Into the Nightmare: A Milestone

[Joe Bauer]

53 minutes ago, Joseph McBride said:

About Mary Ferrell from my book INTO THE NIGHTMARE:

 

 

THE GATEKEEPER

 

After it became clear to me that the introduction into evidence of the audiotape on which the HSCA based its halfhearted conclusion of conspiracy was designed to discredit the whole investigation, I became keenly interested in tracing the provenance of the tape to see how this could have happened.

According to Fort Worth researcher Jack D. White, the tape was first brought forward by Gary Mack, who took it to Mary Ferrell, the supposedly self-appointed den mother of assassination researchers in Dallas (Dallas Tippit researcher Greg Lowrey called her “The Gatekeeper”). But according to Mack, who worked with Penn Jones on his newsletter The Continuing Inquiry, Jones gave him the original clue and a copy of the tape. Mack, a former Fort Worth NBC-TV announcer who changed his name from Larry Dunkel while working as a disk jockey, eventually turned into a lone-nut theorist after he became the curator of The Sixth Floor Museum at the former Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza, which exists primarily to debunk conspiracy theories while misleading and distracting tourists at the site of the murder. Its raison d’être seems to be to protect the image of Dallas by attempting to perpetuate the Warren Commission’s version of events. Mack’s ally Ferrell supplied favored researchers with documents from her ample files (since her death in 2004, available online at maryferrell.org), and she has been hailed by many researchers for her supposedly self-effacing generosity toward the cause of history. In an article on the acoustics evidence, Myers discusses the provenance of the tape and cites Mack’s 1979 report that Jones originally suggested they look into the question of a stuck microphone on a police motorcycle that blocked a radio channel during the motorcade. “Penn was of the opinion that the communications were jammed on purpose,” Mack wrote. Mack thought such a police radio tape might contain sounds of shots. Jones provided a tape that was of insufficient quality to work with, but Ferrell came up with a better one. Ferrell, White said, tracked down a first-generation copy of the tape made from a police Dictabelt and presented it to the HSCA.

As I later found after making contact with Mary Ferrell myself, she actually had deep connections with U.S. intelligence. She was a member of the Agency of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO), founded by CIA agent David Atlee Phillips, who many researchers believe helped organize the Kennedy assassination plot and the framing of Oswald in particular. Ferrell’s excuse for being a member, that she was infiltrating the organization to learn more about U.S. intelligence, seems laughably transparent. “We know Mary Ferrell has many contacts with the FBI and other government agencies,” Lowrey told me. “I’m also suspicious of her association with Hugh Aynesworth,” the Dallas reporter who covered the case from the first day and has long been an opponent of conspiracy theorists, as well as serving as an FBI informant during the Garrison case. “You can start in any direction,” said Lowrey, “and ultimately it will lead you to [Ferrell]. You will come back to her.”

Ferrell was a legal secretary for the Socony Mobil Oil Company in Dallas at the time of the assassination. As well as putting her in the circle of big oil in Dallas, the Mobil association gives Ferrell at least a tangential link to some key Kennedy assassination characters, including people involved in oil, the White Russian community, and U.S. intelligence. Volkmar Schmidt, a German-born Dallas petroleum geologist who claimed he tried to turn Oswald against General Walker and therefore felt “a terrible responsibility” for the Walker assassination attempt and the Kennedy assassination, told researcher William E. Kelly in a 1995 interview that in 1963 he worked for a Dallas branch of Mobil, the Field Research Laboratory of the Magnolia Petroleum Company. Schmidt said he met George de Mohrenschildt and Ruth Paine, the Oswalds’ CIA handlers, and Paine’s husband, Michael, “through the circle of young professionals at the Magnolia labs.” It was at a February 22, 1963, party arranged by Everett D. Glover, a chemist with the labs, at a house he shared with Schmidt, that Schmidt had a long talk (“about two solid hours”) with Oswald about Walker and other political topics, including Kennedy and Cuba (Schmidt claimed Oswald was “hateful” toward Kennedy, and that he tried to turn that feeling against Walker, telling Oswald the general was a racist and “kind of a poopoo”). At the same party the Oswalds were introduced to Ruth Paine; Glover told the Warren Commission that Ruth spent most of her time that night speaking with Marina in Russian. As well as by George de Mohrenschildt and his wife, Jeanne, the party was attended by others from the Magnolia labs and by George’s oil industry friend Samuel Ballen. Armstrong writes in Harvey & Lee, “There is little doubt the purpose of this social gathering was to provide CIA operative George DeMohrenschildt the opportunity to introduce Lee Harvey Oswald and Marina to CIA operative Ruth Paine. During the next 10 months, until November 22, 1963, Oswald’s activities were closely monitored by either DeMohrenschildt or Mrs. Paine” [italics in original].

Mary Ferrell was a lifelong Republican who disliked Kennedy (Lowrey put it more strongly: “She hated John Kennedy; it was no secret”), and she admitted in 2000, “I didn’t even care enough to go down on Elm Street to watch the motorcade.” A feature on Ferrell in the Dallas Morning News on the twentieth anniversary of the assassination in 1983 mentions that she was downtown that day “but didn’t bother interrupting her lunch” to see Kennedy. The writer, Brad Bailey, hinted at the strangeness of this paradox in her career: “Mrs. Ferrell didn’t particularly like Kennedy as a president or as a fellow Catholic. . . . So she has a hard time explaining the fireproof library building in her Oak Lawn backyard with floor-to-ceiling shelves containing virtually every document ever published on the assassination. Nor can she easily explain the additional 25,000 pages of FBI documents spread across her living room floor or the clippings and papers that fill another room.”

The most I could get from Ferrell when I asked about her motivation, a question that seemed to momentarily take her aback in our last conversation in December 1992, was the vague response, “I just didn’t think they went to Oak Cliff and picked up the man who did it in a darkened theater. Somehow it just didn’t make sense.” Ferrell was surprisingly equivocal on some of the most-discussed topics surrounding the assassination. She said she refused to see Oliver Stone’s JFK because when reporters called her, “I was really glad I didn’t have to lie and say I didn’t like it or I did like it.” As for New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison himself, she told me, “I loved Jim Garrison -- I wavered between thinking he’s insane and thinking he’s a genius.” And as for Oswald, she said that if people “come to me and say, ‘I think Oswald acted alone, and do you have documentation?,’ I just politely say, ‘Go somewhere else.’ Everything I do is based on Oswald did not act alone. Not that he didn’t act. I don’t know.” And the Morning News reported in 1983 that despite all her research, she had “given up hope of deciding what really happened that day in Dallas. ‘We have now had about four major investigations, and I consider that the truth is still hidden from us,’ she says.”

Some of the explanation for what that newspaper described as Ferrell’s “compulsion” to serve as a repository and clearing house for assassination research can be found in another paradox about Ferrell. Her obituary in the Morning News referred to how she “worked more than thirty years as a legal secretary for a law firm and also in the Governor’s office in Austin.” She was a conservative who kept close to the power center of that era in Texas by working for Democrats, including Governor Dolph Briscoe in 1973-74, and she was “a close personal friend” of John Connally, Lowrey noted.

Ferrell was even closely connected to those who determined the route of the Dallas motorcade. It was in 1964, soon after the assassination, according to Lowrey, that Ferrell became a legal secretary in downtown Dallas to Eugene M. Locke, who headed the law firm of Locke, Purnell, Boren, Laney and Neely and was also the head of the State Democratic Executive Committee of Texas. (Ferrell claimed on various occasions that she did not start working for Locke until 1967 or 1970. Locke died in 1972.)  In addition to heading a major law firm and having oil, land, and construction interests, Locke in his official position with the state party helped plan the presidential trip to Dallas. A crucial meeting that helped decide on the route of the motorcade -- violating Secret Service regulations by causing it to make a sharp turn from Houston onto Elm Street, past the Texas School Book Depository, slowing the motorcade to eleven miles an hour in the kill zone -- was held in Locke’s office, although Kennedy aide Kenneth O’Donnell apparently was responsible for the final decision that determined the route. (See more on Locke and that meeting in Chapters 15 and 16.) Lowrey suggested, though without having proof, that Ferrell could have helped her soon-to-be-employer Locke with those arrangements. That seems more of an educated guess when one considers that her husband, Hubert (Buck) Ferrell, who worked for Eagle Lincoln-Mercury in Dallas at the time of the assassination, supplied some of the cars for the motorcade, and that Mary Ferrell said her own car was used in the motorcade when “They quickly ran out of cars.” According to assassination researcher Todd Wayne Vaughan, who interviewed both Ferrells, Mary supplied her own recently purchased 1964 Ford Mercury Colony Park station wagon for the motorcade, and it was used as one of the “VIP” cars.

My dealings with Mary Ferrell in 1985-86 were what made me aware of her duplicity. I first called her to ask her confidential advice about a previously unknown FBI document I had found that seriously undermined the Warren Commission’s lone-gunman theory, and she betrayed my trust (see Chapter 15). After being thus alerted to her dishonest modus operandi, I began delving into her dubious background and concluded that after the assassination she set up shop with the backing of the federal government to serve as a clearing house and watchdog in Dallas, doling out favors while actually going about her main business of keeping tabs on what researchers were doing and selectively, subtly feeding them disinformation. As a result of her clever application of spycraft and her faux-motherly act, many researchers naively regarded her as a guru with a disinterested dedication to the truth. When I called her again in 1992 to request an in-person interview about her background and involvement in the case, she pressed me hard to find out what aspects of the assassination I was researching, and when I carefully gave her only general answers, saying that my areas of interest included the roles played by researchers, she refused to meet with me and said she didn’t want to be interviewed about her own background. Lowrey said, “Mary stays in the shadows. Her agenda is subtle and devious: ‘What are you going to do with it?’” Penn Jones gave me some good advice: “Stay away from her.”

Ferrell’s production to the HSCA of the tape made that allegedly contains audio impulses demonstrating that four shots were fired in Dealey Plaza seemed suspiciously timely to me. It seemed to buttress the notion of conspiracy but more likely was cleverly orchestrated  by Ferrell to discredit it in due course, like a planted mine sure to go off and destroy everything that surrounded it. Anomalies and ambiguities surrounding the tape itself made the HSCA’s belated “discovery” and endorsement of four shots dubious. That was probably seen by Blakey and others on his staff as a convenient late-arriving fig leaf with which to cover themselves by suggesting a conspiracy while not investigating its participants fully and honestly. The problems surrounding the tape were manifold, including debatable photographic evidence of the police motorcycle with a stuck microphone that supposedly recorded the sounds, claims by some skeptics that the tape actually was recorded about a minute after the assassination, and above all the inherent difficulties of interpreting the sound impulses allegedly found on the tape and synching those impulses with films of the assassination (including the altered Zapruder film). These problems would keep various experts, conspiracy theorists, and lone-nutters alike busy for years of debate, sometimes switching sides back and forth to add to the confusion. That may have been the point of the whole exercise initiated by Mary Ferrell with the collusion of Gary Mack. In the process, many studies were made, and much ink was consumed, but the subject only became more intractable, as, indeed, it seemed to me almost from the beginning, given the near-impossibility of reconstructing credible gunshots from a belatedly produced Dictabelt recording made in part with a police microphone of uncertain location.

By so badly muddying the waters, the claim by the HSCA about shots being recorded on the tape most probably was intended to distract attention from the actual likelihood that more than four shots were fired in Dealey Plaza. This was among the more sophisticated and effective disinformation ploys launched against the finding of the truth of what happened in November 1963, but just one of the many obfuscatory maneuvers that began the first day and continue to the present. “All this stuff that went to the HSCA from the nucleus of people revolving around Mary Ferrell probably was concocted by mixing it with half-truths,” Lowrey noted. “Their MO is propping up a story and then shooting it down -- damn effective.” The HSCA Report, while saying that there were two gunmen, nevertheless claims that a single shot from the Grassy Knoll, the closer of the two alleged firing locations, missed, and blames Oswald (who was in the second-floor lunchroom of the Depository at the time) for firing all the shots that hit Kennedy, Connally, and bystander James Tague. Researcher Jack White, who continued to believe that “shots are recorded on the tape,” nevertheless aptly called the HSCA Report “a half-horse, half-zebra, half-assed kind of report.”

The HSCA, in my view, largely succeeded in disproving the (naive) notion that this case could be investigated fairly by a government up to its eyes in direct involvement in the planning, execution, and coverup of the crimes themselves. Like the Warren Commission investigation before it, the HSCA investigation also turned up a wealth of evidence and fresh leads that, ironically, cast doubt on its own conclusions. A further problem was that some of the HSCA’s work product, including reports of witness interviews, did not reach the public until the 1990s, delaying both its utility and its ability to cast doubt on the HSCA’s own conclusions. The material was sealed until after the film JFK helped provide the impetus for the establishment of the ARRB, which helped free six millions of pages of previously classified material in U.S. government files. That material has proven invaluable in filling in some of the important gaps in our information about the case and in calling attention to previously hidden aspects of these events.

Despite the flaws of the HSCA investigation, with all the genuine revelations that were being made about the case in the 1970s, as well as all the controversy engendered by true and false leads, the seeds of doubt were being widely sown again throughout the land. If I had been led astray from the initial evidence I heard with my own ears on the afternoon of November 22 and from my sense that first evening that Oswald was telling the truth in denying involvement in the killings of Kennedy and Tippit, I was now beginning to reclaim my first impressions as the truth.

Extremely enlightening.

Changes my awareness of her ( which was limited ) and also a general perception of her as of some type of virtuous matriarch of the JFK truth seeking mission.

[Derek Thibeault]

13 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Let me add, Joe quotes author Gaeton Fonzi and the film maker deAntonio in his book talking about the fear in Dallas, especially surrounding the Tippit case.

I already quoted this in relation to Clemmons.  But Fonzi wrote about it in general.  He wrote that many of the witnesses were hard to locate, and some moved without notice, leaving no forwarding address. He wrote they where all aware of the strange things that had happened, particularly to other witnesses. (McBride, p. 461)

Salandria noted this also, especially in relation to Markham. She would not meet with VInce for  an interview.  She then relented.  But when he came back, as John Kelin has written, there were two police cars in front of her apartment. The cars left, but then Mr. Markham refused to allow them entry. When asked if they had been threatened, the man said yes.

(https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/conspiracy-theory-why-no-one-believes-the-warren-report)

If I remember correctly, Clemmons was really never heard from again - do we ever know where she went and when she died, does she have surviving relatives that may have information?

[Joe Bauer]

27 minutes ago, Derek Thibeault said:

If I remember correctly, Clemmons was really never heard from again - do we ever know where she went and when she died, does she have surviving relatives that may have information?

I have also wondered the same about Clemmons.

And who could ever argue that fear wasn't a huge factor in the entire picture of witnesses coming forward and sharings things they may have known about so many aspects of the JFK event and the main characters involved?

My common sense guess is that hundreds of people with more information never came forward to the authorities or the press with what they knew or saw about the event.

For reasons we all would have similarly felt.  

Witnesses who did come forward that had anything to share that contradicted the quickly fabricated "deranged commie lone gunman Oswald did JFK" and "Jackie Kennedy avenging Jack Ruby did Oswald" and "This Case Is Cinched" official line were heavily grilled or even harassed and threatened.

Julia Ann Mercer was just one such witness. Sylvia Odio another. Many others.

Fear hung over Dallas like a heavy dark cloud as it logically should have,  Too much murder, doubt and and suspicion filled the air there for a long time.

 

 

[Derek Thibeault]

37 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

I have also wondered the same about Clemmons.

And who could ever argue that fear wasn't a huge factor in the entire picture of witnesses coming forward and sharings things they may have known about so many aspects of the JFK event and the main characters involved?

My common sense guess is that hundreds of people with more information never came forward to the authorities or the press with what they knew or saw about the event.

For reasons we all would have similarly felt.  

Witnesses who did come forward that had anything to share that contradicted the quickly fabricated "deranged commie lone gunman Oswald did JFK" and "Jackie Kennedy avenging Jack Ruby did Oswald" and "This Case Is Cinched" official line were heavily grilled or even harassed and threatened.

Julia Ann Mercer was just one such witness. Sylvia Odio another. Many others.

Fear hung over Dallas like a heavy dark cloud as it logically should have,  Too much murder, doubt and and suspicion filled the air there for a long time.

 

 

She certainly did a great job disappearing, she was so compelling in the Rush to Judgement doc that Mark Lane did.

[Joe Bauer]

I must admit, that I didn't think Ms. Clemmon's account was very credible.

She stated a "kind of chunky fella with bushy hair" in her description of who she saw when she looked over at the killing scene.

She was the "only" witness stating that description.

No matter whether she got it right or not, her statements contradicted the official line.

I don't think it would have taken but one scary phone call threatening her after her Mark Lane interview for her to pack up her bags and "hit the road Jack" and move in with relatives far out of state and never come back.

I think black people in Dallas in those days were generally very afraid of the police and other authorities anyway as a matter of daily life reality.

Remember, there was a strong KKK sentiment in most all of our deep South cities ( in their police departments as well ) in those times, and colored people knew this and felt their presence. 

[Derek Thibeault]

1 hour ago, Joe Bauer said:

I must admit, that I didn't think Ms. Clemmon's account was very credible.

She stated a "kind of chunky fella with bushy hair" in her description of who she saw when she looked over at the killing scene.

She was the "only" witness stating that description.

No matter whether she got it right or not, her statements contradicted the official line.

I don't think it would have taken but one scary phone call threatening her after her Mark Lane interview for her to pack up her bags and "hit the road Jack" and move in with relatives far out of state and never come back.

I think black people in Dallas in those days were generally very afraid of the police and other authorities anyway as a matter of daily life reality.

Remember, there was a strong KKK sentiment in most all of our deep South cities ( in their police departments as well ) in those times, and colored people knew this and felt their presence. 

I guess, but if she was way off, then I would think people would be ok with her talking. Although, just saying anything different from Oswald probably gets you that call. Yeah, you are right, Dallas was very racist at the time.

[David Von Pein]

2 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

I must admit, that I didn't think Ms. Clemmon's account was very credible.

She stated a "kind of chunky fella with bushy hair" in her description of who she saw when she looked over at the killing scene.

She was the "only" witness stating that description.

No matter whether she got it right or not, her statements contradicted the official line.

I don't think it would have taken but one scary phone call threatening her after her Mark Lane interview for her to pack up her bags and "hit the road Jack" and move in with relatives far out of state and never come back.

I think black people in Dallas in those days were generally very afraid of the police and other authorities anyway as a matter of daily life reality.

Remember, there was a strong KKK sentiment in most all of our deep South cities ( in their police departments as well ) in those times, and colored people knew this and felt their presence. 

Joe, you really should read THIS BLOG ARTICLE written by Dale Myers in 2017. It's a very interesting piece, which reveals several things relating to Mrs. Acquilla Clemons that had never before surfaced or been discussed previously.

Here's an excerpt:

"Here, for the first time, we have Mrs. Clemons explaining that it’s not a cadre of faceless, nameless law enforcement officers harassing her to keep quiet (as everyone has been led to believe by Mark Lane and the conspirati), but rather, a strong suggestion by her employers – John and Cornelia Smotherman – who are no doubt sick and tired of the parade of “journalists” (remember, this is the third visit in as many weeks) who keep showing up at her home."

-- Dale K. Myers; November 1, 2017

------------------

I've culled what I think are the top highlights from that Myers' article at my own webpage below:

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/Acquilla Clemons & The Tippit Murder

"After reading all of Mr. Myers' excellent 11/1/17 blog article, there can be no doubt [that] Mrs. Acquilla Clemons, when her statements are not edited and trimmed and molded by conspiracy theorists such as the late Mark Lane, definitely was NOT the type of bombshell "conspiracy" witness that she has been portrayed to be by conspiracists for the last fifty-plus years." -- DVP; November 1, 2017

 

Edited August 1, 2022 by David Von Pein

[Denny Zartman]

I don't see what Clemmons had to gain from making anything up. She didn't seem to be seeking fame. From what I understand, she initially declined to talk about what she saw and only relented because she recognized Mark Lane as one of the Freedom Riders.

I also seem to remember that another witness described a potential suspect that had bushy hair, but I can't recall specifically who said that.

In my opinion, two kinds of ammo at the scene of a shooting strongly suggests two shooters.

Also, for the record, I believe at least one witness unrelated to Clemmons has linked Roscoe White to the Tippit shooting. Based on what I've read, (and contrary to the photo of him on record), White allegedly wore a bushy hairpiece .

[Joe Bauer]

12 minutes ago, Denny Zartman said:

I don't see what Clemmons had to gain from making anything up. She didn't seem to be seeking fame. From what I understand, she initially declined to talk about what she saw and only relented because she recognized Mark Lane as one of the Freedom Riders.

I also seem to remember that another witness described a potential suspect that had bushy hair, but I can't recall specifically who said that.

In my opinion, two kinds of ammo at the scene of a shooting strongly suggests two shooters.

Also, for the record, I believe at least one witness unrelated to Clemmons has linked Roscoe White to the Tippit shooting. Based on what I've read, (and contrary to the photo of him on record), White allegedly wore a bushy hairpiece .

Interesting. Roscoe White never leaves my thoughts regarding the case.

[David Von Pein]

17 minutes ago, Denny Zartman said:

I don't see what Clemmons had to gain from making anything up.

She didn't make anything up. Read the Myers article I linked. It explains how CTers like Mark Lane have twisted and mangled some of the things Clemons said.

[John Iacoletti]

18 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Do you have a transcript of Markham's exact words? From that I should be able to tell whose interpretation is correct, yours or Summers'. Or my own.

 

See Markham Exhibit 1. What she said was that she was out there for 20 minutes before anybody showed up.

https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh20/html/WH_Vol20_0305b.htm

[David Von Pein]

17 minutes ago, John Iacoletti said:

See Markham Exhibit 1. What she said was that she was out there for 20 minutes before anybody showed up.

https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh20/html/WH_Vol20_0305b.htm

Just goes to show how lousy some people are at calculating time. Most people are really terrible at it. Apparently Mrs. Markham was too.

[James DiEugenio]

This is what I mean about Markham.  She was out there alone for 20 minutes before anyone showed up?

Talk about a confused witness.

BTW, the instance about the two police cars in front of her house before her husband refused to have her speak to Salandria, that was not later.  It was in 1964.

Again, in the real world, witness intimidation can get a case thrown out, and the people who do the intimidating can be charged. But this is the WC, the fairy tale world. A world of sea lions.

PS In the Benson book, which is pretty reliable, it says she claimed to be the only witness there for 20 minutes with the dying office, talking with him ("he tried to talk to me", she said) before anyone else arrived.  As Benson notes, virtually everyone else said TIppit died instantly, and that a crowd of people gathered. (pp. 281-82)

Edited August 1, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Let us be more clear about this witness intimidation.  From the Tippit article by Jack Myers at K and K:

Decades later, Dallas researcher Michael Brownlow tracked down Mr. Reynolds, who was still in the business of selling cars. At first, Reynolds would not admit who he was. But after Brownlow had gained his trust, the researcher asked Mr. Reynolds why he had suddenly changed his testimony regarding his identification of Oswald.

“Because I wanted to live,” Reynolds admitted bluntly.

Edited August 2, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Now, let us go to to Mr Tatum who PBS found so fetching for their Frontline special. Again, quoting Jack M:

It was against this backdrop that a Dallas native, Jack Ray Tatum, stepped forward with the claim that he had been the driver behind the wheel of the mysterious red Ford Galaxie seen stopped near the intersection of 10^th & Patton on 11/22/63.

Mr. Tatum would proceed to tell an amazing story—perhaps one even more unbelievable than that of the unfortunate Mrs. Markham. Yet unlike that of the much-maligned waitress, it has generally, and inexplicably, been accepted as fact for more than four decades. In a filmed interview with the PBS television show Frontline in 2003, Mr. Tatum re-created his alleged experience on that fateful day in Dallas, 1963.

While taking a detour through the neighborhood to circle back to a jewelry store on Jefferson Blvd. to buy his wife a gift, Tatum said he found himself driving north on Denver Street around 1 p.m. at which time he turned left to head west on 10^th Street.

For those who would like to read Jack's article:

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/why-officer-tippit-stopped-his-killer

Edited August 2, 2022 by James DiEugenio