Japanese linguist John Hurt

[Jim Root]

Robert

Love where my research has taken me surrounding John B. Hurt.

Just for the record. Hurt was working in the "Old Munitions Building" that also housed General George Marshall and his staff. On Marshall's immediate staff (one of twelve, I believe) was the Armies best Japanese Linguist, Maxwell Taylor, who would later become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs during the Kennedy asminsitration. It is now speculated that the Armys Secret Intelligence Organization, headed by Whitney Shepardson and/or John Grombach maintained a second group of Japanese translators of which Taylor may have been a part.

In a document written by Hurt in 1947 he states that the information was available to know beforehand, that the Japanese were going to bomb Pearl Harbor but, because of the backlog of documents to be translated, the limited number of translators, and the priority assigned to his unit of what to translate the document in question were not seen by him until several months after Dec. 7, 1941.

Interestingly, the Black Chamber (Americas code breaking operations prior to 1930), were operated by Herbert Yardley. In one of the great mysteries of recent year espionage research is why would John Grombach (head of SI) dedicate a book to Herbert Yardley? We do know that Yardley maintained an office in New York and it is now beleived that he was still doing code for SI (Grombach, Shepardson and perhaps Shepardsons good friend, John J. McCloy).

The best information that I have been able to gather on the relationship between these people and Richard Helms came after speculating upon whom the Raleigh call really went to and how that call (if I am correct) went quickly through this particular "cut out" and would make it to the highest levels of US Intelligence very quickly.

While there is a degree of speculation here that I readily admit, the fact is that I have uncovered a document that many current "Cold War" crypto historians have only heard about along with a cache of letters detailing meetings with Richard Helms in the months immediately preceeding Oswald's entry into the Soviet Union. In a series of exchanges one former SI man suggests that the CIA/(by name Dick) Helms has an important mission that he wants kept at a distance from the CIA that is going to go through Helsinki, Finland in the near future. When Shepardson and others hear what this one SI person is speculating Shepardson directs the others to keep him out of the loop. Just a few months following this exchange of letters, Oswald enters the Soviet Union via Helsinki.

This same group of SI people (of which Richard, Dick, Helms) is a part were engaged in "Operation Stella Polaris" at the end of WWII. This operation led to "Venona" or the breaking of Soviet Codes which NSA crptomen Meridith Gardner and Frank Rowlett would be in charge of. Just by chance Gardner and Rowlett would be the two men assigned by the NSA to investigate Lee Harvey Oswald potential intellegence connections. Just as a sidelight Hurt began working closely with Gardner perhaps as early as 1942.

And, another side note, Hurt did speak many many languages.....as far as Russian, his first and third wife (one and the same) was Russian.

Hurt's work after 1947 for the NSA is still classified. Hurt is the only one of Friedman's original team that we do not know what he was doing in the 1950's. I had an opportunity to engage a NSA historian on the subject of John B. Hurt and he assured me that Hurt's work (with hand written notes) was made directly available to John J. McCloy during WWII although there is no record of the two men ever having met directly. After several exchanges and immediate responses from this historian I asked if Hurt spoke Russian (something that family members assured me that he did). The historian took nearly six weeks to respond with a very strange email where he said that he could only confirm that Hurt spoke "these languages...." Although a long list followed Russian was not one of those listed.

I could be wrong but it seems plausible that Hurt not only spoke Russian (something the Historian did not deny) and that his still classified work may have been in this particular field.

I have more but will leave you with one more thought about the creation of the Warren Commission and John J. McCloy being placed upon it.

.......And we wonder why LBJ was worried about WWIII

Jim Root

[William O'Neil]

Robert

Love where my research has taken me surrounding John B. Hurt.

Just for the record. Hurt was working in the "Old Munitions Building" that also housed General George Marshall and his staff. On Marshall's immediate staff (one of twelve, I believe) was the Armies best Japanese Linguist, Maxwell Taylor, who would later become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs during the Kennedy asminsitration. It is now speculated that the Armys Secret Intelligence Organization, headed by Whitney Shepardson and/or John Grombach maintained a second group of Japanese translators of which Taylor may have been a part.

In a document written by Hurt in 1947 he states that the information was available to know beforehand, that the Japanese were going to bomb Pearl Harbor but, because of the backlog of documents to be translated, the limited number of translators, and the priority assigned to his unit of what to translate the document in question were not seen by him until several months after Dec. 7, 1941.

Interestingly, the Black Chamber (Americas code breaking operations prior to 1930), were operated by Herbert Yardley. In one of the great mysteries of recent year espionage research is why would John Grombach (head of SI) dedicate a book to Herbert Yardley? We do know that Yardley maintained an office in New York and it is now beleived that he was still doing code for SI (Grombach, Shepardson and perhaps Shepardsons good friend, John J. McCloy).

The best information that I have been able to gather on the relationship between these people and Richard Helms came after speculating upon whom the Raleigh call really went to and how that call (if I am correct) went quickly through this particular "cut out" and would make it to the highest levels of US Intelligence very quickly.

While there is a degree of speculation here that I readily admit, the fact is that I have uncovered a document that many current "Cold War" crypto historians have only heard about along with a cache of letters detailing meetings with Richard Helms in the months immediately preceeding Oswald's entry into the Soviet Union. In a series of exchanges one former SI man suggests that the CIA/(by name Dick) Helms has an important mission that he wants kept at a distance from the CIA that is going to go through Helsinki, Finland in the near future. When Shepardson and others hear what this one SI person is speculating Shepardson directs the others to keep him out of the loop. Just a few months following this exchange of letters, Oswald enters the Soviet Union via Helsinki.

This same group of SI people (of which Richard, Dick, Helms) is a part were engaged in "Operation Stella Polaris" at the end of WWII. This operation led to "Venona" or the breaking of Soviet Codes which NSA crptomen Meridith Gardner and Frank Rowlett would be in charge of. Just by chance Gardner and Rowlett would be the two men assigned by the NSA to investigate Lee Harvey Oswald potential intellegence connections. Just as a sidelight Hurt began working closely with Gardner perhaps as early as 1942.

And, another side note, Hurt did speak many many languages.....as far as Russian, his first and third wife (one and the same) was Russian.

Hurt's work after 1947 for the NSA is still classified. Hurt is the only one of Friedman's original team that we do not know what he was doing in the 1950's. I had an opportunity to engage a NSA historian on the subject of John B. Hurt and he assured me that Hurt's work (with hand written notes) was made directly available to John J. McCloy during WWII although there is no record of the two men ever having met directly. After several exchanges and immediate responses from this historian I asked if Hurt spoke Russian (something that family members assured me that he did). The historian took nearly six weeks to respond with a very strange email where he said that he could only confirm that Hurt spoke "these languages...." Although a long list followed Russian was not one of those listed.

I could be wrong but it seems plausible that Hurt not only spoke Russian (something the Historian did not deny) and that his still classified work may have been in this particular field.

I have more but will leave you with one more thought about the creation of the Warren Commission and John J. McCloy being placed upon it.

.......And we wonder why LBJ was worried about WWIII

Jim Root

Jim, Given that Hurt could master languages very well (even without formal intruction) is it possible that he taught Oswald Russian ? Or, at least tutored him in the skills to master it in a short period?

-Bill

[Jim Root]

Jim, Given that Hurt could master languages very well (even without formal intruction) is it possible that he taught Oswald Russian ? Or, at least tutored him in the skills to master it in a short period?

-Bill

Bill

I guess one might say that anything is possible. In this case I find it highly unlikely that Oswald and John B. Hurt would have ever met. I have never seen anything that even suggests that they may have been in the same place at the same time.

I find that it is highly likely that Edwin Walker was very much aware of John B. Hurt and may have been assigned, at one time, to monitor his activities. I also have it confirmed that John B. Hurt did provide intelligence information directly to John J. McCloy and that McCloy would have been very aware of and even directed Hurt's work. Can also make a connection between Hurt and Maxwell Taylor. Taylor and Hurt were working in the same location on the translation of Japanese Intelligence at exactly the same time but they may have been in seperate areas and may have never crossed paths. Although the former is correct to a degree I believe that there would have been many reasons why their paths may have crossed at that particular moment in time making it intirely possible that they did.

Jim Root

[Mark Knight]

Jim:

A question re: Oswald's call to/for John B. Hurt: What number was called--and can we prove that by telephone company records?--and to whom was the number registered? Surely not ALL 1963 paper telephone records have been destroyed. Perhaps you are right; perhaps Oswald phoned a cut-out, whose only job was to relay a message that Ozzie called for Hurt. Or maybe there was something else involved.

Perhaps this has been discussed before; but if so, I guess I missed it.

[Robert Howard]

Jim:

A question re: Oswald's call to/for John B. Hurt: What number was called--and can we prove that by telephone company records?--and to whom was the number registered? Surely not ALL 1963 paper telephone records have been destroyed. Perhaps you are right; perhaps Oswald phoned a cut-out, whose only job was to relay a message that Ozzie called for Hurt. Or maybe there was something else involved.

Perhaps this has been discussed before; but if so, I guess I missed it.

Mark: The Oswald/Hurt matter is probably scattered over this thread, but there was an earlier thread that died in 2006 entitled

New John Hurt info?

It might be worth a shot to make sure it has been assimilated into this thread. BTW, I wonder if, as I do, anyone has doubts about the NSA's statement [i believe it is in one of Bamford's books] that NSA cryptologists analyzed Oswald's writings and noticed certain excisions had been made, but that there was nothing "conclusive."

An example of this issue can be found here

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...p;relPageId=153

The reason I mention this has to do with the Oxnard call, if you think about that allegation that the address of the woman placing the calls was "not known," does not that seem to ring a bit hollow, when you consider NSA listening posts could ostensibly, have picked up such a call and speculatively, I admit, have provided an address?

There is an allegation, that RFK went to such a location in Oxnard, within a day or two before he was assassinated, and kept it secret from his campaign staff, [maybe Peter Noyes source.] If, and it is a big if, he did go there......how did he know the address?

Edited January 9, 2010 by Robert Howard

[Mark Knight]

The RFK Oxnard allegation, as I understand it, is simply that: an allegation.

But on the LHO "Raleigh call," as it's known, there are simply two questions to answer: 1) what was the phone number called [the specific digits, in correct sequence]; and 2) to whom was that phone number registered on November 22-23, 1963?

Therein lies some answers that are needed to help solve the mystery.

Did Oswald, by calling that number and asking for John B. Hurt, sign his own death warrant? Depends on whose number it was, and who answered the phone that night. But my suspicion is that Oswald's death was hastened by that phone call. [And unlike Harry Holmes, I'm just an amateur "suspicioner."]

[Jim Root]

Mark

There is no record of any call to Raleign in the DPD Phone logs. If there had been this controversy would have long since been more clearly researched. There is a contemporary news film clip of a reporter mentioning the attempted call (just prior to the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald) as well as all the information that was examined at the HSCA hearings.

In 1963 a person to person collect phone call was only completed if the person on the other end accepted the charges. Once a person knew who was attempting to call them or if the intended recipiant of the call was not home home a choice could be made to accept or decline the call. This ttype of call could take a substantial amount of time to connect in 1963 and required operator assisstance. For myself it was not unusual to make this type of call to alert a girlfirend of some information without ever being charged for "sending" the information and without ever speaking to her. No call completed, no charges, no record. The perfect cut out type call.

I believe the information available supports this. In Oswald's attempts to contact Jonnathan Apt the operator had to access multiple numbers and made multiple attempts. It is my belief that she assumed Oswald would be as aggressive in contacting this new person. Instead Oswald seemed to be indifferent to the call being accepted and the operator tossed the additional numbers that she had accessed in case Oswald wanted make addition attempts to contact the particular named person in the same geographical area. SS was available and ready but Oswald was content with the fact that no one had accepted this call.

Two attorneys working for the Warren Commission and investigating the Silvia Odio incident speculated that the two men alledgedly with Oswald may have been able to supply Oswald with contact information or phone numbers to be used if Oswald needed to make contact for some reason. Until I uncovered this particular piece of information I was stumped to understand how Oswald would have had a number of a "cut out" to call. The fact that this speculation was made during the actual investigation intrigues me. On a side note the Edwin Walker collection at U. Of Texas Austin documents Walkers deep interest in the Odio inccident as well. One more person that is intrigued by this particular incident is Vincent Bugliosi. Bugliosi, the conspiracy skeptic, leaves the Odio incident as an open case that could perhaps be developed to uncover a potential conspiracy........but as yet he sees no evidence coming from this incident.

For myself I speculated (with I believe good reason) on who the Raleigh Call went to. That has led me to a cache of information that, for myself, supports everything I now belive to be true dealing with who and how the conspirators were and how they came together to first inset Oswald into the Soviet Union in 1959 and then, using the physco knowledge they had about him from that operation and what was gathered as a result of his return, were positioned to have the FBI begin to monitor Oswalds activities in 1963 and finally to direct the motorcade past where Oswald was working.

My story is complex I know. But the fact that John B. Hurt shares a name with someone Oswlad was alledgedly attempting to contact and that the work of John B. Hurt (1947-1963) is still today classified leads me to believe that Oswald may have been duped into signing his own death warrent by making that call. It would have been understood by any conspirators that a post assassination call made by an accused assassin would surely have been intercepted by the SS and passed on up the chain of command either by the perhaps who received the call but surely by those same SS men assigned to listen in on any call Oswald was making.

Toss into this mix that two very close associates of John B. Hurt were assigned by the NSA to investigate Oswald's potential intelligence contacts and we have a clear cut example of the fox guarding the hen house.

Jim Root

[Jim Root]

Did Oswald, by calling that number and asking for John B. Hurt, sign his own death warrant? Depends on whose number it was, and who answered the phone that night. But my suspicion is that Oswald's death was hastened by that phone call. [And unlike Harry Holmes, I'm just an amateur "suspicioner."]

Ditto

Jim Root

[Robert Howard]

Did Oswald, by calling that number and asking for John B. Hurt, sign his own death warrant? Depends on whose number it was, and who answered the phone that night. But my suspicion is that Oswald's death was hastened by that phone call. [And unlike Harry Holmes, I'm just an amateur "suspicioner."]

Ditto

Jim Root

Regarding the last question, my answer would be, he was already slated for what eventually happened, but it sure put the foot on the accelerator in a very big way.

By the way I believe this is by far the most important thread on the forum......Another BTW; see my comments to you [Jim Root] on the Serendipity thread if interested.

On another note, you may remember the researcher Michael Levy who is on record as obtaining an FOIA document that indicated Ruth Paine was making inquiries regarding Lee Harvey Oswald as early as circa 1954, 1957, not sure which .....

I believe lack of this document in a Forum post or what have you is .....unfortunate....

But Michael Levy's bonafides are pretty good...

I ran into another similar black hole regarding Seth Kantor's mention of an organized crime gathering in Dallas in late summer 1963, in which it appears that Sam Giancana may have personally appeared, but apparently he obtained the document under FOIA, as the references to persons in the DPD Report appear to be not verifiable.......

If you really want to get focused see Post 13 on this thread by Shanet......

And last but not least the Oswald Project is as much at the heart of the assassination mystery as the ONI/Signal Corp/NSA area.....

So the following may be of interest

Home/Archive/Documents/JFK Assassination Documents/JFK Documents - Central Intelligence Agency/HSCA Segregated CIA Collection (microfilm)/HSCA Segregated CIA Collection (microfilm - reel 20: ZRRIFLE, AMMUG)/

NARA Record Number: 104-10185-10443

DISPATCH: EXCON: ALLEGED ESPIONAGE AND EAST-WEST TRADE ASSOCIATES OF GIUSEPPE DE FLORENTIS OF COMMINT

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/....do?docId=32831

date of document January 14, 1954 names mentioned Guiseppe De Florentis, Count Nesta...there is reason to believe the term East West Trade may pertain to the origins of the Oswald Project as the last name Oswald and variations thereof were in a 1957 document that was destroyed see

104-10440-10015

MEMO:GPFLOOR:REPORTS POSSIBLY BEARING ON ASSASSINATION OF PRES.KENNEDY

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=7

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...c.do?docId=8716

The designations MSZA, ONHW were individual designations of persons with last names of Oswald, Osvald et cetera. And as you can see

from the URL above; the comment "File 8-6 was entitled East West Trade MSZA-Reports file destroyed 17-1-1957

Note the subject designation on the RIF Page to the second document "busybody," which may be Maria Snethlage.

The next area? of interest unless someone is already there.....concerns the death of Harrod G. Miller,

no disrespect to certain experts, [not on this forum] he was in the shadows after the 1950's, and he is, or should be, a big deal....

big

Edited May 23, 2010 by Robert Howard

[Robert Howard]

Did Oswald, by calling that number and asking for John B. Hurt, sign his own death warrant? Depends on whose number it was, and who answered the phone that night. But my suspicion is that Oswald's death was hastened by that phone call. [And unlike Harry Holmes, I'm just an amateur "suspicioner."]

Ditto

Jim Root

Regarding the last question, my answer would be, he was already slated for what eventually happened, but it sure put the foot on the accelerator in a very big way.

By the way I believe this is by far the most important thread on the forum......Another BTW; see my comments to you [Jim Root] on the Serendipity thread if interested.

On another note, you may remember the researcher Michael Levy who is on record as obtaining an FOIA document that indicated Ruth Paine was making inquiries regarding Lee Harvey Oswald as early as circa 1954, 1957, not sure which .....

I believe lack of this document in a Forum post or what have you is .....unfortunate....

But Michael Levy's bonafides are pretty good...

I ran into another similar black hole regarding Seth Kantor's mention of an organized crime gathering in Dallas in late summer 1963, in which it appears that Sam Giancana may have personally appeared, but apparently he obtained the document under FOIA, as the references to persons in the DPD Report appear to be not verifiable.......

If you really want to get focused see Post 13 on this thread by Shanet......

And last but not least the Oswald Project is as much at the heart of the assassination mystery as the ONI/Signal Corp/NSA area.....

So the following may be of interest

Home/Archive/Documents/JFK Assassination Documents/JFK Documents - Central Intelligence Agency/HSCA Segregated CIA Collection (microfilm)/HSCA Segregated CIA Collection (microfilm - reel 20: ZRRIFLE, AMMUG)/

NARA Record Number: 104-10185-10443

DISPATCH: EXCON: ALLEGED ESPIONAGE AND EAST-WEST TRADE ASSOCIATES OF GIUSEPPE DE FLORENTIS OF COMMINT

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/....do?docId=32831

date of document January 14, 1954 names mentioned Guiseppe De Florentis, Count Nesta...there is reason to believe the term East West Trade may pertain to the origins of the Oswald Project as the last name Oswald and variations thereof were in a 1957 document that was destroyed see

104-10440-10015

MEMO:GPFLOOR:REPORTS POSSIBLY BEARING ON ASSASSINATION OF PRES.KENNEDY

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=7

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...c.do?docId=8716

The designations MSZA, ONHW were individual designations of persons with last names of Oswald, Osvald et cetera. And as you can see

from the URL above; the comment "File 8-6 was entitled East West Trade MSZA-Reports file destroyed 17-1-1957

Note the subject designation on the RIF Page to the second document "busybody," which may be Maria Snethlage.

The next area? of interest unless someone is already there.....concerns the death of Harrod G. Miller,

no disrespect to certain experts, [not on this forum] he was in the shadows after the 1950's, and he is, or should be, a big deal....

big

The News and Observer, Raleigh, N.C.

Thursday, July 17, 1980

Mystery Surrounds Phone Calls by Kennedy Killer to Raleigh by Pat Stith

Staff Writer

Late on the night of November 22, 1963— about 12 hours before he was murdered by Jack Ruby— Lee Harvey Oswald may have tried to place a collect phone call to a "John Hurt" in Raleigh.

The call never went through and the two John Hurts to whom it might havebeen directed to say they have no idea why Oswald

would want to call them. A telephone operator who helped handle long-distance calls by prisoners in the Dallas jail that night told the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations about the call in 1978.

The operator said she had written down two Raleigh numbers Oswald tried to reach and kept them as a souvenir— numbers listed to a John David Hurt of Hillsborough Street and a John William Hurt of Forest Road. She said neither call was completed.

One of the men, John David Hurt, was a staff sergeant in U.S. Army counterintelligence during World War II.

"It was a disturbing story without a conclusion," G. Robert Blakey, the commitee's chief counsel and staff director told The News and Observer recently, "We could not satisfy ourselves that the call was made, that it was made from the outside in or form the inside outside."

Three committee investigators interviewed John David Hurt and his wife, Billie Greer Hurt, at their apartment in Raleigh in early 1978

See OSWALD page 11

Continued from page one

"We did look into Mr. Hurt and Mr. Hurt's background, and our judgement was that he was an honest man telling the truth as he knew it," Blakey said. "He had no ideaabout anything (connected to Oswald), he had not been involved in military intelligence for some time. and nothing he said contradicted what he told us."

A source with access to some unpublished committee reports said investigators had concluded that the operator, Mrs. Alveeta Treon,had "no motive to invent the story" but that it could not be corroborated.

The operator's story is mentioned briefly in a new book about the Kennedy assassination called "Conspiracy." The book does not disclose the numbers kept by the operator nor does it mention either Hurt.

Oswald is alleged to have made the Raleigh call about 11 p.m. on a Saturday, the day after he assassinated President Kennedy.The operator did not reveal her story to federal authorities until after the mid-1960s, after the Warren Commission completed its investigation.

The Select Committee on Assassinations, which investigated the assassinations of Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, did not mention her story in its reporteither. Its 28-volume report was published in December 1978.

Rep. L. Richardson Preyer, D-N.C. chairman of the subcommittee, said in a telephone interview last week that he had not been aware of the information about the call.

"Frankly, thats all news to me," Preyer said. "It would seem to me that something like that should have been mentioned (in the report)." Blakey, the committee staff director, said in a telephone interview from his home in Ithaca, N.Y.

"It was the kind of thing that we would have written up and published in a staff report if we had had more time."

John David Hurt, 72, and his wife have lived in the same Hillsborough Street apartment since before the assassination of President Kennedy." Hurt said in an interview that he had no idea why Oswald might have wanted to talk to him.

"I would like to have killed that S.O.B.," Hurt said, "I loved President Kennedy."

Hurt was born in River Bend, Colo. He said he grew up in Louisiana and Alabama and graduated from the University of Virginia law school, but never practiced law. He said he served in Europe and Japan during World War II, first in intelligence, and then later in counterintelligence. After the war, Hurt said, he worked as an insurance adjuster, primarily in North and South Carolina, retiring on full VA disability in 1955.

John William Hurt, 41, said in an interview that no one had contacted him about the telephone call.

"All I know about him (Oswald) is what I've read about in the newspapers and seen on T.V.," said Hurt who lives in a motel in Wake Forest.

He said he was born in Rolesville, dropped out of school in the 10th grade, never went into the military service, and had always lived in Wake County, working primarily in the tire recapping business. The N&O with assistance from researcher J.G. Harris of New York, interviewed sources in five states and in Washington and learned that the story about Oswald's last call had first come to the FBI's attention in the mid-1960s.

Mrs. Treon, the operator, lives now in Springfield, Mo. She told her story to Arnold Mickey Owen, the sheriff of Greene County, Mo., about 14 years ago. "She gave me the impression she was scared to death," Owen said in an telephone interview. "Absolutely afraid, period. In my opinion she thought she was telling the truth."

The sherrif said Mrs. Treon told him that she and her daughter and another telephone operator were in the Dallas City Hall switchboard room on the evening of Nov. 23, when two lawmen came in.

The lawmen said they expected Oswald to make a telephone call and that they wanted to listen in on the conversation.

Owen said Mrs. Treon told him that Oswald tried to make a long-distance telephone call to Raleigh, but that it didn't go through. "She claimed she had a slip that had been thrown in the wastepaper basket that verified the call," he said.

Mrs. Treon 59, could not be reached for comment. Her husband George O. Treon, 77, said Tueday that she had emphysema and had been hospitalized. Mrs. Treon's daughter, who was working in 1963 as a stenographer for the Dallas Police Department, corroborated her mother's story. The daughter asked not to be identified. Owen, who has been sheriff of Greene County for 16 years, said he turned the matter over to the FBI and heard no more about it.

A source with access to some of the House committee's unpublished investigative reports said the call was handled by the other operator, identified as Ms. L. Sweeney

The source said Mrs. Treon wrote the telephone call information down on a City of Dallas Long Distance Call Message sheet.

Her note said Oswald tried to call a "John Hurt" in Raleigh at "834-7430" or "833-1253."

The first number was to a John David Hurt and the second to John William Hurt.

Harold A. Rose of Baltimore, a former staff investigator for the Select Committee on Assassinations, said he had interviewed Mrs. Sweeney, who still works on the city hall switchboard in Dallas.

"The only thing I can tell you is the lady in Dallas, I interviewed was very, very nervous. She was very upset that I had discovered her. She didn't want to get involved."

The N&O could not reach Ms. Sweeney for comment, but Harris, the New York researcher, said she told him that Mrs. Treon was mistaken. He said Ms Sweeney told him she was alone on the switchboard that night.

"Treon wasn't there," Harris said Ms. Sweeney told him. "It wasn't that area code, It wasn't that city, (Raleigh) It wasn't that name (Hurt)." Investigator Rose observed: "I think it could have stood quite a bit more looking into."

END

Comment: If Alveeta Treon was mistaken, as Ms Swinney so categorically indicates, where did the phone numbers come from.

The Warren Commission Documents are quite specific that before the late night phone calls, earlier in the day, Oswald had asked for, and obtained "two telephone numbers," from a telephone operator.

The idea that the John Wiliam Hurt could be John B Hurt, as speculated; B being "Bill," an abbreviated version of William [see other thread John Hurt potential patsy] would be intriguing, if it were true...but the fact that he, ostensibly was working as a tire refitter, living in a motel at the time of the interview, and that THE John B Hurt died in 1966

seems to put that idea to rest.......There are other items to consider, in a big picture manner of speaking. Veteran researchers are no doubt familiar with Claire Booth Luce, especially in relation to her knowledge of certain Cubans, and the fact that she was, among other things , the US Ambassador to Italy, the first female to be awarded the Sylvanus Thayer Award...one could go on.....

For anyone who is actually reading this, not many people know that in 1954 Claire Booth Luce was in........Japan

See

INFORMATION REPORT: JAPANESE EMBASSY

12/08/1954

http://www.maryferre....do?docId=64412

1. The Japanese Ambassador Ken Harada accredited to the Quirinale gave a dinner in honor of the American Ambassador

Claire Booth Luce, at 2030 hours, 24 Febraury 1954. Among the guests were the following:..........

Edited June 21, 2010 by Robert Howard

[Jim Root]

Hi Robert, been a long time since I have logged on this site. Thanks for bringing this back.

If I remember correctly the first operator, Sweeney, was on duty when Treon came on to replace her. Sweeney, according to Treon, informed her that Oswald had attempted to make a phone call and that the Secret Service was there to monitor any call. I am drawing from memory but it seems that Oswald did not attempt a second call, Sweeney went off duty and Treon recovered the note with the two numbers and name "John Hurt" from the trash.

I believe Gary Mack has a recording of a newsbroadcaster that reported that Oswald had attempted an outgoing phone call. This news report was made just prior to Ruby killing Oswald and no further mention of the call was reported after that.

As I have reported before, my research into operation Stella Polaris (which began with a message decrypted by John B. Hurt)led me to investigate a Raleigh native that was involved in Operation Stella Polaris (which led to the Venona Secret), Secret Intelligence (SI) during WWII, who was openly a CIA operative and was meeting with an interesting group of people (led by 'Dick" Helms) in the weeks leading up to Oswalds entry into the Soviet Union in October 1959. This investigation has led me to uncover a most interesting cache of documents that lead to two very interesting people, Whitney Shepardson (a close associate of John J. McCloy) and Demetri Von Mohrenschildt (brother of Oswalds friend George). All these men are associated and all were involved with Richard Helms who, when when the CIA was created, brought with him his own intelligence organization.

Warren Report Investigators who looked into the Silvia Odio incident suggested that if the incident was in fact true, the men accompaning Oswald could have provided a contact number for a cut-out.

While speculative, the connection ties into a perfect knot a large amount of information that I have collected. It would first have Oswald defecting to the Soviet Union to aide in failure of the Paris Summit, something that McCloy sought. It would then have Oswald aide in the elimination of Kennedy and re-elevate McCloy to the position of chief arms negotiator, which McCloy was.

Rather than my research leading me to information that would contridict my theory, each major detour has led to a super highway of information that supports this journey.

Most serious researchers believe a call was made, the fact that it was not reported suggests that it may have led to something critical that could not, because of the security of the United States, be reported. The simple fact that Frank Rowlett and Meredith Garner (both close associates of John B. Hurt) would be selected to investigate Oswald for potential intelligence contacts suggests an acute tightness with which this whole area of intelligence was contained.

Jim Root

[Robert Howard]

Although information can be redundant, in responding to an earlier post on this thread, the following is a reprint of an article concerning the January 22, 1952 plane crash which killed

former Secretary of War, Patterson....

Elizabeth, N.J. Plane Crash Kills 28

8 SYRACUSANS AMONG 28 DEAD AS PLANE CRASHES IN JERSEY

5 OF TOTAL DEAD CAUGHT IN FIERY, CRUSHED HOMES.

The Post-Standard Syracuse New York 1952-01-23

Elizabeth, N. J., Jan. 22 (AP) -- A storm-buffeted airliner plunged thru fog and rain into a frame apartment house, killing former War Secretary ROBERT P. PATTERSON and at least 27 others.All 23 aboard the Newark-bound American Airliner, including PATTERSON, perished. Four others died in their homes when the silver Convair crashed into the small apartment house and set fire to two other dwellings, bringing the death toll to 28.Police Capt. NICHOLAS MIGLIORE said he expected the toll would go higher.

Three of the resident casualties were children. Their bodies were recovered tonight from the charred ruins. The mother of two of them was the 27th victim.

Eleven persons -- some residents and others rescue workers -- were hospitalized. Three were reported in poor condition.

The twin-engined American Airliner, attempting to land by radar, thundered out of the fog and smashed into the three-story frame building at 3:45 p.m. The Convair

exploded like a bomb.

Flames shot thru two adjacent dwellings and turned the entire closely-built residential section into a crackling inferno of fire and flying debris.

Screams came from the burning building.

Caught in Heavy Fog.

The Buffalo-to-Newark plane, caught in heavy fog and rain, narrowly missed Battin High School for Girls as it rocketed down over Williamson st., 2.8 miles short of Newark Airport.

The crash ripped the frame dwelling into splinters, and turned an adjoining three-story brick apartment house and a frame duplex house into a sea of flame.

Great, fiery clouds blossomed high above the area, about half a mile from the heart of this city of 112,000. Elizabeth is about 12 miles southwest of New York City.

Hours later, 21 bodies had been recovered from the tangled wreckage.

PATTERSON, 60 years old, had been in Buffalo today on a private law case and had boarded the plane after a last-minute decision to cancel his train reservation.

In Washington, President TRUMAN called him "a great American and a great public servant" and said his death was a tremendous loss to the nation.

The 18 plane passengers also included JOHN F. CHESTER, 45, public relations director of the Carrier, Corp. of Syracuse. CHESTER was a former general

business editor of The Associated Press and a war correspondent during World War 2.

In addition to the 18 passengers the plane carried a crew of three and two company personnel.

The fog-curtained plane, being "talked down" by a ground radar observer, had skimmed over the Battin school rooftop before it crashed 200 yards away.

Some 1,000 girl students had been dismissed only 45 minutes before.

Area Threatened.

The raging fire, for a time, threatened the entire area, and kept rescue workers at a distance.

Some residents, near hysteria, dashed out of the blazing buildings. One small boy ran screaming, his clothing afire until a bystander stopped him and put out the flames.

"I can't find them -- I can't find them," sobbed a workman, ALBERT RAGONE, who returned home from his job and found his wife and two sons missing. The lads were found later in the ruins.

By nightfall, the fire was under control, and platoons of rescue workers clawed thru the great smoking heaps of wreckage in search of more victims.

Elizabeth's mayor JAMES T. KIRK, issued a demand for relocation of Newark airport to remove an "umbrella of danger" from the city.

Two major plane crashes have occurred here within a month.

Two Major Crashes.

Only 38 days ago -- on Dec. 16 -- a non-scheduled Neward-to-Florida transport plane crashed about a mile away from the scene of today's tragedy killing all 56 persons aboard.

JOSEPH O. FLUET, regional director of the Civil Aeronautics Board, launched an immediate on-the-spot investigation. In Washington, New Jersey Republican Senators HENDRICKSEN and SMITH demanded a thoro[sic] inquiry.

FLUET said the incoming plane, its pilot blinded by the murky weather, was being watched on an airport radar screen when it dipped out of the glide path of observation.

"There is no inference that the facility was not operating normally," he said.

The ceiling was down to 400 feet, and visibility cut to three-fourths of a mile as the plane headed for runway 6 at Newark.

Woman Screams.

"We looked out a window and saw buildings burst into flames," said a faculty member of Battin High School. "People came running out into the street. One woman was screaming 'my baby is in there.'"

The plane's pilot, Capt. THOMAS J. REID, 31, lived only three blocks from the spot where the plane crashed at 306 Willilamson st.

"There was a terrific explosion," said MRS. ANN WURTH, a nearby resident. "We ran out of the house and saw flashes of flames shooting into the sky. I picked up my boy and ran as far away as I could go."

Hundreds of townspeople thronged the rainswept area. Mounted floodlights fingered over the smashed and charred ruins, as clouds of white steam rose eerily in the glare.

Bits Litter Scene.

Bodies were passed from hand-to-hand from deep within the mounds of wreckage, and lowered to waiting stretcher bearers.

Shattered bits of furniture -- a television set, a washing machine, a child's hobby horse, personal remains of demolished homes and lives -- litered the scene.

One fragmentized piece of airplane wing, sheared off and thrown to one side by the impact, lay on the ground nearby, but other parts of the craft were concealed in the jumbled wreckage.

The plane had made stops at Rochester and Syracuse before heading for Newark.

Eight days ago, a Northeastern Airliner, also a two-engined Convair, undershot La Guardia Field, and crashed into the East River in New York city, but all 35 aboard were rescued.

CHESTER, STERRY, SPRIGGS, GASEN AMONG VICTIMS.

Flaming death claimed the lives of eight Syracusans at 3:45 p.m. yesterday when an American Airlines twin-engined plane crashed into an apartment hours at Elizabeth, N. J. They were among 14 persons who boarded the plane at Hancock Field, Syracuse.

The plane, on a flight from Buffalo to Newark, N. J., carried 23 persons, none of whom survived. Eighteen were passengers, three crew members and two company personnel. It was being guided by radar thru rain and fog when it rammed the building and exploded, setting the frame structure afire.

At least five residents of the apartment hours were killed, with a possibility that more bodies might be found.

Persons who boarded the plane at Syracuse were:

JOHN F. CHESTER, 127 Victoria pl., director of public relations, Carrier Corporation.

CARL U. SPRIGGS, 114 Fordham rd., manager, Dealer Sales Division, Carrier Corporation.

H. LEE STERRY, 308 Gordon ave., director of product management, Carrier Corporation.

ROBERT C. GASEN, Huntleigh ave., Fayetteville, vice-president of Bristol Laboratories, Inc.

Four Syracuse U Students:

MISS BARBARA K. LEVY, sophomore in the College of Home Economics, Syracuse University. She lived at Maurice Cottage, 304 Waverly ave., and was on her way to her home at Somerville, N. J.

LEWIS FLAX, a freshman in the College of Forestry, Syracuse University. He lived at Skytop M1 and was on his way to his home in Yonkers.

MICHAEL DeSIMONE, a freshman in the College of Forestry, Syracuse University. He lived at Skytop M1 and was on his way to his home in the Bronx.

MELVIN SOKOLOW, a sophomore in the College of Liberal Arts, Syracuse University. He lived at the Willliam Bouck House, 608 Comstock ave., and was on his way to his home in Bayonne, N. J.

Two CAA Men:

GEORGE T. WILLIAMS, Washington, D. C., CAA, Department of Commerce.

JOHN D. RICE, Washington, D. C., CAA, Department of Commerce.

N. A. COONRAD, Columbus, O., Ohio Farm Bureau.

WILLIAM R. SCHRIEBER, 25, of 33-32 109th st., Corona, Queens, an American Airlines employe.

SALVATORE ROSS CINQUEMANI, 25, of 132-43 59th ave., Flushing, Queens, an American Airlines employe.

Buffalo Passengers:

Passengers boarding the plane at Buffalo were:

ROBERT F. PATTERSON, former secretary of war, and senior partner of PATTERSON, BELKNAP and WEBB, Wall Street law firm.

AL FRANKEL of the Fiber Tex Fabrics Company, New York city.

ALFRED FEINBERG of the Oxford Button Company, New York city.

EDWIN F. LANKES of 11 Pine Tree Lane, Gastonbury, Conn., a representative of the Detrex Corp., of Detroit and Maplewood, N. Y.

S. S. EVANS, Hidden Glen, Meadowbrook, Pa.

One passenger went aboard at Rochester. He was:

W. S. HERNON of Zachiaf Mead Lane, Greenwich, Conn., representing the HERNON-PERSALL & Co., 130 Broadway, New York city.

Members of Crew:

Crew members were:

Capt. THOMAS J. REID, 33, pilot, of 611 S. Broad st., Elizabeth, N. J. He had been with American since 1943.

LAWRENCE (BUD) SAMUEL JUDICELLO, 28, co-pilot, of 270 E. WIlkes-Barre st., Easton, Pa. With American since 1951, he was an Air Force captain during the last war.

MISS MARILYN RUTH SIEGLE, 21, stewardess, 36-20 14th st., Darby, Pa. She has been with the company since last June.

Some may consider the article anachronistic, but this, thread is not going away. I repeat that TICOM, is one of the last codebreaking crypts of the 20th century, which is still shrouded in secrecy, and IMO, has direct relevance to material on this thread.

BTW, Air travel in the Newark, New Jersey area, in this period was not exactly flying the friendly skies.....

While the Raleigh call did not register in the JFK Assassination saga until the late 1970's, surprisingly Oswald's long-distance call to an "unknown" person, hit the Dallas media, even before Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald.

See video taken morning of November 24, 1963

http://www.criticalp...loor_Lee-Oswald

Edited July 17, 2010 by Robert Howard

[Guest Tom Scully]

Robert

I do appreciate your continued research and presentation of material from this fertile field!

Will you be in Dallas this year? Any idea how some sort of seminar on this particular area of research could be set up. It might be interesting for others who may find a reason to focus upon this particular topic?

Jim Root

My desire is to present what information I have discovered regarding O.N.I. and other topics at the heart of the JFK Assassination, here on the forum. While I think the conferences are a great medium for those who can travel there, I want everything to be here on the Forum in glorious black and white......The only problem I have is that a large majority of my posts are not responded to...... [not this thread, at least] Lack of interest? Who knows? But I am pushing fifty and I will get over it.

I appreciate your kind comments.....

Another area of interest with a Navy connection, is the September 1962 visit of Lee and Marina Oswald, George DeMohrenschildt and his wife Jeanne, visiting Mrs. Bruton, wife of Admiral Bruton, [who was away in Europe, on business for Collins Radio]. In John Armstrong's Harvey and Lee, Armstrong noted that.....

Bruton had been a lawyer in Virginia before becoming a Navy intelligence officer. Bruton's specialty was electronic surveillance and this is what he was bringing to Collins Radio. In April of 1963, the Wall Street Journal announced that Collins would construct a modern radio communications system linking Laos, Thailand, and South Vietnam. On November 1, 1963, the New York Times reported that Fidel Castro had captured a large boat called the Rex which was being leased to Collins Radio at the time. The next day, one of the captured Cuban exiles aboard the Rex confessed that the boat had been used to ferry arms into Cuba and that "the CIA organized all arms shipments" (New York Times 11/3/63).........

Continuing....In the Mary Ferrell database under the short bio of Admiral Bruton we see

BRUTON, HENRY CHESTER

Sources: WC Vol.9, p. 253; HSCA Vol. II, p. 314; HSCA Vol. XII, pp. 62, 188-194); Legend, Epstein, pp. 175, 177, 183

Mary's

Comments: Retired Admiral. When he retired from Navy, he became a Vice President of Collins Radio. Friend of George deMohrenschildt who urged the Brutons to provide a home for Marina Oswald. Bruton's wife, Frances (Frannie), was ex-school teacher and was a talented artist. They had a son whose friend, Philip Weinert, also met the Oswalds.

An FBI memorandum dated Sept. 15, 1942 stated that at that time De Mohrenschildt lived at 3022 Benton Street N.W. in Washington D.C. with Quentin Keyes whom the memorandum described as a member of British intelligence, and two American naval officers. The memorandum stated that de Mohrenschildt was very “Pro-Nazi.” In October 1942 the FBI interviewed the man who rented the Benton Street house, Paul Joachim. Joachim told the FBI that he was employed at the time in the Navy building. The other occupants of the house were Lt. Commander Harry Hull of the U.S. Navy and Quinton Quines, who Joachim said worked at the British Embassy. Joachim said de Mohrenschildt lived at the house during the end of May and all of June 1942. He said George DeMohrenschildt never made any statements about feelings toward any country and no statements which were pro-Nazi.

......So, even 20 years before the Kennedy assassination George de Mohrenschildt was associating with naval personnel.......

In some ways, the DeMohrenschildt family was almost as enigmatic as the Oswalds...almost

Of course, this forum would be the last place one would expect to see any reaction posted in response to interesting coincidences such as the retired admiral murdered in Oct., 1962, just happening to be De Mohrenschildt's landlord in 1942, and the admiral's stepfather just happening to be the inventor of the US Navy's Rip-5 ?:

http://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&tbo=1&q=intercepting+and+transcribing+highly+skilled+task.+in+1941%2C+america+had+only+165+trained+katakana&btnG=Search+Books

Day of deceit: the truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor - Page 56

Robert Stinnett - 2001 - 416 pages - Preview

Intercepting and transcribing Japanese fleet messages for FDR and his military leaders was a highly skilled task. In 1941, America had only 165 trained katakana operators. Kisner and his 65 operators at H were the best in the business. ...

...or, even a response to the coincidence that De Mohrenschildt's housemate

at the admiral's house, happened to be Lt. Cdr. Harry Hull, married to the first cousin of Mr. Cogswell, a US Navy veteran who married the first cousin of Will Farish III?

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fajweberman.com%2FnoduleX18-NEW%2520ORLEANS%2520APRIL%25201963%2520TO%2520SEPTEMBER%25201963.htm&ei=9O9vTZS3J4nLgQeBjvlB&usg=AFQjCNGR9KXgwBjCxAQuWgwFsVnWKwADpg&sig2=QME3aIDVkdyjkRfbNCTyeA

NODULE X18

NEW ORLEANS: APRIL 1963 TO SEPTEMBER 1963

...On the morning of April 17, 1966 before going to the Hudson Institute – R AMRAZZ-1 visited his friend, James Cogswell. The latter will be remembered as ...

Oh, that George De...he had all the luck, didn't he? He met everyone, from Jackie O. to LHO to GHW Bush. Why? How?

Robert

I am not so sure is as complicaed as we may think. George D's brother Was Dimitri who is closely associated with Whitney Shepardson. This I believe is the deeper connection. Shepardson was SI (Secret Intelligence) during WWII which is associated with John Grombach who came into the intelligence game via a paper he wrote on the use of commercial radio transmissions to send intelligence information. SI ran the Stockholm station of the OSS and SI seems to have had totall control over that station.

Grombach post war intelligence group used commercial radio businesses as a base of operations. Your post suggests that Bruton did business in Europe for Collins Radio which folds well within the Grombach's organizational operations. Your suggestion may be a double connection to the former SI operatives that were gathering information in June of 1959 about former operations in Helsinki. It would not be far fetched at all to suggest that brothers George and Dimitri maintained contact at this time and may well have been working together. It is not a difficult stretch to make a connection to the infiltration of Oswald into the Soviet Union via this same group (Gerald Hemming had told me that the infiltration of Oswald into the Soviet Union was false tagged as an ONI operation but that it was deeper than that).

George D is the one person that seemed to guess that Oswald had shot at Walker. Did he pass this information to his brother? Shortly after this event occured Richard Helms, another of the SI, Stockholm group, begins monitoring Oswald's movements. The Bellin note (CIA forensic evaluation of Oswald's ability to have committed the assassination, 1976, suggested that if it had been know that Oswald had attempted the assassination of Walker it would have been easy to predict that Oswald would kill the President) shows that it would have been possible to know that an assassin was in place in Dallas. All that was necessary was to run the motorcade past where Oswald was.

FBI Agent Hosty's third note (that has never been acknowledged by the CIA but was alluded to in the testimony of Agent Hosty) allowed the office of Richard Helms to know exactly where Oswald was working before the final motorcade route was determined. That route had, as the final building passed, the building where a man that the CIA admits would kill the President if he had the opportunity was working.

A nearly perfect crime!

Jim Root

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/marysdb/showRec.do?mode=searchResult&id=5205

Record: JOACHIM, PAUL -----

Sources: HSCA, Vol 12, pp. 91-92

Mary's

Comments: Employee of US Navy who lived with George deMohrenschildt, Quinton Keynes (or Quinton Quines, a member of British Intelligence), Lt. Cdr. Harry Hull, of the US Navy, at above address during Sept 1941. (In 1982, there was a P. Joachim, 3201 Landor St., Alexandria, VA (703) 548-7612.)

Edited March 4, 2011 by Tom Scully

[Robert Howard]

Although it is not by no means the final word on the elusive John B. Hurt connection to Lee Harvey Oswald, there is something rather unique as far as the Bundy family; McGeorge, William, parents Harvey and Kay and John B Hurt, codebreaker extraordinaire.

In Kai Bird's definitive book on the Bundy family, The Color of Truth

one will find the following passage.....page 72

Intercept intelligence, also known as signal intelligence, shortly became a Bundy family vocation. While Harvey sat in the War Department reading the highly classified final product, his wife and sons became involved in the arcane business of cryptology. toiling away at deciphering the radio codes of various foreign powers. Oddly enough, the first Bundy to become a cryptologist was Kay. In 1941 at the age of fifty-one, with all five children on their own, Kay thought she ought to get a job.

By happenstance, an old friend and neighbor Lydia Chapin Kirk, wife of Admiral Alan Kirk had also moved to Washington and was organizing a group of wives to volunteer their time for the navy. Years earlier Kay had chaperoned Lydia's dates with Kirk.

At Lydia's urging, Kay agreed to take a course with the U.S. Navy on open codes, meaning she was taught to discern whether there was a hidden message in plain-text letters or telegrams sent abroad. "I smoked like a chimney," Kay recalled, "and I got absolutely absorbed in codebreaking." Kay worked initially for Naval intelligence out of Arlington Hall, and later switched to code-breaking for the army."

In Samuel Snyder's A Translator Extraordinaire, see translator.pdf, his detailed summary of John B Hurt's World War II

experience as the ultimate Japanese cryptanalyst, he mentions that John Hurt was also stationed at Arlington Hall during World War II.

see excerpt

John was one among that rare breed of translator able to convey in English the style and flavor of the original.

At times his transcriber would be treated to John's falsetto sing-song, and even occasionally poetic English

to faithfully emulate the personal style of the diplomatic sender. This also applied when John made translations

from Japanese or French books or documents. There was the time in 1944 when Sam Hall was patrolling an

area in "B" building at Arlington Hall Station for security check. It was about 11 o'clock at night and Sam heard

a loud voice coming from behind a partition, as of someone making a speech. The door was closed so Sam

stood on a chair and peeked over the top of the partition. There was John Hurt, alone, pacing up and down with

a book in his hand, and in the style of an orator, delivering aloud his English translation, with hardly a

pause.

Although John J McCloy's connections to MAGIC have been focused on, as they should be,

Kay Bundy being stationed at Arlington Hall and not knowing of John B. Hurt, would not be unlike

residing at Hogwarts and not knowing who was Harry Potter.

And if Abraham Bolden was correct in asserting that there was a clamor on the weekend of JFK's

assassination about John Hurt, it is definitely worth knowing about the Arlington Hall connection.

If there are any like minded individuals regarding the Bundy's and cryptologic connections

the following might be if interest

Cryptologia April 1987 Some of My Wartime Experiences -W.P. Bundy

1087 Great Road, Princeton, NJ 08540 USA

Cryptologia, Vol. XI, Number 2, April 1987, pp. 65-76

http://www.tandfonli...1861811#preview

William P. Bundy

OVERVIEW

ADDRESS: 1087 Great Road, Princeton NJ 08540 USA.

ABSTRACT: The head of the American contingent at Britain's Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley during World War II tells how he got into cryptology and about his social and administrative experiences as commanding officer of the 6813 th Detachment.

KEYWORDS: Bundy, Bletchley, Government Code and Cypher School, GC&CS, 6813 th Detachment.

[This is the edited transcript of a speech give by William P. Bundy at the dinner of the annual convention of the American Cryptogram Association in Union, New Jersey, on August 21, 1982.

None of his biographies as in Who's Who in America specify what he was doing in the army. His talk cleared up the mystery.]

There really isn't that much mystery about what I was doing during the war. That is what I am going to talk about, if you can take it at this hour. Namely a reminiscence on being the nominal, and I do mean very much the nominal, commander of the American Signal Corps Detachment, the cryptanalytical detachment that worked with the British at Bletchley on the Enigma and some other systems but mostly the Enigma problem. We had what I would still regard as a unique experiment in international living. An experiment in thinking together, as well as a dramatic exposure to the greatest overall achievement in terms of practical effects, certainly in cryptanalytic history. I would think that a safe statement.........

Edited July 24, 2011 by Robert Howard

[Robert Howard]

Although it is not by no means the final word on the elusive John B. Hurt connection to Lee Harvey Oswald, there is something rather unique as far as the Bundy family; McGeorge, William, parents Harvey and Kay and John B Hurt, codebreaker extraordinaire.

In Kai Bird's definitive book on the Bundy family, The Color of Truth

one will find the following passage.....page 72

Intercept intelligence, also known as signal intelligence, shortly became a Bundy family vocation. While Harvey sat in the War Department reading the highly classified final product, his wife and sons became involved in the arcane business of cryptology. toiling away at deciphering the radio codes of various foreign powers. Oddly enough, the first Bundy to become a cryptologist was Kay. In 1941 at the age of fifty-one, with all five children on their own, Kay thought she ought to get a job.

By happenstance, an old friend and neighbor Lydia Chapin Kirk, wife of Admiral Alan Kirk had also moved to Washington and was organizing a group of wives to volunteer their time for the navy. Years earlier Kay had chaperoned Lydia's dates with Kirk.

At Lydia's urging, Kay agreed to take a course with the U.S. Navy on open codes, meaning she was taught to discern whether there was a hidden message in plain-text letters or telegrams sent abroad. "I smoked like a chimney," Kay recalled, "and I got absolutely absorbed in codebreaking." Kay worked initially for Naval intelligence out of Arlington Hall, and later switched to code-breaking for the army."

In Samuel Snyder's A Translator Extraordinaire, see translator.pdf, his detailed summary of John B Hurt's World War II

experience as the ultimate Japanese cryptanalyst, he mentions that John Hurt was also stationed at Arlington Hall during World War II.

see excerpt

John was one among that rare breed of translator able to convey in English the style and flavor of the original.

At times his transcriber would be treated to John's falsetto sing-song, and even occasionally poetic English

to faithfully emulate the personal style of the diplomatic sender. This also applied when John made translations

from Japanese or French books or documents. There was the time in 1944 when Sam Hall was patrolling an

area in "B" building at Arlington Hall Station for security check. It was about 11 o'clock at night and Sam heard

a loud voice coming from behind a partition, as of someone making a speech. The door was closed so Sam

stood on a chair and peeked over the top of the partition. There was John Hurt, alone, pacing up and down with

a book in his hand, and in the style of an orator, delivering aloud his English translation, with hardly a

pause.

Although John J McCloy's connections to MAGIC have been focused on, as they should be,

Kay Bundy being stationed at Arlington Hall and not knowing of John B. Hurt, would not be unlike

residing at Hogwarts and not knowing who was Harry Potter.

And if Abraham Bolden was correct in asserting that there was a clamor on the weekend of JFK's

assassination about John Hurt, it is definitely worth knowing about the Arlington Hall connection.

If there are any like minded individuals regarding the Bundy's and cryptologic connections

the following might be if interest

Cryptologia April 1987 Some of My Wartime Experiences -W.P. Bundy

1087 Great Road, Princeton, NJ 08540 USA

Cryptologia, Vol. XI, Number 2, April 1987, pp. 65-76

http://www.tandfonli...1861811#preview

William P. Bundy

OVERVIEW

ADDRESS: 1087 Great Road, Princeton NJ 08540 USA.

ABSTRACT: The head of the American contingent at Britain's Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley during World War II tells how he got into cryptology and about his social and administrative experiences as commanding officer of the 6813 th Detachment.

KEYWORDS: Bundy, Bletchley, Government Code and Cypher School, GC&CS, 6813 th Detachment.

[This is the edited transcript of a speech give by William P. Bundy at the dinner of the annual convention of the American Cryptogram Association in Union, New Jersey, on August 21, 1982.

None of his biographies as in Who's Who in America specify what he was doing in the army. His talk cleared up the mystery.]

There really isn't that much mystery about what I was doing during the war. That is what I am going to talk about, if you can take it at this hour. Namely a reminiscence on being the nominal, and I do mean very much the nominal, commander of the American Signal Corps Detachment, the cryptanalytical detachment that worked with the British at Bletchley on the Enigma and some other systems but mostly the Enigma problem. We had what I would still regard as a unique experiment in international living. An experiment in thinking together, as well as a dramatic exposure to the greatest overall achievement in terms of practical effects, certainly in cryptanalytic history. I would think that a safe statement.........

Although the following document in question appears to be a lead that didn't pan out, nonetheless it is an allegation that Lee Harvey Oswald was in Wytheville, Virginia nine days before the assassination of President Kennedy, the account involves a Mr. Curtis Puckett, who is the owner of a Greyhound Cafeteria and operator of the local Greyhound Bus terminal, as well as the local representative of the Salvation Army, and Bob Puckett, his brother. Mrs. Frank Nelms, also of the Salvation Army had stated on a radio program, [hosted by Ed Zuber of WYVE] that she had possibly seen Lee Oswald

approximately two weeks ago, this was on November 25, 1963.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=95643&relPageId=257

The person in question allegedly turned out to be "Henry Richards," [all italics mine] who was given lunch, and busfare to Princeton, West Virginia, ostensibly his hometown.

These Warren Commission stories, [this is also in CD 7 Gemberling Report pp 427-430] are always problematic, because you have no idea if these accounts are true, hokkum or a combination of the two, and while Mrs. Nelms is characterized as having poor eyesight, it is also compelling that, according to Mr. Bob Puckett that ,......Curtis did recall that three or four months previously with another "assistance call," Mrs. Nelms had sent a young couple down to the bus terminal, the man being dressed in some type of military uniform with stripes on the sleeve.

He stated that Curtis recalled that this man purchased coffee and doughnuts for the woman, apparently his wife who was "unable to speak English," and that this person had a "small baby as well as a youngster about three years old." He recalled also that this man left the bus terminal returned a short time later, and when Curtis Puckett approached him and wanted to know if he could be of assistance, this young military person said no, his "problem had been solved."

Regarding the date of this incident Puckett states it was three or four months ago, while Mrs. Nelms insists, it was on November 13, 1963, the ticket was located for Richards, and it was dated November 13, 1963. Hence, since Oswald, according to the FBI, in Dallas on November 13, 1963, this allegation was pretty much summarily dismissed.

In the account in CD 7 "the man" is quoted as saying "he could get to Dallas once he got to Princeton."

The reason, at least in my mind, this could be more than "just another alleged Oswald sighting," was that

Wytheville, Virginia was where John B Hurt resided growing up, his uncle Shaffer the Congressman was from there and cryptologist Frank Rowlett had lived a few counties away to the west.

See

The American Codebreakers - Thomas Parrish pages 39-40

The missionary family that lived next door to John Hurt was surnamed Patton.....

I am truly confident this John B Hurt/Oswald angle will eventually be squared away, just hope it is sooner, rather than later.