No Secret Work for Oswald ? Really ?

[Gil Jesus]

Oswald, the ex-Marine who defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, was hired by Jaggers-Childs-Stovall on October 12, 1962, just days before a U-2 flight over Cuba took photos of a Soviet missile build-up on the island. The company President, Robert Stovall, testified to the Warren Commission that his company did do secret work for the US Government, but only those employees who were cleared by the DOD had access to the work.

Oswald, he testified, was not among them.

But that's not what Jack L. Bowen, a former assistant art director at Jaggers told the FBI. Bowen was interviewed on December 7, 1963 and told the FBI that he was in the office of Ray Hawkins, foreman of the photo department when Oswald was explaining Russian symbols on maps the firm was preparing for the United States Army.

Keep in mind that Oswald was employed at Jaggers during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Army would have been very interested in having Russian maps translated into English. Any military contractor doing this type of work would have considered someone with Oswald's skill to read and interpret Russian as a excellent hire and it raises the question as to whether Stovall lied to the Commission or had Oswald been cleared by the DoD.

As a sidebar, Jaggers' photo department foreman Ray Hawkins had the same name as the Dallas Police officer Ray Hawkins who was present during the Oswald arrest in the Texas Theater. They don't seem to be the same person, the Officer Hawkins in 1963 had been with the police department for 11 years. But it doesn't discount the possibility that they are related.

Or maybe its just another one of those curious coincidences.

[Pat Speer]

16 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

Oswald, the ex-Marine who defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, was hired by Jaggers-Childs-Stovall on October 12, 1962, just days before a U-2 flight over Cuba took photos of a Soviet missile build-up on the island. The company President, Robert Stovall, testified to the Warren Commission that his company did do secret work for the US Government, but only those employees who were cleared by the DOD had access to the work.

Oswald, he testified, was not among them.

But that's not what Jack L. Bowen, a former assistant art director at Jaggers told the FBI. Bowen was interviewed on December 7, 1963 and told the FBI that he was in the office of Ray Hawkins, foreman of the photo department when Oswald was explaining Russian symbols on maps the firm was preparing for the United States Army.

Keep in mind that Oswald was employed at Jaggers during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Army would have been very interested in having Russian maps translated into English. Any military contractor doing this type of work would have considered someone with Oswald's skill to read and interpret Russian as a excellent hire and it raises the question as to whether Stovall lied to the Commission or had Oswald been cleared by the DoD.

As a sidebar, Jaggers' photo department foreman Ray Hawkins had the same name as the Dallas Police officer Ray Hawkins who was present during the Oswald arrest in the Texas Theater. They don't seem to be the same person, the Officer Hawkins in 1963 had been with the police department for 11 years. But it doesn't discount the possibility that they are related.

Or maybe its just another one of those curious coincidences.

At one point I realized that a Robert Stovall worked with Oswald at Jaggers, and that a Richard Stovall was a Dallas Detective who'd searched the Paine house (if I recall). In any event, I did a search on a birth database and found that there were two brothers, Robert and Richard Stovall, who were born in Dallas, and who would have been the right age. So I reported here and on my web page that they were brothers. I later received an email from I think it was Richard Stovall's grandson, telling me that nope, his granddaddy did not have a brother named Robert, and that I was mistaken. I think I then went back and re-read Richard's testimony and found that he was a year or two younger than the Richard I'd found in the birth records. So, yes, coincidences occur. (Such as there being two Richard Spragues who'd worked for the HSCA, and two Vincent Lees involved in the original investigation). 

Edited August 20, 2022 by Pat Speer

[Steve Thomas]

8 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

 

 

 

As a sidebar, Jaggers' photo department foreman Ray Hawkins had the same name as the Dallas Police officer Ray Hawkins who was present during the Oswald arrest in the Texas Theater. They don't seem to be the same person, the Officer Hawkins in 1963 had been with the police department for 11 years. But it doesn't discount the possibility that they are related.

Or maybe its just another one of those curious coincidences.

Gil,

Policeman, Ray Hawkins

Lee Harvey Oswald handcuffs valued at $250,000

http://www.paulfrasercollectibles.com/news/memorabilia/lee-harvey-oswald-handcuffs-valued-at-250-000/22042.page

November 30, 2016

"The Dallas Police Department made its officers and detectives buy their own handcuffs, thus allowing Hawkins to retain his private property after the assassination."

The lot is estimated to bring in $250,000 ahead of the December 3 close date.

https://goldinauctions.com/Lee_Harvey_Oswald_Handcuffs_Used_to_Arrest_Oswald_-lot27299.aspx

“Oswald was bundled into a patrol car and taken downtown. Hawkins followed and then went about fulfilling the routine written reports and pertinent interviews. The handcuffs, no longer needed once Oswald was secure in the Dallas Police holding cells, were returned to Officer Hawkins. These are the handcuffs that captured President Kennedy’s assassin. The Smith & Wesson cuffs were originally issued to Officer Hawkins when he joined the Dallas Police Department in 1953. Bearing the serial number “38468”, Hawkins used these rare and iconic cuffs throughout his entire career and retained them after he left the force. The Smith & Wesson handcuffs remain a silent reminder of that fateful day in Dallas when the Nation changed forever. The handcuffs are accompanied by a signed and notarized affidavit from Ray Hawkins describing his actions on November 22, 1963 and the role these handcuffs played the capture of Lee Harvey Oswald. It is also noteworthy to mention that this is one of the very few significant JFK-Oswald items that is not in the National Archives. The Dallas Police Department made its officers and detectives buy their own handcuffs, thus allowing Hawkins to retain his private property after the assassination. ,”

Steve Thomas

[James DiEugenio]

That is interesting Gil about Oswald at JCS.

 

Should not sink without a trace.

[Steve Thomas]

On 8/19/2022 at 8:11 AM, Gil Jesus said:

 

 

Keep in mind that Oswald was employed at Jaggers during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Army would have been very interested in having Russian maps translated into English. Any military contractor doing this type of work would have considered someone with Oswald's skill to read and interpret Russian as a excellent hire and it raises the question as to whether Stovall lied to the Commission or had Oswald been cleared by the DoD.

 

Gil,

Colin Crow:

http://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php?topic=11247.25;wap2

“OFSTEIN said this statement aroused his suspicions and he asked Sgt. TOM CRIGLER, who is employed with the U. S. Army Recruiting Station, Dallas, and is a resident of the Oak Cliff area of Dallas, regarding this. He said he told CRIGLER he had run into a fellow at work who had spent some time in Russia and he wondered if the FBI should run a security check on him inasmuch as he, OFSTEIN, did not want to jeopardize his own status for any possible future security clearances in the event he ever returned to the U. S. Army."

The problem with the above is the fact that Sgt. Tom Crigler told the FBI that Ofstein contacted him in August, 1963. Five months AFTER Oswald had left Jaggars. Why would Ofstein suddenly want the FBI to run a check on Oswald in August, 1963 when he allegedly hadn't seen the guy in five months? Why would Ofstein be concerned about "future security clearances" a minimum of five months after Oswald had spoken to him about "microdots" and three months before the assassination? Why did Ofstein say it was the "microdot" conversation that pushed him into the Crigler meeting but fail to mention the meeting was in August?

Ofstein also states that Oswald gave him the details of his P.O. Box address in Dallas and that he sent a letter to it after Oswald had left the company asking (AGAIN) if Oswald and his wife wanted to visit his house for dinner.”

On December 6, 1963 Thomas Crigler was interviewed by the FBI. He said that he met Olfstein “accidentally” on the street.

See FBI interview of Crigler December 6, 1963:

CD 205 p. 478

https://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10672#relPageId=481&tab=page

 

Thomas H. Crigler, Jr., 1705 McAdams, advised he is currently a Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army Security Agency, Field Representative, assigned to U.S. Army Recruiting Station, Dallas. He advised that he and Dennis Ofstein were assigned to the same U.S. Army branch in Europe and that he knew Ofstein from about June, 1960 to December, 1960 purely as another person attached to the same unit with him. He said that he had never become socially or well acquainted with Ofstein at that time. He said the caption of their group was the 507^th USASA Group, Heilbron, West Germany.”

(This is actually spelled Heilbronn)

 

However, he said later in his FBI interview that about a week after meeting Ofstein in the street in August, Ofstein and his family came to Crigler's house, and that twice more he and his wife visited Ofstein at his (Ofstein's) house.

 

See here for pictures of Heilbronn:

http://www.usarmygermany.com/Sont.htm?http&&&www.usarmygermany.com/Usareur_City_Heilbronn.htm

 

Ofstein was interviewed by FBI Agent, Kenneth Jackson on December 2, 1963. Jackson wrote up his Report on December 3, 1963.

See CD 205 p. 472.

https://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10672#relPageId=475&tab=page

Ofstein told the FBI of his having sought out Thomas Crigler because he was suspicious of Oswald when Oswald told him (Ofstein) that microdots could be “hidden under postage stamps and used in espionage operations”.

They didn't meet on the street "accidentally"

Robert Gemberling Report of 12/23/63. pp.472-477.

Commission Document 205 - FBI Report of 23 Dec 1963 re: Oswald

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10672

Ofstein's interview was conducted by FBI SA Kenneth Jackson on December December 2^nd and 3^rd, 1963. During that interview, Ofstein tells of meeting with Thomas Crigler and asking Crigler about Oswald. He said that he told Crigler about Oswald because he didn't want to “jeapordize his own (Ofstein's) security status for any possible future security clearance in the event he ever returned to the U.S. Army.”

Which is a little odd in itself since Ofstein married a German national and had a son in Stuttgart, Germany in July of 1960 and a daughter in Dallas in 1961. Why would a married man, and a father of two children be considering in 1963 a return to the Army?

Three days later, Crigler is interviewed by the FBI.

See FBI interview of Crigler December 6, 1963:

CD 205 p. 478

https://www.maryferr...tml?docId=10672

Crigler said that about a week after meeting Ofstein in August, he (Ofstein) had visited Crigler in his home, and that twice more he (Crigler) had visited Ofstein in his (Ofstein's) house.

 

Ofstein's WC testimony was taken at 2 p.m., on March 30, 1964.

Mr. OFSTEIN. No, sir. After Oswald was released from employment, I did ask the recruiting sergeant for Army security here in town, who I was stationed with overseas, about the possibility of getting the FBI to run a routine check on him because of the fact that I have done security work, and the. fact that I also--this was just before I wrote the letter to Oswald inviting him and his wife over--due to the fact that I wanted to keep my record clean. Well, I didn't suspect him as being a spy or anything like that--I just wanted to make sure I was with the right company, and he told me that it was probably nothing.
Mr. JENNER. You wanted to inquire not only with respect to him but also whether you were with the right company?
Mr. OFSTEIN. Well, sir, I wouldn't jeopardize losing any chance of getting a security clearance at anytime I needed it.
Mr. JENNER. And, Sergeant Crozier, did you say his name was--I believe it is Sergeant Geiger.
Mr. OFSTEIN. His first name is Tom--I can't remember his last name now.
Mr. JENNER. Or, is it Kriegler?
Mr. OFSTEIN . Kriegler yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. He had been in the service with you, you had served together?
Mr. OFSTEIN. Yes, sir.

 

So, sometime between August, 1963 (and at least three more times when they had been in each others' homes) and a two-day FBI interview on December 2^nd and 3^rd, 1963, Ofstein forgot Crigler's last name by March, 1964.

 

Seems a little odd.

 

(Source: Email from John O'Neil) (served in 1960)

https://www.usarmygermany.com/Sont.htm?https&&&www.usarmygermany.com/Units/ASA%20Europe/USAREUR_ASAE.htm

 

My next duty station (after Vint Hill Farms) was with the 507th USASA Group (Field Army) at Heilbronn am Neckar. We had 4 -2½ ton trucks with expandable sides that held all our IBM equipment that ran off portable diesel generators (one per truck).

 

Jim Campbell in his email said “(When I was in, no 206 had ever re-enlisted - IBM had a job ready for them when they got out.)” When I got out I went to the IBM office in San Francisco, showed them my diploma with TJ Watson’s signature and asked for a job, they asked me what I knew about computers, so I told them I’d seen one in Germany. I got the hint when they said ‘Goodbye, thanks for stopping in”.

Late in 1962 was not the time to look for a job repairing the soon to be obsolete IBM punched card machines! It all turned out for the best. I worked as a tab operator while I taught myself computer programming and all that stuff and lived happily ever after. My wife, our three children and I moved to Australia 40 years ago.

 

Hielbronn was where Dennis Ofstein of Jaggers-Chiles-Stovall fame and Thomas H. Crigler were stationed.

Thomas Crigler worked as an Army recruiter. There was a recruiting office about one or two blocks from the Texas Theater and Brewer's Shoe store in Oak Cliff. Crigler lived at 1705 McAdams in Oak Cliff.

Remember the IBM men in Brewer's Shoe Store?

https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/ofstein.htm

Dennis Ofstein, a "Monterey Mary", who studied Russian at the Monterey School of Languages for a year, who spent his military tour of duty with the 507^th USASA Group, Heilbronn, West Germany; whose mission it was to intercept and translate Russian and East German military traffic, and who worked "side by side" with Oswald and taught him everything he knew about enlarging and reducing prints, opaqueing negatives, and making clean prints - exactly the skills Alwyn Cole, a questioned documents expert of the Department of the Treasury, told the WC you would need to forge documents, and who told the WC that's what was done with the Oswald SS card to turn it into the Hidell SS card.

Steve Thomas

 

[Ron Ege]

On 8/19/2022 at 9:11 AM, Gil Jesus said:

Oswald, the ex-Marine who defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, was hired by Jaggers-Childs-Stovall on October 12, 1962, just days before a U-2 flight over Cuba took photos of a Soviet missile build-up on the island. The company President, Robert Stovall, testified to the Warren Commission that his company did do secret work for the US Government, but only those employees who were cleared by the DOD had access to the work.

Oswald, he testified, was not among them.

But that's not what Jack L. Bowen, a former assistant art director at Jaggers told the FBI. Bowen was interviewed on December 7, 1963 and told the FBI that he was in the office of Ray Hawkins, foreman of the photo department when Oswald was explaining Russian symbols on maps the firm was preparing for the United States Army.

Keep in mind that Oswald was employed at Jaggers during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Army would have been very interested in having Russian maps translated into English. Any military contractor doing this type of work would have considered someone with Oswald's skill to read and interpret Russian as a excellent hire and it raises the question as to whether Stovall lied to the Commission or had Oswald been cleared by the DoD.

As a sidebar, Jaggers' photo department foreman Ray Hawkins had the same name as the Dallas Police officer Ray Hawkins who was present during the Oswald arrest in the Texas Theater. They don't seem to be the same person, the Officer Hawkins in 1963 had been with the police department for 11 years. But it doesn't discount the possibility that they are related.

Or maybe its just another one of those curious coincidences.

Gil,

" . . . had Oswald been cleared . . . "

Having worked "hand in hand" with defense contractors for many, many years, the obvious answer, IMHO, is, "absolutely".  But - " . . . by the DoD." - in a technical, "by the books" sense?  Maybe, maybe not. 

Contractors DO NOT want to undergo the administrative nightmare of dealing with a DoD investigation due to their failure to abide by ALL security regulations.  The administrative nightmare of doing so is bad enough, let alone losing any and all present and future DoD business due to just cavalierly letting someone work on classified material/projects without the proper clearance.

Now, if the "someone" is allowed to be, shall we say to, " be the exception to the rule", then by simple deduction, there has to have been something tacit and/or arcane that had been agreed to, for that "someone" to be allowed access.

So, do we believe that it is beyond imagination that some DoD "unofficial" entity made a "handshake" agreement with an intelligence agency (CIA and or ONI?) that the DoD would conveniently "overlook" any classified access violations, due to "an ongoing intelligence operation, vital to national security" - with JCS being just one of the valued intelligence contributors to said operation?

 

[Guest]

Assumed on March 31, 1963 the Backyard Photos are taken by Marina The next day April 1, 1963: LHO fired by Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall Coincidence ?  Or did LHO got caught doing something at JCS ? Those 2 dates, just don't know...

[Greg Doudna]

5 hours ago, Ron Ege said:

Gil,

" . . . had Oswald been cleared . . . "

Having worked "hand in hand" with defense contractors for many, many years, the obvious answer, IMHO, is, "absolutely".  But - " . . . by the DoD." - in a technical, "by the books" sense?  Maybe, maybe not. 

Contractors DO NOT want to undergo the administrative nightmare of dealing with a DoD investigation due to their failure to abide by ALL security regulations.  The administrative nightmare of doing so is bad enough, let alone losing any and all present and future DoD business due to just cavalierly letting someone work on classified material/projects without the proper clearance.

Now, if the "someone" is allowed to be, shall we say to, " be the exception to the rule", then by simple deduction, there has to have been something tacit and/or arcane that had been agreed to, for that "someone" to be allowed access.

So, do we believe that it is beyond imagination that some DoD "unofficial" entity made a "handshake" agreement with an intelligence agency (CIA and or ONI?) that the DoD would conveniently "overlook" any classified access violations, due to "an ongoing intelligence operation, vital to national security" - with JCS being just one of the valued intelligence contributors to said operation?

A friend of mine from college days in Big Sandy, Texas, faculty when I was a student in the early 1970s and we continued in contact over the years, lived next door to the grandmother of two sons of one of the owners of Jaggers-Childs-Stovall. I do not remember the last name but they worked at Jaggers themselves as well as their father involved with running the company. My friend happened to have gone into the same trade and had his own business in Big Sandy, typesetting, as was done at Jaggers, and so when the grandsons would come to Big Sandy to visit grandma he talked shop with them. This would have been maybe late 1970s. The point: the grandsons told Dixon, my friend, that they knew Oswald when Oswald had worked there. As Dixon recounted the story to me, one of the grandsons still marveled at how odd it was that when they (the company) called to Washington, D.C. to get approval (clearance related?) for Oswald's employment they were told, "oh, we know about him--he's OK." Apparently fast-tracking what the company had anticipated to be a more thorough vetting of information. There are several layers of hearsay in this, but it comes to mind from your comment Ron E.

[Mark Knight]

1 hour ago, Greg Doudna said:

A friend of mine from college days in Big Sandy, Texas, faculty when I was a student in the early 1970s and we continued in contact over the years, lived next door to the grandmother of two sons of one of the owners of Jaggers-Childs-Stovall. I do not remember the last name but they worked at Jaggers themselves as well as their father involved with running the company. My friend happened to have gone into the same trade and had his own business in Big Sandy, typesetting, as was done at Jaggers, and so when the grandsons would come to Big Sandy to visit grandma he talked shop with them. This would have been maybe late 1970s. The point: the grandsons told Dixon, my friend, that they knew Oswald when Oswald had worked there. As Dixon recounted the story to me, one of the grandsons still marveled at how odd it was that when they (the company) called to Washington, D.C. to get approval (clearance related?) for Oswald's employment they were told, "oh, we know about him--he's OK." Apparently fast-tracking what the company had anticipated to be a more thorough vetting of information. There are several layers of hearsay in this, but it comes to mind from your comment Ron E.

That's some very interesting information, Greg.

Yes, it's hearsay, but it's still QUITE interesting. And to me, it's NOT shocking.