The Toxic Tag and the Argentine Mauser

[Tony Krome]

I want to project a scenario, which I think is worthy of consideration;

The "Oswald" references at the Sports Drome, the Furniture Mart, and Irving Sports, were all part of a plan to frame Oswald with the original choice of rifle, the Argentine Mauser.

Although the switch to the Carcano is directly tied to this scenario, that controversy should for now be sidelined in order to focus on the above.

We all know about the Oswald connections to all three above locations, and we know, that in the end, the WC concluded that, while somewhat interesting, they were discarded.

The "Oswald" repair tag, found by Dial Ryder at Irving Sports, represented a sum total of $6, $4.50 for three drilled holes and a $1.50 bore sight. But the sighting was free of charge, just like Ryder suggested they were offering, at the time, in testimony. So the $6 may have originally been for 4 drilled and tapped holes.

Mr. LIEBELER. You say, that when you mount a scope you do not charge for the process of boresighting, is that correct?
Mr. RYDER. Actually, it's hard to say, really. At that time we were not charging if we drilled and tapped one, we didn't do it.

I believe this is why FBI Agent Horton did not take this "Oswald" repair tag into evidence when he was initially shown the tag by Ryder. In fact, the tag was not taken into evidence until around March 1964.

I believe the $6 tag, originally written in pencil, was later altered to reflect three drilled holes and a charged bore sight to ensure that the Argentine Mauser, a rifle that Ryder initially associated with the tag, would not come into focus. Read Ryder's testimony where he confused about the $6 breakdown.

In early November 1963, the plan was to "show" Oswald at the Furniture Mart, then onto Irving Sports. Here he was shown to hand a mount (no scope) to Ryder and an Argentine Mauser. Ryder wrote out the "Oswald" repair tag. Three days later, the mounted rifle (no scope) was picked up.

Fast forward to the 21st November, and this same mounted Argentine Mauser, and a scope, was handed in to Irving Sports for sighting.

This Thursday 21st Nov rifle sighting was anonymously called in to Ray John at WFAA, who in turn called Detective Fay Turner over at Fritz's office.

If the switch to the Carcano did not occur, the above scenario locations would have been an accepted slam dunk to show that Oswald was guilty.

This scenario also explains why an Argentine Mauser was the first publicly announced rifle.

Jump in and shoot holes in this theory if you can, see how we go.

 

 

Edited November 30, 2023 by Tony Krome

[Jean Ceulemans]

Why would one include the Furniture Mart event ?

In faking something, the first rule is not to overdo it, keep it simple.

It even caused one of the rare actual witness confrontations* (because Marina had an part in it).

*not that we learned a lot from that, just women talking about hair styling and stuff like that

 

 

[Tony Krome]

1 hour ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

Why would one include the Furniture Mart event ?

In faking something, the first rule is not to overdo it, keep it simple.

It even caused one of the rare actual witness confrontations* (because Marina had an part in it).

*not that we learned a lot from that, just women talking about hair styling and stuff like that

 

 

Both the Furniture Mart and the Irving Sports resulted in the "witness confrontations" as you described.

Some high profile researchers do believe that the Oswalds visited the Furniture Mart that day, and I agree.

Both ladies at the Furniture Mart were quite certain it was Oswald, Marina and the two kids.

If the Furniture Mart was accepted at the WC, the fact that the whole family were at a place where Oswald was directed to Irving Sports would have carried a lot of weight.

Marina may well have came in just to browse the furniture, as Oswald enquired about the "plunger".

Edited November 29, 2023 by Tony Krome

[Tony Krome]

24 minutes ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

Furniture Mart event

This from Rankin;

[James DiEugenio]

Tony, thanks for this interesting work.

But then what do you make of Marina's take on the Furniture Mart episode?

[Tony Krome]

22 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Tony, thanks for this interesting work.

But then what do you make of Marina's take on the Furniture Mart episode?

Every time I read the Marina/Whitworth/Hunter face off, the more I'm convinced that Marina was there. I believe that if the Argentine Mauser was the officially found rifle, Marina would have presented no obstacle into the accusations that her family were there. What has to be determined, is the mechanism that was employed, into steering Oswald to the Furniture Mart that still retained a "GUNSMITH" sign.

[Tony Krome]

Tom Gram, who I regard as an excellent researcher, posted this in another thread, which I hope he doesn't mind, I'll paste here. It indicates that Liebeler wanted to chat with FBI Agent Horton;

I did find this, which is kind of interesting:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=58957#relPageId=29

It’s a 4/2/64 airtel from Dallas to Inspector Malley sending 10 copies of the LHM (CE1333) to HQ. 

There’s a reference to an 11:15 a.m. phone call from Malley, so it looks like Liebeler contacted Clark in Dallas, then Clark contacted HQ to make Liebeler’s request into an official FBI task for the WC, and Malley subsequently called Dallas to get them to write up a LHM for Liebeler. 

The LHM was apparently prepared the same day by Dallas and sent to HQ via the above airtel, presumably for review and dissemination, but it wasn’t sent to the WC until the 8th. 

What’s interesting IMO is Liebeler’s request did not go through normal channels. The 4/8/63 submission letter says that Liebeler contacted Clark directly because he wanted to personally interview the Dallas agents who spoke with Ryder. Clark told him the “Agents had no personal opinion regarding this matter, and all information was reduced to writing”, so Liebeler requested a chronology of the interviews.

Basically the FBI wouldn’t let Liebeler, the skilled attorney, talk to Horton, etc. Hmm.

[Evan Marshall]

Cops often think they know a lot about guns but my 20 years in Detroit Police Dept proved that was untrue. Occam's Razor should especially apply to JFk's murder!

[Tony Krome]

13 minutes ago, Evan Marshall said:

Cops often think they know a lot about guns but my 20 years in Detroit Police Dept proved that was untrue. Occam's Razor should especially apply to JFk's murder!

Fair enough. Do you think gunsmiths know a lot about guns? Dial Ryder associated the "Oswald" repair tag with an Argentine Mauser.

[Tony Krome]

Receiver, barrel, as the guy above says, cops know nothing about guns. Remembers the stamp though ...

 

[Nick Bartetzko]

1 hour ago, Tony Krome said:

Receiver, barrel, as the guy above says, cops know nothing about guns. Remembers the stamp though ...

 

Thank you for posting. The idea that police misidentified a Mauser vs a Carcano and for such a long time isn’t believable. And that “mixup” is at least consistent with the pointed bullet found at Parkland by Tomlinson and Poole and the inconsistency with CE 399…..

[Tony Krome]

Who is SAMUEL CUMMINGS?

Interarms (formerly  Interarmco and officially the International Armaments Corporation) was the world's largest private arms dealer, and once had enough weapons in their warehouses to equip forty U.S. divisions. The sole owner was Sam Cummings, who got his start working with the CIA to procure weapons for the 1954 coup in Guatemala

A most interesting individual was James P. Atwood (April 16, 1930- July 20, 1997).

A top US Army Intelligence agent and important CIA contract worker and former FBI employee who ran guns, drugs, counterfeit rare German daggers, stolen archives and much more in and out of various countries from his headquarters in Savannah, Georgia.

During his career, Atwood worked with the CIA's Sam Cummings, Tom Nelson, Jim Critchfield and many others

Atwood's activities are linked to Robert Crowley (who knew him and disliked him) ,to Jim Critchfield and a number of other CIA luminaries.

Arrested by the Army's CIC in the early 60s, for misuse of government mail, tax fraud and other matters,  Atwood  got the CIA to force the charges against him dropped. All the paperwork was supposed to have been destroyed but a copy of the 62 count indictment plus the Chicago Federal judge's orders have survived.

 

Gregory Douglas writes "It was an easy matter for Cummings to procure two silenced .38-caliber pistols, two 7.65-mm surplus Argentine army Mausers"

 

Edited November 30, 2023 by Tony Krome

[Larry Hancock]

Anyone serious about Cummings should dig into the book linked below; I discuss him and his role with (and later outside) the CIA at length in Shadow Warfare:

https://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Business-Cummings-Interarms-Trade/dp/0393017664

 

 

[Greg Doudna]

On Cummings, I have to interject this, even if slightly off-topic. It was a Sixty Minutes show, sometime mid-1980s, featuring Cummings. It stayed with me. It showed Cummings cheerfully talking about selling arms to both sides of wars, all over the world, telling his war stories, chuckling, debonair, as he discussed the world of mayhem for profit.

After all that, the interviewer (I forget which one of Sixty Minutes it was) segued into this question: cited all of the human destruction of those wars, the children killed, the maimed for life, the dead ... and asked Cummings if he felt qualms of conscience about earning profits from that (or however it was worded).

This was what stayed with me, and why I remembered it.

Cummings, who had been at ease and smiling, got real serious. The camera went close up to his face. He said (as if he had prepared for this question) how much he abhorred war (no longer smiling). He detested war, the human damage. He longed for a day when there would be a world without war and people like himself would be out of business. 

He said it with feeling. You could just see and hear and feel how much he cared.

But, he said, this was a common problem. A shared, common problem. What about paying taxes that pay for war? Isn't everyone implicated in that? It is a common problem. And if he did not sell those arms, someone else would. 

But you could see how much he cared, really really cared, about this common problem, of war.

(He cared all the way to the bank.)

I had to admire how good he was at handling the question. Had he been scripted and advised and rehearsed for that question? Or did he really believe that and that is what he told himself when he looked in the mirror in the morning?

Edited December 1, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Paul Brancato]

6 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

Who is SAMUEL CUMMINGS?

Interarms (formerly  Interarmco and officially the International Armaments Corporation) was the world's largest private arms dealer, and once had enough weapons in their warehouses to equip forty U.S. divisions. The sole owner was Sam Cummings, who got his start working with the CIA to procure weapons for the 1954 coup in Guatemala

A most interesting individual was James P. Atwood (April 16, 1930- July 20, 1997).

A top US Army Intelligence agent and important CIA contract worker and former FBI employee who ran guns, drugs, counterfeit rare German daggers, stolen archives and much more in and out of various countries from his headquarters in Savannah, Georgia.

During his career, Atwood worked with the CIA's Sam Cummings, Tom Nelson, Jim Critchfield and many others

Atwood's activities are linked to Robert Crowley (who knew him and disliked him) ,to Jim Critchfield and a number of other CIA luminaries.

Arrested by the Army's CIC in the early 60s, for misuse of government mail, tax fraud and other matters,  Atwood  got the CIA to force the charges against him dropped. All the paperwork was supposed to have been destroyed but a copy of the 62 count indictment plus the Chicago Federal judge's orders have survived.

 

Gregory Douglas writes "It was an easy matter for Cummings to procure two silenced .38-caliber pistols, two 7.65-mm surplus Argentine army Mausers"

 

Tony - interesting subject and conjecture. I do agree with Nick - I find it inconceivable that the MC could have been misidentified as a Mauser at first. 
when you mentioned Atwood it rang a bell. I don’t think one can look at Cummings and Interarmco without looking at Merex. I believe that Atwood was connected to both. I tried to post a link but it won’t take. The issue of ‘gun running’ comes up over and over again when studying the assassination, such as the weapons being stolen from the 112th and sold to Minutemen and Cubans, being investigated by the three goons who later found them selves on the 6th floor of the TSBD - ATF agent Ellsworth, FBI Hosty, MI Ed Coyle, meeting together at the time of the assassination because their sting of the gun runners had been interrupted the night before by Dallas Police, Jack Ruby in so many ways, Alpha 66. I think the identification of the TSBD rifle is a crucial point, and the truth still eludes us. There is recent evidence being dug up suggesting that LH Oswald was involved in this, not as a gun runner but as an agent investigating same. I know PD Scott decades ago conjectured that LH Oswald’s gun purchases were part of a Congressional investigation into illegal maiil order arms sales. But the truth may be much deeper than that. 

Edited December 1, 2023 by Paul Brancato