RUTH and BARD . . . A Review

[Ron Bulman]

As topics disappear quickly on here, bump.  Important info in this.  How about this to draw attention to it?

 

[Denny Zartman]

On 2/16/2024 at 9:33 PM, Bill Simpich said:

Leslie Sharp provided me with invaluable assistance...

As if the Paine's couldn't get more suspicious, or the intentional negligence of the Warren Commission more obvious, there it goes!

Outstanding post. It's an honor to be on a discussion forum with such knowledgeable researchers.

[Leslie Sharp]

Warren Commissioner John J. McCloy asked Day: "There was never any doubt in your mind what the rifle was from the minute you saw it?" Day replied, "No, sir; It was stamped right on there, 6.5, and when en route to the office with Mr. Odum, the FBI agent who drove me in, he radioed it in, he radioed in what it was to the FBI over the air."⁶¹ The HSCA added that "Later that day, the rifle's six-round cartridge clip was removed by Lieutenant Day in the Dallas Police Crime Laboratory."⁶²

Evica further points out that Day waited until he got to his office to dictate a detailed description of the rifle, which remained in his possession from the moment it was found. That description and four others are missing from the Commission's public record: 1) Weitzman's FBI description, 2) Day's dictated memo, 3) Day's description to FBI Special Agent Bardwell D. Odum, 4) Odum's broadcast, and 5) Dallas police Detective C.N. Dhority's description.⁶³ Five descriptions that would have prevented the "folklore" of a planted rifle were not made public.

 

https://www.assassinationresearch.com/v1n2/gtds.html

[Leslie Sharp]

Returning to Raymond Gallagher’s exceptional research and subsequent astute insight into Bard Odum’s role, combined with that of author Bill Simpich the following is a truncated version of just how enmeshed the FBI agent was in guaranteeing that Oswald alone would be charged with Kennedy’s death: there was no conspiracy, there was no “coup” other than a blow to the president’s head.

            After transferring the rifle from the “scene of the crime” to DPD headquarters, after witnessing the arrest of Oswald at the Texas Theatre, and following a stop off to interview a witness in the Tippit shooting, Odum either cooled his heels the rest of the afternoon, or pursued leads that were not documented or have not been released.  We do know from records that he ended up with shells and slugs from the Tippit scene in his pocket.

            We also know with certainty that within twenty-four hours of the assassination, Odum was pulled into yet another attempt to cement Oswald’s guilt. Again, author Bill Simpich: “[Wallace] Heitman had a close colleague—Bardwell Odum . . . while Heitman specialized in working with the Russians and the Cubans as a valued CIA liaison for the Dallas office, Odum was a senior criminal specialist and a favorite of Dallas FBI chief Gordon Shanklin. Heitman was the man who met Eldon Rudd on the tarmac the night of the assassination. Rudd was delivering documents provided to him by CIA Mexico City chief Win Scott—a photo of the Mystery Man that Scott allegedly believed was Oswald. . . .”

            Simpich reminds us that J. Walton Moore, agent in charge of the CIA’s Dallas office, was a college roommate of Wallace Heitman. It was Moore that introduced George de Mohrenschildt to the returned “defector,” Oswald, and Moore and de Mohrenschildt shared a friendship with Texas oilman and former WWI Col. Lawrence Orlov who is named in the Lafitte datebook.

            CIA agent Heitman’s buddy, SA Odum was teamed up that evening with James Hosty, the agent assigned to Oswald since his return from the Soviet Union and infamous for having destroyed an alleged note from Oswald. Odum was the only agent to later claim that Hosty’s story about the Oswald note was erroneous. Ruth Paine soon changed her assessment of the note to align with Bard’s by insisting that the note was yet “another lie” told by Lee.

            When the photos arrived from Mexico City, after cropping any vestiges of the embassy building behind the image of a man in the photo that they intended to present to Marina for identification, the Hosty/Odum team proceeded to the motel in Garland, north of downtown, to confront her. Enter Marguerite Oswald who ran interference that night, and refused to allow Odum to interrogate either of them. 

Despite those seeming early unpleasantries, a photo of the Bard facing Marina who is cradling her newborn (seen in the photograph section of this book) attests to the FBI agent’s persistence. It also reveals that Ilya Mamantov was no longer her translator. The woman in the middle of the photo has been identified as a skilled Russian translator. Apparently Ilya had served his purpose.

            Over the ensuing months, while CIA’s Heitman relentlessly pursued a very vulnerable Marina, pressuring her to confirm the latest official version of the investigation, whatever version that was, Bardwell would have cordial visits with Ruth Paine and Michael at least ten more times. In fact, Ruth referred to Bardwell as her “primary contact”; Freudian slip perhaps, or, it is also possible that both she and Michael were always kept in the dark.  

Researcher Gallagher additionally draws attention to Ruth’s testimony which indicates that Agent Odum was involved in the seizure of Lee’s wedding ring—a ring that in the following decades would serve as centerpiece of the Sixth Floor Museum, ensconced in a plexiglass case positioned dead center in the passageway through the main floor. The ring has been a nuanced symbol advancing the myth of the lone gun assassin in the minds of millions upon millions of visitors to the Dealey Plaza over decades. Odum also pursued employees at the Texas Employment Commission responsible for placing Oswald in several jobs. One of those TEC employees made a permanent move from the area she had lived in for decades within months of Odum’s interviews. Some suggest she was terrified. Also, it was Odum who ordered construction of a replica of the alleged bag that concealed the alleged weapon, from materials found in the depository shipping room, to show to Wesley Buel Frazier, the Paine's neighbor and Lee's ride to work the morning of November 22. There can be little doubt that Bard was hell bent on perpetuating the case against the patsy, Lee Oswald.

            Researcher/author Simpich also references records that indicate the confusion facilitated by Odum around the identification of a Minox camera discovered in the Paine’s garage, discrepancies that were fueled by Michael Paine’s sudden realization that the camera was his. Simpich then reminds us of perhaps the most intriguing fact relevant to the pursuit of the real caretaker:  SA Odum and Oswald had shared the same Irving barber, Cliff Shasteen. Absent the official records of Odum’s work schedule throughout 1963 to determine who he may or may not have been assigned, Shasteen provides perhaps the single most solid clue in support of the hypothesis that he was the Oswald caretaker named by Lafitte beginning in March 1963.  

            Two final aspects of Odum’s approach to the investigation convince us of his crucial contribution to the diversion created by the arrest and indictment of the patsy. In 2002, researchers Tink Thompson and Gary Aguilar tracked down Odum to ask about a FBI summary memo of interviews of those who witnessed the “magic bullet,” the projectile that was alleged to have penetrated both John Kennedy and the man sitting in the jump seat of the limousine in front of the president, Texas Governor John Connally. The memo includes a statement by O. P. Wright, a former policeman working at Parkland Hospital when the bullet (known as Warren Commission Exhibit #399) was discovered. Wright insisted that the bullet in question was pointed tip and not rounded as is the bullet housed in the National Archives.  

            During the 2002 interview, Odum disavowed the memo, insisting that he was never in possession of the “magic” bullet, despite FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s memo indicating unequivocally that his agent in Dallas, Bardwell Odum was included in the provenance of what was the most phenomenal piece of evidence in support of the lone gunman theory central to the function of “the patsy.” The ease with which Odum challenged his ultimate superior, FBI Director Hoover who he had served for over two decades, is telling.

[Ron Bulman]

Leslie, you know this better than I, as this is from your essay "Caretaker Analysis" in Coup in Dallas.  You did allude to this a while back in another thread, but I don't think others out there are aware of his family ties, I.E. two of his three brothers.

"His (oldest) brother, Harold G. Odum, was a well-known Presbyterian minister in San Angelo, Texas, from 1967 to his retirement in 1986 . . . , who spent weeks at a time on an annual basis proselytizing in Russa,"

Regarding younger brother Arthur:

"According to Arthur's 2017 obituary, "At the height of the Cold War, with the Cuban missile crisis barely in the rearview mirror, The President of the United States was looking for a person to administer a highly classified interagency intelligence-sharing program.  After careful consideration, the President appointed a young, up and coming United States Foreign Service officer who had just returned from a State Department assignment in Venezuela. . . . Prior to entering the Foreign Service, Arthur, had served four years in the US Navy as custodian of classified intelligence on Soviet nuclear capabilities . . . Arthur quickly impressed the intelligence community in Washington with his ability to serve as the intelligence liaison between the director of the CIA, the Secretary of Defense and the White House.  . . .  The moment Arthur departed Venezuela for D.C., he was immersed in Russian language training, presumably a skill set required for his new, highly classified intelligence-sharing assignment.  .  Details of that assignment remain elusive, however, we do know that Arthur eventually joined Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson for Thompson's second stint in Moscow.  In a twist of fate, it was under Ambassador Thompson's watch in 1962 that Marina Oswald had been issued a passport to emigrate with Lee to the US.  Thompson was called to testify before the Warren Commission, shining additional light on Oswald's time in the Soviet Union.  Arthur's brother, AS Bard Odum, who was on the ground in Dallas at the time of the assassination, was not."  Pgs. 520-522, CID.