Marcello and Oswald and the assassination

[Jamey Flanagan]

I agree 100%! I've actually expressed my opinion before and been asked for footnotes basically like I was writing a novel (my posts and comments can tend to get long at times, but not quite novel length, lol!) so now I kinda try to go out of my way to express that something is my opinion or is pure speculation on my part. It all to a certain extent is opinion anyway. Whether you are a "lone nutter" or a "conspiracy theorist". The LN would quote so called facts from the WC and the CT would just point out that there is no chain of evidence to their "facts" or that so much "evidence" has been fabricated. Then the CT would point out witness testimony that the LN would say is taken out of context or question the character of the witness. I really do love hearing everyone's theories on the case. Even some that get ridiculed like the Mortal Error theory with Hickey. I don't subscribe to that theory myself, but to me it is far more believable than the "official story". I bet if the forces behind the murder could have thought up such a scenario early on after the critical response to the WC report then they could have floated it out there and maybe people would have swallowed it. They have their lone nut. A terrible accident caused the SS and others to do a coverup. Best of both worlds, lol! I really do try to keep an open mind to an extent, but I try to let common sense steer me. As far as Oswald being a lone assassin, to me if this was the case then why would they have to try so hard to force this square peg into a round hole? There wouldn't be all this chicanery if it were that cut and dry. All of the significant evidence pointing to LHO has no provenance! The chain of possession of each artifact has gaping holes! And the way he was eliminated within a couple of days...... sometimes common sense and a strong gut instinct can tell you more than so called evidence, lol!

[Lawrence Schnapf]

Marcello had plenty of practice taking down public figures and using a patsy. He used that approach when the Guatamala president was assassinated in the mid-1950s as well as with the attorney general elect of I believe Mississippi. They didnt need the 2nd conspiracy/cover up by the government led by Hoover. Marcello knew how to use killers that would not point back to him. John Davis was convinced that LHO was a runner for his uncle during the summer of 1963 and that Marcello paid LHO to hand out the pro-castro flyers.

[Ron Bulman]

17 minutes ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

Marcello had plenty of practice taking down public figures and using a patsy. He used that approach when the Guatamala president was assassinated in the mid-1950s as well as with the attorney general elect of I believe Mississippi. They didnt need the 2nd conspiracy/cover up by the government led by Hoover. Marcello knew how to use killers that would not point back to him. John Davis was convinced that LHO was a runner for his uncle during the summer of 1963 and that Marcello paid LHO to hand out the pro-castro flyers.

The "rest" or more of the flyers were found in the office provided to LHO by Guy Bannister, like the ones stamped 544 Camp Street.  These came from the north east, maybe Washington originally.  The CIA ordered several of them.  Former FBI Bannister as a Private Investigator in New Orleans had to be familiar with Marcello.

But who was running LHO in NO the summer of 63'?  Uncle Dutz Murett, one of Marcello's many bookies doesn't cut it.  Especially given O's limited contact with the family.  The CIA did have the DRE/Joannides involved.  Likely Phillips and Morales behind the scenes.  Then there's Shaw/Bertrand, and, Ferrie.  Who worked with Bannister and for the CIA and Marcello.

The Mafia helped with the cover up unquestionably.  I mean, Ruby Hit Oswald in the jail basement.  They likely were involved peripherally in the set up.  E.G.  Ruby at Roselli's home hotel in Vegas three days before the assassination.    

But the Mafia, Marcello, didn't do The hit.

jmo from many years of reading multiple sources, with a grain of salt in my back pocket for a hopefully objective if at times pessimistic perspective. 

[Denny Zartman]

When did "patsy" become defined as "actual killer that can't be traced back to their boss" instead of "fall guy set up to take the blame"? When Oswald said "I'm just a patsy", was he confessing to being a shooter but a shooter that was following someone else's orders? He had already denied shooting anyone and the nitrates test on his cheek came back negative, according to Mark Lane court admissible evidence that he did not fire a rifle that day.

And again, how does telling the world that Carlos Marcello killed JFK in 1963 endanger national security in 2022?

[Denny Zartman]

10 hours ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

Marcello had plenty of practice taking down public figures and using a patsy. He used that approach when the Guatamala president was assassinated in the mid-1950s as well as with the attorney general elect of I believe Mississippi.

Were these patsies actually guilty of the shooting or the killing in question?

Were these patsies the subject of multiple pre-assassination impersonations in multiple states and/or multiple countries to set them up to take the blame on advance, like Oswald was?

 

[Greg Doudna]

In the opening comment, areas in which I went beyond existing arguments for the case concerning Marcello, considered by people such as Blakey and Goldfarb among others as not simply the leading suspect in the JFK assassination but as settled fact that he did it (with the only questions being specifics of how and extent of larger involvements), involved these questions:

• the impersonations--just last night I looked up in Summers, Henry Hurt, and Davis, their listings of claimed Oswald impersonations in Oct-Nov. I found 16 such claimed in Oct-Nov not counting the Mexico City issues. Of those 16, for a number of which I have developed detailed individual case-by-case argument elsewhere, I count 9 as instances of mistaken witness identifications of persons who never claimed they were Oswald; 5 cases in which it was Oswald; and only 2 instances of true non-Oswald use of Oswald's name (impersonation). That is 2 more than I used to think, and also I see several additional to be added to those not in the Summers-Hurt-Davis lists, so I see there is a phenomenon, the issue is how to interpret it. Were these all done by a single person or more than one? (not clear to me either way on this question.) Did it involve full-time full-on total-immersion 24/7 identity theft (impersonation) complete with fake ID papers and bureaucratic documentation? (I think no, the impersonations are not sophisticated but limited to specific motivated incidents involving strangers as witnesses and not a case of an identity theft lived out 24/7.) Were they done by a spy agency? That is what everyone assumes who accepts the Oct-Nov Dallas impersonations idea. I am proposing a simpler idea, that these instances to the extent they are real are from mob operative or operatives, stemming from Marcello, and that to the extent the real incidents of this happened it was in the course of accomplishing specific assassination plot objectives. I am also intending to try to make sense of the madness of impersonations rather than the huge amount of mystification that accompanies this topic with a million rabbit holes which go in all directions or no direction and have no obvious point to them. Starting with dispensing with the massive amount of mistakes over claims of cases as impersonations which simply were not, and which confuse the issue no end.
• I wanted to explain how Marcello would "burn" a family member or relative of a member in good standing within his organization, Charles "Dutz" Murrett's nephew, also someone (Oswald) actually working for Marcello himself. A knowledge that Oswald was an informer or snitch would be an obvious mob-morality or mob-logic explanation for this.
• I wanted to explain Oswald's unusual behavior in getting that TSBD job and being so seemingly content and uncomplaining about such a deadend job, and the coincidence that it was about the #1 strategic location for an advance tall building sniper access for the presidential parade if one did not yet know which route the presidential parade would take. Oswald as a Marcello operative part of larger attempts to plant people in possible parade-route buildings in downtown Dallas opening up mechanisms for assassination by sniper would be the explanation there. Note that there already was from the first weekend of the assassination a claim by Dallas police that a map had been found among Oswald's belongings of job application locations which corresponded to the parade route. Perhaps that ought to be revisited. (Does anyone have a link to a photo of that map to look at what was marked on that map directly as distinguished from citing words spoken about it?)
• I wanted to explain how Oswald could be mixed up in the JFK assassination (as opposed to complete hapless non-involvement) when a lot of things say to me Oswald was not about killing JFK and was not a shooter. An informant within the actual plot would be the explanation there.
• I wanted to explain how the assassination did come about from the TSBD (or other locations built around that location), the same building where Oswald got the job prior to the parade route being known. The explanation would be the use of the TSBD building in the real assassination was caused by the fact that the Marcello operative who was (unknown to that operative) to become the patsy got that job in the TSBD.

[Gary Murr]

22 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Note that there already was from the first weekend of the assassination a claim by Dallas police that a map had been found among Oswald's belongings of job application locations which corresponded to the parade route. Perhaps that ought to be revisited. (Does anyone have a link to a photo of that map to look at what was marked on that map directly as distinguished from citing words spoken about it?)

Hey Greg:

Below are some links regarding the "Enco" map found among Oswald's possessions at 1026 North Beckley. The first link is from the CIA's 201 file - I used this one because it is the best quality. It is an 11 page FBI summary of the 17 points found marked on the map - the pertinent pages here are 137 thru and including 145.

The second link is a copy of the DPD property clerks receipt for the map

The third link is to the Texas History Portal site - it is an image of the actual map which you can expand/zoom for detail

The fourth link is to the FBI's original  document of their investigation of the assassination [From the Harold Weisberg archives] The map is mentioned on page 27 of this PDF 

 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95672#relPageId=137&search=%22map%22_and%20%22Oswald%22 

 https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=217800#relPageId=240&search=Humble_oil

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth49580/

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/F%20Disk/FBI/FBI%20CD-1/Item%2022.pdf  

 

Gary 

[Greg Doudna]

1 hour ago, Gary Murr said:

Hey Greg:

Below are some links regarding the "Enco" map found among Oswald's possessions at 1026 North Beckley. The first link is from the CIA's 201 file - I used this one because it is the best quality. It is an 11 page FBI summary of the 17 points found marked on the map - the pertinent pages here are 137 thru and including 145.

The second link is a copy of the DPD property clerks receipt for the map

The third link is to the Texas History Portal site - it is an image of the actual map which you can expand/zoom for detail

The fourth link is to the FBI's original  document of their investigation of the assassination [From the Harold Weisberg archives] The map is mentioned on page 27 of this PDF 

 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95672#relPageId=137&search=%22map%22_and%20%22Oswald%22 

 https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=217800#relPageId=240&search=Humble_oil

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth49580/

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/F%20Disk/FBI/FBI%20CD-1/Item%2022.pdf  

 

Gary 

Thank you Gary!!!!

[Joe Bauer]

On 3/5/2022 at 5:53 AM, Denny Zartman said:

When did "patsy" become defined as "actual killer that can't be traced back to their boss" instead of "fall guy set up to take the blame"? When Oswald said "I'm just a patsy", was he confessing to being a shooter but a shooter that was following someone else's orders? He had already denied shooting anyone and the nitrates test on his cheek came back negative, according to Mark Lane court admissible evidence that he did not fire a rifle that day.

And again, how does telling the world that Carlos Marcello killed JFK in 1963 endanger national security in 2022?

The fact that Lee Harvey Oswald "himself" shouted out to the world press his claim of being "a patsy" in regards to the Tippit and JFK killings just hours after his arrest is what gives this claim a more significant weight of consideration beyond idle speculation by others imo.

Oswald had just "one rushed and chaotic chance" to defend himself to the world when he was allowed to field questions from the press crowd for a minute inside a hallway of the Dallas PD building before being aggressively hustled off back to his cell.

He knew that this was his only chance to publicly express his defense against murder charges and also to point out his rights violation treatment ( no attorney appointment - line up rigging, etc. ) at the hands of a super vengeful and frantic JFK guilt police department who clearly were bending procedure to get this "cop killer" who brutally slaughtered one of their own.

For reality check logic, I'll throw out this analogy regards leaving Oswald ( the most threatened criminal suspect in American history ) in the personal security hands of the cop killing vengeful Dallas PD for two days until his murder right in their own basement while handcuffed to two of their own officers. 

It was like leaving a child rapist/killer in the hands of their victim's relatives!

It was like the DPD was begging for someone to get close to Oswald to do him in with that crazy circus wall to wall press crowd being allowed to take over the halls of their PD building and then actually "parading" Oswald right next to and by them several times. Even their armed police deli sandwich gifting buddy Jack Ruby was allowed into that Friday night crowd just feet from Oswald!  And we know Ruby wanted to whack Oswald even then!

Oswald was also relatively incredibly calm and coherent in answering the press questions during his "I am just a patsy" interview imo.

After being roughed up, aggressively dragged around, denied legal counsel, and interrogated heavily for hours ( with no notary present? ) and now being accused of murdering JFK, he still thoughtfully paused to answer shouted questions from the press in an intelligent way, rather than screaming frantically his abuse and innocence.  Oswald's illogical calmness is part of the suspicion mystery. 

Oswald himself planted the plot twist turn of "patsy." IMO he was smart enough to know the suspicion weight and power a defense claim like that had. 

The first question "any" trained interrogator would ask after a "Patsy" defense claim by a suspect would be ... "why do you feel you are a patsy?" And "who do you think set you up?"

Did DPD homicide captain Will Fritz follow up on Oswald's "patsy" defense claim like that?

Obviously not.

Before Oswald was gunned down in their hands just two days later...Will Fritz was shouting to the world press "This case cinched!"

Oswald is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt! A day and a half of investigation was all Fritz needed to make such a rock solid sure claim and to do so in such a rare ( for him ) public way?

No trial or jury needed in Oswald's case in Fritz's mind.  Boys, get that boy outta here! And let the public know the exact broad daylight time and place we will be shipping him out. 

Thanks to Jessie Curry's public news release of his Oswald movement security decision and plan...we all know how successful it was in protecting the most threatened criminal suspect in American history and ... the most important if he were allowed to live.

 

Edited March 6, 2022 by Joe Bauer

[Eddy Bainbridge]

Thank you Greg for part of your initial post. Not knowing Dallas, your explanation of the benefits of a TBSD location is very helpful in explaining the positioning of Oswald prior to confirmation of the parade route. I am also very interested in your attribution of significance to Larry Craford. 

In respect of convincing me that Marcello arranged the hit I am not convinced. Even if one assumes his confession is credible, I don't think it eliminates the possibility of a more powerful guiding hand sanctioning the action.

Edited March 6, 2022 by Eddy Bainbridge

[Greg Doudna]

On the map, after reading through Gary Murr's much-appreciated links, the FBI analysis of the markings on the map seem convincing in showing nothing unusual with the map markings other than normal markings to find bus stops and locations. The map image itself however I am unable to see a single mark on it and it is not clear to me that the map of that image is even identified or claimed as the one found among Oswald's possessions. In any case, the sole image there is illegible. It remains that one would like to see a verified image of that map used by Oswald (why is a a photograph of that map not in the Warren Commission exhibits, given that it was a prominently cited item of physical evidence found in Oswald's Oak Cliff rooming house, reported in newspapers at the time?). As it stands, we have a report from FBI agent Odum convincingly explaining there is nothing of interest there, without a photograph. (Or is there a legible verified photograph of that map somewhere to be seen? Does anyone know?) 

Update on impersonations: a still simpler solution may be that the impersonations of Dallas area ca. Oct-Nov go no deeper or more sophisticated than a mob operative who knew of the name simply using the name "Lee Harvey Oswald" rather than his own sometimes when he wanted to remain unidentified, sometimes as a joke, and perhaps only once or twice with more serious intent to incriminate Oswald in the event of later investigation. I am struck with the true instances of impersonation in no cases involving documents or more sophisticated than use of the name itself to strangers in certain incidents, like use of an alias, combined with rudimentary knowledge of elements of Oswald biography. 

The identity of the mob operative doing this is simple enough to establish and need be no mystery: the bogus "Oswald" encountered in the Mrs. Johnnie Walker episode in Grand Prairie had the distinctive forearm tattoo that identifies that bogus Oswald-alias user with the forearm-tattoo on the mistaken-ID Oswald accompanying Ruby in an electronics store that was Craford, confirmed from Craford's WC testimony. The only objection to that is the FBI reported no tattoo in physical description of Craford after FBI tracked him down several weeks later, but that can be explained by a tattoo-removal done by Craford done in Chicago as part of his flight from Dallas in the early morning hours of Nov 23.

And what would be the point of Craford with a friend telling Mrs. Walker at a party a whole bogus line of pretense of how he was Lee Harvey Oswald, working at a bookstore, used to live in Russia and now writing a book about life in Russia...? Because he is BS'ing the chick like in a bar! The party was women meeting unsavory men from the gangland and narcotics world in a house on an evening when Johnnie Walker was supposed to be at a church meeting. Craford, backed up by a straight-man another man at the party, tells Johnnie Walker all this pretend stuff just for the fun of it, the way some men tell tall tales to women met in a bar. Craford's friend backs him up as part of the joke, the amiable con on Mrs. Walker who half-gullibly believes it. This is not an outlandish interpretation of that Grand Prairie "Oswald" encounter told later by Mrs. Walker, which was really Craford. The reason is the same thing appears in another account involving Craford, an account of a news reporter who dated Jada, the famous entertainer who briefly worked for Ruby in the Carousel Club. According to that reporter, Jada told him (the reporter) that Ruby had introduced "Oswald" to her by that name "from the CIA". (The same story appears in Beverly Oliver's book in which Beverly Oliver claims to have been present with Jada when that happened, but note key point here that Beverly Oliver did not invent that story, though she may be piggybacking off of it in her book. According to the reporter, the story originates from Jada who told him.) Craford and Ruby introducing Craford to Jada as "Oswald from the CIA" is well interpreted as Ruby making a joke! Just like Craford at the party picking up the woman telling her he was this guy who used to live in Russia! And it is certain in my view that who attorney Jarnagin witnessed at the Carousel on Fri Oct 4 was not Oswald newly arrived meeting Ruby, but Craford newly arrived meeting Ruby (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27404-revisiting-the-carroll-jarnagin-story/), except Jarnagin overheard (in garbled and misunderstood form) Craford telling Ruby about his use of this other name, of Oswald!

However that was only selective since Craford at the Carousel Club was known by employees there as Larry Crafard. All that has to be assumed is Craford, who normally went by Larry Crafard, selectively uses the name Oswald any time he wants to use an alias so as to shield his own identity, and--arguably--once or twice more seriously on purpose such that if or when it was later investigated it would mislead in the direction of Oswald. Nothing more needs to be assumed than Craford's occasional and unsophisticated use of the name to account for all of the true "Oswald impersonation" incidents in Oct-Nov., and with this, explanations for all cases of false use of the name Oswald in Dallas in this time-frame may become sensible. 

Downside of this explanation: all that work to mystify the JFK assassination and hundreds of thousands of hours and labor spent writing books discussing labyrinthian theories of elaborate and sophisticated secret impersonation projects done by unseen agencies for which no document or insider confession of working on such vast esoteric projects has ever come to light! All that work of mystification up in smoke, gone! That is the down side. 🙂 Why go for a simple explanation in things JFK assassination-related when there are far more fascinating complex ones?

[Greg Doudna]

38 minutes ago, Eddy Bainbridge said:

Thank you Greg for part of your initial post. Not knowing Dallas, your explanation of the benefits of a TBSD location is very helpful in explaining the positioning of Oswald prior to confirmation of the parade route. I am also very interested in your attribution of significance to Larry Craford. 

In respect of convincing me that Marcello arranged the hit I am not convinced. Even if one assumes his confession is credible, I don't think it eliminates the possibility of a more powerful guiding hand sanctioning the action.

Thanks Eddy. On your last sentence, I do not see how that is different from what I think and suggested. I do not see a contradiction between Marcello carrying out the hit and the hit being sanctioned. Think mob involvement in the assassination plots on Castro--if successful it would have been a case of a hit arranged by a mob figure but sanctioned. What's the difference? 

[Norman T. Field]

On 3/5/2022 at 7:53 AM, Denny Zartman said:

When did "patsy" become defined as "actual killer that can't be traced back to their boss" instead of "fall guy set up to take the blame"? When Oswald said "I'm just a patsy", was he confessing to being a shooter but a shooter that was following someone else's orders? He had already denied shooting anyone and the nitrates test on his cheek came back negative, according to Mark Lane court admissible evidence that he did not fire a rifle that day.

And again, how does telling the world that Carlos Marcello killed JFK in 1963 endanger national security in 2022?

Let us remember that LHO had a negative test for GSR after being arrested. Therefore; he did not fire a bolt action rifle once, let alone three times. 

Edited March 6, 2022 by Norman T. Field

[Greg Doudna]

On 3/4/2022 at 8:23 PM, Ron Bulman said:

The Mafia helped with the cover up unquestionably.  I mean, Ruby Hit Oswald in the jail basement.  They likely were involved peripherally in the set up.  E.G.  Ruby at Roselli's home hotel in Vegas three days before the assassination.    

But the Mafia, Marcello, didn't do The hit.

jmo from many years of reading multiple sources, with a grain of salt in my back pocket for a hopefully objective if at times pessimistic perspective. 

Why do you think Marcello did not do the hit? Why not consider the likely-planned immediate execution of Oswald as part of the hit? Such that who hit Oswald, hit Kennedy before the hit of Oswald? 

You have a Marcello operative directly going from being with Marcello at the time of the assassination to Oswald's former landlady following the assassination asking about a lost "library card", which John Canal in Silencing the Assassin (2000), pp 93-95, brilliantly says was the Marcello operative just saying that to get her (the landlady) to give him (the Marcello operative) access to Oswald's old room in order to sweep it or check for anything left behind incriminating. Consciousness of what there? Then that same Marcello operative makes that strange trip to Houston and Galveston arriving in Galveston the same time as Breck Wall, "president of the 'mob-infiltrated' American Guild of Variety Artists, also arrived in Galveston, having driven south from Dallas. Then, less than an hour after arriving in Galveston, Wall received a phone call from Ruby" (Canal, pp 95-96). And the only reason Marcello via Ruby had Oswald killed Sun Nov 24 was probably because some things had failed from the same Marcello operation to have Oswald killed Nov 22.

So Marcello is just all over the assassination. Looks like a duck, walks like a duck, maybe it is a duck? (Except Oswald looking like a duck was a decoy?)

[Greg Doudna]

2 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

It was like the DPD was begging for someone to get close to Oswald to do him in with that crazy circus wall to wall press crowd being allowed to take over the halls of their PD building and then actually "parading" Oswald right next to and by them several times. Even their armed police deli sandwich gifting buddy Jack Ruby was allowed into that Friday night crowd just feet from Oswald!  And we know Ruby wanted to whack Oswald even then!

Yes. Incredibly, the Warren Report tried to cast partial responsibility for the death of Oswald while in police custody on the press. Because the press kept crowding, instead of being well-behaved! 

What can a poor police department do, after being warned of a serious threat to Oswald's life the night before directly and from the FBI, and their own officers fearing Oswald walking by that line of reporters unprotected might be shot (there was no "diamond" formation protecting Oswald given that the only one in front, the older Fritz himself of slow reflexes, did not see it as his job to be a human shield of Oswald in front but left his position to get the car door open)? 

Failure to protect a prisoner in custody from news reporters wanting to get close and take photos is not a security failure on the part of the press, as if the security lesson to be learned from the Oswald killing was the press should just voluntarily be better behaved and not crowd so much in the future! 

It is always hard to tell in cases like this whether it was incompetence taken advantage of by motivated gangland killers possibly with the help of some intelligence concerning specifics of police procedure vulnerabilities, or whether the vulnerabilities were influenced by inside witting accomplices, or how the mixture worked exactly if there were elements of both. In the present case, I doubt that Fritz was witting to knowledge of a planned killing of Oswald or I do not think he would have personally escorted him himself, or agreed to the transfer under those circumstances at all in the first place. Leavelle, handcuffed to Oswald on Oswald's right, knew of a risk of Oswald being shot in the next few moments coming out that door if his story told many times is correct that he told Oswald he hoped anyone trying to kill Oswald would not be as good of a shot as Oswald had been with Kennedy. (For all we know the story could be apocryphal but Leavelle always told it as true.) One theory is the reason Leavelle was wearing that bright all-white suit was to give greater visibility to himself in the event there was a shooting thereby reducing by a little bit that he would be hit by mistake. 

Marcello in New Orleans via Ruby had the ability to reach right inside the Dallas police department and hit Oswald. Think of that. Who else would have the ability to accomplish that? Maybe a few others, but not that many. Marcello: means, motive, opportunity, did the Oswald hit, confessed to the JFK hit.