Warren Commission Senior Attorney Wesley Liebeler's Weak Dismissal Of Sylvia Odio Story.

[Joe Bauer]

Just came across this recorded question and answer radio interview program from 1966 on a station out of San Francisco, CA...call letters KCBS.

The guest interviewee is Wesley Liebeler, a former senior attorney for the Warren Commission.

Liebeler conducted the Warren Commission questioning of Sylvia Odio.

We all know of Ms. Odio's "Leon Oswald" meeting story.

If it really was Lee Harvey Oswald who was with two other men who visited Odio at her apartment in the Dallas area the evening of September 25th, 1963 ... the JFKA conspiracy implications are staggering.

The call-in questioner in this segment of the interview was extremely well informed of the Sylvia Odio story and asked Liebeler very coherent and important point questions.

You can tell Liebeler knows this caller-in fellow knows his stuff.

What struck me about Liebeler's answers was how hesitatingly "unsure" he seemed be in directly dismissing Sylvia Odio and her story.

He just would not say her Oswald meet up tale was flat out untrue.

The best he could come up with was a "I simply don't think it was Oswald at that meeting."

Personally, my gut feeling instincts tell me that Liebeler knew Sylvia Odio was telling the truth.

He then shares a really vague proposal inferring Ms. Odio had some personal issues which tainted her credibility. Much was later reported about Sylvia Odio's mental health at the time.

i.e. fainting spells, anxiety attacks?   

Listen to the radio program question and answer format recording yourself ( link below ) and decide for yourself whether Liebeler's waffling answers exposed his own unsureness regards Ms. Odio and her Leon Oswald story being more true than not.

Liebeler had to share his vague inference of Ms. Odio being mistaken about her story due to emotional problems... but the "Big White Elephant In The Room" question remains...

Syliva Odio's sister Annie was right there in apartment with the three men at the same time as Sylvia. She had a good look at the three men herself.

She was rock steady in her confirmation of her sister's story and of the American being Lee Harvey Oswald. 

And Annie Odio had no medical history record of emotional issues at all.

So, there were "two" eyewitnesses to Lee Oswald's presence in Sylvia Odio's apartment that evening.

Of course, Liebeler and the Warren Commission would not call Annie Odio to testify.

Sylivia Odio's Oswald meeting story was so important, they should have.

9:14NOW PLAYING

 

 

LEE HARVEY OSWALD & SYLVIA ODIO (1966 RADIO SHOW EXCERPT WITH WESLEY LIEBELER)

 

 

 

 

4.4K views8 years ago

 

David Von Pein's JFK Channel

COMPLETE PROGRAM: http://dvp-video-audio-archive.blogspot.com/2012/03/defending-warren-

 

 

 

Edited June 4, 2023 by Joe Bauer

[Matt Allison]

This is super cool, Joe; thanks for posting it.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Semi-related: in this vintage episode of "Firing Line" with guest Mark Lane, he at one point says he's going to sue Liebeler for comments made about him and "Rush To Judgment" :

 

 

[Joe Bauer]

I've watched this episode of Firing Line 25 times.

Buckley always liked to get the intellectual upper hand very early on in his jousting debate engagements with his guests. Regularly injecting high academic minded words, phrases and quotes that he knew went over the heads of some of them as well as most of his audience.

IMO it was a purposeful intimidation tactic that rendered his opponents less sure of themselves intellectually.

However, with Mark Lane this usual game plan of Buckleys didn't work.

Mark Lane countered Buckley's best debate points so well...you could see Buckley uncomfortably "buckling" at times.

Scribbling on his note pad. Looking down and away for several second long pauses and trying to come up with some new counter point punch backs.

The audience knew Buckley had met his match with Lane.

If I was a referee and this was a boxing match...I would have given the win to Lane.

Watching Buckley and Lane at the same time on split screen created a funny quirky scene.

Almost the entire time Mark Lane's head was immersed in a cloud of pipe smoke puffs.

Surprised Buckley didn't call for a fan to be turned on Lane during one of the breaks.

 

Edited May 25, 2023 by Joe Bauer

[David Von Pein]

BTW / JFTR (Just For The Record).....

Here's a working link for the complete 1966 KCBS radio program featuring Wesley Liebeler. The link in the opening post is broken and incomplete:
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Edited May 25, 2023 by David Von Pein

[Joe Bauer]

DVP You have offered this 1966 KCBS radio interview on your web site for many years now.

 

[Joe Bauer]

Liebeler first claimed ignorance about the "Leopoldo" the caller mentioned.

A Cuban out of 1963 New Orleans who was involved in gun running to Cuba and mentioned in a CIA report.

A man who knew Jack Ruby.

Liebeler said this had nothing to do with the JFKA.

The caller disagreed.

Wonder if Sylvia Odio was ever shown a photograph of this gun running Cuban Leopoldo to see if he was the Leopoldo she met the night of Sept 25 at her apartment?

 

[David Von Pein]

More "Odio" Banter....

In 2012, I archived a pretty good "Sylvia Odio" Internet discussion, featuring Jean Davison and John McAdams:

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2012/03/sylvia-odio-part-2.html

 

Edited May 25, 2023 by David Von Pein

[Matt Allison]

28 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

In 2012, I archived a pretty good "Sylvia Odio" Internet discussion, featuring Jean Davison and John McAdams:

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2012/03/sylvia-odio-part-2.html

Interesting indeed; we have John McAdams positing that LHO was being driven around Texas by a couple of unknown men!

"if he was palling around with two other guys in Dallas, they could have driven him to Houston to get on the bus."

For me, for Dick Russell, for the fellow that called into that radio show in 1966, the answer has always been that Oswald was driven from New Orleans to Dallas on September 25th, 1963, and seen by the Odio sisters that evening around 8-9 PM.

[Michael Griffith]

10 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

More "Odio" Banter....

In 2012, I archived a pretty good "Sylvia Odio" Internet discussion, featuring Jean Davison and John McAdams:

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2012/03/sylvia-odio-part-2.html

If this were any other case, the Odio sisters' story would be universally regarded as credible and important. But WC apologists simply cannot allow themselves to accept the Odios' account because it poses unsolvable problems for the lone-gunman theory. WC apologists hold the Odio sisters to a markedly unreasonable standard, a standard that they never apply to pro-WC witnesses, and a standard that would be dismissed as invalid and excessively biased by any competent prosecutor.

To its great credit, and to G. Robert Blakey's great credit, the HSCA concluded that the Odio sisters' account was credible, and the HSCA report does a good job of answering the WC's excuses for rejecting it:

Findings | National Archives (pp. 138-140)

Here is some of what I say about Posner's attack on Silvia Odio in my online book Hasty Judgment:

          Posner strongly questions the credibility of Silvia Odio, who reported a very specific and disturbing Oswald impersonation involving anti-Castro Cubans (6:175-180). Posner paints her as an emotionally unstable woman who either imagined her story or made it up to get attention. Posner's attack, however, is both slanted and incomplete. The available evidence supports Mrs. Odio's story. A senior Warren Commission staffer wrote, "Mrs. Odio has checked out thoroughly," and called her "the most significant witness linking Oswald to the anti-Castro Cubans" (14:389-390). The House Select Committee examined Mrs. Odio's story and also concluded it was credible (11:480). Similarly, British scholar Matthew Smith studied the relevant evidence and came away convinced that Mrs. Odio was reliable (15:257-259).

          Posner seeks to exploit the fact that Mrs. Odio did not tell her story to the authorities right away. Yet, as Posner surely ought to know, Mrs. Odio was afraid to go to the authorities. In fact, she did not discuss her experience with official investigators until the FBI approached her after a series of private conversations about it came to the attention of an FBI agent. Only after the FBI contacted her did she discuss her story with government representatives. 

          Incredibly, as part of his attack on Mrs. Odio, Posner quotes Carlos Bringuier. This is the same Carlos Bringuier who, in 1963, was a CIA contact in New Orleans, a fanatical right-wing Cuban exile, and the propaganda secretary for the CIA-sponsored Cuban Revolutionary Council (11:389-390). (Posner describes Bringuier merely as an "anti-Castro leader.") It was Bringuier who picked that suspicious "fight" with Oswald in New Orleans. Bringuier's original anti-Castro headquarters was located in Guy Banister's building on 544 Camp Street. Oddly enough, this address appeared on one of Oswald's Fair Play for Cuba leaflets. Many assassination researchers suspect Bringuier and Banister of having participated in the framing of Oswald as the patsy for the assassination. (LINK)

I think it is revealing and instructive that WC apologists accept the problem-riddled accounts of such witnesses as Helen Markham, William Whaley, Howard Brennan, and Domingo Benavides, but they bend over backward to reject the Odio sisters' account. 

Edited May 25, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Joe Bauer]

2 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

I think it is revealing and instructive that WC apologists accept the problem-riddled accounts of such witnesses as Helen Markham, William Whaley, Howard Brennan, and Domingo Benavides, but they bend over backward to reject the Odio sisters' account. 

 

Don't forget the WC dismissing journalist Seth Kantor's recollection testimony of meeting and talking to Jack Ruby at Parkland Hospital while JFK was there.

Something about over-excitement mental misremembering?

And instead embracing the mentally deranged Jack Ruby's claim that he did not go to Parkland that afternoon?

Now THAT was the WHOPPER of illogical truth altering WC WHOPPERS.

 

[Greg Doudna]

10 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

Interesting indeed; we have John McAdams positing that LHO was being driven around Texas by a couple of unknown men!

"if he was palling around with two other guys in Dallas, they could have driven him to Houston to get on the bus."

For me, for Dick Russell, for the fellow that called into that radio show in 1966, the answer has always been that Oswald was driven from New Orleans to Dallas on September 25th, 1963, and seen by the Odio sisters that evening around 8-9 PM.

Agreed except the time of the visit I believe Annie Odio put it a little earlier, ca 6-7 pm or so? Perhaps her memory is better on that detail (although Silvia said the men apologized for showing up at her door as late as they did). From a modern driving time calculator New Orleans to Dallas is only 7-1/2 hours by highway 20, time for Oswald (maybe already in a car being driven) to pick up and cash his check in New Orleans, then the drive to Dallas. 

If somehow Oswald, normally a clean person, was without access to his razor that last night in New Orleans, could that account for Silvia noticing her oswald needed a shave? 

I see a possible confirmation of the Wednesday date (sept 25) that may not have been much noticed. Her father writing from imprisonment under eyes of censors has to speak carefully almost indirectly but sufficient to be understood. One thing he does (he is answering Silvia who wrote asking about the three men claiming to be Odio Sr’s friends) is write lengthy on family matters in terribly small writing. Perhaps a tactic to reduce censors’ attentiveness? But the key point: he advises Silvia to not go out unchaperoned with her women friends “on Wednesday nights”, warning of trouble. It’s that Wednesday night detail that I noticed. Could that be a reference to Wednesday sept 25 told by Silvia in her (lost) letter to her father? And that is her fathers way of trying to warn her not to go with those men? Maybe that’s reading too much into it, but even in the face value reading of the words, the night the men arrived at her door she was preparing to go out (unknown with who or where), which if that is the reference of Odio Sr still dates it to a Wednesday, I.e. Sept 25.

In short it has long been raised as an objection to the Silvia Odio visit really being Oswald the timeline objection, when for these reasons there is no timeline objection. In fact the juxtaposition in timing of the two—Oswald’s timing to Mexico City and the visit to Silvia Odio’s door—itself seems an indirect argument helping favor the visit was the same man who went to Mexico City ie Oswald. 

[James DiEugenio]

The people on this board should know this since its pretty much JFK 101 .

The Commission was desperate to discredit Odio--a powerful witness with eyewitness and written corroboration--any which way they could.

So Hoover made up that BS story about Howard, Hall and Seymour.  Which barely lasted past the printing of the volumes.

But also, Liebeler tried to seduce her after he interviewed her.  She fought him off. This was part of the strategy of turning her into a "loose woman" in Warren's eyes.

But before that visit to his hotel room, Wesley told Odio something remarkable.  

He told her that they had orders from Warren to bury any trace of conspiracy.

When she told Fonzi this, he was flabbergasted.  But she swore by it.

Edited May 25, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[David Von Pein]

4 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

But before that visit to his hotel room, Wesley told Odio something remarkable.  

He told her that they had orders from Warren to bury any trace of conspiracy.

When she told Fonzi this, he was flabbergasted.  But she swore by it.

And you actually believe this?

It's utterly ridiculous to think that Wesley J. Liebeler made any such statement to Sylvia Odio.

 

Edited May 25, 2023 by David Von Pein

[Michael Griffith]

16 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

The people on this board should know this since its pretty much JFK 101 .

The Commission was desperate to discredit Odio--a powerful witness with eyewitness and written corroboration--any which way they could.

So Hoover made up that BS story about Howard, Hall and Seymour.  Which barely lasted past the printing of the volumes.

But also, Liebeler tried to seduce her after he interviewed her.  She fought him off. This was part of the strategy of turning her into a "loose woman" in Warren's eyes.

But before that visit to his hotel room, Wesley told Odio something remarkable.  

He told her that they had orders from Warren to bury any trace of conspiracy.

When she told Fonzi this, he was flabbergasted.  But she swore by it.

12 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

And you actually believe this?

It's utterly ridiculous to think that Wesley J. Liebeler made any such statement to Sylvia Odio.

Given Liebeler's sharply critical and overtly skeptical internal reviews of the draft of the Commission's report, and given the Commission's repeated refusal to pursue leads that indicated conspiracy, I don't see why it's "utterly ridiculous" to believe that Liebeler said this to Silvia Odio. Occam's razor tells us that Odio, who had no agenda and no reason to lie, was telling the truth. 

The fact that the FBI fabricated the story about Howard, Hall, and Seymour in an attempt to explain away the Odio sisters' account is an obvious indication that this was not an honest, ethical investigation, but a cover-up.