Harry Dean: Memoirs

[Ernie Lazar]

NEW FOIA REQUEST:

Tonight, I sent an FOIA request to the Naval Investigative Service (successor to Office of Naval Intelligence=ONI) for the three ONI files which were identified in the "OSI traces" document on Harry released by the CIA in 1998.

This probably will not be productive because most military intelligence files (G2, ONI, OSI) were destroyed many years ago -- but I thought it was worthwhile to pursue just in case something still exists.

[Harry J.Dean]

Harry Dean. US. Merchant Marine division of US Coast Guard.

[Ernie Lazar]

FOIA UPDATE:

I received the cost form from NARA this morning for FBI HQ file 94-54427 which is a 97-page FBI file on John Rousselot which includes his inquiry to the FBI about Harry Dean and the FBI's reply -- along with other serials which do not pertain to Harry. I just gave NARA my payment info so I should receive this file within the next 7-10 days.

Because of an internal bureaucratic snafu at NARA, my request for Harry's FBI HQ file (62-109068) was not processed because a different NARA unit has it -- so I just sent my request to that other unit. With a little luck, I should have their cost form within a week or two and then I should have that 200-page file on CD within another 7-10 days after that.

[Paul Trejo]

General Walker identified Lee Harvey Oswald as his 10 April 1963 shooter the very week of the shooting.

This was Walker's story to the German newspaper, but also to the National Enquirer one month before his Warren Commission hearings, and several times after that.

One of the rarely cited aspects of the Warren Report is in volume one, when the new "business manager" of Marina Oswald, namely, James Herbert Martin, was asked to testify.

It's interesting because he said that while he was "guarding" Marina he was visited by a man named "Morris" who wanted to ask Marina some questions on behalf of General Edwin Walker.

What questions? asked Martin. Morris replied that Walker wants to know more about the shooters of 10 April 1963, because Walker is very worried that the second shooter is still at large.

Martin refused to let Morris ask any questions of Marina -- and insisted that Marina has already told everything she knows about the Walker case to the FBI and the Warren Commission, and that's the end of it.

But notice the sub-text there. Edwin Walker sent a third-party (possibly his Oxford attorney, Robert Morris) to learn more about his April shooting. Walker was obsessed with this shooting for the rest of his life.

So it shouldn't surprise anybody to learn that he talks about the April shooting in speech after speech, and in memo after memo, for the rest of his life. I'll show more evidence about this in future posts.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited September 3, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Brancato]

So - to the WC Walker denied supplying the name of Oswald to the German newspaper, and denied knowing that Oswald had been arrested for taking a shot at him in April 1963, or even having heard of him before the assassination. In 1975 he tells Frank Church that he knew it was Oswald in April 1963 who had shot at him, and that Oswald had been arrested that night.There is no corroboration of this arrest to my knowledge. I believe Walker blamed RFK for having Oswald released that night. Is my memory correct on that point?

[Paul Trejo]

So - to the WC Walker denied supplying the name of Oswald to the German newspaper, and denied knowing that Oswald had been arrested for taking a shot at him in April 1963, or even having heard of him before the assassination. In 1975 he tells Frank Church that he knew it was Oswald in April 1963 who had shot at him, and that Oswald had been arrested that night.There is no corroboration of this arrest to my knowledge. I believe Walker blamed RFK for having Oswald released that night. Is my memory correct on that point?

Yes, Paul B., your memory is correct on that point. Walker said this at many times, in many venues. The German newspaper was only the first of a long chain of such statements.

Another such statement was made by the National Enquirer on 17 May 1964, shortly before Edwin Walker was scheduled to appear before the Warren Commission. The source is probably Edwin Walker himself.

This sensational story is similar to the story in the German newspaper, with a twist -- here Edwin Walker opines that Jack Ruby was the "second man" involved in the 10 April 1964 shooting at 1411 Turtle Creek Boulevard in Dallas.

This enabled the National Enquirer of 17 May 1964 to include the photographs of BOTH Jack Ruby AND Lee Harvey Oswald on its front pages, for extra sensationalism. The FBI then investigated the National Enquirer to find its sources, Here is a link to part of that FBI document:

http://www.pet880.com/images/19640505_FBI_on_Natl_Enq_1.jpg

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

[Paul Trejo]

There's lots more about Walker's obsession with Lee Harvey Oswald, which he held for the rest of his life.

Here's something else: in April of 1967 (the four year anniversary of the 10 April 1963 shooting) Walker wrote an article for his monthly newsletter (which he did for his organization, FRIENDS OF WALKER).

In this article, entitled, "Oswald -- A Known Criminal," our resigned Major General Edwin Walker criticizes RFK for hiring William Manchester to write the book, "Death of a President," because, as Walker said, it was a statement that the Warren Commission was defective.

The article reeks with hatred toward RFK. Also, Walker claims that the Warren Commission volumes were rushed to Moscow -- because Earl Warren was a COMMUNIST.

Here's a quotation from the article: "The President was assassinated by a known criminal. The President was assassinated by the man who attempted to assassinate a former Major General of the United States Armed Forces...a conclusion without equivocation or question."

The article goes on to insist that there were two shooters -- not one. Also, Walker again claims that Lee Oswald was physically arrested and then set free on that same night, on orders from Washington. Walker also names Michael Paine in the context of this incident.

It's interesting reading, I think, so I'll post the link for interested readers. Here it is:

http://www.pet880.com/images/19670404_EAW_Oswald_released.pdf

Best regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited September 3, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Brancato]

Do you believe Walker when he blames RFK for letting Oswald go? Did the German newspaper publish, a week after the assassination, an article claiming that Oswald had been arrested in Dallas on the night of the Walker shooting and then released?

[Paul Brancato]

I'll assume that the answer to the second question is 'no'. However, when one reads a previous post of yours responding to my questions one gets the impression that the answer is yes.

Walker's writings show a deranged mind. That doesn't make him innocent of being part of an assassination plot, but it does make his statements to Church, and to the WC, and to whoever he was writing to, unreliable. If Walker was right when he claimed RFK had Oswald released that would be huge news. But we both know that its highly unlikely that Oswald was arrested that night, making Walker's claims seem paranoid at best, and outright lies at worst.

The problem with considering 'eye witness testimony' factual is that people can say anything. Without corroboration such testimony needs to be taken with a large amount of salt.

[Paul Trejo]

Do you believe Walker when he blames RFK for letting Oswald go? Did the German newspaper publish, a week after the assassination, an article claiming that Oswald had been arrested in Dallas on the night of the Walker shooting and then released?

I'll assume that the answer to the second question is 'no'. However, when one reads a previous post of yours responding to my questions one gets the impression that the answer is yes.

Walker's writings show a deranged mind. That doesn't make him innocent of being part of an assassination plot, but it does make his statements to Church, and to the WC, and to whoever he was writing to, unreliable. If Walker was right when he claimed RFK had Oswald released that would be huge news. But we both know that its highly unlikely that Oswald was arrested that night, making Walker's claims seem paranoid at best, and outright lies at worst.

The problem with considering 'eye witness testimony' factual is that people can say anything. Without corroboration such testimony needs to be taken with a large amount of salt.

First, Paul B., I want to thank you for your consistent, level-headed debates over the past year or so. You make good points and ask good questions, and even though we disagree, your dignity and respect always show through. So, thanks for that.

OK, as for your first question, I totally DISBELIEVE that RFK set Oswald free at midnight on 10 April 1963 after the failed attempt to assassinate Edwin Walker in his Dallas home.

That was part of the paranoia of Edwin Walker, and at least two psychiatrists found traces of paranoia in the language of Edwin Walker.

As for your second question -- yes, the German newspaper published, one week after the assassination, an article claiming that Oswald had been arrested in Dallas on the night of the Walker shooting and then released. The German newspaper also blamed RFK for letting Oswald go.

The answer is YES -- the German newspaper repeated Edwin Walker's paranoid story -- a story he told for the rest of his life. We have proof of this in his personal papers.

I disagree with you, Paul B., when you say that "Walker's writings show a deranged mind." That is merely your personal opinion, and you aren't a licensed psychiatrist. Further, your opinion is biased based on your political orientation.

Walker wasn't "deranged." Many Americans in 1963 thought like he did -- they called themselves the John Birch Society. There were countless thousands of these people all over the USA in 1963.

An insane person lives in a private world -- but if a person agrees with another million people about some political belief or other -- that person is not insane, but merely politically partisan.

To their political opponents they may seem insane -- but that is a POLITICAL opinion, and not a psychiatric opinion.

I should add here that several OTHER psychiatrists who examined Walker said he was "normal." Thomas Szasz was one of them -- and he is world famous. In fact, when JFK and RFK put Walker into a mental ward following the Ole Miss riots of 29 September 1962, psychiatrist Thomas Szasz and the ACLU teamed up to protest this nightmare mixing of politics and psychiatry.

Based on their protest, Walker was released from the mental ward in three days (instead of the 90 day observation period originally recommended).

So -- your opinion about the sanity of Edwin Walker, dear Paul B., is only a political opinion. Nothing more.

Now -- was Edwin Walker a reliable source of information? Some people said no, but many others said yes. H.L. Hunt, for example, thought of Edwin Walker as one of the most honest men he knew.

However, the Episcopalian Bishop Duncan Gray of Oxford, Mississippi told me personally that Edwin Walker LIED to the Grand Jury in Oxford that acquitted him of his role in the Ole Miss riots in 1962.

So, Paul B., you can't write off Edwin Walker as "unreliable" so quickly -- it's only a political opinion that lets you do so.

Walker's story about Oswald being identified during the week of the 10 April 1963 shooting, however, is REALLY AND FACTUALLY TRUE.

We know it is true based on the testimony of George De Mohrenschildt, and even others, in the Warren Commission volumes, and even in the HSCA volumes.

Also, Dick Russell (TMWKTM) says that he interviewed Mr. and Mrs. Igor Voshinin, who said that George De Mohrenshildt, their good pal, told them on Easter Sunday, 1963, that Lee Harvey Oswald was the shooter at Ex-General Edwin Walker only four days before. Mrs. Voshinin said that she called the FBI the moment that George De Mohrenschildt left their home.

If Dick Russell is right, then the FBI had this report on Easter Sunday -- and most likely somebody in a high place called Edwin Walker that very same day with this suspect's name.

According to my theory, only a few days after Easter Sunday, 1963, Edwin Walker and Guy Banister would be setting up a plan to make Lee Harvey Oswald their PATSY in New Orleans. Oswald would be FOOLED into thinking he was working for the CIA and would promptly move to New Orleans to let himself be FRAMED as a Communist supporting Fidel Castro and the (non-existent) chapter of the FPCC in New Orleans. Oswald would be FRAMED in police reports, the newspaper, on radio and on TV. It was TOTAL SHEEP-DIP.

The icing on the cake was the Mexico City incident, in which Oswald made a fool of himself attempting to get an Instant Visa to Cuba, based only on these newspaper clippings and his claim that he was a bona fide officer of the FPCC. What a joke. His handlers in New Orleans were probably laughing their heads off.

But while Oswald was in Mexico City, a rogue CIA officer, David Morales, would expand this framing to link Oswald's name with the name of the KGB agent, Valery Kostikov -- using a wire-tapped line between the Cuban consulate and the USSR consulate in Mexico City.

THE FRAMING WAS COMPLETE.

After JFK was murdered, Lee Harvey Oswald was supposed to die IMMEDIATELY. But he was a survivor. He would have sung like a bird, too, if he had lived. But of course, he didn't.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited September 6, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Brancato]

The problem I see with the arguments that support your theory is that they are largely based on eye witness liars. If Walker wasn't deranged, and I'll buy your legal argument there, he was lying to the WC, or lying to Frank Church, or both. And you don't believe him when he blames RFK for releasing Oswald. We would both agree that he was lying about that, and kept the lie up for decades.

As for George Demohrenschildt, he told plenty himself. I remember you and I arguing on whether Oswald was a lefty or a righty or something else entirely. You chose to disbelieve DeM on that occasion. And then there's Dean, who claims the Mormons were behind the JBS, even after you disabused him of that notion. How credible do you imagine him to be?

You pick and choose what to believe from known liars to support your theory of the assassination. You did that with Hancock as well, who never absolved Angleton or Harvey or the rest of them of anything. He simply said he did not think they were involved with the ground crew.

[Paul Trejo]

The problem I see with the arguments that support your theory is that they are largely based on eye witness liars. If Walker wasn't deranged, and I'll buy your legal argument there, he was lying to the WC, or lying to Frank Church, or both. And you don't believe him when he blames RFK for releasing Oswald. We would both agree that he was lying about that, and kept the lie up for decades.

As for George Demohrenschildt, he told plenty himself. I remember you and I arguing on whether Oswald was a lefty or a righty or something else entirely. You chose to disbelieve DeM on that occasion. And then there's Dean, who claims the Mormons were behind the JBS, even after you disabused him of that notion. How credible do you imagine him to be?

You pick and choose what to believe from known liars to support your theory of the assassination. You did that with Hancock as well, who never absolved Angleton or Harvey or the rest of them of anything. He simply said he did not think they were involved with the ground crew.

These are all good questions, Paul B., which is why I have never reached a firm CONCLUSION in my theory. It remains a theory after several years, and I only argue for its plausibility.

The problem with making any case, actually, is that people LIE. As Gregory House, MD says on the FOX program, House, "Everybody lies." Did Marina Oswald lie? We know she lied to the FBI before she took the oath, because she insisted at first that Lee Oswald "didn't shoot anybody -- he's good husband," but under oath she swore that he told her he tried to kill Ex-General Walker.

Many JFK researchers say she lied under oath. I seem to be in a minority here because I accept her sworn testimony at the truth, even knowing she was under tremendous social pressure.

Did George De Mohrenschildt lie? He was a rich playboy -- and we know he stretched the truth in many places, even in his sworn testimony and his written affidavit (or "book") for the HSCA. He consistently said, however, that Lee Oswald was framed. He didn't want to be implicated with Oswald in anything, but in fact he was totally implicated in the shooting at Ex-General Walker. So he presents a double story -- firstly that he looked down on Oswald, and pitied him, and secondly that he was Oswald's "friend."

As readers we must pick and choose what to accept in the words of every witness.

Do we believe Chief of the DPD Jesse Curry? Curry was driving the lead limo that led the JFK motorcade into Dealey Plaza. Curry insisted that Jack Ruby's armed presence in the DPD basement when Lee Oswald was walking out was an accident. Curry defended his DPD officers, saying that only a tiny handful knew Jack Ruby.

Who do we believe in the Warren Commission volumes? The conclusion of the Warren Commission was that Lee Oswald was a Lone Shooter -- despite the fact that he had so many clear associations in New Orleans, and even Dallas. Michael Paine admitted that he spoke with Lee Oswald about Ex-General Edwin Walker, but swore that it was only a few remarks in passing -- never anything heavy.

The strong tendency of Warren Commission witnesses was to distance themselves from Lee Oswald's shooting at Ex-General Walker -- when actually Volkmar Schmidt -- who was not called by the Commission in connection with the Walker shooting, has admitted to our own Bill Kelly that at an engineers party in Dallas he sort of hypnotized Oswald for hours to convince him to hate Ex-General Walker, just like all the wealthy, liberal engineers at the party. Schmidt is also on video admitting this, and George De Mohrenschildt speaks about it in his "book" to the HSCA.

Who is lying and when? We American readers must be the judge. As a body we've long rejected the Lone Shooter conclusion of the Warren Commission -- yet in my view we must continually return to the Warren Commission TESTIMONIES in order to weed out the truth from the lies, and piece together the actual biography of Lee Harvey Oswald.

I say it's a mistake -- it's throwing out the baby with the bath water -- to neglect the entire 26 volumes of the Warren Report, just because its CONCLUSIONS are known to be false.

Who is lying, and when? That's the key question, actually, of the past half-century of research into the JFK murder.

As for Harry Dean, I say he was MISTAKEN about the LDS connection with the JBS -- I don't say he was lying. A lie is a deliberate intention to deceive -- but a MISTAKE is simply a misunderstanding -- usually based on ambiguity or incomplete information.

Also, if Harry ever said to anybody that he was an "undercover informant" for the FBI, then I maintain that this was a MISTAKE, not a lie. Harry Dean *did* provide information to the FBI -- by their own admission -- however, the term "Informant" to the FBI is a technical term surrounded by rules.

Harry Dean *did* spy on his comrades in the FPCC and in the JBS, smiling to their faces, even though he was taking information about them to the FBI. Some would say that is "undercover," but again, to the FBI "undercover" is their special technical term. So, in generic terms -- to the laity -- Harry Dean might be thought of as an "undercover informant," but certainly not to the FBI. I think that if Harry Dean ever used those words to describe himself, it was based on a misunderstanding.

So, as we weigh testimonies and claims and statements, we must use DISCRETION. And based on our personal sense of DISCRETION, that will lead us to a personal INTERPRETATION of events -- and that is where different readers will disagree.

For example, Bill Simpich wrote this year that the *impersonation* of Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City over a wire-tapped phone was done by some CIA insider "for the purpose of blackmailing the CIA." That's Bill Simpich's interpretation of the events. I disagree with that interpretation. The CIA would not be "blackmailed," in my opinion. The purpose of the *impersonators* was quite different, IMHO.

So, yes, Paul B., I am presenting my own interpretation of events. I also look forward to reading other interpretations.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited September 7, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Ernie Lazar]

RECENT OPINION ARTICLE IN WASHINGTON POST

Meet the respectable JFK conspiracy theorists

Philip Shenon, a former Washington correspondent for the New York Times, is the author of “A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination.”

Describing someone as a “conspiracy theorist” is usually meant as an insult, suggesting tin-foil hats and babbling rants on late-night radio talk shows. But when it comes to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the list of important, seemingly credible public figures who count themselves as conspiracy theorists is long and impressive.

Fifty years ago this coming week, the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the panel led by Chief Justice Earl Warren and better known as the Warren Commission, published an 888-page final report that identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the sole gunman in Dealey Plaza and said there was no evidence of a conspiracy, foreign or domestic.

Those findings were meant to put an end to the swirling conspiracy theories about the president’s murder. Yet the theories persisted. Americans had difficulty accepting that the most powerful man in the world could be brought down by a troubled young man wielding a $21 mail-order rifle. And in the wake of the Vietnam War, Watergate and so many other scandals and national tragedies that followed the assassination, people grew increasingly skeptical that the government could be expected to tell them the truth. By the late 1960s, opinion polls showed that most Americans had rejected the findings of the Warren Commission’s report. An April 2013 poll by the Associated Press found that 59 percent of Americans believed there was a conspiracy in Kennedy’s death.

The bold-faced names among the conspiracy theorists have included the president who established the commission. Lyndon Johnson said in the final years of his life that he believed that the Warren Commission was wrong and that Cuban leader Fidel Castro was behind the assassination. Another surprising conspiracy theorist: the slain president’s brother, former attorney general Robert Kennedy, who publicly supported the Warren Report even as he told friends and family he was convinced that Castro, the Mafia or even some rogue element of the CIA was responsible for his brother’s death. Last year, Secretary of State John Kerry told a television interviewer that “to this day, I have serious doubts that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.”

And this month, on the eve of the report’s 50th anniversary, the roster of seemingly credible Americans willing to identify themselves as Kennedy-assassination conspiracy theorists has grown to include someone from within the Warren Commission itself: Charles N. Shaffer Jr., a former Justice Department prosecutor who served on the investigation’s staff in 1964 (he says he was dispatched by Attorney General Kennedy as “Bobby’s spy”) and went on to a headline-making career as a Washington-based criminal defense lawyer.

In interviews I have been conducting for a new edition of my 2013 book on the assassination, Shaffer told me there probably was a conspiracy in President Kennedy’s death, which makes him the first commission insider to say so publicly. He said he has no doubt that Oswald was the lone gunman in Dealey Plaza. Nor does he question the single-bullet theory, developed by the commission’s staff, which holds that one bullet passed through the bodies of both Kennedy and Texas Gov. John Connally. But he now suspects that the assassination was the work, ultimately, of organized-crime figures who somehow manipulated Oswald into gunning down the president in Dallas on Friday, Nov. 22, 1963, and then directed strip-club operator Jack Ruby to silence Oswald by killing him two days later.

“The Warren Report was an honest report, based on what we knew at the time,” Shaffer said. “But nothing should have been written in stone. There were later developments that convinced me that maybe we missed something.”

Shaffer, who maintains an active legal practice at age 82 and is perhaps best remembered in Washington for his defense of White House counsel John Dean during Watergate , said he has long been troubled by disclosures about possible Mafia involvement in the assassination. He said he was struck in particular by the account of mob lawyer Frank Ragano. In his 1994 memoir, Ragano wrote that Tampa-based crime boss Santo Trafficante confessed to him in 1987 that he and Carlos Marcello, the mob boss of New Orleans, were responsible for the assassination. According to Ragano, the dying Trafficante uttered the words: “Carlos messed up. We shouldn’t have killed John. We should have killed Bobby.”

Shaffer, who also defended powerful organized-crime figures, knew Ragano. He said he always thought the account seemed credible: It made sense that Trafficante and Marcello would have wanted revenge for the Justice Department’s aggressive prosecution of mob figures during the Kennedy administration, and they would have been in a position to order Ruby, who had a history of low-level ties to organized-crime figures, to kill Oswald. “If you credit what Ragano says, there was a conspiracy,” Shaffer said. “It sounds right.”

The mob theory has long been a popular one among conspiracy theorists, although other former commission staffers, as well as Ragano’s family and a number of independent researchers, dismiss it. Howard P. Willens, a senior member of the commission’s staff, told me he is convinced that Shaffer, a close friend, is wrong. “No number of commonly held suspicions amounts to one fact,” he said.

Burt Griffin, a retired Ohio judge who also served on the commission’s staff and was responsible for investigating Ruby’s background, said he, too, is certain there was no Mafia conspiracy. “I’ve tried to keep abreast of the allegations that the Mafia was involved in the assassination,” he told me. “It’s nonsense. Zero evidence of any contacts with Oswald.” Critics have suggested that Ragano made up his story to sell books or as an act of vengeance against his former client.

Still, the fact that a Warren Commission staffer is now challenging the investigation’s central findings creates another dent in the commission’s already damaged legacy — and will only add to the skepticism that the truth about the assassination can ever be known.

Warren bears much of the responsibility for his commission’s failures. Years later, he would admit that, in his own mind, he ruled out a conspiracy within days of the president’s murder. As a result, he frequently blocked staff lawyers from pursuing lines of investigation that might have pointed to co-conspirators.

Shaffer said he believes that Warren’s biggest blunder was his refusal to allow Ruby to testify in Washington. Ruby consistently denied involvement in a conspiracy, saying he had loved the slain president and murdered Oswald on impulse. But in a face-to-face meeting with Warren in Dallas in June 1964, Ruby, who was seen by psychiatrists at the time as delusional, if not clinically insane, pleaded to go to Washington because “I want to tell the truth, and I can’t tell it here.” Warren refused, saying he worried for Ruby’s safety in the capital. Shaffer said the decision was “ridiculous” and meant that the commission missed a “golden opportunity” to see if Ruby was prepared to expose a conspiracy.

For my book, I spoke to the surviving members of the commission’s staff and then pursued the leads they hadn’t been able to follow — because Warren resisted or because, it is now clear, evidence had been hidden from them. I was never swayed by the theories of a mob plot, if only because it seemed so unlikely that the Mafia would enlist such pathetic misfits as Oswald and Ruby in the crime of the century. I was much more intrigued by evidence — denied to the commission’s staff — suggesting that Oswald had talked openly about his plans to kill the president and that he may have been promised help if he were ever able to succeed. Much of that evidence involves his mysterious visit to Mexico City several weeks before the assassination, when Oswald, a self-proclaimed Marxist, was apparently trying to get a visa to defect to Cuba.

Both the CIA and the FBI had Oswald under surveillance in the fall of 1963. But they withheld information from the Warren Commission about how much they knew about him before the assassination. The CIA never told the commission about its plots during the Kennedy administration to assassinate Castro — plots that the Cuban dictator discovered, giving him an obvious motive to kill Kennedy. The FBI destroyed evidence before it could reach the commission, including a handwritten, apparently threatening note that Oswald delivered to the bureau’s field office in Dallas in early November 1963. On the day Oswald was murdered by Ruby, FBI agents in Dallas, fearing that the note would be seen as evidence that they had been aware of the danger Oswald posed to the president, shredded the piece of paper and flushed it down a toilet. Its exact contents remain a mystery.

So the Warren Commission record is incomplete. And conspiracy theories are likely to plague us forever.

shenon.books@gmail.com

Edited September 21, 2014 by Ernie Lazar

[Paul Trejo]

That article on the Warren Commission is inadequate in many respects.

It is well-documented that three members of the Warren Commission rejected the Lone Shooter theory -- namely Senator Richard Russell, Senator John Cooper and Congressman Hale Boggs.

Cooper and Boggs were pressured to sign the Warren Report on grounds of National Security. Senator Russell still refused to sign until the Commission promised to publish his lone, dissenting opinion. Then he signed. Then the Warren Commission decided to withhold Senator Russell's dissenting opinion, anyway!

This history, a half-century old, is already well-known by scholars, and it's shameful that this isn't better known by journalists.

Furthermore, the US Government itself (in the wake of the Garrison trials and Watergate) chose to re-open the JFK murder case and investigate it more thoroughly in 1977-1979 through the agency of the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

The conclusions of that Committee were the opposite of the conclusions of Warren Commission conclusions. They can be found on the web site of the National Archives and Records Administration at this URL:

http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/summary.html

Perhaps the key paragraph on that web page is the following:

I.3.c The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy.

This official conclusion by the US Government in 1979 completely shatters the Warren Commission conclusion of a Lone Gunman. It upholds and vindicates the the doubts expressed by Senator Russell, as well as Senator Cooper and Congressman Boggs.

Even Congressman (later President) Gerald Ford, in his own book on Oswald, namely, Portrait of the Assassin (1965), admitted that the Warren Commission was stunned in its first month of operation when Dallas authorities produced evidence to the Commission that Lee Harvey Oswald received small amounts of cash from the FBI for providing information.

Certain facts about Lee Harvey Oswald, said Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, were simply to be withheld from the public in the interest of National Security for up to 75 years. So, the Warren Report was shaky on its first very day of publication.

Further details abut the HSCA findings can be obtained in further NARA web pages, for example, the long page at this URL:

http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-1c.html

Some of the interesting paragraphs on that web page include the following:

...The committee's finding that President Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy was premised on four factors:

(1) Since the Warren Commission's and FBI's investigation into the possibility of a conspiracy was seriously flawed, their failure to develop evidence of a conspiracy could not be given independent weight.

(2) The Warren Commission was, in fact, incorrect in concluding that Oswald and Ruby had no significant associations, and therefore its finding of no conspiracy was not reliable.

(3) While it cannot be inferred from the significant associations of Oswald and Ruby that any of the major groups examined by the committee were involved in the assassination, a more limited conspiracy could not be ruled out.

(4) There was a high probability that a second gunman, in fact, fired at the President. At the same time, the committee candidly stated, in expressing its finding of conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination, that it was "unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy."

It is amazing to me that many Americans still don't know about the HSCA findings of 1979, even though this represents the official position of the US Government now, while the Warren Report has been officially out-dated for decades.

Journalists are to blame -- probably because so much money is still being generated by Hoover's Myth of the Lone Gunman. It's shameful.

Sincerely,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited September 23, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Ernie Lazar]

DEAN-RELATED FBI FILES UPDATE

1. I have paid for Harry's FBI HQ file (62-109068) which is 162 pages. (Previous estimate of 200 pages was just that---an estimate. This time they actually counted all the pages.)

2. I have also paid for Rousselot's HQ file (94-54427) which is 97 pages.

3. However, today I received an email from NARA which stated that:

"Our office experienced technical issues with our electronic redaction tool which resulted in processing delays for several weeks. We are currently resolving several issues and have began scanning cases just recently. Your case is at the top of the queue to be scanned."

So, there will be a short delay but still hope to have everything posted on Internet Archive within the next 2-3 weeks.