What has blocked the Marcello-Trafficante solution to the JFK assassination? The legacy of Garrison?

[James DiEugenio]

Now, Larry says that the way people discredit the Mob as the main engine is through the autopsy. Not accurate.  Vince Palamara has proven the motorcade route was changed the night before.  The cyclist crew was cut back also and the formation was really weird according to the riders themselves. This facilitated the sitting duck aspect of the victim.

Another example, how did Trafficante hide where LeMay was that day, make him not reply to his aide de camp messages, and then divert his plane from Andrews to National?

There is good reason that most researchers do not consider the Mob as the engine driver in the case.

[Ken Davies]

Did the mob even know what type of engine it was?

Up

[James DiEugenio]

That's a good question Ken.

If forced to answer, I would probably say no

[David Andrews]

If Garrison was beholden to Marcello, and Marcello and the Mob did it, why would Marcello permit a JFKA investigation at all?  Regardless of Garrison's loyalties, unwanted facts could have been unearthed, and other investigators could have turned them on the Mob. 

At the time, there was no incentive for the Mob to foster or permit an investigation blaming the CIA.  There was every reason not to.  All there was to attract attention to the Mob then was limited media mention of Jack Ruby's sketchy involvements, which few were concerned about.  To sponsor Garrison's CIA investigation, even on a "Screw the government!" level, would be borderline suicide for Mob leaders.

Edited March 19, 2022 by David Andrews

[Ron Bulman]

There is more to it but a couple of things I wonder about are;

One, if Marcello, Trafficante and Giancana were behind it how did they control the autopsy?  Since we now it was controlled.  Did the Military and/or CIA step in within 8 hours n their behalf?

Second, the first person Garrison went after was Ferrie.  Who had done work for Marcello as a private investigator and reportedly flew him back from Guatemala.  He then went after Shaw to distract attention from Marcello?  It just doesn't make sense.

[Ken Davies]

 Has there ever beena documented mob hit involving a rifle from 200 feet away?  Close range pistol shots, bombs, machine guns, strangulation, poison, etc.  are common.

 Do the mob practise with old rifles in upstate New York on weekends?

  The mob did not set the parade route, wisk the body away, rebuild the death limo, control the place of the autopsy and dictate the results, pick the Warren Comission members, move Oswald in and out of Russia, control Oswald' s jail transfer, etc. ...

  Michael Corleone was not that powerful. 😢

 

 

[Joe Bauer]

2 hours ago, Ken Davies said:

 Has there ever beena documented mob hit involving a rifle from 200 feet away?  Close range pistol shots, bombs, machine guns, strangulation, poison, etc.  are common.

 Do the mob practise with old rifles in upstate New York on weekends?

  The mob did not set the parade route, wisk the body away, rebuild the death limo, control the place of the autopsy and dictate the results, pick the Warren Comission members, move Oswald in and out of Russia, control Oswald' s jail transfer, etc. ...

  Michael Corleone was not that powerful. 😢

 

 

Agree.

[Greg Doudna]

8 hours ago, Ken Davies said:

 Has there ever beena documented mob hit involving a rifle from 200 feet away?  Close range pistol shots, bombs, machine guns, strangulation, poison, etc.  are common.

• Bugsy Siegel: "On the evening of June 20th, 1947, Siegel was relaxing in a palatial Beverly Hills mansion, reading the Los Angeles Times, when a hitman riddled him with bullets fired through the window with an M1 rifle". ((https://historycollection.com/20-significant-mafia-hits/) 
• "The Only Man Al Capone Feared": "[Hymie] Weiss was about to enter his headquarters, when a squad of hitmen opened fire from the windows of a nearby second floor building. Weiss was fatally injured, and died in the ambulance en route to the hospital." (https://historycollection.com/20-significant-mafia-hits/)
• Montreal mob boss Nicolo Rizzuto: "was killed by a sniper who snuck up to his house through a forested area and shot him through double-paned glass with a high-powered rifle, killing him instantly. (https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/man-who-might-have-murdered-nicolo-rizzuto-shot-dead-in-toronto-1.1365877)
• Charles Harrelson, Dixie Mafia, south Texas: "U.S. Judge John H. Wood Jr. was murdered by an assassin armed with a high-powered rifle Tuesday morning. The judge was shot once in the back as he stepped up to his auto in the parking area of his fashionable North Side condominium complex at 8:35 a.m." (San Antonio Light, 5/29/79, (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/woody-harrelsons-father-killed-a-federal-judge-in-san-antonio-42-years-ago/ar-AAKDgec)
• Gregory Scarpa, serial mob killer, "one night [Scarpa] surprised a rebel [of rival mob faction] who stwood on a ladder, with his back turned, hanging Christmas lights on his ouse. Scarpa rolled down his car window, stuck out his rifle, and picked the man off with three shots." (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/12/16/the-g-man-and-the-hit-man)

There is the story of Jimmy Hoffa discussing killing Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy by plastic explosives in his home. One might as well logically ask, has there ever been another documented mob hit using plastic explosives. Maybe the issue was what was needed to accomplish the job. In JFK's case the opportunity--the security vulnerability--was an open window from a building on a parade route, not so easy to get up close to JFK. I do not see this argument that the fact that the JFK assassination was done by a rifle from a window is exculpatory of a mob role.  

[Ken Davies]

Mr. Duda,

 Having read extensively about the mob in government reports, having represented  various people in criminal courts over 40 years,  having had more than one person confess a murder to me,  having heard many first hand accounts from other lawyers and judges and  having had a mobster murder in a nearby neighbourhood, I am satisfied that mob hits are for the most part as I indicated. The mob, under various names, is a prevalent force in some places.  It has killed many prominent judges and prosecutors in Italy over the past 40 years via explosives. The book titled "The Good Mothers" lists prominent ones.

 Charles Harrelson was a mob member by what definition?

 These points aside, the mob has not stonewalled government records, controlled the mainstream media, and on and on ....for the past 59 years.

 

 

 

 

[Greg Doudna]

14 minutes ago, Ken Davies said:

Having read extensively about the mob in government reports, having represented  various people in criminal courts over 40 years,  having had more than one person confess a murder to me,  having heard many first hand accounts from other lawyers and judges and  having had a mobster murder in a nearby neighbourhood, I am satisfied that mob hits are for the most part as I indicated. The mob, under various names, is a prevalent force in some places.  It has killed many prominent judges and prosecutors in Italy over the past 40 years via explosives. The book titled "The Good Mothers" lists prominent ones.

OK.

14 minutes ago, Ken Davies said:

Charles Harrelson was a mob member by what definition?

I am getting that from Sara Peterson and K.W. Zachry, The Lone Star Speaks [2020], p. 185:

“[Wesley] Frazier’s stepfather was not the only frightening individual in the young man’s life. He also knew ‘Pete’ Kay, who was, along with his father, an important figure in the Dixie Mafia. According to Frazier, they offered him the chance to become a member of the ‘family.’ By then, Frazier had already met one group member, a man so heartless that locking eyes with him made his blood run cold. Frazier identified this man as Charles Harrelson; others who knew Harrelson also commented on how coldly he could stare down someone. Frazier decided to take his sister’s advice and not take up the offer.”

Also this: 

“[Carlos Marcello’s] brother Joe, long the family’s underboss, lacked the energy and ambition to manage an enterprise as complicated and diverse as the one Carlos had controlled for almost forty years [before going to prison in 1983]. He himself [Joseph Marcello] had only recently been under pressure as a result of an investigation. In June 1982, he was indicted on charges of lying to a grand jury investigating the killing of a Texas judge. Joe had been overheard on a BRILAB tape discussing his involvement in the killing of Judge John H. Wood, Jr., who was shot dead outside his San Antonio home on May 29^th, 1979. 

“Three years later, Charles V. Harrelson (the father of movie and television start Woody Harrelson) was convicted of the murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. The murder contract had been placed by Texas drug czar Jimmy Chagra, (awaiting trial before the judge, notorious for his heavy sentencing on drug traffickers) who was close to the Marcello family. Chagra’s wife, Elizabeth had allegedly handed over $250,000 in cash to Harrelson to carry out the murder.” (https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-story-of-new-orleans-mafia-boss-carlos-marcello-4)

21 minutes ago, Ken Davies said:

These points aside, the mob has not stonewalled government records, controlled the mainstream media, and on and on ....for the past 59 years.

Agreed. But I do not see how that logically exculpates Marcello and Trafficante from having carried out the hit, given that there has never been clear evidence of a gunman that day not associated with Marcello or Trafficante. I am not comprehending the logic which others are expressing as if there is just something obvious about this.

The reason for the coverup would be well explained if the on-the-ground part done as a mob hit indeed functioned as part of a coup--or rather a variant form of recall election involving no election--i.e. Marcello and Trafficante not acting alone. And as for coverup--the last major government investigation did directly conclude basically nailing Marcello and Trafficante in the criminal conspiracy that did the JFK assassination, so it is not as if it can be said the conspiracy to kill JFK even remains fully covered up; it has been partly already uncovered and many facts and a major investigation's findings are out there, all out there in public waiting to be further developed and pursued. It just has not won acceptance from a number of conspiracy theorists who while unable after sixty years to come to consensus on identification of any other gunmen in Dealey Plaza not mob, for some reason seem resistant to this particular criminal conspiracy solution.

It is easy to find fault with this or that in the Blakey mob solution argument as HSCA/Blakey presented it but the real question is not the existence of specific problems in the HSCA/Blakey solution but whether those problems are fixable (improve the theory) or not (reject the theory and revert by default to no-consensus solution status quo concerning identities of gunmen who carried out the assassination on the ground). I am in the camp of "fix it"/"improve it" concerning the Blakey/HSCA/Scheim mob solution. 

And all of these so-called reasons or objections why the mob could not have done the shooting of JFK because they were not in J Edgar Hoover's position to be able to control the investigation covering up their own role, etc., or because they could not control the autopsy (so what?--why would shooters care about controlling any autopsy?--what do people think, that the shooters are going to want to cover up that JFK died from being shot?) . . . all of this is just to me hardly sensible.

Although others argue for the mob acting alone in mob-did-it theories, I do not think that is accurate. I think the role of Oswald as setup for casus bellus against Castro and Cuba implies a CIA/Mob "understanding"--as I interpret it--that even though the hit is carried out as a mob operation, it will set up Oswald as the one blamed. That is, the mob in this case is not operating in a vacuum. And I find it difficult to believe that any mobster would conspire to assassinate a president if there was not a green-light or knowledge of sympathetic support from some faction of the government who also wanted that president out. Starting a war with the entire US government by killing a president, a stand-alone Mob assassination, does not make sense.

But saying that Marcello and Trafficante did not act on their own is not an argument that Marcello and Trafficante did not do it. That is the logical circuit-breaker that I see keep being repeated and repeated, when it is not logical. 

[Ron Bulman]

On 3/10/2022 at 11:00 AM, Sean Coleman said:

Claim made by Susan Rosenstiel to Anthony Summers-she’s not all that reliable by all accounts 

Funny cartoon Sean.  Maybe more important was James Angleton showing off a photo at a dinner party???

[Greg Doudna]

Does Secret Service action with the parade route rule out the assassination as a mob hit? (Part I of 2))  

On the Secret Service route, the argument as I understand it according to James DiEugenio above drawing from Palamaro is that the Secret Service route-planners routed the parade route at the last minute with that dog-leg turn past the Texas School Book Depository purposely in order to enable the killing of President Kennedy. ("Now, Larry says that the way people discredit the Mob as the main engine is through the autopsy. Not accurate. Vince Palamara has proven the motorcade route was changed the night before. The cyclist crew was cut back also and the formation was really weird according to the riders themselves. This facilitated the sitting duck aspect of the victim . . . There is good reason that most researchers do not consider the Mob as the engine driver in the case.")

This is an extremely serious accusation to level on the part of Secret Service route-deciders. No one inside the Secret Service or in any of the investigations that happened afterward interpreted Secret Service agents' role in the fixing of the parade route as being intent to murder JFK and foreknowledge of the assassination. Note that this is different from issues of negligence or criminal negligence. If negligence or criminal negligence was all that was meant in the point, why bring it up at all as excluding that the assassination could be a mob hit? The point only works if the claim is that there was criminal conspiracy inside the Secret Service to murder JFK--career Secret Service who, perhaps offended at JFK's womanizing?, decided to join in a career-risking (to put it mildly) plan to murder a popular elected president, without anyone blowing the whistle upon learning of the plan, either before or after the assassination. There is no proof that what happened on the part of Secret Service security was worse than criminal negligence at worst, and although it is possible to imagine scenarios of worse, it just is not necessary or very likely.

And yet this is cited as if it excludes that Marcello/Trafficante sent the shooters and did the hit in Dealey Plaza that day. Otherwise why raise the route-selection at all as if that routing is exculpatory of Marcello and Trafficante--or anyone else other than the Secret Service by the same logic--from having done the shooting in Dealey Plaza. 

The argument is not logical because the premise is not soundly established--the premise that having the route go past the TSBD (probably decided before Nov 21 but for security reasons not advertised or publicized much until the last minute making some Dallas police confuse when they first learned of it the night before as if that was a change [see discussion at https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/24927-who-changed-the-motorcade-route/#comments]) reflected intent to murder Kennedy on the part of Secret Service agents tasked with presidential security. It is simply not the given fact that seems assumed.

I have been giving thought to the matter of the route and the setup of the assassination. I am convinced the assassination criminal conspiracy that did happen (per hypothesis) in Dallas simply involved knowledge of likely parade route, and planting of mob operatives in buildings on the likely parade route, without necessity to assume control over that parade route or that any Secret Service agents in Dallas that day had intent or foreknowledge of the horrible assassination that happened. 

Although I believe Buell Wesley Frazier was innocent of criminal wrongdoing and as decent and was even then as decent and real as he comes across in his videotaped interviews today, the fact is Wesley Frazier was from a Dixie Mafia home. His stepfather was a Dixie Mafia hoodlum. Frazier says the Dixie Mafia attempted to recruit him at the time of his move to Irving. Frazier knew and feared Dixie Mafia killer Charles Harrelson who later went to prison over a murder he carried out for the Marcello organization.

“Frazier’s stepfather was not the only frightening individual in the young man’s life. He also knew ‘Pete’ Kay, who was, along with his father, an important figure in the Dixie Mafia. According to Frazier, they offered him the chance to become a member of the ‘family.’ By then, Frazier had already met one group member, a man so heartless that locking eyes with him made his blood run cold. Frazier identified this man as Charles Harrelson; others who knew Harrelson also commented on how coldly he could stare down someone. Frazier decided to take his sister’s advice and not take up the offer.” (Sara Peterson and K.W. Zachry, The Lone Star Speaks [2020], p. 185)

Therefore this was not just anyone gaining employment in the Texas School Book Depository at that point, in mid-Sept 1963. This was, not to put too fine a point on it (and without meaning Wesley Frazier himself was involved in criminal activity), someone essentially from the Dixie Mafia in the sense of a family member who could be useful, now inside the TSBD. And it is reasonable to suppose a relationship between the Dixie Mafia of Wesley Frazier's circles of south Texas and the Marcello crime organization based in New Orleans:

“[Carlos Marcello’s] brother Joe, long the family’s underboss, lacked the energy and ambition to manage an enterprise as complicated and diverse as the one Carlos had controlled for almost forty years [before going to prison in 1983]. He himself [Joseph Marcello] had only recently been under pressure as a result of an investigation. In June 1982, he was indicted on charges of lying to a grand jury investigating the killing of a Texas judge. Joe had been overheard on a BRILAB tape discussing his involvement in the killing of Judge John H. Wood, Jr., who was shot dead outside his San Antonio home on May 29^th, 1979. 

“Three years later, Charles V. Harrelson (the father of movie and television start Woody Harrelson) was convicted of the murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. The murder contract had been placed by Texas drug czar Jimmy Chagra, (awaiting trial before the judge, notorious for his heavy sentencing on drug traffickers) who was close to the Marcello family. Chagra’s wife, Elizabeth had allegedly handed over $250,000 in cash to Harrelson to carry out the murder.” (https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/the-story-of-new-orleans-mafia-boss-carlos-marcello-4)

The point being it was not just anyone who was the recent arrival to the Texas School Book Depository in mid-Sept 1963 so instrumental in Oswald getting his job there a month later. There is the possibility that there was a mob hand in Frazier's employment in the TSBD and in Frazier's role in Oswald's hiring rather than simply a case of a random citizen and random timing. Furthermore, Frazier as an existing employee in good standing was in the most opportune position of anyone to assist Oswald in also gaining employment at the Texas School Book Depository simply by ability to put in a favorable word to Truly on Oswald's behalf, which is what happened. In other words, although it has not been looked at in such light, Oswald got his job at the Texas School Book Depository through the assistance and recommendation of a recent hire from Dixie Mafia/Marcello circles.  

All that needs further to be assumed is that Oswald was set up to be blamed for the assassination, but Oswald thought he was part of the group in the role of a government informant informing on the group. Without certainty, some things suggest to me that one agency with which Oswald could have been in a paid informant relationship while at the TSBD, might be ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, branch of the Treasury Department), renewing or continuing a prior relationship in which Oswald was involved in a federal mail-order firearms sting investigation.

That there was pre-assassination interest on the part of mob operatives and Oswald himself in employment in strategic buildings on the likely parade route in Dallas may be alluded to in two testimonies in addition to being a reasonable conjectural reconstruction and supported by (separate subject) a series of applications of persons falsely claiming to be named Oswald applying for work in tall buildings in downtown Dallas along possible parade route arteries (three such cases at least). The first of the two possible testimonies is in the account of Laura Kittrell of the Texas Employment Commission who told of dealing with Oswald in Oct 1963. Kittrell tells how Oswald told her what kind of job he wanted. From the Laura Kittrell manuscript:

“. . . his sudden notion that he should have an office job, downtown.

“’I used to sell shoes,’ he said. ‘That is what you call experienced, isn’t it?’

“’Well, do you want to sell shoes, then?’ I asked crossly.

“’No, he said, ‘I want an office job, downtown.’"

An office job downtown. Where the parade route would be going through? Laura Kittrell is here telling of the real Oswald, apparently seeking the same kind of strategic building as the three cases, unknown to Oswald, of persons applying for work in tall buildings in downtown Dallas falsely using his name.

[continued]

Edited March 19, 2022 by Greg Doudna

[Greg Doudna]

Does Secret Service action with the parade route rule out the assassination as a mob hit? (Part 2 of 2) 

The JFK assassination in Dallas that happened does not require an assumption of control over the parade route, simply knowledge that there would be a parade and that the Trade Mart was the likely destination. After that all it takes is having persons with legitimate reason to be in a building at some opportune location to carry out the hit or give entrance and assistance to someone else carrying out the hit. Someone at LBJ's level to ensure that a JFK visit to Texas and a parade in Dallas happens, and then some communication of insider knowledge of such trip planning could assist in a mob hit the planning of which could get underway as much as two months earlier.

Compare this claim of a conversation between Jack Ruby and (as I have argued elsewhere [https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27404-revisiting-the-carroll-jarnagin-story/]) Curtis Craford at the Carousel Club, reported by attorney Jarnagin who wrote J. Edgar Hoover in early Dec 1963 saying this is what he heard on the night of Oct 4, 1963:

"[Craford]: 'I'm sure. I've got the equipment ready.'

"Ruby: 'Have you tested it, will you need to practice any?'

"[Craford]: 'Don't worry about that. I don't need any practice; when will the Governor be here?'

"Ruby: 'Oh, he'll be here plenty of times during campaigns...'

(distraction)

"[Craford]: 'Where can I do the job?'

"Ruby: 'From the roof of some building.

"[Craford]: 'No, thats too risky, too many people around.'

"Ruby: 'But they'll be watching the parade, they won't notice you.'

"[Craford]: 'But afterwards, they would tear me to pieces before I could get away.'

"Ruby: 'Then do it from here (indicating the North end of the Carousel Club) from a window.'

"[Craford]: 'How would I get in?'

"Ruby: 'I'll tell the porter to let you in[.]'

"[Craford]: 'But won't there be other people in the place?'

"Ruby: 'I can close the place for the parade, and leave word with the porter to let you.'

"[Craford]: 'But what about the porter?'

"Ruby: 'I can tell him to leave after letting you in, he won't know anything.'

"[Craford]: 'I don't want any witnesses around when I do the job.'

"Ruby: 'You'll be alone.'

"[Craford]: 'How do I get away. there won't be much time afterwards.'

"Ruby: 'You can run out the back door.'

"[Craford]: 'What about the rifle, what do I do if the police run in while I'm running out?'

"Ruby: 'Hide the rifle, you just heard the shot and ran in from the parade to see what was going on; in the confusion you can walk out the front door in the crowd.'

"[Craford]: 'No, they might shoot me first; there must be time for me to get out the back way before the police come in; can you lock the front door after I come in, and leave the back door open?'

"Ruby: 'That would get me involved, how could I explain you in my club with a rifle and the front door locked?'

"[Craford]: 'You left the front door open, and it was locked from inside when somebody slipped in while you were outside watching the parade.'

"Ruby: ---(distraction---)

"[Craford]: 'But what about the money, when do I get the money?'

"Ruby: 'I'll have it here for you.'

"[Craford]: 'But when? I'm not going to have much time after the shooting to get away.'

"Ruby: 'I'll have the money on me, and I'll run in first and hand it to you, and you can run on out the back way.'

"[Craford]: 'I can't wait long, why can't you leave the money in here?'

"Ruby: 'How do I know you'll do the job?'

"[Craford]: 'How do I know you will show up with the money after the job is done?'

"Ruby: 'You can trust me, besides, you'll have the persuader.'

"[Craford]: 'The rifle, I want to get away from it as soon as its used.'

"Ruby: 'You can trust me.'

"[Craford]: 'What about giving me half of the money just before the job is done, and then you can send me the other half later?'

"Ruby: 'I can't turn loose of the money until the job is done; if there's a slip up and you don't get him, they'll pick the money up, immediately. I couldn't tell them that I gave half of it to you in advance, they'd think I doublecrossed them. I would have to return all of the money. People think I have a lot of money, but I couldn't raise half of that amount even by selling everything I have. You'll just have to trust me to hand you the money as soon as the job is done. There is no other way. Remember, they want the job done just as bad as you want the money; and after this is done, they may want to use you again.'

"[Craford]: 'Not that it makes any difference, but what have you got against the Governor?'

"Ruby: 'He won't work with us on paroles; with a few of the right boys out we could really open up this State, with a little cooperation from the Governor. The boys in Chicago have no place to go, no place to really operate, they've clamped down the lid in Chicago, Cuba is closed; everything is dead, look at this place, half empty; if we can open up this State we could pack this place every night, those boys will spend, if they have the money; and remember, we're right next to Mexico; there'd be money for everybody, if we can open up this State.'

"[Craford]: 'How do you know that the Governor won't work with you?'

"Ruby: 'Its no use, he's been in Washington too long, they're too straight up there; after they've been here awhile they get to thinking like the Attorney General. The Attorney General, now there's a guy the boys would like to get, but its no use, he stays in Washington too much.'

"[Craford]: 'A rifle shoots as far in Washington as it does here, doesn't it?'

"Ruby: 'Forget it, that would bring the heat on everywhere, and the Feds would get into everything, no, forget about the Attorney General.'

"[Craford]: 'Killing the Governor of Texas will put the heat on too, won't it?'

"Ruby: 'Not really, they'll think some crack-pot or communist did it, and it will be written off as an unsolved crime.'

"[Craford]: 'That is if I get away with it.'

"Ruby: 'You'll get away, all you have to do is run out the back door.'

"[Craford]: 'What kind of door is there back there, it won't accidentally lock on me will it?'

"Ruby: 'No, you can get out that way without any trouble.'

"[Craford]: 'It doesn't open onto an open fire escape, does it? I don't want to run out onto an open fire escape with a rifle in my hand right after the shooting.'

"Ruby: 'No, its a safe way out, I'll show you, but not now.'

(distraction------)

"[Craford]: 'There's really only one building to do it from, one that covers Main, Elm, and Commerce.'

"Ruby: 'Which one is that?'

"[Craford]: 'The School Book Building, close to the triple underpass.'

"Ruby: 'What's wrong with doing it from here?'

"[Craford]: 'What if he goes down another street?'

Obviously there are questions about this witness (Jarnagin). He was reported to have failed a polygraph examination given by the Dallas police, though District Attorney Wade testified to the Warren Commission that he did not believe there was deception or lying on the part of Jarnagin. (Wade oddly interpreted the polygraph as indicating attorney Jarnagin, an old law school classmate of Wade's, believed he was being truthful but had imagined the whole thing--this of an attorney with no known history of mental illness or delusions or track record of making false police reports or any other criminal record, with his worst sin being an admitted problem with alcohol.) Against prevailing conceptions I have given my reasons elsewhere for judging Jarnagin was truthful in that I believe he did overhear two persons one of whom was Ruby, was mistaken in identification of the other as Oswald, may have had other mistakes or confusions—but with those caveats it was a real and not fabricated witness account, contrary to the claim of the polygraph examination. I believe this is an underappreciated early witness account of an aspect of mob preparation for the assassination. (The mob connection of Craford comes from Peter Whitmey’s later interviews of Craford telling of his mob connections in California and prior experience as a hitman before his connection with Ruby in Dallas; as for Ruby’s mob relations, one has only to read Seth Kantor’s book.)

The point of interest is at the end above about the parade route and the Texas School Book Depository. Of course it could be anachronistic, filled in by Jarnagin either wilfully or unwittingly under the influence of news reporting after Nov 22, 1963. But I would like to suggest that what Jarnagin says he overheard the Craford individual say about the Texas School Book Depository could predate Nov 22 and would work for the Oct 4 date, and even if Jarnagin’s witness testimony is impeached on this point, the substance of the point remains correct: that the TSBD was strategic from the point of view of an assassination by sniper given a state of knowledge of reasonable anticipation of a parade route but before the exact parade route was known.

With Oswald employed in the TSBD the rest of the criminal conspiracy of the assassination in terms of logistics of the shooting could proceed around that location, provided the parade route in its final form turned out as anticipated, which it did. Even though the exact parade route was not known before Nov 14, it could well be anticipated in advance of that date, that the parade would come through the downtown area via either Elm, Main, or Commerce, and no matter which of those, in any of those cases it would come out into Dealey Plaza to an open line of fire accessible from a window of one of the upper stories of the TSBD (or other Dealey Plaza building if logistics and access were arranged). So the TSBD was strategic in advance of knowledge of the exact parade route. Also, the hypothesized planning around the TSBD in advance of final details of the parade route does not require (though also does not exclude) cooperation on the part of the parade-route decision-makers or decision-influencers. All that is necessary or helpful would be “intelligence”—some mechanism by which the on-the-ground plotters knew what was being decided and when, so that there could be timely adaptation and modification of plans as necessary. All of this is compatible with a mob hit.

Oswald himself was “stung” by being blamed for the assassination based on a rifle associated to him, even though he was innocent. Oswald was killed before his role as an informant could become known and that he was not a wilful party to the assassination. By this interpretation, during his time of employment in the TSBD Oswald might have been paid a little from his agency, not enough to lift him and Marina out of poverty, but with promise of more substantial money and a better job (at, say, Collins Radio) shortly to materialize.   

[Paul Brancato]

Greg - I’m finding it difficult to take your suppositions seriously. The last post is ridiculous on its face. If Jarnagin had anything real to share with Hoover it would not look like a transcript of a conversation. Even assuming a kernel of truth is problematic, because Jarnagin destroys any credibility he might have had with his embellishments. Quoting DA Wade in support of your assessment of Jarnagin isn’t very effective, is it? For obvious reasons. 
as for your arguments against Jim D’s point about the parade route and the Secret Service, Imwould call it missing the forest for the trees. You are very capable of making cohesive arguments in favor of your theory, but it’s the many objections taken as a whole, not parsed one by one, that is important . Thanks 

[Greg Doudna]

16 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Greg - I’m finding it difficult to take your suppositions seriously. The last post is ridiculous on its face. If Jarnagin had anything real to share with Hoover it would not look like a transcript of a conversation. Even assuming a kernel of truth is problematic, because Jarnagin destroys any credibility he might have had with his embellishments. Quoting DA Wade in support of your assessment of Jarnagin isn’t very effective, is it? For obvious reasons. 
as for your arguments against Jim D’s point about the parade route and the Secret Service, Imwould call it missing the forest for the trees. You are very capable of making cohesive arguments in favor of your theory, but it’s the many objections taken as a whole, not parsed one by one, that is important . Thanks 

Paul B., just to be clear, what District Attorney Wade said has nothing--nothing--to do with why I assess partial credibility to Jarnagin's testimony.

The Jarnagin story is not essential to a mob-did-it theory. Jarnagin is not a perfect witness. There are memory issues; he was drinking that evening; he was overhearing conversation at another table imperfectly subject to mishearing and misunderstanding. Also, no matter what Jarnagin thought, the person he said he saw and heard talking with Ruby cannot have been Oswald. Those are givens. The fundamental prior question is, was this a lying witness. Or was this a flawed truthful witness who misunderstood and misinterpreted some things overheard of potential significance.

You say he is discredited because he embellished, meaning dishonestly embellished. Is that accurate description of what Jarnagin wrote to Hoover--the cover letter and attempt to convey what he heard in the form of a reconstructed conversation? 

The most prominent claim that Jarnagin embellished is a claim that Jarnagin also was responsible for the Mark Lane story of a witness who saw Ruby-Tippit-Weissman meeting at the Carousel Club. That claim has no substance according to what I have been able to find. Claims attaching Jarnagin to that story quote other secondary sources none of whom quote a primary source or interview, like an urban legend impossible to verify. I think it probably started as someone's guess and is no more substantial than that.