Hit List-- The Systematic Murders of JFK Witnesses

[Bill Simpich]

I think it is really important to look at people who were trying to solve the JFK case from the very beginning.

Let's focus - for a minute - on the journalists studying the JFK assassination and who died within a couple years after 11/22/63.

For a number of reasons, most journalists steered away from trying to solve the case.  Journalists have little control over their lives.  Their main function is to follow the story and move on.

But four journalists tried to solve the case in 1964.  I believe the fate of these journalists chilled other Dallas reporters from taking a hard look at the evidence.   Most of them were content to go along.

Three of those journalists in Dallas were Jim Koethe, Bill Hunter and Thayer Waldo.   I went through Marguerite Oswald's files last week at TCU in Fort Worth - and found out that Waldo was working with Koethe and Hunter.   I did not know that before, and I had been studying all three of these men for years.

Thayer Waldo was in the police basement on 11/24 and identified Lt. George Butler (unlike other sources) as the man who was really in charge of security at the time of Oswald's transfer.   He observed how nervous Butler was in the final moments before Oswald was shot.   Penn Jones reported that Butler was the head of the KKK in Dallas, many of the Dallas police were Klan members - he even tried to recruit Penn Jones into the Klan  Butler was H.L. Hunt's driver.  To this day, the Dallas Police Administration building is named after George Butler.  You can find it right outside the Lorenzo Hotel in Dallas.

Waldo testified to the Warren Commission in 1964.   He was the victim of a dirty trick by Secret Service man Mike Howard and his local police brother Pat Howard.  Mike was the local SS man - assigned to Jackie Kennedy - he escorted the Kennedys to their rooms In Fort Worth the night of 11/21/63.

The Howard brothers told Waldo that Charles Givens - the African American janitor who had provided alibi evidence stating that LHO was not on the sixth floor at noon - had actually seen Oswald shooting at JFK from the sixth floor window.  Waldo printed the story in the Dallas Morning News. 

This caused Givens to change his story - now saying that he didn't see LHO shooting but that he did remember LHO staying up at the sixth floor at noon.  Givens was used as the principal witness against Oswald even though he had changed his story.   I believe Don Thomas writes about this in his book Hear No Evil, and I have researched it myself.

Mark Lane got Waldo to tell him that his source was the Howard brothers.  Lane immediately outed the Howard brothers at Waldo's source in the National Guardian during May 1964.   Unfortunately, it was a one-minute scandal.  The Howard brothers were questioned - they said that Waldo and Lane were lying - and that was the end of any official investigation of the Howard brothers.  But the Givens story was used by the Warren Commission and others to seal the tale of Oswald's guilt.

Waldo's career in Texas was destroyed.  He returned to working in Latin America, where he continued to study the case and aided Garrison during 1967.

Koethe and Hunter returned to working on their book.  In late 1964, Koethe was killed in his home by someone, allegedly with a karate chop as he was exiting from the shower.  All of his notes to the book were missing.

The District Attorney Henry Wade actually indicted a local bad-guy named Larry Reno for the killing of Koethe.

Long-time Dallas researcher Betty Windsor has been working on this case for the last 60 years.  What got her involved was that she and her husband were good friends with Jim Koethe.  She told me that the reason Wade indicted Reno was because the uproar in the journalism communities was so great that "he had to pick up somebody".

In a very unusual circumstance, the grand jury refused to indict Reno.  In 99.9999% of all cases, the prosecutor can get the jury to indict a ham sandwich.  Why didn't it happen here.

Betty told me why.  She said that she interviewed one of the grand jurors after the dismissal.  She said the grand juror told her that Henry Wade told the grand jury after the completion of the presentation of the evidence and told them not to indict the defendant Larry Reno.   He told them that it was his belief that Larry Reno had nothing to do with it.

Betty told me that she agreed with Wade - that Reno had nothing to do with it.  The DA had to pick up somebody.  They picked up Reno.  Reno was arrested a few months later for another burglary, and did significant time.  Reno was just a fall guy, to get the journalistic community to back away.

Bill Hunter moved to Long Beach, California.  A few months later, two cope were horsing around with their weapons while Hunter was conducting an interview in the police station..  One of them had an "accidental" misfire that killed Hunter.  The officer had a brother in the Dallas Police Department.  The offending officers got a slap on the wrist.  I don't know if Hunter had any notes left to steal.

One other journalist comes to mind - Dorothy Kilgallen of New York City. She had exclusive interviews with Jack Ruby.  She was working hard on the case and believed that she had cracked it.   The circumstances of her death are so suspicious as to border on the absurd - Mark Shaw has written good books on the subject.     No one could find her notes, either.  The notes were believed to be in the possession of her colleague Mrs. Earl Smith.  Smith died two days after Dorothy.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[W. Niederhut]

54 minutes ago, Bill Simpich said:

I think it is really important to look at people who were trying to solve the JFK case from the very beginning.

Let's focus - for a minute - on the journalists studying the JFK assassination and who died within a couple years after 11/22/63.

For a number of reasons, most journalists steered away from trying to solve the case.  Journalists have little control over their lives.  Their main function is to follow the story and move on.

But four journalists tried to solve the case in 1964.  I believe the fate of these journalists chilled other Dallas reporters from taking a hard look at the evidence.   Most of them were content to go along.

Three of those journalists in Dallas were Jim Koethe, Bill Hunter and Thayer Waldo.   I went through Marguerite Oswald's files last week at TCU in Fort Worth - and found out that Waldo was working with Koethe and Hunter.   I did not know that before, and I had been studying all three of these men for years.

Thayer Waldo was in the police basement on 11/24 and identified Lt. George Butler (unlike other sources) as the man who was really in charge of security at the time of Oswald's transfer.   He observed how nervous Butler was in the final moments before Oswald was shot.   Penn Jones reported that Butler was the head of the KKK in Dallas, many of the Dallas police were Klan members - he even tried to recruit Penn Jones into the Klan  Butler was H.L. Hunt's driver.  To this day, the Dallas Police Administration building is named after George Butler.  You can find it right outside the Lorenzo Hotel in Dallas.

Waldo testified to the Warren Commission in 1964.   He was the victim of a dirty trick by Secret Service man Mike Howard and his local police brother Pat Howard.  Mike was the local SS man - assigned to Jackie Kennedy - he escorted the Kennedys to their rooms In Fort Worth the night of 11/21/63.

The Howard brothers told Waldo that Charles Givens - the African American janitor who had provided alibi evidence stating that LHO was not on the sixth floor at noon - had actually seen Oswald shooting at JFK from the sixth floor window.  Waldo printed the story in the Dallas Morning News. 

This caused Givens to change his story - now saying that he didn't see LHO shooting but that he did remember LHO staying up at the sixth floor at noon.  Givens was used as the principal witness against Oswald even though he had changed his story.   I believe Don Thomas writes about this in his book Hear No Evil, and I have researched it myself.

Mark Lane got Waldo to tell him that his source was the Howard brothers.  Lane immediately outed the Howard brothers at Waldo's source in the National Guardian during May 1964.   Unfortunately, it was a one-minute scandal.  The Howard brothers were questioned - they said that Waldo and Lane were lying - and that was the end of any official investigation of the Howard brothers.  But the Givens story was used by the Warren Commission and others to seal the tale of Oswald's guilt.

Waldo's career in Texas was destroyed.  He returned to working in Latin America, where he continued to study the case and aided Garrison during 1967.

Koethe and Hunter returned to working on their book.  In late 1964, Koethe was killed in his home by someone, allegedly with a karate chop as he was exiting from the shower.  All of his notes to the book were missing.

The District Attorney Henry Wade actually indicted a local bad-guy named Larry Reno for the killing of Koethe.

Long-time Dallas researcher Betty Windsor has been working on this case for the last 60 years.  What got her involved was that she and her husband were good friends with Jim Koethe.  She told me that the reason Wade indicted Reno was because the uproar in the journalism communities was so great that "he had to pick up somebody".

In a very unusual circumstance, the grand jury refused to indict Reno.  In 99.9999% of all cases, the prosecutor can get the jury to indict a ham sandwich.  Why didn't it happen here.

Betty told me why.  She said that she interviewed one of the grand jurors after the dismissal.  She said the grand juror told her that Henry Wade told the grand jury after the completion of the presentation of the evidence and told them not to indict the defendant Larry Reno.   He told them that it was his belief that Larry Reno had nothing to do with it.

Betty told me that she agreed with Wade - that Reno had nothing to do with it.  The DA had to pick up somebody.  They picked up Reno.  Reno was arrested a few months later for another burglary, and did significant time.  Reno was just a fall guy, to get the journalistic community to back away.

Bill Hunter moved to Long Beach, California.  A few months later, two cope were horsing around with their weapons while Hunter was conducting an interview in the police station..  One of them had an "accidental" misfire that killed Hunter.  The officer had a brother in the Dallas Police Department.  The offending officers got a slap on the wrist.  I don't know if Hunter had any notes left to steal.

One other journalist comes to mind - Dorothy Kilgallen of New York City. She had exclusive interviews with Jack Ruby.  She was working hard on the case and believed that she had cracked it.   The circumstances of her death are so suspicious as to border on the absurd - Mark Shaw has written good books on the subject.     No one could find her notes, either.  The notes were believed to be in the possession of her colleague Mrs. Earl Smith.  Smith died two days after Dorothy.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Great post.

I read about the suspicious details of the Hunter and Koethe murders, in Hit List, but I didn't know the back story about their association with Thayer Waldo.

Another journalist who may have been silenced by the JFKA-linked witness murders was Irv Kupcinet, who allegedly knew Ruby and some of his Chicago mob associates, but published nothing about Ruby or the JFK assassination after his daughter was murdered.

[Bill Simpich]

Here's Jim D. on the Kilgallen case

Prior to Shaw’s book, there had been three major sources about Kilgallen’s life and (quite) puzzling death.
The first was Lee Israel’s biography titled Kilgallen. Published in hardcover in 1979, it went on to be a 
New York Times bestseller in paperback. As we shall later see, although Israel raised some questions
about Kilgallen’s death in regards to the JFK case, she held back on some important details she
discovered. In 2007, Sara Jordan wrote a long, fascinating essay for the publication Midwest Today
Magazine. Entitled “Who Killed Dorothy Kilgallen?”, Jordan built upon some of Israel’s work, but was much
more explicit about certain sources, and much more descriptive about the very odd crime scene. For
instance, the autopsy report on Kilgallen says she died of acute ethanol and barbiturate intoxication. But
it also says that the circumstances of that intoxication were “undetermined”. Jordan appropriately adds,
“for some reason the police never bothered to determine them. They closed the case without talking to
crucial witnesses.” (Jordan, p. 22) A year later, in the fall of 2008, prolific author and journalist Paul
Alexander had his book on the subject optioned for film rights. The manuscript was entitled Good Night,
Dorothy Kilgallen. Reportedly, one focus of Alexander’s volume was how the JFK details Kilgallen wrote
about in her upcoming book, Murder One, were cut from the version posthumously published by Random
House. Neither Alexander’s book, nor the film, has yet to be produced. Which is a shame, since the
available facts would produce an intriguing film.

(Jim DiEugenio, Was Dorothy Kilgallen Murdered over the JFK Case?, 30 January 2017)

[Bill Simpich]

And here's some sources on the murder of Jim Koethe, including new information about an Ed Johnson working with Koethe and Waldo - obtained at https://jfk.boards.net/thread/121/erasing-past-protect-fairytale?page=22&scrollTo=2039

The body of the young Dallas reporter was found swathed in a blanket on the floor of his bachelor apartment
on September 21, 1964. Police said the cause of death was asphyxiation from a broken bone at the base of
the neck - apparently the result of a karate chop.

Robbery appeared to be the motive, although Koethe's parents believe he was killed for other reasons. Whoever
ransacked his apartment, they point out, was careful to remove his notes for a book he was preparing, in
collaboration with two other journalists, on the Kennedy assassination.

(David Welsh, Ramparts  November, 1966)




KOETHE, JAMES F., suspicious death; staff writer, Dallas Times
Herald. Along with two other reporters, Koethe attended a meeting in
Ruby's apartment with Ruby roommate George Senator during the evening
of November 24. All three of the journalists died soon after the meeting.
Koethe was murdered in his Dallas apartment on September 21, 1964,
reportedly just as he had stepped out of the shower. According to A. L.
Goodhart in the Law Quarterly Review (January 1967), " ... Koethe was a
beer-drinking bully who liked to hang out with thugs; he had been
strangled, not 'karate chopped,' (as some reports have said) and police
suggested that homosexuality may have been a motive."

(Who's who in the JFK assassination)

There is another strange coincidence. Ruby's roommate, George Senator, when he heard Ruby had shot Oswald,
immediately went to see an attorney friend, James Martin. Martin turns up again as Marina Oswald's manager,
chosen for her by the Secret Service. In a city of one million people, we are to believe that a friend of Ruby is
accidentally picked by the Secret Service to aid the wife of Ruby's victim*. Martin didn't act as Ruby's lawyer.
The first man who took that job was Constine Alfred Droby, President of the Criminal Bar Association of Dallas
who was interviewed by Jean Campbell for the London Evening Standard of October 7, 1964:

    "I said I would defend Jack," he told me . . . "but I had to
    give it up before I really started, as my wife's life was
    threatened by anonymous phone calls and we were told our
    house was to be blown up by dynamite." However Droby
    told me that as Ruby's attorney he had rushed around to
    Ruby's apartment soon after the shooting with Jim Koethe,
    a Dallas news reporter.

    "The place was in chaos. I think we were the first people
    to see it."

    "You remember anything especially?" I said.

    "No, just chaos and newspapers," Droby answered. "I wonder
    if Jim Koethe saw anything?" I asked.

    Mr. Droby folded his hands and leaned forward: "Koethe's
    murdered," he said. "He was choked to death the Monday
    before last."

(Joachim Joesten, Oswald, Assassin or Fall Guy, 1964)

* Joesten here mixes up two different James / Jim Martin's. 
The lawyer is Wilford James Martin. The Marina-manager is James Herbert Martin.
(Thank you Gerald Campeau for clearing this up.) Both of them are not to be confused
with Guy Banister-associate Jack Martin or General Walker-associate John 'Jack' Martin.
(More on John Martin: click HERE)

Waldo told the Warren Commission that he had an important informant in the Dallas Police. His name was
Lieutenant George Butler. According to Michael Benson, Butler was an associate of Haroldson L. Hunt. Butler
was also the man in charge of Oswald's transfer when he was killed by Jack Ruby.

(Spartacus Education)



Also since Vol. I, we have discovered that Jim Koethe, a Dallas Times Herald reporter, was working
on a book about the assassination in conjunction with two other writers. In view of what happened
to his two associates, we now feel that his specific assignment on the book was at the root of his
murder. Koethe's associates on the book were Thayer Waldo and Ed Johnson, both men working
for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram at that time. All three men covered the Presidential visit for their
papers, and all three covered the assassination and the Ruby trial.

Koethe's task for the book was an in depth study of the leaders in Dallas. This, in our opinion,
was what caused his murder. Thayer Waldo, a newsman o f 23 years experience, was the first of the three
to find himself in trouble. Although he was not fired by the StarTelegram, it was convenient for him to seek
employment elsewhere after his big scoop turned out to be false.

At the request of Mark Lane, Waldo had accompanied Mrs. Marguerite Oswald and two
officers, Pat and Mike Howard, to Love Field. Mrs. Oswald had requested of Lane that she have
someone in addition to the officers escort her to the airport. Mrs. Oswald was going to Washington
to testify before the Warren Commission, and of course, to say that her son was innocent.

Mike Howard was a Secret Service Agent, while his brother was a Tarrant County Deputy Sheriff.
After the trio saw Mrs. Oswald on her plane, the two officers and the reporter went for a cup of coffee.
Both officers told newsman Waldo that they felt pity for Mrs. Oswald, but said there was a
prisoner in jail who saw her son kill President Kennedy. If such was the case and the story was
printed, Mrs. Oswald's testimony w o u I d be completely buried by the new development.
At the conclusion of their story, however, the lawmen added: "But we are not supposed to talk
about the prisoner." On the way back to Fort Worth, the lawmen repeated their report of the
prisoner, but again added the information was top secret. Waldo begged to be allowed to use the
news without giving the source of the information.

This was agreed to by the brothers Howard. Why repeat such a tale to a newsman twice,
if you do not want him to use it?

Waldo reported the news to his editor and the circumstances surrounding it. The editors and the
top brass of the Star-Telegram had a conference and decided to run the news which became an 8
column banner on page one. Next day, however, things were different. The Dallas District Attorney
denied the story. The Sheriff and Police Chief and the FBI denied that there was such a prisoner.
Only the Secret Service remained quiet - of course they had not been involved. In print, anyway.

The pressure on Thayer Waldo for his false lead continued and he soon found a job with the
University of the Americas in Mexico City.

Ed Johnson also left the Fort Worth paper for a better position with the Carpenter News Agency
of Washington, D.C. which is owned by Leslie Carpenter of Texas-the husband of Elizabeth
Carpenter, who is Press Secretary to Mrs. Lyndon Johnson.

(Penn Jones, Forgive my Grief II)

Within a week a 22-year-old ex-con from Alabama named Larry Earl Reno was picked up selling Koethe's
personal effects and held on suspicion of murder.



Reno's lawyers were Mike Barclay and the ubiquitous Jim Martin, both friends of Ruby roomie George
Senator. Martin and Senator, one recalls, were with Koethe at that enigmatic meeting on November 24,
1963. When the Reno case came before the grand jury, District Attorney Henry Wade secretly
instructed the jurors not to indict - an extraordinary move for a chief prosecuting officer with as
strong a case as he had. The grand jury returned a no-bill.

Reno, however, remained in jail on a previous charge. When they finally sprang him, in January 1965, he was
re-arrested within a month for the robbery of a hotel. This time the prosecution, led by a one-time law
partner of Martin's had no qualms about getting an indictment, and a conviction. Reno was sentenced to life
for the hotel robbery. At the trial his lawyers called no witnesses in his defense.

(David Welsh, Ramparts, November, 1966)

[Bill Simpich]

So my suggestion is that we focus on the deaths and injuries heaped on the journalists - Dorothy Kilgallen and her aide Florence Smith, Jim Koethe, Bill Hunter, Thayer Waldo (whose career was sabotage, not killed) - and other investigators who were initially trying to solve the JFK case, like Jim Garrison, whose career as a DA was sabotaged by the government repeatedly between 1967-1973.

What happened to early truth-tellers like the authors Joachim Joesten and Thomas Buchanan?  I know that Joesten feared for his life.  

I think there is a powerful story to be told about the people who tried to solve this case in the first few years of the case, especially the first couple of years.  Even Jim Garrison came to the case pretty late, after his initial decision not to pursue it in late November-December 1963.

 

 

[Matt Cloud]

My suggestion would be to study the deaths less (seemingly) obviously related, as sometimes working around a subject can lead to a greater understanding of the place in the jigsaw puzzle that you are focused on.  For example:

Harold Talbott's wife., Margaret Talbott (d. 1962).  He had been Secretary of the Air Force who gave away some say responsibility for overhead reconnaissance to CIA in the 50s.  (U-2 and CORONA.)  A target of RFK and the McClellan committee.

William Cotter's wife, Virginia Alicia McMahon (d. 1962).  He ran the mail-opening program; she had been a VENONA code-breaker in the 40s.  Her brother became Deputy Director of CIA in 1982, having been in the U-2 program in the 50s, then CORONA, then brought in Nosenko as Stan Turner's DDO in the 70s when the CI staff was gutted and CIA went even more heavy into satellite recon.  He had also debriefed Powers after his U-2 shoot-down as well as Golitsyn and Nosenko.    

Phil Graham, owner/publisher of the Washington Post, d. 1963.  He had been read into VENONA during the Truman years and was becoming pro-McCarthy evidently in the 50s.  Kennedy appointed him to COMSAT the privatization of CORONA, and had Clark Clifford allegedly spying on him to make sure he didn't spill secrets he learned.  

John Paisley, CIA (d. 1979) He had been tied up in the Nosenko affair, Team B, and The Hart Report on Angleton's Monster Plot. That's a gold mine.  

J.D. Tippit's son, the J.D. Tippit of Connecticut (d. 1980), whose son married another Air Force family (Kendrick), with ties to the Jupiter missiles at issue during Cuban Missile Crisis and NASA and the Paperclip Nazis.  Killed by shots fired from distance at a Texas gas station.  Anybody wants his name, just ask.  Don't have it handy at the moment. 

William Colby ... Game developer for Activision when he dies, along with Oleg Kalugin.  Something there?  

 

If there's foul play to be found in these, it will give a much better bird's eye perspective than most others.  

 

[Bill Simpich]

Finally, here's John Simkin on Dorothy Kilgallen's "aide" Florence Pritchett Smith - it turns out she was one of JFK's most passionate lovers and the wife of Cuban ambassador Earl Smith who was involved with the machinations that put Castro in power!

Furthermore - Kilgallen entrusted her notes to Florence Pritchett Smith because of what happened to Koethe and Hunter!

Florence Pritchett was born in 1920. After leaving school she worked as a model for John Robert Powers and appeared in Life Magazine. In 1940 she met and married Richard Canning. Soon afterwards she became fashion editor of New York Journal American, a journal owned by William Randolph Hearst.

In 1943 Florence divorced Canning. The following year she met John F. Kennedy. The couple spent a lot of time together. Betty Spalding said that for Kennedy, "Over a long period of time, it was probably the closest relationship with a woman I know of." However, because Kennedy was a Roman Catholic, marriage was out of the question.

In 1947 Florence married Earl E. T. Smith, member of the New York Stock Exchange. The couple had three children. In June, 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Smith as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Cuba. FBI files reveal that over the next two years John F. Kennedy made more than a dozen visits to Cuba in order to meet Florence. Florence also met Kennedy in Miami and Palm Beach, where their homes were conveniently adjoined.

According to one account: "JFK would elude the Secret Service on occasion in order to have trysts with women. He did this in Palm Beach when he hopped a fence to swim with Flo Smith. The Secret Service agents couldn't find him and called in the FBI. They finally turned to Palm Beach Police Chief Homer Large, a trusted Kennedy family associate. The Police Chief knew exactly where to find Jack - next door in Earl E. T. Smith's swimming pool. Jack and Flo were alone, and as Homer put it, "They weren't doing the Australian crawl."

John Kennedy and Florence Pritchett at the Stork Club (Feburary 1944)

Earl E. T. Smith remained Ambassador to Cuba until 20th January, 1959. Afterwards he wrote about his experiences in his book, The Fourth Floor (1962). This included an account of the Fidel Castro revolution in Cuba.

Florence continued working as a journalist. She also became a television personality and appeared on programmes such as What's My Line? It was during this time she became friendly with the journalist Dorothy Kilgallen.

Florence Pritchett

In 1965 Dorothy Kilgallen managed to obtain a private interview with Jack Ruby. She told friends that she had information that would "break the case wide open". Aware of what had happened to Bill Hunter and Jim Koethe, Kilgallen handed her interview notes to Florence Smith. She told friends that she had obtained information that Ruby and J. D. Tippit were friends and that David Ferrie was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

On 8th November, 1965, Dorothy Kilgallen, was found dead in her New York apartment. She was fully dressed and sitting upright in her bed. The police reported that she had died from taking a cocktail of alcohol and barbiturates. The notes of her interview with Jack Ruby and the article she was writing on the case had disappeared. Florence Smith, died two days later of a cerebral hemorrhage. Her son, Earl Smith III, said that she had been suffering from leukemia.

[Paul Brancato]

The information in this series of posts about dead journalists is new information for me, and I think Bill Simpich makes a good case that these deaths may have dampened the enthusiasm of other journalists to follow the trail they were trying to blaze. 

[Ron Bulman]

46 minutes ago, Bill Simpich said:

Finally, here's John Simkin on Dorothy Kilgallen's "aide" Florence Pritchett Smith - it turns out she was one of JFK's most passionate lovers and the wife of Cuban ambassador Earl Smith who was involved with the machinations that put Castro in power!

Furthermore - Kilgallen entrusted her notes to Florence Pritchett Smith because of what happened to Koethe and Hunter!

Florence Pritchett was born in 1920. After leaving school she worked as a model for John Robert Powers and appeared in Life Magazine. In 1940 she met and married Richard Canning. Soon afterwards she became fashion editor of New York Journal American, a journal owned by William Randolph Hearst.

In 1943 Florence divorced Canning. The following year she met John F. Kennedy. The couple spent a lot of time together. Betty Spalding said that for Kennedy, "Over a long period of time, it was probably the closest relationship with a woman I know of." However, because Kennedy was a Roman Catholic, marriage was out of the question.

In 1947 Florence married Earl E. T. Smith, member of the New York Stock Exchange. The couple had three children. In June, 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Smith as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Cuba. FBI files reveal that over the next two years John F. Kennedy made more than a dozen visits to Cuba in order to meet Florence. Florence also met Kennedy in Miami and Palm Beach, where their homes were conveniently adjoined.

According to one account: "JFK would elude the Secret Service on occasion in order to have trysts with women. He did this in Palm Beach when he hopped a fence to swim with Flo Smith. The Secret Service agents couldn't find him and called in the FBI. They finally turned to Palm Beach Police Chief Homer Large, a trusted Kennedy family associate. The Police Chief knew exactly where to find Jack - next door in Earl E. T. Smith's swimming pool. Jack and Flo were alone, and as Homer put it, "They weren't doing the Australian crawl."

John Kennedy and Florence Pritchett at the Stork Club (Feburary 1944)

Earl E. T. Smith remained Ambassador to Cuba until 20th January, 1959. Afterwards he wrote about his experiences in his book, The Fourth Floor (1962). This included an account of the Fidel Castro revolution in Cuba.

Florence continued working as a journalist. She also became a television personality and appeared on programmes such as What's My Line? It was during this time she became friendly with the journalist Dorothy Kilgallen.

Florence Pritchett

In 1965 Dorothy Kilgallen managed to obtain a private interview with Jack Ruby. She told friends that she had information that would "break the case wide open". Aware of what had happened to Bill Hunter and Jim Koethe, Kilgallen handed her interview notes to Florence Smith. She told friends that she had obtained information that Ruby and J. D. Tippit were friends and that David Ferrie was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

On 8th November, 1965, Dorothy Kilgallen, was found dead in her New York apartment. She was fully dressed and sitting upright in her bed. The police reported that she had died from taking a cocktail of alcohol and barbiturates. The notes of her interview with Jack Ruby and the article she was writing on the case had disappeared. Florence Smith, died two days later of a cerebral hemorrhage. Her son, Earl Smith III, said that she had been suffering from leukemia.

Bill, as a result of your last few post's I'd just gone back and re read the pages on Florence Smith in Hit List and was about to post suggesting her death was interesting in a related way.  Not a journalist but close friends with Kilgallen, close enough for Dorothy to give her the Ruby notes that then disappeared.  Your post has info not in Hit list.  Which I think I have read a few years back (e.g. Mr. Simkins article).  

She has been discussed on the forum before.  When and where I don't recall.  I do remember questioning, "She died of a cerebral hemorrhage apparently as a result of having Leukemia" per the death certificate.  No autopsy (?), how did they know for sure?  Are cerebral hemorrhage's normally associated with Leukemia?  (I think I dug a bit but don't remember what I found, if anything).

I just seems a strange coincidence that she died from this, two days after her close friend Kilgallen's suspicious death, and the Ruby notes were lost to history.

There is another journalist related death I'll post on separately in a bit.

[Kevin Balch]

3 hours ago, Matt Cloud said:

Kennedy appointed him to COMSAT the privatization of CORONA, and had Clark Clifford allegedly spying on him to make sure he didn't spill secrets he learned.  

CORONA was a highly classified photo-reconnaissance satellite. It was never privatized. It’s details were only declassified in the past 10-20 years.

[Ron Bulman]

The other journalism related death I referred to is Karyn Kupcinet, daughter of extremely popular Chicago newspaper columnist Irv Kupcinet.  

She did not yell at a telephone operator a few minutes before the assassination that JFK was going to be shot.  That was debunked by Greg Parker per Hit List.

The book does make a decent case that Karyn may have been murdered as a warning to her dad not to write about Ruby's Chicago connections.  This is based in large part on the work of former forum contributor Kathleen Collins.  It seems Irv had mob connections/informants of his own.  In particular "Jimmy Colitz, one of Ruby's oldest and closest friends." 

Karyn was found 11/30, 8 days after the assassination, 6 days after Ruby shot Oswald.  She had been dead 2-3 days when found.  She, as an aspiring actress living in LA, had been in Palm Springs the weekend after the assassination.  So had Paul "Red" Dorfman, big time mobster with national connections . . . who Irv knew well."  The book, and Kathleen postulate, with more detail, that after Ruby shot Oswald the Chicago mob grew worried his roots might lead home.  So, they created national news as a distraction and warned Irv not to write about it.  He didn't, nor much else with his former verve.

IDK.  I don't think Sam Giancana was involved in the JFKA.  But if he ordered this hit from 1963 Chicago? 

[Bill Simpich]

Let me address the journalist death cases that are not as strong as Koethe-Hunter-Kilgallen but had a big impact on journalists and many other people.   (I may follow up with a separate thread on journalists and their impact on the JFK case - I believe that at least one journalist was in on the cover-up and a possible perpetrator)

Florence Pritchett Smith, mentioned earlier as the journalist who aided Dorothy Kilgallen as the safekeeper of her JFK notes after meeting her on What's My Line:  Even back in the early 40s, Pritchett Smith was the fashion editor of New York Journal American, a journal owned by William Randolph Hearst and one of the biggest papers in New York City.

On Pritchett Smith's cause of death at age 45 allegedly due to leukemia complications, one writer offers an analysis that deserves further research:

It is alleged that Smith died of a cerebellar hemorrhage a few weeks after suffering from leukemia. This is highly unlikely, since it is quite rare (0.5%) of cases of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). If Smith had another type of leukemia other than that of AML, then the chances of her dying from a cerebral hemorrhage would have even been less than 0.5% chance.

Yet another questionable death of a journalist is the fate of Gary Underhill, who died on 5/8/64, found in bed with a bullet wound behind his left ear.  Jim D. stated in Destiny Betrayed that Underhill was right-handed.  Nonetheless, sources have always quarreled about whether it was suicide or murder.  Wikipedia:  "For five years he was a military correspondent for Life magazine and helped to make their Foreign News Department one of the most knowledgeable centers of military intelligence in the world."   The CIA always said:  "He's not our guy." 

John Simkin provides this quote:  

Underhill told his friend, Charlene Fitsimmons, that he was convinced that he had been killed by members of the CIA. He also said: "Oswald is a patsy. They set him up. It's too much. The bastards have done something outrageous. They've killed the President! I've been listening and hearing things. I couldn't believe they'd get away with it, but they did!"

Underhill believed there was a connection between Executive Action, Fidel Castro and the death of Kennedy: "They tried it in Cuba and they couldn't get away with it. Right after the Bay of Pigs. But Kennedy wouldn't let them do it. And now he'd gotten wind of this and he was really going to blow the whistle on them. And they killed him!"

Underhill told friends that he feared for his life: "I know who they are. That's the problem. They know I know. That's why I'm here. I can't stay in New York."

Ron, I'm with you - I can't ignore Karyn Kupcinet was killed on 11/30/63. 

I generally don't like speculative theories, especially about such a gruesome death, but Karyn's immediate family is now deceased.   She was strangled while naked and defenseless.   The Dallas journalist Jim Koethe died in the same fashion a few months later when stepping out of the shower - some say he was strangled as well.   One message emerges from a strangulation death:  Don't talk.

And there was a very simple second message to Karyn's father Irv, who had the biggest audience in Chicago with his decades-long Sun-Times column packed with celebrities, nightlife, and gossip.  As the man with the megaphone - I'm sure he got the very simple message loud and clear by the timing of Karyn's death and the inevitable rumors that it was tied to the death of JFK - don't talk about Jack Ruby and his pals in Chicago.   Irv did know Ruby from his time in Chicago in the 40s.

 

 

[Richard Bertolino]

12 hours ago, Bill Simpich said:

The Howard brothers told Waldo that Charles Givens - the African American janitor who had provided alibi evidence stating that LHO was not on the sixth floor at noon - had actually seen Oswald shooting at JFK from the sixth floor window.  Waldo printed the story in the Dallas Morning News. 

Neither the Howard brothers nor Waldo ever named Givens as the janitor of the story.

[Bill Simpich]

Technically, you are right.  But they described a "Negro" that clearly appeared to be Givens.   And Givens changed his story after Waldo's story came out.

[Richard Bertolino]

2 minutes ago, Bill Simpich said:

Technically, you are right.  But they described a "Negro" that clearly appeared to be Givens.   And Givens changed his story after Waldo's story came out.

Truly told the FBI that Eddie Piper was the only negro janitor at the TSBD.