 Bernard Eble (also cited as Eberle?) (DOD 8-19-09?, age 95?)

3-14-82 Henry M. Morris (DOD 4-91, age 69)

4-16-83 Santos Miguel Gonzalez (later listed as Miguel Santos Gonzalez)

5-7-83 Robert A Maurin Sr. (DOD 1962, age 75) (Note: He probably meant Robert Maurin II--DOD--1988, age 70)

12-14-83 George Burkley (DOD 1-2-91, age 88)

1-16-84 Roy Kellerman (DOD 3-22-84, age 69)

1-16-84 William Greer (DOD 2-23-85, age 75)

3-18-84 Jesse Curry (DOD 6-22-80, age 66)

6-8-84 Hamilton Johnson (DOD 12-12-99?, age 93?)

6-17-84 Edward Grady Partin (DOD 3-11-90, age 66)

7-7-85 Edward Grady Partin (DOD 3-11-90, age 66)

7-17-85 William George Gaudet (DOD 1-19-81, age 72)

9-3-85 Allen (Black Cat) Lacombe (DOD 7-89, age 71)

9-6-85 Seth Kantor (DOD 8-17-93, age 67)

11-12-85 William Hawk Daniels (DOD 1-22-83, age 68)

5-17-86 Robert Shaw (DOD 1992, age 87?)

6-6-86 William Hawk Daniels (DOD 1-22-83, age 68)

9-14-86 Abe Fortas (DOD 4-5-82, age 71)

9-16-86 Leon Jaworski (DOD 12-9-82, age 77)

10-9-86 Joseph R. Dolce (DOD 3-15-94, age 85)

12-7-86 Henry Mentz (DOD 1-23-05, age 84)

5-19-87 Seth Kantor (DOD 8-17-93, age 67)

8-23-87 Manuel Artime (DOD 11-18-77, age 45)

6-12-88 Joseph R. Dolce (DOD 3-15-94, age 85)

10-8-88 Henry Mason

10-20-88 Eddie Adams

4-19-89 Deborah Schillace (DOD 1-1-12, age 56)

8-12-89 Morey Sear (DOD 9-6-04, age 75)

10-13-89 Robert Bouck (DOD 4-27-08, age 89)

8-15-90 Robert Livingston (DOD 4-26-02, age 83)

9-17-90 Sidney Johnston

2-17-91 William Eckert (DOD 9-24-99, age 73)

5-5-91 Edward Brown

11-6-91 Richard M. Bissell, Jr. (DOD 2-7-94, age 84)

11-7-93 Oren Anthony (Orien Anthon on final list)

11-18-93 David Belin (DOD 1-17-99, age 70)

11-18-93 J. Wesley Liebeler (DOD 9-25-02, age 71)

10-3-94 Richard Helms (DOD 10-23-02, age 89)

8-6-95 William Eckert (DOD 9-24-99, age 73)

3-18-97 James Humes (DOD 5-06-99, age 74)

11-21-2003 Henry Lee

Kurtz's end notes also make reference to these undated interviews:

Sylvia Meagher (DOD 1-14-89, age 67)

Luis Alvarez (DOD 9-1-88, age 77)

Tad Szulc (DOD 5-21-01, age 74)

Lou Russell

On page 246, furthermore, Kurtz provides a master list of those he'd interviewed in relation to the assassination. This includes the additional names:

Gary Aguilar

Russell Fisher (DOD 5-21-84, age 67)

Michael Griffith

Vincent P. Guinn (DOD 11-7-02, age 85)

David Mantik

John McCone (DOD 2-14-91, age 89)

Charles Nelson

Dean Rusk (DOD 12-20-94, age 85)

Well, first note the number of high-profile interviews. While Crime of the Century boasted no interviews with prominent witnesses or high-ranking government officials, The JFK Assassination Debates laid claim to interviews with the two Secret Service agents riding in the front of Kennedy's limousine at the time of the shooting, the head of the Presidential Protection unit of the Secret Service, Kennedy's personal physician, the doctor who performed Kennedy's autopsy, the Commanding Officer of the hospital where the autopsy was performed, two of Governor Connally's doctors, the chief of the Dallas Police, two Warren Commission attorneys, a wound ballistics expert who consulted with the Warren Commission, two prominent physicists who conducted research related to Kennedy's assassination, three prominent forensic pathologists, a legendary forensic scientist, two former directors of the CIA, one of whom was a former director of black ops for the CIA, a second former director of black ops for the CIA, Kennedy's Secretary of State, two judges, and a former Supreme Court justice and top adviser to President Lyndon Johnson. Most of these interviews, furthermore, were purported to have occurred before Crime of the Century was re-issued in 1993. Well, why weren't these interviews mentioned in Crime of the Century? Or in articles or at conferences written or conducted prior to the release of The JFK Assassination Debates in 2006? To be clear, Dr. Kurtz teased his upcoming book in a 11-4-03 press release put out by Southeastern Louisiana University, and this press release mentioned but one interview--with Dr. Robert Shaw, Governor Connally's doctor, whose rejection of the single-bullet theory had been in the public record for decades. If Kurtz had actually interviewed rarely-interviewed doctors such as Canada, Burkley, Humes, and Fisher he would almost certainly have mentioned them before mentioning his interview with a more commonly-interviewed subject as Shaw. That only makes sense.

Let's get real. One would think an historian would brag to the high hills about his numerous interviews with important historical figures. And yet here we have an historian who listed "numerous interviews" in the only book he was likely to write on a subject, only to come back 24 years later and claim that among these "numerous interviews" were some of the most prominent figures of the 1960's, nearly all of whom were now dead. This doesn't ring true, at all.

Here is a promotional blurb put out by The University of Tennessee Press for the 1982 edition of Crime of the Century: "Thoroughly documented and based on the most exhaustive research carried out to date on John Kennedy's murder, Crime of the Century draws on a variety of primary source materials from the National Archives and the FBI's and CIA's declassified assassination files. It utilizes the latest source materials released by the House Select Committee's investigation. The depth of research, the rigorously objective sifting of evidence, and the incisive critique of official investigative bias make this a book of importance not only to students of the Kennedy assassination in particular, but also to scholars of government response to political violence in general."

Notice anything? By 1982, Kurtz had supposedly already interviewed both Robert Canada and Hunter Leake, two of the most revelatory interviews ever conducted, or at least claimed to have been conducted, regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. And yet these interviews were not only not mentioned in Kurtz's 1982 book based on the "most exhaustive research carried out to date on John Kennedy's murder", they were not mentioned in a blurb put out by his publisher pushing the greatness of his research. No interviews, in fact, are mentioned anywhere in the blurb. Hmmm... Which seems more likely? That Kurtz's publisher forgot to add in that "Oh yeah, by the way, the good professor has been conducting his own investigation into the assassination, and has conducted some interviews that will change the way we look at Kennedy's autopsy and Oswald's possible connections to the CIA"? Or that Kurtz kept these interviews a secret from his own publisher? Or that, by golly, these interviews were never actually conducted?

Now note that, aside from Roger Craig, whose interview in The JFK Assassination Debates has a different date than the two offered in Crime of the Century, the interview subjects listed in Crime of the Century, including the mysterious Helen Forrest, who Kurtz relied upon at two key points in Crime of the Century, and the mysterious George Wilcox, who purportedly saw Oswald with Ferrie, are no longer even listed among those Kurtz has interviewed.

Now note that the first interview listed for The JFK Assassination Debates is Kurtz's interview with Dr. Robert Canada. This is more than curious. Why would Kurtz conduct his first interview regarding the assassination with Dr. Canada? Why not with Dr.s Humes, Boswell, and Finck, who'd actually performed the autopsy? Or some of the witnesses to the assassination itself? And why would Kurtz's second interview regarding the assassination not come until 1970, when he supposedly interviewed one of Governor Connally's doctors, Dr. Charles Gregory? Is it a coincidence that, much as Dr. Canada, Dr. Gregory died in 1976, at a relatively young age? (Canada died at 59. Gregory died at 56.) Is it another coincidence, for that matter, that they died at a younger age than all but one of the subjects Kurtz claimed to have interviewed prior to 1987? I mean, really, did Kurtz simply have a knack for interviewing people no one else was interviewing--before they dropped dead and no one else could interview them? Or is it more likely that, hmmm, Kurtz was just making up dates for a number of his interviews, and was forced to place the dates for those who died young in years preceding his other interviews?

Now note the date of the last interview. It's Dr. Henry Lee on 11-21-03. Well, that's the day Kurtz moderated a panel on the basic facts of the assassination at the Solving the Great American Murder Mystery Conference in Pittsburgh. Dr. Lee was also in attendance at this conference. It seems likely, then, that this "interview" was not set up in advance, with prepared questions, but was more like a discussion of two men at a conference.

Now note the date of the last interview before the one with Dr. Lee. It's an interview with Dr. James Humes, who performed Kennedy's autopsy, on 3-18-97. Well, this is nine years before the release of The JFK Assassination Debates. Are we really supposed to believe that someone claiming to have conducted "numerous interviews" relating to Kennedy's assassination in the 1970's and 1980's would fail to conduct ANY interviews while piecing together a book that is likely to be his final word on the subject? I mean, not one?

Now note the highlighted interviews. These interviews all supposedly took place when the interview subject was DEAD.

[Pete Mellor]

49 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

Now note the highlighted interviews. These interviews all supposedly took place when the interview subject was DEAD.

& that Pat I would term is 'a slam dunk'. 

[Ron Bulman]

On 11/13/2021 at 7:01 PM, David Andrews said:

If Roger Craig was wrong – I don’t want to be right

If being right means being lone-nutter,

I’d rather give up civil rights

The Warren Commission didn’t speak his name,

It’s a doggone disgrace!

They told him he didn’t see what he saw,

Then they rubbed it in his face

Are you wrong to hunger for justice for John-John's dad?

Am I wrong just to try to hold on to the best Prez we ever had?

If Roger Craig was wrong, I don’t want to be right –

I don’t wanna be right – if it means bein’ a patsy!

I don’t wanna be right – If it means bullets at night...

 

 

Since the topic was brought back up, I can't visit the site without getting this song stuck in my head, again, thanks to David.  It is about infidelity.  Was Oswald True to the CIA until the end?

[Joe Bauer]

The renowned comedian Jonathan Winters once recounted seeing Helen Forrest in a diner in Boise.

He mentioned this in his Dean Martin Roast monologue honoring Frank Sinatra.

He drove the instrument bus for Tommy Dorsey's traveling band as they toured many of our most rural states back when Sinatra was their featured singer.

Winters was a JFK conspiracy believer.

 

 

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Saturday Memories

Winters has all the Stars rolling with Laughter...

 

[David Andrews]

7 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Since the topic was brought back up, I can't visit the site without getting this song stuck in my head, again, thanks to David.  It is about infidelity.  Was Oswald True to the CIA until the end?

If you want a palate cleanser, here's the Rod Stewart version of 1977, not so much an urgent soul cover as an experiment in patience-trying.

If you poke through spy movies, you'll find similar juxtaposing of infidelity and espionage betrayal (The Good Shepherd; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy).  I'm glad you picked up on that, because I'm trying to reinvent the trope for my 9/11 novel - we'll see how well that works out.

Edited April 7, 2022 by David Andrews

[Ron Bulman]

Damn it again David.  Reading Joseph McBride's Political Truth you had me thinking If Dan Rather's Wrong I Don't Wanna Be Right.  I had to distract myself.

 

 

 

Edited April 20, 2022 by Ron Bulman

[John Butler]

It just struck me reading through these comments that Roger Craig was right, and he was wrong.  Two Oswalds were at the TSBD.  This is based on the stories told by different witnesses.  One Oswald, I'll call Harvey since he left on a bus, and the other who left in the Rambler seen by Roger Craig I will call Lee.  I know this infuriates my anti-fans.  But, there is no way to think about this except as Harvey and Lee.

I have always thought the two Oswald were not that closely alike in appearance based on photos.  I have speculated that the Oswalds are generally considered surly and uncommunicative  because I believe that is because their voices were different.

But, I am slowly changing my mind.  Roger Craig's story is part of that.  The man Roger Craig identified as Lee Harvey Oswald was Harvey.  Why Harvey?  The evidence from the bus ride.  The man shot at the DPD is the one who caught the bus. 

So, that leaves Lee Oswald as the one who went downhill and got into the Rambler.  He looked close enough to Harvey to be identified as Lee Harvey Oswald by Roger Craig.  Graig saw Harvey at the DPD and identified him as Lee Harvey Oswald.

Roger Craig was a good and efficient detective.  I believe he called it as he saw it.  But, he was right and he was wrong.

The man who was killed at the DPD was an unknown.  There is to much evidence that says he was not Lee Harvey Oswald. 

So, Oswald said he was outside watching the parade when the p. limo went by.  I take it this way.  Both were outside watching and filming the parade.  Doorway Man could be Lee disguised by the forgers as Billy Lovelady.  There is too much of an argument for me to get into it.  Harvey was out under the trees by the TSBD with one of his expensive cameras filming the motorcade.  This comes from the John Martin film.

OBTW, there is a video of Buell Frazier measuring Oswald's curtain rod bag.  His hands are about 17 or 18 inches apart.  This is far too small to hold curtain rods.  But, it is just right to be a large regular shopping bag big enough to hold a camera and camera mount.  Harvey, later to become Prayer Man, was on Elm Street under the trees by the TSBD when the p. limo went by.  He was across the street from Pierce Allmand and Terry Ford who had cameras with them.  Where is their film?   There were others there taking photos.  You can see them in Elsie Dorman, but not Zapruder.  Where is their film?   This is part of the reason Altgens 6 and the Zapruder film had to be altered.  This is the way I interpret the evidence. 

 

  

[Ron Bulman]

On 4/19/2022 at 9:33 PM, Ron Bulman said:

Damn it again David.  Reading Joseph McBride's Political Truth you had me thinking If Dan Rather's Wrong I Don't Wanna Be Right.  I had to distract myself.

 

 

 

If Dan Rather was right we were all wronged.   Violently forward, then back and to the left are diametrically opposed.  Conspiracy.  Case Closed on whether or not it was one. 

Chesser, Mantik and Horne just might be right about the rear entrance wound, slightly before the two in the forehead/temple hairline?

Quite some shooting eh?  Plus the throat shot, a 22 from the South knoll?  Practiced military snipers imho.  Not Operation 40 Cuban snipers.  They wouldn't have been trusted to this.  Again, jmho.

[John Butler]

9 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Quite some shooting eh?  Plus the throat shot, a 22 from the South knoll?  Practiced military snipers imho.  Not Operation 40 Cuban snipers.  They wouldn't have been trusted to this.  Again, jmho.

One of my candidates is Chauncy Holt.  He was a long time assassin starting with the mob and Bugsy Segal in 1947.  He said he was a look out.  But, who believes that.  He was sent to Central America in the early 50s as an assassin, or a member of an assassination team to accompany some of our favorite JFK assassination deniers such as Hunt.

These things were revealed in a film just days before he died of cancer.  He never said anything that could directly associate himself with the shooting of Kennedy.  But, there were other things he said would lead one to think that. 

But, the main thing he said was that he was a spare patsy put into a railroad car loaded with explosives.  He feared for his life.  I would guess that either Bill Shelley or Chauncy Holt were in a group of possible patsies.