Who Am I?

[Tim Gratz]

From John Simkin's post: "Are JFK Researchers at Risk?"

These “warnings” have given me the impression that I have been on the right track and has had the reverse effect on what my correspondent wanted. It might interest you to know the areas that people don’t want me writing about: . . . Clint Murchison.

I was a friend of Clint Murchison and a partner of his in his most famous business

venture. (For extra credit, name the business venture.)

Again, quoting Mr. Simkin:

These “warnings” have given me the impression that I have been on the right track and has had the reverse effect on what my correspondent wanted. It might interest you to know the areas that people don’t want me writing about: . . .the Bobby Baker scandal.

When Peter Dale Scott interviewed me in 1977, I was able to tell him things about the Bobby Baker scandal not generally known at that time.

In fact, when Bobby Baker was released from prison in 1971, I let him stay with me at my Cielo ranch north of Dallas.

From Mr. Simkin's post on Gordon Novel:

Jim Garrison discovered that (Novel), Sergio Arcacha Smith, David Ferrie and Guy Banister had been involved in a CIA operation to pick up "war material" for the Bay of Pigs attack at from the Schlumberger Well Company. Garrison subpoenaed Novel but he fled to Ohio. . .

A few weeks after Novel fled from New Orleans a woman cleaning his old apartment found a penciled draft of a letter wedged under a plastic cover alongside the kitchen. The letter was addressed to a Mr. Weiss. This letter was passed to Jim Garrison who concluded that it was a letter to Novel's CIA contact. "I took the liberty of writing you direct and apprising you of current situation, expecting you to forward this through appropriate channels. Our connection and activity of that period involves individuals presently about to be indicted as conspirators in Garrison's investigation."

Novel also said in the letter: "We have temporarily avoided one subpoena not to reveal Double Chek activities or associate them with this mess. We want out of this thing before Thursday 3/67. Our attorneys have been told to expect another subpoena to appear and testify on this matter. The fifth amendment and/or immunity (and) legal tactics will not suffice."

From Mr. Charles-Dune's post re Gordon Novel:

The "Mr. Weiss" letter found in Novel's abandoned New Orleans apartment is an interesting document. After much effort to identify the letter's intended recipient, I tentatively assumed [subject to the emergence of new details] it to be one Seymour Weiss, a New Orleans resident who had ties to both organized crime figures and - via Standard Fruit - US intelligence.

Weiss had been a "bagman" for Governor Huey Long. Weiss was three times indicted for criminal fraud, and once convicted. He was a member, with Dr. Oschner and Ed Butler, in INCA (familiar to most assassination researchers.)

Gov Long had a hidden interest in a slot machine company called Win or Lose Corporation. The two leading officers were Seymous Weiss and oilman Jimmy Noe.

Now here's your next clue: I married Jimmy Noes' daughter.

Don't give up, yet! Here are a few more clues:

According to Walter Sheridan's book Hoffa, I was one of the principal people putting pressure on Ed Partin to change his testimony against Hoffa in the Chattanooga jury tampering case.

Another clue:

I served in Naval Inteligence.

Ever heard of David Atlee Phillips? I was his friend, and I was, with him, the co-founder of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

Here is your last clue, ladies and gentlemen: Jack Ruby called me one of his six closest friends. I owned a Dallas radio station and Jack Ruby called my station on Sunday morning (Nov 24, 1963) looking for me. He spoke to Ken Dow and asked him: "Where is (my name)? I must talk to (my name)." This was, of course, shortly before Mr. Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald.

Surely you know me by now.

Edited January 6, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Jack White]

From John Simkin's post: "Are JFK Researchers at Risk?"

These “warnings” have given me the impression that I have been on the right track and has had the reverse effect on what my correspondent wanted. It might interest you to know the areas that people don’t want me writing about: . . . Clint Murchison.

I was a friend of Clint Murchison and a partner of his in his most famous business

venture.  (For extra credit, name the business venture.)

Again, quoting Mr. Simkin:

These “warnings” have given me the impression that I have been on the right track and has had the reverse effect on what my correspondent wanted. It might interest you to know the areas that people don’t want me writing about: . . .the Bobby Baker scandal.

When Peter Dale Scott interviewed me in 1977, I was able to tell him things about the Bobby Baker scandal not generally known at that time.

In fact, when Bobby Baker was released from prison in 1971, I let him stay with me at my Cielo ranch north of Dallas.

From Mr. Simkin's post on Gordon Novel:

Jim Garrison discovered that (Novel), Sergio Arcacha Smith, David Ferrie and Guy Banister had been involved in a CIA operation to pick up "war material" for the Bay of Pigs attack at from the Schlumberger Well Company. Garrison subpoenaed Novel but he fled to Ohio. . .

A few weeks after Novel fled from New Orleans a woman cleaning his old apartment found a penciled draft of a letter wedged under a plastic cover alongside the kitchen. The letter was addressed to a Mr. Weiss. This letter was passed to Jim Garrison who concluded that it was a letter to Novel's CIA contact. "I took the liberty of writing you direct and apprising you of current situation, expecting you to forward this through appropriate channels. Our connection and activity of that period involves individuals presently about to be indicted as conspirators in Garrison's investigation."

Novel also said in the letter: "We have temporarily avoided one subpoena not to reveal Double Chek activities or associate them with this mess. We want out of this thing before Thursday 3/67. Our attorneys have been told to expect another subpoena to appear and testify on this matter. The fifth amendment and/or immunity (and) legal tactics will not suffice."

From Mr. Charles-Dune's post re Gordon Novel:

The "Mr. Weiss" letter found in Novel's abandoned New Orleans apartment is an interesting document. After much effort to identify the letter's intended recipient, I tentatively assumed [subject to the emergence of new details] it to be one Seymour Weiss, a New Orleans resident who had ties to both organized crime figures and - via Standard Fruit - US intelligence.

Weiss had been a "bagman" for Governor Huey Long. Weiss was three times indicted for criminal fraud, and once convicted.  He was a member, with Dr. Oschner and Ed Butler, in INCA (familiar to most assassination researchers.)

Gov Long had a hidden interest in a slot machine company called Win or Lose Corporation.  The two leading officers were Seymous Weiss and oilman Jimmy Noe. 

Now here's your next clue:  I married Jimmy Noes' daughter.

Don't give up, yet! Here are a few more clues:

According to Walter Sheridan's book Hoffa, I was one of the principal people putting pressure on Ed Partin to change his testimony against Hoffa in the Chattanooga jury tampering case.

Another clue:

I served in Naval Inteligence. 

Ever heard of David Atlee Phillips?  I was his friend, and I was, with him, the co-founder of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

Here is your last clue, ladies and gentlemen:  Jack Ruby called me one of his six closest friends.  I owned a Dallas radio station and Jack Ruby called my station on Sunday morning (Nov 24, 1963) looking for me. He spoke to Ken Dow and asked him:  "Where is (my name)? I must talk to (my name)."  This was, of course, shortly before Mr. Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald.

Surely you know me by now.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The Old Scotsman, Gordon McLendon. I did not know he was involved

with the Dallas Cowboys.

Jack

[Tim Gratz]

[

The Old Scotsman, Gordon McLendon. I did not know he was involved

with the Dallas Cowboys.

Jack

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Right on, Jack. According to Peter Dale Scott in "Deep Politics" McLendon was a co-owner of the Dallas Cowboys with Murchison.

Let's not get ethnic here, however! (I am 25% Scotch.)

Edited January 6, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Tim Gratz]

[

The Old Scotsman, Gordon McLendon. I did not know he was involved

with the Dallas Cowboys.

Jack

[

To James Richards: Do you have a photo of McLendon?

[Tim Gratz]

[

The Old Scotsman, Gordon McLendon. I did not know he was involved

with the Dallas Cowboys.

Jack

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Jack's right, of course.

Readers: Please see the Eugene B. Conally post: "Jack Ruby and his sandwiches", dated August 27, 2004. (Re Ruby's Sunday morning call to McLendon's radio station.)

[James Richards]

To James Richards: Do you have a photo of McLendon? (Tim Gratz)

Here is McLendon below.

James

[Tim Gratz]

To James Richards:  Do you have a photo of McLendon? (Tim Gratz)

Here is McLendon below.

James

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I knew you'd come through, James! Thanks so much.

[Jack White]

[

The Old Scotsman, Gordon McLendon. I did not know he was involved

with the Dallas Cowboys.

Jack

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Right on, Jack. According to Peter Dale Scott in "Deep Politics" McLendon was a co-owner of the Dallas Cowboys with Murchison.

Let's not get ethnic here, however! (I am 25% Scotch.)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

On the radio Gordon advertised himself as THE OLD SCOTSMAN. He was famous

for recreating baseball broadcasts purely from telegraph reports. This was before

television and network reports.

Jack

[Tim Gratz]

[

The Old Scotsman, Gordon McLendon. I did not know he was involved

with the Dallas Cowboys.

Jack

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Right on, Jack. According to Peter Dale Scott in "Deep Politics" McLendon was a co-owner of the Dallas Cowboys with Murchison.

Let's not get ethnic here, however! (I am 25% Scotch.)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

On the radio Gordon advertised himself as THE OLD SCOTSMAN. He was famous

for recreating baseball broadcasts purely from telegraph reports. This was before

television and network reports.

Jack

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Didn't know that, of course. (Jack knew I was being humorous.)

[Larry Hancock]

If I recall correctly McClendon also was close enough to Phillips to

have worked with him on a TV project which was going to be a

"CIA case files" series with actual CIA successes showcased. Sort of

taking the CIA to the same level of popular appeal as the FBI.

The project never came to fruition but it leads one to speculate how

someone like Phillips who spent much of his life outside the U.S. came

to be so tight with someone like McClendon - and who else Phillips

might have had similar relationships with? Perhaps there are other

Phillips family or youth connections of equal interest?

You would think Gordon would have been in Phillips book....grin.

Great post Tim, completely escaped my memory with John was

asking about Phillips ties to Texas, probably a really important

connection.

-- Larry

[

The Old Scotsman, Gordon McLendon. I did not know he was involved

with the Dallas Cowboys.

Jack

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Right on, Jack. According to Peter Dale Scott in "Deep Politics" McLendon was a co-owner of the Dallas Cowboys with Murchison.

Let's not get ethnic here, however! (I am 25% Scotch.)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

On the radio Gordon advertised himself as THE OLD SCOTSMAN. He was famous

for recreating baseball broadcasts purely from telegraph reports. This was before

television and network reports.

Jack

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Jack White]

If I recall correctly McClendon also was close enough to Phillips to

have worked with him on a TV project which was going to be a

"CIA case files" series with actual CIA successes showcased.  Sort of

taking the CIA to the same level of popular appeal as the FBI.

The project never came to fruition but it leads one to speculate how

someone like Phillips who spent much of his life outside the U.S. came

to be so tight with someone like McClendon - and who else Phillips

might have had similar relationships with?  Perhaps there are other

Phillips family or youth connections of equal interest?

You would think Gordon would have been in Phillips book....grin.

Great post Tim,  completely escaped my memory with John was

asking about Phillips ties to Texas,  probably a really important

connection.

-- Larry

[

The Old Scotsman, Gordon McLendon. I did not know he was involved

with the Dallas Cowboys.

Jack

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Right on, Jack. According to Peter Dale Scott in "Deep Politics" McLendon was a co-owner of the Dallas Cowboys with Murchison.

Let's not get ethnic here, however! (I am 25% Scotch.)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

On the radio Gordon advertised himself as THE OLD SCOTSMAN. He was famous

for recreating baseball broadcasts purely from telegraph reports. This was before

television and network reports.

Jack

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If I recall correctly, McLendon and Bunker Hunt were partners in

collecting rare coins. I believe they eventually liquidated their

collection for very big bucks.

Jack

[Tim Gratz]

[

The Old Scotsman, Gordon McLendon. I did not know he was involved

with the Dallas Cowboys.

Jack, you are right!

Gary Mack advised me that Jack was right, and Peter Dale Scott got it wrong. Although McLendon was a close friend of the Murchisons, he never had an ownership interest in the Dallas cowboys.

(Scott was wrong, in this regard, about "the old Scotsman".)

Edited January 6, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[John Simkin]

Great thread. Another example of community intelligence at work. This thread alone would answer Dawn's question about the use of JFK Forums.

Now I have another person to create a page on. Thank you for all your contributions.

Isn't the forum fantastic at the moment. I am having trouble keeping up with all the excellent information being posted.

[Dawn Meredith]

Great thread Tim, this is what the forum is supposed to be about.

I agree with you John, BUT you still have not answered my question re. your anti-JFK comment. (Thus, I am being persistant). Do you ever read anything on Wim's forum? Tim Carroll had an excellent response to this particular post, but I am not sure how to post from one forum to another.....so all I can suggest is that readers read it there.

Now,, it's back to law as I have been on both forums now since 6 am and it is now 9 am. Time to WORK ))) (As if this were "play"??) )

Dawn

[John Simkin]

I agree with you John, BUT you still have not answered my question re.  your anti-JFK comment. (Thus,  I am being persistant).  Do you ever read anything on Wim's forum? Tim Carroll had an excellent response to this particular post, but I am not sure how to post from one forum to another.....so all I can suggest is that readers read it there.

I intend to produce a online seminar on the JFK myth and the assassination. However, this passage from a posting on the assassination and organized crime should give you an idea of where I am coming from:

One of the main arguments made for Mafia involvement in the assassination concerns the claim that Sam Giancana and his crime syndicate in Chicago helped JFK win Illinois. Therefore, JFK was killed because he did not deliver the things he promised Giancana. Does the evidence support this claim?

It is true that organized crime has been involved in trying to influence presidential elections since the early 1900s. They were particularly involved in trying to shape the result in Chicago. However, it is difficult to know just how successful they were in this. What was important is that politicians believed they had considerable influence. In fact, there is evidence that mobsters in Chicago told both candidates they were working for them. In this way they could go to the winning candidate and argue that they had helped them “steal the election”. For example, the FBI have tapes of mobsters from Chicago saying they were working for both JFK and Nixon in 1960.

The evidence suggests that it was Richard Daley who won Chicago for JFK. He probably used mobsters to help him with this. However, JFK and his representatives dealt with Daley, not mobsters. It has been suggested that it was Joe Kennedy who went to organized crime for help in the election. I severely doubt this. Joe was an experienced political operator. He knew that the FBI were monitoring organized crime figures. They might well have been monitoring his actions as well. He would have been crazy to have got involved in this kind of activity.

It is of course true that JFK did rely on buying votes to win the election. This is what happens in American politics. This is why I do not believe the US is a fully functioning democracy.

JFK also bought the nomination. The most important example of this concerns West Virginia. JFK was determined to put Hubert Humphrey out of the race. Polls suggested that Humphrey could win West Virginia. JFK decided to spend around $2m in bribes and other payoffs during the primary.

Journalists working for Wall Street Journal obtained a great deal of evidence what was going on. They also discovered where this money was coming from. This was a group described by the journalists as the Irish Mafia. They were a group of businessmen linked to JFK who wanted federal contracts or political jobs in return. However, the editor of the Wall Street Journal refused to publish the story. Not because he was in the pay of JFK but because he was part of the media conspiracy to hide political corruption in the United States. As the editor would have pointed out, all leading politicians in America were surrounded by businessmen involved in buying political favours. Humphrey was no different and the journalists had to admit that they had also discovered that he was buying votes in West Virginia.

The problem was not that mobsters were buying political favours. The problem was that the pillars of the community were doing it. It was an integral part of the political system. The finger was only pointed at the Mafia when it suited political leaders to do so.

If we go on to the actual presidential election itself, it is not true that the vote in Illinois won JFK the election. Nor was it the only state charged with vote fraud. The following states were investigated after the 1960 election: Illinois, New Jersey, Texas, Missouri, New Mexico, Nevada, South Carolina and Pennsylvania. Evidence of fraud in these states was sent to the Attorney General (Robert Kennedy). The votes in Texas, Michigan, New Jersey and Missouri gave particular concern as they all resulted in narrow victories for Kennedy. Understandably, RFK refused to take action against this fraud.

The narrowness of the electoral college victory is misleading. The Illinois vote gave JFK a 27 electoral vote lead over Nixon. However, there were also a 26 unpledged Democratic electors in Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama. They were still in negotiations with JFK about his civil rights policy. He had already given them promises when he was attempting to be the Democratic candidate at the beginning of the campaign. No doubt he would have been willing to have given it in writing if he needed to. JFK had already shown he was willing to do deals with racists. We must not believe the myth that JFK (or RFK for that matter) was a politician who believed in racial equality.

As I have already pointed out , JFK did not upset organized crime by persecuting them once he gained office. This is of course another myth. This took place in the 1970s, not the 1960s. People like Giancana were indeed upset with JFK in 1963. However, he was upset as a businessman, not as a gangster. JFK had not got him back his business interests in Cuba. It was not only the gangsters who was upset about this. William Pawley and Earl Smith are just two of those businessmen who had lost a lot of money because of the actions of Castro.

One of the major problems that arises from the investigation of the assassination is the belief that JFK was different from other American politicians. He was indeed no more honest or corrupt than all the others who sought to become president. However, because he was assassinated, the media has constructed a mythical figure. This is especially loved by Democratic voters and explains the reasons why some people become interested in the events surrounding the assassination.

It is of course possible that JFK became a changed man after the Cuban Missile Crisis. This in itself could explain why he needed to be assassinated. However, before 1962, he was your regular corrupt politician.

Another aspect of this myth concerns JFK’s relationship with the CIA. This is an important topic and will therefore start a new thread where these issues can be discussed in detail.