CREATING A PATSY (formerly “THE REAL
TARGET?”)
Published in JFK/Deep Politics
Quarterly, April 1998 (revised & expanded)
Peter R. Whitmey
On November 23, 1963 a report was
distributed by the two major wire services, AP and UPI, which ran in The
Seattle Times under the headline “Was Connally Primary Target? Oswald
Letter Raises Question.” According to the report, the Pentagon had released a
letter written by Lee Harvey Oswald to John Connally, the former Secretary of
the Navy, dated January 30, 1961, although the report pointed out that Oswald
apparently dated the letter wrong, as it should have read “January 30, 1962”.
At the outset, the report stated that “Lee Harvey Oswald, charged with the
assassination of President Kennedy, once threatened ‘to employ all means’ to
right a wrong he said had been done him in military service.” Oswald addressed
the letter to the Secretary of the Navy in Fort Worth rather than Washington
D.C. and stated: “I wish to call your attention to a case about which you may
have personal knowledge since you are a resident of Ft. Worth [sic], as I am”
(the last three words were underlined.)
Writing in the third person, Oswald
reminded Connally that in “..Nov. 1959 an event was well publisited (sic) in
the Ft. Worth [sic] newspapers concerning a person who had gone to the Soviet
Union to reside for a short time (much in the same way E. Hemingway resided in
Paris). This person in answers to questions put to him by reporters in Moscow
critisized (sic) certain facets of American life. The story was blown up into
another ‘turncoat’ sensation, with the result that the Navy Department gave the
person a belated dishonourable (spelled the British/Cdn. way) discharge,
although he had an honourable discharge after three years service on Sept. 11,
1959 at El Toro, Marine Corps base in California. These are the basic facts of
my case.”
The AP/UPI report mentioned the
reference to Hemingway, but did not include Oswald’s critical comments about
U.S. life at the time of his defection, or Oswald’s belief that the media had
“blown up” the event. Although Oswald had received an “honorable discharge”
from active duty in the Marine Corps, which he had mentioned in his letter,
this fact was not referred to in the article, but instead it stated that
“Oswald had received an undesirable discharge from the Marine Corps”, with no
reference made to the fact that it had been reduced, because Oswald had failed
to report for USMC Reserve training. Instead, he left the U.S. by freighter
from New Orleans, planning to attend Albert Sweitzer University in Switzerland,
and possibly another in Finland. However, Oswald ended up in the U.S.S.R., on a
six-day visa, at which time he offered to provide military secrets (related to
the U2 spy plane), in exchange for Soviet citizenship, which was never granted.
The report stated that “Oswald had
been court-martialed twice while in the service and received an undesirable
discharge so he could accept citizenship in Russia”, suggesting that Oswald’s
discharge might have been made in order to make him more attractive to the
Soviet Union (but, of course, the Russians suspected at the outset that Oswald
might be faking his defection). According to the report, “While stationed in
Japan, Oswald was court-martialed in April, 1958, for failure to register a
personal weapon. Three months later he was convicted for using provocative
language to a noncommissioned officer.”
Writing in the first person, and
quoted in the newspaper report, Oswald claimed that he had “...and allways
(sic) had the full sanction of the U.S. Embassy, Moscow U.S.S.R. and hence the
U.S. goverment (sic). In as much as I am returning to the U.S.A. in this year
with the aid of the U.S. embassy (I) bring with me my family (since I married
in the U.S.S.R.) I shall employ all means to right this gross mistake or
injustice to a boni-fied (sic) U.S. citizen and ex-serviceman. The U.S.
goverment (sic) has no charges or complaints against me. I ask you to look into
this case and take the necessary steps to repair the damage done to me and my
family.” The report emphasized that Oswald had “threatened to ‘employ all
means’ to right a wrong he said had been done to him in military service.” All
spelling errors had been corrected.
The article pointed out that “Oswald
enlisted in the Marine Corps at Dallas, Texas on Oct. 24, 1956 and was
discharged from the Marine Inactive Reserve Sept. 13, 1960 as an ‘undesirable.’
His discharge came two months after he requested it.” Oswald, in fact, had
received a “hardship discharge” from active duty three months early in the fall
of 1959, in order to look after his injured mother, but after a brief visit, he
left for Europe on a small freighter, from New Orleans, with a passport
obtained seven days before his release, without notifying the USMC. According
to the report, while in the Marines, from “July, 1957 to Oct. 1958 Oswald was
assigned to the 1st Marine Air Wing at Atsugi Air Base, Japan. It was there
that he was court-martialed twice.” No reference was made to monitoring U2
flights, since this was not publicly known, until a U2 crashed in the Soviet
Union six months after Oswald defected. For a third time, the report reminded
readers that Oswald’s discharge was “undesirable.”
As mentioned, Oswald had received a
reply from Connally, indicating “he no longer was connected with the Navy. He
referred the letter to his successor as secretary of the Navy, Fred Korth.” No
comment was made about Korth having also been a resident of Fort Worth or the
fact that he was recommended for the position by Vice-President Johnson, also
from Texas. All three had been good friends for many years. Of course, it would
not have been known that Korth represented Oswald’s stepfather, Edwin Ekdahl,
in divorce proceedings against his mother back in 1948, although Oswald might
have known this. According to Robert Oswald, Lee had developed a close
relationship towards his stepfather. Oswald’s father, Robert Edward Lee Oswald,
had died of a heart attack, shortly before Lee’s birth.(1) No reference was
made to the fact that Korth had been fired by JFK the previous month as a
result of a scandal involving Korth’s banking interests back in Fort Worth. As
Secretary of the Navy, Korth had reviewed the bidding of three aircraft
companies for a major fighter jet contract, which he awarded to a Fort Worth
company, even though the bid by Boeing was the lowest.
Despite Oswald’s 1959 defection,
Oswald was able to retrieve his passport from the U.S. Embassy and obtained
exit visas for himself, Marina and their daughter, June. With a loan from the
State Department, Oswald and his family returned to the United States in June,
1962, after Oswald appeared to become disillusioned with life in Russia. He
brought with him a lengthy report on life in Minsk and was possibly debriefed
by a CIA agent named Anderson upon his return, according to author and former
Army Intelligence officer, John Newman.
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The following essays are also by Peter Whitmey:
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And yet, unlike in the case of
another “disillusioned defector” named Robert Webster, who had returned from
Russia only a month before Oswald’s departure, (with extensive coverage of his
odyssey from beginning to end in the New York Times), Oswald’s return via
New York City was limited to two brief reports: one in the Washington Post shortly
after leaving Moscow, followed by another in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram upon
Oswald’s arrival there. Unlike Webster, who left a Russian girlfriend
behind and was reconciled with his wife and children, Oswald came back with a
Russian wife and a young daughter, who were granted exit visas, against all
odds (2). Even Svetlana Stalin was unable to obtain one in 1967,
defecting to the U.S. via India, Italy and finally Switzerland. Her memoirs
were subsequently translated by none other than Priscilla Johnson McMillan
(whose book Marina and Lee wasn’t published until 1977).
Although Oswald asked the U.S.
Marine Corps for a review of his undesirable discharge, a few months before
leaving Russia, he was required to make an official application upon returning
to Texas, which was received by the USMC Review Board on June 20, 1962. It should
be pointed out that on his 1959 passport application a notation at the bottom
of the form indicated that a “MCR Inactive I.D. card had been submitted”,
suggesting that his trip had been approved. (Cadigan Exhibit #3, XIX, p. 269.)
Despite Oswald’s insistence in 1962 that he had never tried to renounce his
U.S. citizenship or had violated any American laws, the U.S.M.C. Review Board
upheld the original reduction of his “honorable discharge” to “undesirable.” On
July 19, 1963 Oswald was informed that “...the discharge originally issued is
proper and no change, correction or modification be made...” (Cadigan Exhibit
#3, Vol. XIX, p. 267.) The board’s decision was reviewed and approved by the
Under Secretary of the Navy, Paul B. Fay, Jr., who happened to be an old friend
of President Kennedy, from their time in the Navy during World War II. (Fay
replaced Fred Korth as Secretary of the Navy in early Nov. 1963 after Korth was
fired by JFK, and following the assassination Fay wrote The Pleasure of
His Company).
On July 1, 1963, Oswald checked out
William Manchester’s 238-page profile of President Kennedy, entitled Portrait
of a President, which featured comments from numerous people who worked for
JFK, and some who had known him a long time. Included was Paul “Red” Fay, Jr.,
who had also commanded a PT boat during WW II. I located nine references to
Paul Fay in Manchester’s book. On page 145 Manchester describes the
recollections of Fay’s neighbours, who remembered shortly after the war Fay’s
prediction that a “naval lieutenant named Kennedy would be President one day.”
In an April 5, 1946 letter to his parents that Fay came across in 1961, he had
stated in jest: “‘I am living here with Jack Kennedy, who is really out on a
big scale...If by chance the West Coast papers carry a story about me running
for Secretary of the Navy, kill it. It’s the Undersecretary of the Navy I
get.’” Manchester then added: “The scribbler’s present address is the Pentagon.
Three days after scaling the biggest hurdle of all, Jack Kennedy - who never
saw the letter - appointed his old shipmate Undersecretary of the Navy.” Fay
also refused to accept the news from an eyewitness back in 1943 that everyone
on Pt-109 had perished, including “...her skipper, Lieutenant John F. Kennedy,
aged 26” (p. 146), which turned out not to be the case, thanks, in part, to
JFK’s heroic actions.
Oswald was undoubtedly disappointed
and likely very upset with the board’s rejection of his appeal and Fay’s
support of it, a decision Lee had been anticipating for over a year. He had
even offered to re-enlist, but clearly the USMC board wanted nothing to do with
someone whom they felt had brought “disgrace” to the Marines, by defecting and
offering to the Russians what he had learned during his three years of active
duty. Surprisingly, Priscilla Johnson McMillan, author of Marina and Lee,
makes only a brief reference to Oswald’s appeal, while discussing Governor
Connally’s visit to Dallas on April 22, 1963. McMillan points out that Oswald
had “corresponded” with Connally “in a fruitless effort to alter his
‘undesirable discharge.’” However, she chose not to discuss the arguments put
forth by Oswald in his appeal, and the possible impact that the rejection had
on Oswald’s attitude towards the USMC, Paul Fay, Jr. and President Kennedy
himself.
According to Marina Oswald, as told
to McMillan (p. 426), in reference to Portrait of a President, “Ordinarily,
Lee read books rapidly. He took his time over this one...” He might not have
even returned the book yet to the Napoleon branch of the New Orleans public
library, when he received the board’s decision mailed on July 25, with one of
JFK’s closest friend’s name and position of Undersecretary of the Navy written
on the bottom. Anthony Summers, in both editions of Not in Your Lifetime,
also makes reference to the numerous books checked out by Oswald during the
summer of 1963, including Portrait of a President. However, he makes no
reference to Oswald’s receipt of a letter signed by Paul Fay, Jr. supporting
the decision not to alter the undesirable discharge that Oswald had received
from the USMC Reserve Board. Although author Vincent Bugliosi, in his mammoth
book Reclaiming History, does make reference to the USMC Review Board’s
decision, and also mentions the fact that Oswald had checked out “...William
Manchester’s friendly biography of John F. Kennedy,” he makes no reference to
Paul Fay either.
It should also be mentioned that a
New Orleans lawyer named Dean Andrews, Jr., who was closely linked to mob boss
Carlos Marcello, told the Secret Service shortly after the assassination, and
later the Warren Commission, that Lee Harvey Oswald had appeared at his office
several times in June or July, 1963. The first time he was accompanied by
several “gay kids,” and requested assistance in getting his undesirable
discharge returned to honorable. Oswald was also concerned about the status of
his citizenship, and wanted assistance related to his wife’s immigration
papers, although he failed to pay a $25 fee that Andrews required in advance.
Andrews later came across Oswald while Lee was handing out Fair Play For Cuba
leaflets near the International Trade Mart, and was told by Oswald that he was
being paid to distribute them.
Andrews suggested that Oswald had
likely been referred to him by a man named Clay Bertrand, whom Jim Garrison
later tried to prove was, in fact, Clay Shaw, head of the International Trade
Mart. Andrews also revealed that the day after the assassination, he received a
phone call while in the hospital, again from Clay Bertrand, requesting that he
go to Dallas to defend Oswald, but was too ill to do so. It is also possible
that Bertrand was, in fact, banker and lawyer, Clem Sehrt, also connected to
Marcello, who had known Oswald’s mother from childhood. In 1955 she had asked
Sehrt to create a false passport for Lee, so he could enter the Marines before
he turned seventeen. Sehrt had also been asked to represent Oswald, allegedly
by Marguerite Oswald, although he was no longer practising law. It’s
conceivable that it was Sehrt who had phoned Andrews on Nov. 23, whom he likely
knew.
However, the fact that Oswald wasn’t
charged with failing to report for non-active duty in the spring of 1960, or
for denouncing the United States and offering to provide military information
to the Soviets, strongly suggests he was part of an ongoing “fake defection”
program. This has been supported by an alleged CIA memo dated March 3,
1964 and sent to James J. Rowley, Chief of the Secret Service, from John
McCone, Director of the CIA, which reveals that Oswald had been “trained by
this agency, under cover of the Office of Naval Intelligence, for Soviet
assignments” and had received “additional indoctrination at our Camp Peary site
from September 8 to October 17, 1958.” McCone points out that
Oswald was “on special assignment in the area of Minsk” after “arrangements
were made for his entry into the Soviet Union in September 1959.”
Later in the memo, he emphasizes
that after Oswald’s return to the U.S. the CIA came to the conclusion that
Oswald was “unreliable and emotionally unstable” and was “of little use to us
after his marriage”, suggesting the Agency would have preferred it if Oswald
had remained single while in Russia. The memo also suggests that Oswald
may have returned to the U.S. as a so-called “sleeper agent”, working for the
KGB. In addition, the memo suggests the possibility that Oswald
“…given his instability, might have been involved in some operation concerning
Hoffa”, which, implies involvement with organized crime, consistent with the
HSCA’s conclusions. Was the memo, perhaps, withheld from the Warren
Commission on the orders of McCone, for obvious reasons?
The question of the document’s
validity has been raised and debated at various Internet sites, including
at the moderated newsgroup “alt.assassination.jfk”, since it first appeared on
the Internet in 2004. It was also the subject of an article by Prof. Walt
Brown in the Oct. 2004 issue of his journal JFK: Deep Politics Quarterly,
who discusses both sides of the issue, but leans towards it being
legitimate. Most researchers appear to have concluded that it is either a
false document, or an altered one, especially since its source is a reporter
named Jim Moore, associated with tabloid journalism back in the late 1970s (who
claims to have received it from a former FBI agent in Tennessee). I was
able to contact the journalist (with the assistance of researcher Gary Buell),
and he suggested that the format of the document (which includes a Secret
Service file number rather than a CIA one) might have been created
intentionally, so that the content would not be taken seriously if it was
leaked to the press. It is also possible the file number was added, as a
cross reference to earlier correspondence between the Secret Service and the
CIA noted at the beginning of the memo. As for Moore, he has never been
investigated or charged with creating a bogus government document, and appears
to believe the content is valid. Gary Buell has created a blog site in
which the document and related material can be read. (3)
After Oswald settled into domestic
life in Fort Worth in June, 1962, he somehow managed to obtain employment at a
Dallas photo lab, which did top secret contract work with the U.S. Army, some
of which was directly related to the aerial photography over Cuba leading up to
the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of that year, suggesting that Oswald still
had military and intelligence connections. During the summer and fall
Oswald would have quickly discovered that John Connally was immersed in a
campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor against five other opponents,
including the extreme right-winger General Walker. Walker now lived in
Dallas, after being fired by President Kennedy for distributing anti-communist
literature to his troops in West Germany (although he claimed to have
resigned). Connally easily defeated his opponents and in November won the
governorship against Republican Jack Cox. Since Oswald was still a U.S.
citizen, he could have voted in the 1962 elections, but there is no indication
that he did.
Although he showed no outward
bitterness towards Connally, Oswald did become increasingly incensed with the
potential threat of Walker, who had finished dead last at the nominating
convention, but was gaining a great deal of national attention along with
Senator Barry Goldwater; he even made the cover of Newsweekmagazine in
early 1963. In February, Oswald and his wife were invited to a dinner
party at the home of George DeMohrenschildt, a geologist who spoke fluent
Russian (and who was later impressed with Oswald’s command of the
language). A colleague of DeMohrenschildt’s at Magnolia Labs (a Mobil Oil
subsidiary near Dallas), Dr. Volkmar Schmidt, was also in attendance, along
with Magnolia Labs’ librarian, Betty MacDonald, a friend of Ruth Paine’s. (4)
Schmidt, whose father was apparently
a member of Hitler’s S.S. (according to Edward J. Epstein in his 1978 book Legend),
and who had recently immigrated from West Germany, prided himself on being an
astute judge of character. In the course of the evening, he struck up a
conversation with Oswald and pretended to be sympathetic to his hostile
feelings towards Walker, deliberately comparing Walker to Hitler, suggesting
both should be treated as “murderers at large.” As expected, Oswald
totally agreed with Schmidt’s assessment, expressing his belief that the U.S.
was “moving towards fascism.”
Based on their conversation, Schmidt
(who died in 2012) concluded that Oswald was a self-destructive, alienated, and
self-obsessed young man, similar to the assessment provided by McCone, raising
the possibility that Schmidt might have reported his analysis to the CIA either
directly or through DeMohrenschildt (who was a friend of a CIA agent in
Dallas). Schmidt suggested to his roommates, Everett Glover and Richard
Pierce, that they also host a party for the Oswalds, which Ruth and Michael
Paine attended (who also appeared to have intelligence connections through
their respective families). For some reason Schmidt was unable to attend
this gathering, however. I learned from him that he remained good friends
with DeMohrenschildt even after moving to Alberta in the late 1960s, up to the
time of DeMohrenschildt’s apparent suicide a few hours before he was to be
interviewed by both Edward J. Epstein and Gaeton Fonzi (representing the HSCA)
in 1977. DeMohrenschildt left behind a rough manuscript about Oswald
entitled “I Am A Patsy!”
After the assassination and death of
Oswald, it was revealed that Oswald had allegedly been the person who fired one
shot at General Walker in April, 1963 (which missed its target), two months
after his conversation with Schmidt. Photos of Walker’s home and the lane
behind it were provided to the FBI by Marina, along with her recollections of
Oswald having boasted about getting away with it. Although the bullet was
badly mangled, the Dallas Police at the time believed it was a 30.06
round. A month earlier Oswald had purchased a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle
from a Chicago mail-order company, as well as a pistol from a Los Angeles
weapons distributor. Oddly enough, when ordering the rifle, he chose not
to purchase one hundred rounds of ammunition (which came with a free
clip). The bullet recovered at the Walker scene could not be linked to
Oswald’s rifle (nor could the FBI determine where Oswald had purchased the
bullets used in the assassination.)
Nevertheless, based on Marina
Oswald’s recollections, as well as the incriminating photos, it would appear
that Oswald had some involvement in the incident, and certainly wanted his wife
to believe he was solely responsible. It’s amazing that Schmidt did not
contact the Dallas Police, given the conversation he had with Oswald only two
months earlier, but he told me in 1993 that it never occurred to him that
Oswald might have been the shooter when he heard the news on the radio.
There seemed to be some suspicion at the time that the assassination attempt
had been carried out by either a disgruntled former employee of Walker’s, or
that it might have been staged to show the risks that Walker was taking by
speaking out against communism, integration and Big Government.
Either way, the incident prompted
Walker to state to the press that there was, indeed, an “internal threat” to
the Far Right, contrary to assurances by “the Kennedys”, as discussed in the
April 22, 1963 issue of Newsweek. Walker also pointed out that the shooter
was a “lousy shot”, although he was later quick to accuse Oswald of being part
of a communist plot in the assassination of President Kennedy, willing to
accept Oswald’s improved marksmanship (or “Marxmanship” as Walkers’ colleague,
Prof. Revilo Oliver put it in a lengthy two-part article which the Warren
Commission allowed him to expound upon near the end of their investigation, and
which is included in the Warren Commission’s documents.)
Walker became “military editor” of
the extreme anti-communist magazine American Mercury in early 1963,
which had been sold and moved from Wichita, Kansas to McAllen, Texas, having
previously been sold in 1960 and moved from its long-time New York City
location, where it had prospered for many years as a literary magazine.
In an article on the assassination Walker asked: “Who was the mastermind
behind Oswald who furnished the exact route of the President six weeks before
it was published?” Intriguingly, the issue that carried his commentary
was dated “October, 1963”, which was either a printing error, or evidence that
Walker knew what was going to transpire ahead of time. Since he was
closely associated with other Texas right-wingers, such as the wealthy oilman
H. L. Hunt and the Murchison brothers, he could very well have known that John
Kennedy was going to be killed (if he had his way).
Not long after the Walker incident,
possibly concerned about being a suspect if Schmidt had contacted the police,
Oswald decided to seek work in New Orleans, while his pregnant wife and
daughter, June, temporarily moved in with Ruth Paine, who was separated from
her husband (although he visited regularly). While in “The Big Easy”
Oswald contacted a lawyer named Dean Andrews, who was closely associated with
mob boss Carlos Marcello, in regard to his Marine Corps discharge, although
Andrews never saw him again. It could be that Oswald’s uncle, “Dutz”
Murrett, who worked on the docks but was also a bookie in Marcello’s criminal
organization, suggested that his nephew talk to Andrews. Oswald might
have also spoken to Clem Sehrt, another Marcello associate. He had known
Oswald’s mother since childhood and had been contacted by her when Oswald was
eager to join the Marines when he was only sixteen (5).
Upon Oswald’s return to Dallas in
early October, 1963, after having travelled to Mexico City from New Orleans by
bus after Ruth Paine picked up his wife and daughter, either Oswald or someone
similar in features was allegedly overheard talking to Jack Ruby at the
Carousel Club. According to a lawyer named Carroll Jarnegin, a regular
at the club, they were discussing a plan to kill Governor Connally, on
behalf of “the boys in Chicago.” Connally was expected to be in Dallas
campaigning for reelection (at that time the governorship was contested every
two years) and it was suggested he would be an easy target. Ruby offered
“Oswald” an undisclosed amount of money to kill Connally – an offer he
willingly accepted. Jarnegin claimed to have reported what he overheard
to the Texas Department of Public Safety on October 5, not long after Oswald
had arrived in Dallas, where he was temporarily staying at the YMCA, although,
unfortunately, there is no evidence that he did.
After the assassination Jarnegin did
write a detailed seven-page letter about the incident, which he sent to the FBI
in Washington, D.C., addressed directly to J. Edgar Hoover and dated Dec. 5,
1963 (6). According to authors Warren Hinckle and William Turner in their
1981 book The Fish is Red, Jarnegin had a “prodigious memory” and was a
former chess champion, which helps explain the details he was able to
provide. In a 1988 Jack Anderson tv special on the assassination
(featuring a live interview with Marina), Jarnegin stood by his experience.
The FBI investigated Jarnegin’s
allegation, but quickly discounted it, due mainly to his problems with alcohol,
and a lack of support from a young woman who had been in his company on the
night of the alleged conversation. Nevertheless, his story was revived in
1988 by author James Reston, Jr. (son of the famous New York Times journalist)
in his biography of John Connally entitled The Lone Star, portions of
which were included in the Nov. 28, 1988 issue of Time magazine for
the 25th anniversary coverage of the tragedy in Dallas. It should be
noted that in the course of the “Ruby-Oswald” discussion, no mention was made
of John Kennedy’s proposed trip to Texas, although Ruby suggested at one point
that “the boys” would love to “get” Robert Kennedy, but, unlike his brother, he
was never an easy target. Ruby was also concerned about “Oswald’s”
shooting ability and the importance of only hitting Connally, but “H. L. Lee”
assured Ruby that it would not be difficult, as he was a former Marine
sharpshooter (actually he had been trained in electronics and was a radar
operator).
The fact that he was calling himself
“H.L. Lee” suggests a possible link to H. L. Hunt. Intriguingly, the name
“Hunt” also came up during a Warren Commission interview with Sgt. Dean in
regard to how Ruby managed to get into the basement. Dean indicated
“Hunt” was one of several volunteer Dallas Police officers in the basement, but
couldn’t provide a first name. Also, in the mid-1970s a letter was
published which was addressed to “Dear Mr. Hunt”, allegedly written by Lee
Harvey Oswald, although handwriting analysis appeared to conclude it was a
forgery. Again, a possible connection to Hunt was implied.
If it was Oswald whom Ruby was
talking to in his club, Ruby might have been aware of Oswald’s failure to kill
Walker, which could have been the reason why he was approached in the first
place, with the threat to turn him in if he didn’t cooperate. Conversely,
knowledge of Oswald’s attempt on Walker’s life might have prompted Ruby and
others to set Oswald up, with plans to reveal his “psychopathic” personality
after his anticipated arrest. However, it is more likely that
Jarnegin confused Oswald with Larry Crafard (who reverted to his real name
“Curtis Laverne Craford” in 1964), who had begun working at the Carousel Club
in early October, 1963, after meeting Ruby at the Texas State Fair. He
also stayed briefly at the YMCA upon arriving in Dallas, following a trip from
Memphis, where he had been working in a carnival. Craford was attempting
to relocate his first wife and young child, who were living in the Dallas
area. He had also been in Dallas earlier, and possibly met Ruby at that
time.
I managed to locate Craford through
his father in 1989, and wrote to him c/o the local post office, as his father
only told me the name of the town where Curtis lived. Not long after
writing to him, I received a written reply from his second wife, (whom Curtis
married in 1964), partially on his behalf. In response to my query as to
why Crafard had left Dallas so abruptly on Nov. 23,1963, his wife was quite
insistent that Curtis had left Dallas on November 22, which I suspect Curtis
had always wanted her to believe. However, Curtis had told the FBI and
the Warren Commission, as well as during cross-examination at the Ruby trial
(where he testified as a character witness for Ruby), that he left Dallas
around noon on Nov. 23, 1963.
In my written reply I pointed this
out, but possibly because she had been deceived by her husband, she never wrote
back to me again, although I did speak to her on several occasions throughout
the 1990s, both before and after she split up with Curtis in 1991. When I
finally visited Craford in Dec. 2001, he remained adamant that he left on the
day of the assassination. However, after showing him his own statements,
he reluctantly agreed that he had been mistaken. It would appear that
Curtis also didn’t want me to think that there was any possibility that he had
first-hand information about the assassination, or Tippit’s murder, or Ruby’s
decision to kill Oswald – one or more of which might have prompted him to
abruptly quit his job, while Ruby was back at his apartment in Oakcliff, and
hitchhike all the way to northern Michigan with only seven dollars in his
pocket.
In the letter I received from
Craford’s wife, she also mentioned that in 1965 Earl Ruby had phoned Curtis
from Detroit, having met him at his brother’s trial the year before. Earl
ran a commercial drycleaning business in the Cobo area of Detroit, and when he
learned that Curtis was unemployed, Earl offered him a job, which Curtis
cheerfully accepted. However, after working there for several months, he was
fired, allegedly for stealing some clothes, although Curtis claims that they
were given to him for his pregnant wife, who had accompanied him.
Afterwards, Craford worked for awhile for an oil company, long enough to buy a
car, at which point he and his wife drove back to Oregon, where they have lived
ever since. He later concluded that Earl’s real reason for hiring him was
to find out what he knew about his brother’s activities in Dallas, possibly
because Jack’s lawyers were appealing his conviction (which was successful,
although Ruby died before his new trial was to begin in Wichita Falls, Texas in
1967).
I also learned from Curtis that in
1980 he and his wife, along with two of their four children, were involved in a
serious car accident, caused by faulty steering, even though the vehicle was
quite new. Curtis was convinced that someone had tampered with the
steering, which has made him fearful for his safety ever since. After his
wife read Contract on America, by David Scheim, which I had recommended,
she too seemed suspicious of the accident. I also recall when I was
speaking to Craford in the late 1990s on the phone, apparently my voice was
fading in and out, which caused Curtis to believe that the line was tapped.
During my initial interview with
Craford at a bar/restaurant in the small town where he lives in a rural area of
Oregon, he revealed to me that he had been a “hit man” in the early sixties in
San Francisco, prior to going to Dallas. While living there he got
involved with the granddaughter of the local “Don”, and, unfortunately for
Craford, she became pregnant. However, in exchange for leaving town and
promising never to contact her again, Curtis was spared the usual harsh
treatment associated with organized crime. Although I was somewhat
skeptical of Craford’s claim, his older brother, whom I later spoke to by
phone, appeared to confirm what Curtis had revealed to me.
Earlier, after dropping out of high school
in Dallas, Oregon (!) in 1958, Craford had joined the Army, following in the
footsteps of his brother (who was, by then, a sergeant). In November 1959
he was abruptly released, however, after serving most of his fourteen months in
West Germany (where he might have been exposed to General Walker’s
anti-communist propaganda), because of a medical problem of some sort. Despite
having “messed up”, as he put it to me, he claimed to have been selected for
several covert operations as a demolition expert, which took him over the
Berlin Wall as well as into southeast Asia (presumably either Laos or
Vietnam). He even showed me a scar on his leg, which he treated as a
badge of honour related to one of those operations. Craford was vague
about whom he was working for, but emphasized to me that there would be no
written records related to his covert operations.
Although I didn’t think to ask him,
Curtis likely bragged about his “intelligence” experience while working for
Ruby. A woman named Beverly Oliver, who was only seventeen in 1963, sang
at the Colony nightclub, and hung out at the nearby Carousel. Years
later, after her first husband had been gunned down in a shootout with the
Texas Rangers, she claimed to have been introduced to “Lee” by Jack Ruby, a few
weeks before the assassination. Ruby mentioned that his new friend was
with the CIA. Given what Craford told me, it’s very likely she actually
was introduced to “Larry”, not “Lee.” I wrote to Beverly in this
regard, having met her at the 1996 Sudbury, Ontario JFK conference, but in her
reply, she confused Craford with Corky Crawford, another seedy associate of
Ruby’s, and didn’t remember having ever met Ruby’s handyman. However, her
unflattering description of him (featured in the movie “JFK”) is clearly much
more consistent with Craford than Oswald.
Nothing incriminating, of course,
was revealed to Burt Griffin and Leon Hubert during Craford’s three-day Warren
Commission “interrogation” in Washington D.C., although Judge Griffin told me
at a Chicago conference in 1993 that he and Hubert felt that Craford was
holding back and not being honest about himself and his activities while in
Dallas. After interviewing Craford, I decided to provide Judge Griffin
with a summary of our conversations, but for some reason, I did not receive a
response. Later, I did get a brief reply in regard to a Berkeley, CA
company (“Stewart-Hill”), which Craford was asked about during his W.C. interview,
but which he didn’t remember working for during the summer of 1960.
Unfortunately, Judge Griffin couldn’t recall what kind of company it was or how
the information had been obtained. Possibly this was when Craford was
working as a hit man.
He also claimed to have been a crack shot while in the Army, and still had a
keen interest in weapons, proudly showing me two high-powered revolvers that he
owned, possibly needed for his job as a licensed security guard. In the
case of Oswald, even though he had purchased an antiquated Mannlicher-Carcano
rifle as well as a .38 pistol (both by mail order), there is no evidence that
he ever practised firing either weapon, neither while in New Orleans nor after
moving back to Dallas. But there is evidence that someone posing as
Oswald was firing a rifle and behaving in a hostile manner towards others at a
firing range on the outskirts of Dallas, a month or so before the
assassination.
During one interview with Garland
Slack on April 2, 1964, conducted by attorney Wesley Liebeler, he was actually
shown colour photos of Craford (taken by the FBI when they tracked him down at
his sister’s remote cabin in northern Michigan a week after the
assassination). Although Slack insisted it was Oswald he had seen
at the firing range five months earlier, the Warren Commission knew Oswald had
no way of getting there, and was either at work or visiting Marina and his
daughter in Irving on the dates provided by Slack. It would appear
members of the Warren Commission’s staff considered the possibility that
Craford might have been posing as Oswald. In fact, in a Griffin/Hubert
memo written in March, 1964, they stated that Craford “closely resembles
Oswald.” In the letter I received from the Crafords in 1989, Curtis denied
ever pretending to be Oswald, however.
Someone also posed as Oswald at a
Mercury car dealership in Dallas, letting the salesman know he was coming into
some money soon, after taking a vehicle for a test drive and driving quite
erratically. He also mentioned having lived in Russia, and was quite
abrasive towards the staff, once again giving the impression he was emotionally
disturbed. The salesman recalled writing “Oswald” on a card,
anticipating doing business in the near future. The real Oswald was
taking driving lessons from Ruth Paine at that time, but was four inches taller
than the impostor, who was described as being 5’ 5” in height.
Intriguingly, when I met Craford, I was surprised, after seeing photos of him
published in the Warren volumes, that he was noticeably shorter than I
expected. Since I am 5’ 8 ½” tall, Craford was definitely no taller than
5’ 7”, even with a cowboy hat and boots on (years earlier he had worked in the
rodeo).
Allegedly, Craford also pretended to
be Oswald during an interview with an employment counselor in Dallas named
Laura Kittrell, who, in the course of her own investigation, came across the
photos of Craford in the Warren Commission volumes. In a lengthy
manuscript written in 1966, and later provided to the HSCA, she recalled in an
interview with Gaeton Fonzi that “Oswald” appeared for a third interview in
late October, 1963, still wearing a black leather motorcycle jacket as
before. Unlike her original client, however, whom she stated was
“neat as a pin”, “Oswald” was “slouchy…kind of unkempt and very unmilitary
looking; he had a “peculiar way of laughing and talking so that people all over
the room could hear him.” Kittrell later realized that this third
interview could not have been with Lee Harvey Oswald, as records show he was
already working at the Texas School Book Depository. In fact, there was
no evidence that Oswald visited the Texas Employment Commission in 1963 at all,
but Kittrell later found Craford’s application form in the inactive file, although
he told me he was quite certain he had never visited the Texas Employment
Commission. Curtis also recalled that he avoided laughing in public
because he was missing his front teeth, which made him self-conscious.
During his third visit “Oswald” informed
Kittrell that he had been sent back by the claims office, as he had just become
a member of the Teamsters’ Union, hoping to get a union job as a forklift
driver, as he had previously driven one while working in a New Orleans
warehouse. Since it was a union position, Kittrell was required by
law to alter his work classification again. However, “Oswald” did not
produce a union card to verify his membership, claiming it hadn’t been sent to
him yet. Kittrell wondered if he could even afford the initiation fees,
knowing he had a pregnant wife and young daughter to support. It
would appear from the evidence that it was not Oswald who visited the
employment office, especially since Oswald did not wear a black leather
motorcycle jacket. Instead, it was likely someone very familiar with
Oswald’s background, suggesting the person was pretending to be Oswald to once
again make him look unstable.
Even though Kittrell stated in her
1966 manuscript that the impostor might have been Craford, by the time she was
interviewed by Gaeton Fonzi on July 18, 1978 at her home in Dallas (on behalf
of the HSCA), she must have decided not to mention Craford, possibly expecting
Fonzi to ask her about her suspicions. The lengthy summary of
Fonzi’s interview makes no reference to Craford, nor does his notes, which he
kindly sent me, along with the following comment in an e-mail: “I recall
Kittrell and remember coming away from the interview with her thinking she went
way up and way down on the scale of validity but I had a tough time figuring
what was up or down. I don’t recall anything about Craford.” (7)
After the assassination, Ruby
decided to close his nightclub, which enabled him to show up at a midnight
press conference held by the Dallas Police, posing as a reporter, with numerous
questions being hurled at Lee Harvey Oswald, the suspect in both the shooting
of Tippit as well as Kennedy and Connally. The following day Ruby came
across a billboard with the statement “Impeach Earl Warren” on it, with a box
number and Jewish name provided in the corner, which he suspected might be
linked to a “Wanted For Treason” leaflet circulating in Dallas when JFK
arrived. In the middle of the night on Nov. 23, Ruby woke Craford up at
the club and told him to get the Polaroid camera, as Jack was upset about the
sign, even though he apparently didn’t know who Earl Warren was.
Ruby, George Senator (Ruby’s roommate) and Craford all drove out to take
pictures of it, and also went to the post office to check out the listed
mailbox, which turned out to be different than the one listed on the “Wanted
For Treason” leaflets. After dropping Craford off at the club, Ruby and
Senator had an early breakfast downtown before returning to their apartment in
the Oakcliff area, not far from where Tippit had been gunned down (8).
Around 8:30 that morning, Craford,
who was responsible for feeding Ruby’s dogs, which were kept at the club,
realized there was no dogfood and phoned Ruby at his apartment. Ruby, who
had been sound asleep, told Craford off for calling him, and treated him so
harshly that Craford apparently decided later that morning to quit his job and
leave Dallas, hitchhiking all the way to Michigan. A Griffin/Hubert memo
described Craford having “fled Dallas”, implying it was not just because of an
argument over dogfood. During Craford’s testimony at Ruby’s trial, in
March, 1964, he did not even mention the argument with Ruby as the reason he
abruptly left town, stating instead that “When I get ready to go someplace, I
go. I was ready to go, so I left.”
However, with only seven dollars in
his pocket, he wasn’t exactly well prepared for a cross-country journey,
especially in late November. Although Craford was interviewed at length
by Griffin and Hubert in Washington D.C. for the Warren Commission, which took
three days and takes up over two hundred pages in the Warren volumes, Judge
Griffin continued to be bothered by Craford’s abrupt departure from Dallas on
Nov. 23 in the coming years. In an interview conducted by the HSCA
in Nov. 1978, he stated that “one of the most important issues we never
resolved …is why Larry Crafard split town like he did.” He went on to
state that he had “always been bothered by that very much, the whole
circumstance of it. And I heard you haven’t been able to locate Crafard.”
It is difficult to understand why
the HSCA were unable to contact Craford, as he had been gainfully employed for
many years in Oregon in the security field, was married with several children,
and had family members living in the area, all of whom had listed phone
numbers. Presumably the HSCA simply ran out of time or couldn’t gain the
cooperation of Craford’s parents and/or brother. Once again, Craford
managed to avoid the limelight.
As for the Warren Report, it
downplayed the reason why Craford had abruptly quit his job at the Carousel
Club and hitchhiked all the way to Michigan (rather than returning to Oregon)
and suggested it was a consistent part of his lifestyle. He initially
visited his aunt and uncle near Detroit (and their daughter, whom he seemed to
have a crush on, suggested in a letter written to her from the Carousel
Club). After revealing to them that he had worked for Ruby, whom he
spoke positively about, Craford avoided discussing his time in Dallas, nor did
he watch JFK’s funeral, preferring to read comic books in the
guestroom. He claimed during my interview that he didn’t want to
show his emotions to his relatives (which might have been more a case of guilt
or remorse than sadness.)
The next day he headed to his
sister’s cabin for Thanksgiving, who didn’t live too far from the Canadian
border, possibly planning to leave the country had the FBI not tracked him
down. He made no effort to contact the authorities in regard to having
worked for Ruby, after learning about Oswald’s murder while getting a ride to
Chicago (where he told me he had visited someone associated with organized
crime). However, he was located by the FBI through the relatives he had
earlier visited, and was subsequently interviewed and photographed, as well as
being asked to maintain contact with the FBI if he moved. Craford was, in
fact, called by Jack Ruby’s defense counsel as a character witness on the final
day of testimony, and a few weeks later was flown to Washington D.C. from his
home in Oregon to testify at the Warren Commission hearings. Craford told
me that he was driven to the airport by FBI agents from the Portland
office.
In late 1991, shortly before the
release of Oliver Stone’s controversial film “JFK”, which made no reference to
Craford, I received a phone call from journalist Ron Rosenbaum, whose name I
recognized, as he had written a lengthy article on Oswald for Texas
Monthly magazine in November 1983. Since he had continued to
maintain periodic contact with other assassination researchers, Rosenbaum
learned about my contact with Craford through researchers Mary Ferrell and Paul
Hoch, whom I was in regular contact with beginning in the late 1980s.
Years earlier Rosenbaum had
interviewed Jim Garrison by phone, who identified Craford as a likely gunman
firing from behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll, presumably based on
the testimony of Julia Ann Mercer. Mercer had provided pre-assassination
information to the Dallas County Sheriff’s Dep’t, which was included along with
other eyewitness accounts in the Warren volumes. Her observations had
been described in the prologue of Mark Lane’s 1966 bestseller Rush to Judgment,
published shortly before Garrison began his investigation. Mercer’s
account has been repeated in numerous books on the subject over the years,
including the 2005 book entitled A Farewell to Justice by Prof. Joan
Mellen of Temple University.
According to Ms. Mercer, she was
driving down Elm St. an hour or so before the assassination took place, on her
way to work in Fort Worth, and was forced to drive around a stalled green Ford
pick-up truck parked in the curb lane, just before the triple under-pass.
According to the November 22 report, the truck had the words “Air Conditioning”
printed in black on the driver’s side and the hood was up. As she slowly
passed the truck, she noticed a middle-aged, heavy set man slumped over the
steering wheel, while a younger man, wearing a plaid shirt and woolen hat with
a tassell, reached over the rear of the pick-up and took out what looked like a
gun case. He proceeded to carry the case up the side of the grassy knoll
towards the picket fence and disappeared from sight.
Ms. Mercer had assumed the man with
the gun case was with the Secret Service, having commented that they weren’t so
secret after all, while eating a late breakfast at a Howard Johnson’s
restaurant. Being a regular customer, she had gotten to know the
employees and other customers, which often included several policemen. As
a result of her comment and the fact that JFK had just been shot (unbeknownst
to her), Ms. Mercer was pulled over by two policemen and brought back to Dallas
for questioning by the Dallas County Sheriff’s Dep’t. The next morning
she was questioned again by the FBI and claimed to have been shown four photos
of the possible driver, selecting one with the name “Jack Ruby” on the flip
side. When she saw Ruby shoot Oswald on live television the next day, she
told her family who were visiting that he was the person whose photo was shown
to her by the FBI. However, the FBI makes no such statement in its Nov.
23 report, although photos of Ruby and Oswald were shown to Ms. Mercer on Nov.
25 and Nov. 28.
In early 1968 Ms. Mercer and her
husband, who was a member of the Illinois State Legislature, were in New
Orleans on business, and contacted Jim Garrison in regard to her contention
that the police and FBI summaries of her recollections were
inaccurate. According to Garrison’s handwritten comments in the
margins of the affidavit she allegedly signed on Nov. 22, 1963, she stated that
the signature at the end of the statement was not hers but was a forgery.
She also claimed that there was no woman present during her interview, even
though it is signed by “Rosemary Allen”, a notary public of Dallas County
(whose signature looks suspiciously like “Julia Ann Mercer”).
Mercer also denied that the truck had any printing on the driver’s side, and
insisted that she had gotten a good look at the driver, contrary to what was
stated in the affidavit. She pointed out that she had looked directly at
him and that he had looked back at her twice, which was why she recognized Ruby
when he shot Oswald two days later.
Garrison later wrote to the HSCA on
July 15, 1977 and suggested that Ms. Mercer be interviewed, providing copies of
the Sheriff’s and FBI’s reports, along with his written comments in the
margins, signed by her. However, the committee was unable to locate her,
but did not contact Garrison in this regard, who was willing to provide
assistance. In his letter he also suggested that Mercer’s statements be
photocopied and cross-filed “under Laverne Crafard – wherever he is now.”
He indicated that Craford was likely one of the men on the grassy knoll, as
well as an “excellent candidate as the man who killed Tippitt (with an
automatic, needless to say, and not a revolver).” The HSCA did summarize
the material forwarded to them by Garrison in one of its twelve volumes,
although no reference was made to Craford in its summary.
Apparently unbeknownst to Garrison,
an investigation by the FBI of the stalled truck had been made, as revealed by
author Josiah Thompson in his 1966 book Six Seconds in Dallas. A
Dallas patrolman, Joe Murphy, provided a detailed description of the pick-up
truck on Elm St., which was involved in construction work at a nearby
building. One of the three occupants went for assistance, and it was
possible some kind of tool was removed from the truck in an attempt to get it
started. Within the hour, a second truck arrived to push the other truck
out of the area. As the HSCA was likely aware of this report, the
committee presumably felt it was unnecessary to interview Ms. Mercer, given her
unsubstantiated allegations.
Mercer was later located and
interviewed by author Henry Hurt for his 1985 book Reasonable Doubt.
In exchange for an interview, Hurt promised not to divulge where she lived or
her married name. Although Hurt was aware of the FBI report with
patrolman Joe Murphy, he clearly downplayed it, simply stating that a policeman
had observed the truck and believed it to be a legitimate breakdown. He
also described what Ms. Mercer now believed was a rifle wrapped in brown paper
rather than a gun case as was stated by her in 1963, and claimed that the young
man in the woolen hat was Oswald, which makes no sense whatsoever and which was
not suggested by Ms. Mercer at the time of the assassination. Like
Garrison, he does not make any reference to Craford as the possible young man
carrying a rifle up the knoll.
In 1993, on the heels of Oliver
Stone’s film “JFK”, which dramatized Julia Ann Mercer’s recollections when she
met with Garrison, Gerald Posner’s anti-conspiracy book Case Closed was
published. He briefly describes Ms. Mercer’s account, including the
alleged identification of the man with the gun case as Oswald (citing Crossfire by
Jim Marrs as his source), but like Josiah Thompson years earlier, refers to the
policeman’s FBI statement in regard to the stalled truck. The same year
Michael Benson published Who’s Who In the JFK Assassination, and to his
credit includes both Mercer’s allegations as well as the explanation provided
by Dallas policeman Joe Murphy.
As for Rosenbaum’s article, it was entitled “Taking a Darker View”, and was
published in Timemagazine on Jan. 13, 1992, a month after Oliver Stone’s
film “JFK” was released (9). According to the editor of the history
section, Stone had “focused attention on the band of mostly self-appointed
experts who zealously pursue theories of a wider plot” – a “subculture” which
Rosenbaum had chosen to explore in a three-page essay. He begins with
reference to another phone interview years ago, when he “finally succeeded in
badgering Jim Garrison into naming the Name”, not “the Big Guys behind the
plot”, but “the name of the man he believed fired the fatal head shot from the
grassy knoll.”
At this point Rosenbaum stated that he wouldn’t provide “that name”, simply
because he didn’t believe Garrison had given him “any evidence for singling out
this person for historic infamy.” In fact, he believed on any other day,
Garrison “might have picked another name out of the hat.” Of course, the
person Rosenbaum was referring to was Curtis LaVerne Craford aka Larry Crafard,
whom numerous writers, researchers and “assassination buffs” had suspected
might have been the young man carrying a gun case up the knoll, given his close
association with Ruby, and his suspiciously abrupt departure from Dallas the
day after the assassination.
For anyone still uncertain as to the identify of “the Name”, his description of
his Warren Commission testimony and the fact that it ran to more than two
hundred pages, certainly was a major tip-off, along with a reasonably accurate
description of his background in the carnival world, his failed first marriage
and an attempt at reconciliation that led him to Dallas, Texas and a job at the
Texas State Fair. That is where Craford first met Ruby, which resulted in
obtaining work and accommodations at the Carousel Club in early October,
1963.
Even though Rosenbaum read Craford’s Warren Commission testimony after learning
about him through his conversation with Garrison, he was quick to point out
that the investigators were allegedly “interested in his story…mostly
because he was a source who might shed light on the peculiarities of Jack
Ruby’s character”, and not because they suspected his possible involvement in
the assassination (or the murder of a Dallas policeman, or both).
Consequently, Rosenbaum chose not to include a few points I had mentioned
during our conversation: the fact that Craford had accepted a job with Ruby’s
brother, Earl, at his commercial drycleaners in a rough part of Detroit
in 1965, despite the possibility Earl, like Jack, might have mob connections
(possibly through the Teamsters Union under Jimmy Hoffa); that he vaguely
recalled seeing Oswald in the club contrary to what he told the Warren
Commission; and that his second wife was led to believe by her husband
that Curtis had left Dallas on Nov. 22, not the 23rd – all of which to me
cast him in a much more suspicious light.
Rosenbaum points out that as a result of “the murk that has been churned up by
the dissidents” and “three decades of revisionist Kennedy assassination
investigation”, we now have “a much darker, more complex, less innocent vision
of America.” He provides numerous examples to support his thesis
beginning with the FBI, held responsible for JFK’s death by author Mark North
in 1992 book Act of Treason, which he references. Rosenbaum cites
various examples supporting a revisionist view of Hoover, in contrast to his
image in 1963, when he was considered by most Americans to be a “peerless,
incorruptible leader, a gangbuster nonpareil.” He mentions examples such
as Hoover’s hatred of the Kennedy brothers; his power over LBJ and numerous
other politicians bordering on blackmail; his relentless bugging of MLK; his
knowledge of JFK’s extra-marital affairs and mob connections through Giancana,
which forced the Kennedy brothers to keep him on as director; and Hoover’s
willingness to ignore the growing threat of the Mafia
Likewise, Rosenbaum describes the CIA’s clandestine operations over the years
that were now public knowledge, with reference to another controversial book
entitled Plausible Denial, by the dean of conspiracy theorists, Mark Lane
(who had represented Oswald’s mother and her dead son throughout the Warren
Commission’s investigation). A poll conducted by TIME/CNN in late 1991
which was included along with Rosenbaum’s essay, indicated that 73% of the
American public now believed there was a conspiracy, and the number one suspect
was the CIA at 50% (followed by the Mafia at 48%, Cuba at 34%, anti-Castroites
at 19%, the U.S. military at 18% and the Dallas Police at 13%), in contrast to
the glamorous “James Bond” image that existed before JFK’s death.
Much of this suspicion was due to
revelations of CIA plots (along with the Mafia) to kill Castro, beginning in
1960 and continuing up to November 22, 1963, with the full knowledge of the
Kennedy brothers (but not the Warren Commission, as pointed out in another
recent book Final Disclosure by former W.C. lawyer and lone assassin
advocate David Belin); evidence of an impostor posing as Oswald in Mexico City
in Oct. 1963, allegedly sent there by the CIA; the use of mind-control drugs by
the CIA on unsuspecting American citizens (as well as some Canadians, I might
add, through a program sponspored by the CIA at McGill University in Montreal);
and the “paralyzing” effect on the CIA’s counter-intelligence operations, as a
result of counterspy James Angleton’s growing paranoia, convinced that a KGB
mole existed within the CIA, and that the Russians were behind the
assassination (a subject Rosenbaum had written about some years earlier).
He also discusses the growing negative image of the Kennedys themselves, whom
he feels have not been exempted from the “carnivalesque vision of America that
has emerged in the wake of post-assassination investigations.” He points
out that “otherwise skeptical assassination buffs are among the last misty-eyed
believers in Camelot”, including director Oliver Stone, as reflected in the
“Galahad-like” depiction of JFK in his film, “gallantly battling the sinister
right-wing military-industrial complex to bring the troops home, ban the Bomb
and ensure racial equality…a Kennedy killed because he was just too good to
live.” Likewise, he cites author Jim Marrs’s book Crossfire, a major
source for the “JFK” script, which he feels “echoes…this naïve vision” of the
Kennedy brothers, convinced that most of America’s political woes would have
been avoided had JFK not been killed.
In contrast to “Camelot”, Rosenbaum lists some of the “sordid revelations”
associated with the Kennedy years, such as JFK’s involvement with Giancana’s
mistress, Judith Campbell Exner (although without mentioning either by name);
the use of “Chicago mobsters as hit men against a rival head of state” (that
being Castro); unnamed “black-mail intrigues with Hoover” and the bugging of
MLK’s bedrooms, approved by JFK; and the possible tacit support for the Berlin
Wall’s construction (citing another new book by Michael Bleschloss entitled The
Crisis Years). Rosenbaum concludes that Kennedy was more like Michael
Corleone from “The Godfather” than Sir Galahad, (with his father, Joe Kennedy,
standing in for Corleone’s old man), who, similarly, can’t escape his father’s
legacy or his family’s cutthroat character.”
Rosenbaum feels the most “prescient or at least realistic” assassination
theorists are those who considered the possibility of Castro’s involvement in
JFK’s death, citing both Malcolm X, who had described the assassination
as a case of the “chickens coming home to roost” two years before he, too, was
killed, as well as LBJ, who revealed to Mike Wallace at CBS in 1969 that the
U.S. had been running a “damned Murder Incorporated in the Carribean”, and that
one of the those operations against Castro had likely backfired. This
comment was deleted from the program and not shown until after LBJ’s death in
the early 1970s.
Rosenbaum also mentions a new trend in “conspiracy-theory history – the
increasing number of people coming forward not merely to claim they know who
did it but to confess” that they were responsible, providing three
examples: Charles Harrelson, the convicted Texas hit man (and father of
actor Woody Harrelson); ex-con Robert Easterling (Henry Hurt’s prime suspect in
his book Reasonable Doubt); and a Dallas cop named Roscoe White, who had
died in a suspicious accident, promoted as the gunman on the grassy knoll by
his own son. As Rosenbaum points out, the credibility of many conspiracy
theorists has been greatly damaged by a willingness to “accept indiscriminately
every self-proclaimed assassin or grassy knoll eyewitness” and yet “tear to
shreds any evidence or testimony that might support the lone-gunman theory.”
Following this fascinating review of an emerging “darker view” of American
politics, Rosenbaum returns to his initial curiosity, wondering “what had
become of the man whom Garrison once named as the hit man.” One of
several assassination buffs he contacted had told him about “a buff in Canada
who made a specialty of tracking down lesser known figures in the case who
might otherwise disappear into the mists of history” – namely me. Based
on our telephone conversation, Rosenbaum revealed that I had “traced the still
wandering whereabouts of the Name”, encouraged by the fact that “a former
Warren Commission attorney [Burt Griffin] still couldn’t figure out why the Name
made such a hasty exit from Dallas” as he hitchhiked all the way to Michigan
“36 hours after the assassination.” One of Rosenbaum’s other sources
suggested that Craford’s “eerie physical resemblance to Oswald” might have
explained the alleged citing of Oswald at the Carousel, possibly the chief
reason for the Warren Commission’s interest in him (indeed, the FBI showed
Craford’s photo to numerous people who spent time at the club, all of whom
claimed to have seen Oswald there). Several other buffs Rosenbaum spoke
to suspected Craford might be the so-called “Oswald double”, involved in
setting up “the real, innocent Oswald to be the assassination patsy.”
Referring again to our conversation, Rosenbaum concludes his essay by
describing what had happened to Craford after “he fled Dallas”: “It seems
he couldn’t really escape – Nov. 22 continued to haunt him. The FBI
followed him to Michigan and questioned him repeatedly; he had to go back to
Dallas for Ruby’s trial; he never found the wife he’d lost. And then in
the early ‘80s, just when his life seemed to have settled down, renewed
interest in the J.F.K. case made his name an object of speculation again; it
appeared in a book on the organized crime connections to Ruby and the assassination
[Contract on America]. His new wife [actually they had been married since
1964] read the book and began to get a little paranoid. She wondered
about the serious car accident they had had: Was it really an accident?
Eventually, things began to go awry: his marriage broke up, he lost his
job. Last thing the Canadian buff heard, the Name was working as a night
security guard in a mill, ‘boarding with some people’, without a traceable
phone number of his own.”
Rosenbaum concludes his essay and his feelings towards both “the Name” and
Americans in general by stating: “Looking back, it doesn’t seem that much
of a mystery why the poor guy fled Dallas so abruptly. His life took a
wrong turn down there and never recovered. So did ours. We’re all
still fleeing Dallas, but it’s too late to escape.” But was Craford simply a
“poor guy”, finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, or was there
a “darker” reason that propelled Craford out of Dallas and towards northern
Michigan with only seven dollars in his pocket? That would appear to be
the case.
When Prof. Joan Mellen of Temple University in Philadelphia published her
examination of Garrison’s JFK investigation in a book entitled A Farewell
to Justice (Potomac Books, 2005), I was anxious to read her comments about
Craford. Joan had contacted me back in November, 2001 in regard to “The
Winnipeg Airport Incident”, but during our initial telephone conversation, she
discovered that I had located Craford some years earlier. Given
Garrison’s suspicions towards Craford, which he had expressed to the HSCA, she
was naturally very interested in what I had learned over the years. As a result
of our conversation, I contacted Craford and arranged to meet with him in the
small Oregon town where he lives. I was also able to set up a telephone
interview between Joan Mellen and Curtis, as well as with Edward Craford, his
older brother, a U.S. Army veteran of twenty years.
Although Curtis is only mentioned briefly in Joan’s book, she makes some
startling comments about his alleged activities in Dallas (spelling his name
“Crafard”, the way he spelled it in 1963.) According to Joan, Ruby had introduced
Craford to his friends as “Oswald”, which caused Curtis to “take a good hard
look when one day Oswald walked into the Carousel Club.” She pointed out
that Garrison “wondered if Craford had shot Tippit, whom (he) now admits to
knowing.” Garrison also concluded, according to Joan, that Craford was “a
professional killer” – a remarkable suspicion that Joan points out was
subsequently supported by Craford’s admission to me in Dec. 2001 about having
been a “hit man” for the mob in San Francisco, prior to his brief time in
Dallas.
Joan’s telephone interview with Curtis was not included in the book, but her
conversation with Edward Craford suggested he was much more frank about his
brother’s activities in Dallas than he had been with me. He seemed to
allege that “Curtis was heavily involved in the assassination”; that “he
(Curtis) knew Ruby was acquainted with Oswald before the assassination”; and
that “Curtis…did not leave Dallas until after Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald,
in contrast to (his) testimony that he had departed on November 23rd.” If
all these statements made by Joan Mellen are accurate, no wonder Craford left
so abruptly, although it would suggest he might not have hitchhiked after all,
or did so later than he had claimed (which Griffin and Hubert seemed suspicious
about, as Craford couldn’t account for the elapsed time involved in travelling
to Michigan.)
After reading Joan’s book, I e-mailed her with some questions related to her
comments about Craford, but she did not want to elaborate on what she had
stated, in part to protect “a source”, and also because of tentative plans to
write a second book on the subject. I also wrote to both Curtis and his
brother, and enclosed copies of the pertinent pages, but did not receive a
response from either one of them, nor apparently did Joan. Later I phoned
Edward, and as usual, he was quite vague about his brother’s activities in
Dallas, but suggested he was merely an observer and not a participant. He
also seemed indifferent to Prof. Mellen’s comments. I did learn from him
that Curtis’s estranged wife, Shirley, who had originally written back to me in
1989, died in Dec. 2005, as had his blind landlady, Rosa, more recently.
During the course of my research, I had been notified by another researcher in
the late 1990s that Craford was referred to by the veteran stand-up comedian
and former Garrison supporter, Mort Sahl, in an off-Broadway play entitled
“Mort Sahl’s America”, which had been reviewed in the April 25, 1994 issue of The
New Yorker by the senior drama critic John Lahr. Sahl gave the
impression during his off-Broadway performance that he was reading from the Warren
Report (he had all 26 volumes as part of the set). Obviously he
wasn’t, as some of the details related to the Warren Commission’s interview
with Craford were not correct.
According to Sahl, Earl Warren and
Gerald Ford had conducted the interview, when, in fact, it was lawyers Leon
Hubert and Burt Griffin; Craford was described as having been a bartender at
Ruby’s club, when he was a handyman, who occasionally worked behind the bar;
also, Craford claimed to have been a “master sniper while in the Marine Corps”,
when apparently he received only basic weapons training while serving in the
U.S. Army (from which he was released after only fourteen months service); he
had supposedly been “seized” by the FBI while “hightailing it” out of Dallas,
suggesting he was arrested at some point, when, actually, he was contacted by
agents in northern Michigan a week later and brought to the local office for
questioning, as well as being photographed; and he allegedly stated to someone
before being “seized” that the authorities were not going to “pin this on me.”
After obtaining a copy of the
review, along with a speech based on it made by former HSCA researcher Gaeton
Fonzi (given at a Dallas JFK conference and later published in the JFK magazine
“Lancer” and website), I wrote to Debra Conway at “JFK Lancer”, Craford, Fonzi,
Sahl (through his website) and The New Yorker. As a result of my
e-mail to Ms. Conway, the section about Craford in Fonzi’s speech was initially
deleted in the on-line version of Fonzi’s speech, but later was reinserted with
a footnote quoting from my e-mail with Ms. Conway’s response. Amazingly,
Craford was more amused than upset by the reference to him and the numerous
factual errors. Even though there was a strong suggestion made that he
might have been involved in the assassination, he had no desire to speak to a
lawyer in regard to a possible defamation suit, prefering to remain out of the
media spotlight. Fonzi was somewhat defensive, but clearly had been under
the impression that Sahl’s reading of the Warren Commission’s interview with
Craford was accurate, and not a humorous means by which Sahl could make his
point. No one at Sahl’s website got back to me.
As for The New Yorker, Owen
Ketherry responded on July 21, 1999 to my e-mail by stating “…that, in the
passage in question, Mort Sahl’s alleged reading of the Warren Commission
Report is nothing more than a spoof.” Although Sahl was trying to show,
in his typically satirical manner, how disinterested the W.C. was in finding
the real assassin(s), as Warren and Ford allegedly asked about entertainment at
the Carousel Club in response to Craford’s declaration about being a “master
sniper”, Sahl clearly suggested Craford’s possible involvement in the
assassination. I had also written to John Lahr, the senior drama critic
at The New Yorker, but didn’t receive a reply from him.
Despite Owen Ketherry’s
legal-sounding response, Sahl’s statement that Craford had “hightailed it” out
of Dallas obviously implied that he was anxious to leave, possibly because he
had either been involved in the assassination (or the murder of Tippit, or
both), or simply because he might have known too much through his contact with
Ruby - maybe even the fact that Ruby was plotting to kill Oswald.
It is also possible that Craford agreed to pose as Oswald at a firing range, as
well as at an auto dealership, on dates when the real Oswald was visiting his
wife at the Paine’s residence in Irving, and yet was left in the dark as to the
reason why Oswald was being portrayed in such a negative manner.
Near the end of my second interview
with Craford at his home, I mentioned the New Yorker review and the
errors made by Lahr. To my surprise, Craford quite willingly indicated
that “hightailing it” was an accurate description of his movements on November
23, 1963 (although he wouldn’t elaborate). However, possibly fearing that
he had said too much, given that I was in contact with a writer, he later tried
to convince me over the phone that I had misunderstood his comment, very likely
because of pressure from his blind landlady (and former girlfriend). She
had sat in on the second interview and asked me, as I was about to leave, not
to reveal her address to anyone as she didn’t want “the Mafia coming around”!
When Craford was interviewed by
Griffin and Hubert, he gave the impression he hadn’t been interested enough to
watch JFK’s motorcade, and had allegedly been asleep when bartender Andy
Armstrong woke him up with the news of the assassination, which took place a
few blocks away. It should be noted, however, that Armstrong had a
lengthy criminal record, and was out on parole. He had also previously worked
for H.L. Hunt. Later, he received a full pardon from Dallas County Sheriff
Decker (the Dallas County building is named after Decker today).
During my interview with Craford, he
did indicate that he was quite certain how JFK was shot, as though from
first-hand knowledge. Unlike the Warren Commission, Craford believed one
shot was fired from the storm drain, and another from the grassy knoll, one of
which hit the president in the throat, exiting through the back of his
head. No mention of Oswald’s possible role was included in his
description, however, suggesting that he wasn’t involved, other than by being a
patsy.
Intriguingly, in a two-part
MPI documentary entitled “The JFK Assassination: A Revisionist History”,
broadcast in 1998 on the CBC-Newsworld series “The Passionate Eye”, a young Dan
Rather was shown reporting from Dallas. Just like in Craford’s scenario,
he referred to the throat wound as being one of entry, exiting through the back
of Kennedy’s head. It should be noted that this series has never been
broadcast in the U.S., although it is possible Craford was simply repeating
what he had heard or read over the years. However, he seemed quite
certain what had transpired, almost as though he had been there.
Not long after the assassination, an
off-duty member of the Dallas County Sheriff’s department saw a man running
from the TSBD, who got into a Nash Rambler station wagon with a luggage rack on
top, driven by a dark-skinned man (such a vehicle can be seen in photos taken
by various reporters and onlookers). He was certain it was Oswald,
but since Oswald had allegedly taken a bus after leaving the TSBD and then
switched to a taxi, which drove him near his rooming house in Oakcliff, it has
occurred to me that the person who got into the Nash Rambler might have been
Craford, with Armstrong behind the wheel? Possibly he left the station
wagon with instructions to go to Ruby’s apartment in Oakcliff, and subsequently
obtained a ride with a man from North Carolina named Cecil Small.
Small had claimed for many years
that he picked up “Lee Harvey Oswald” while driving by the TSBD after leaving a
Western Auto Parts store, which didn’t have the part he needed, but had
directed Small to a store in Oakcliff. Cecil, a middle-aged and heavy-set
“good ole boy” from North Carolina (as described to me by his niece) had pulled
over and asked “Oswald” how to reach Oakcliff, as he and his wife had only been
in Dallas for a short while, after their truck broke down on the way back home
from California. Small dropped “Oswald” off prior to the Tippit shooting
after discussing the possibility of trading revolvers, after “Oswald”
accidentally discovered Small’s handgun, located in the glove compartment,
which he preferred to his own .38 (which had a longer barrel).
If Small’s story is true, it is
possible he gave the real Oswald a ride, since Oswald did retrieve his pistol,
probably because he feared for his life, as he knew he had been set up.
Although it’s more likely the real Oswald would have introduced himself as “Lee
Oswald”, not “Lee Harvey Oswald”, Small recalled mentioning to Oswald that his
middle name was “Lee”, which might have prompted Oswald to mention his middle
name too (9). In that case, the man on the bus who switched to a taxi
possibly was Craford. The real Oswald was not known to travel by taxi,
given his limited income, and the fact he now had two children and a wife to
help support.
After Oswald’s arrest, he denied
shooting anyone, claiming to the press at one point, in an exasperated voice,
that he was nothing more than a “patsy.” Whether or not he was on the
sixth floor of the TSBD or in the lunchroom on the second when JFK was shot,
Oswald likely realized immediately he would be blamed for the assassination,
which would explain why he decided to leave the building, unlike his fellow
workers. Although he was initially booked for the shooting of a Dallas
policeman named J. D.Tippit (which occurred not far from Ruby’s apartment
in the Oakcliff area), based on the testimony of several eyewitnesses who
claimed they saw Oswald running from the scene, others weren’t so certain
(including a man who was later shot) and several saw more than one person
fleeing.
One eyewitness, Jack Tatum, chose
not to come forward, as he believed it was a gangland murder, and didn’t want
to get involved. Even though Tippit was likely already dead,
according to Tatum, the killer walked slowly around the police car and fired a
fourth shot at his head, while standing directly over him, which, according to
the HSCA’s deputy chief counsel. Gary Cornwell , in his book Real Answers,
is “…commonly described as a ‘coup de grace’…more indicative of an execution
than an act of self-defense or escape.” The coroner had been unable
to explain the head shot at the time of Tippit’s death, which was not
consistent with the other three, fired across the hood of the police car from
the sidewalk.
Tatum, who discussed his
experience with relatives and friends over the years, was tracked down at his
workplace in Dallas and interviewed by the HSCA. Although he was certain
it was Oswald, he observed the events from inside his car a block past the
scene, mainly through his rearview mirror. Given Tatum’s fear of mob
involvement, he might have felt it was safer to blame it on a dead man with no
apparent mob connections. However, from his description, it sounded like
the actions of a professional killer, not an agitated ex-Marine. After
what Craford revealed to me about his background prior to going to Dallas, the
possibility that he was involved in Tippit’s murder immediately comes to
mind. Tatum unfortunately died several years ago, but was featured
on the 1992 Frontline documentary about Oswald.
Based on the manner in which the
shooter casually spoke to Tippit and the fact that Tippit did not take out his
revolver when he exited the car, it would appear the two knew each other; there
is no evidence linking Oswald to Tippit at all. Craford, however, did
indicate to the W.C. that he believed Tippit had been in Ruby’s club, and
claimed to have no recollection of seeing Oswald there (although the letter
written to me by Mrs. Craford, he “vaguely” recalled seeing Oswald at the
Carousel). Possibly Tippit recognized Craford and wondered what he was
doing so far from downtown Dallas (likely heading for Ruby’s apartment).
It should also be mentioned that
eyewitness Helen Markham, who became quite hysterical when Tippit’s killer came
towards her, was walking south to catch the 1:15 bus to take her to work
downtown at the Eat Well restaurant directly across from the Carousel
Club. Since Craford regularly ate at the Eat Well, possibly it was
Craford and not Oswald that she saw fleeing from the scene after shots rang
out, causing her to fear for her own safety. She told the Warren
Commission that she left her home on 9th and Patton, and reached the
corner of 10th and Patton around 1:07 or 1:08 p.m.! Even if her
recollection of the time is not absolutely correct, it’s not likely the
shooting would have been any later than 1:10, as she still had a block to go to
reach the nearest bus stop. That is also the time given by another bystander
who had looked at his watch while trying to report the shooting to the Dallas
Police dispatcher.
It is clear that Oswald could not
have walked or jogged almost a mile in six or seven minutes to 10thand Patton
(having left his roominghouse around 1:04 p.m. according to his landlady)
unless he got a ride, and there is no evidence he did. His landlady also
recalled that a police car, with two people in it, had pulled up and honked in
front of the roominghouse before driving off, while Oswald was in his room.
Even if the car was simply honking at another driver, since Tippit was the only
officer assigned to the Oak Cliff area, it had to be him.
There is also the matter of a thin,
light-coloured jacket found in a car lot, which had been allegedly discarded by
Tippit’s killer as he ran from the scene. Although it supposedly
belonged to Oswald, it was medium in size, contrary to Marina Oswald’s
recollection of a small-size grey jacket that Oswald purchased before
going to Russia in 1959 (along with a heavy, blue-coloured winter jacket, both
of which she used to wash). Intriguingly, the jacket in the car lot had
two laundry tickets inside, one of which a patrolman in the area reported to
the dispatcher as being “B 9738.” According to author Henry Hurt in his
1984 bookReasonable Doubt, and earlier by Josiah Thompson in Six Seconds
in Dallas, the FBI checked over 700 drycleaners in both the Dallas-Fort Worth
and New Orleans areas without locating the business which had drycleaned
it. Since the jacket was originally sold in California, maybe it actually
belonged to Craford. As mentioned earlier, he had spent time in the San
Francisco area prior to coming to Dallas, and apparently worked for a Berkeley
company in the summer of 1960, so it is conceivable the jacket had been
drycleaned there.
Like Oswald (and possibly Craford
too), Ruby’s behaviour following the assassination suggests he, too, realized
that he had been duped into believing Connally was the real target. The
Warren Commission, of course, by accepting the “single bullet theory”, concluded
that Connally was only accidentally shot, but given the severe nature of his
wounds, and his own recollections of being shot separately, I strongly suspect
he was also a target. It is possible that the initial plan was to
assassinate Connally, but when earlier attempts to kill JFK in Chicago as well
as Miami fell through, both men became targets, with JFK being the primary
one. Oswald might have fired his rifle (although paraffin tests seemed to
indicate he didn’t), but why would he have wanted JFK killed, knowing that a
Texan would now be president, who was far less liberal than JFK, with close
links to both Connally and Korth, both of whom he likely still
despised? Although the HSCA did conclude that one shot was, indeed,
fired from the grassy knoll, they insisted it had missed the entire vehicle,
which I find difficult to believe, having stood behind the fence on the
knoll. Presumably, whoever was firing from there was also an experienced
marksman and couldn’t possibly miss.
It is conceivable that Ruby was kept
ignorant of the altered plan, and that his grief-stricken reaction was somewhat
genuine. In fact, his decision to subsequently kill Oswald might have
been “justified” by an article published in the Dallas Morning News (and
other newspapers throughout the country) on the morning of Nov. 24 – a revised
report by “journalist” Priscilla Johnson , who had interviewed and written
about Oswald back in 1959 for NANA (although UPI reporter Aline Mosby had
already interviewed Oswald shortly after his defection and written a report
which had been published in mid-Oct.). Johnson took the liberty of
making some subtle changes in her article, strongly suggesting that Oswald was
guilty of killing the president, in part, because he had come across in 1959 as
being a “fanatic” - a term not used in her original report (published
initially in the Nov. 26, 1959 issue of the Washington Star, as well as
the Dec. 3, issue of the New Haven Evening Register). (10)
Even though Ruby gave the impression
that he was upset with JFK’s death enough to close his nightclub for several
days, there is clear evidence that he was also under pressure to kill Oswald,
which led him to show up for Oswald’s Nov. 22 midnight press conference, posing
as a reporter. This might also explain why he decided to close the club
even though his competitors didn’t, so he could concentrate on getting the job
done. During the press conference, Ruby even corrected the district
attorney, who had mistakenly associated Oswald with a “Free Cuba” committee,
rather than the “Fair Play for Cuba Committee.” The following evening,
according to a Dallas police sergeant, he received a warning from a familiar
voice that he could not match with a name and face, indicating that Oswald
would be shot during his transfer to county jail the next morning (see “The Men
Who Killed Kennedy” series). The police officer realized when Ruby was
arrested that Jack had made the call, as he had spoken to Ruby in the
past. The pressure on Ruby was likely mob-related, given the comments
overheard by Jarngegin about “the boys in Chicago.”
As for who had conveyed the
“suggestion” to Ruby, a likely candidate whom both the W.C. and the HSCA had
interviewed, was a sporting goods sales manager from Chicago named Lawrence V.
Meyers. Meyers had known Ruby for about six years, although they possibly
knew each other back in Chicago earlier. Meyers always looked Ruby up
when he was in town on business, as a sales representative for the sporting
goods division of Ero Manufacturing, and, in fact, moved to Dallas with a
different company in the spring of 1964 (contrary to what he told Burt Griffin
during an interview that summer), where he lived until his death in the
mid-1980s. There is no hard evidence that Meyers had mob connections, but
his HSCA interview certainly suggested he might, given some of the questions
asked and the careful manner in which he answered them.
When Meyers was interviewed by the
HSCA, he revealed that one of his sons, Ralph, had been in Army Intelligence in
the late 1950s, after being trained in Russian at the Monterey Language School
(where he might have crossed paths with Oswald). Upon leaving the
military in the early 1960s, Ralph Meyers drove a bus in Chicago for a year,
and then moved to Mexico City in the spring of 1963, planning on working there
as a reporter. It has occurred to me that possibly the person
photographed (and audiotaped) in front of the Russian Embassy using the name
“Lee Oswald” in September, 1963, was, in fact, Ralph Meyers. The man has
never been positively identified, which is quite amazing, and I can find no
evidence that Meyers was actually a reporter.
Lawrence Meyers, who was married,
with three grown children, had arranged to fly to Dallas, partially for
business but mostly for pleasure, with a young 27-year-old woman named Jean
Aase (whom the FBI indicated in a Dec. 4 report was living in a Chicago
apartment building and sometimes went by “Jean West”, which she used during the
trip, although she was listed in the Cabana Motor Hotel registry as “Mrs.
Meyers”). Meyers’ brother was also there from New York City for a
bottlers’ convention (suggesting a connection to the Teamsters Union) at which
Richard Nixon spoke, who had returned to law practice and was representing Pepsi.
Allegedly, Ralph Meyers was also staying at the Teamster-financed Cabana Motor
Hotel (where the Beatles stayed in the fall of 1964 during their U.S.
tour). Meyers visited the Carousel Club with Ms. Aase the night before
the assassination, and also spoke to Ruby by phone after Oswald’s
arrest.
On Sunday morning Meyers drove out
to an Ero Manufacturing Co. warehouse by himself on business, planning to also
play golf at a U.S. Air Force golf course (which presumably was closed because
of the assassination). Seemingly indifferent to President Kennedy’s
death, he heard on the radio that his friend Ruby had killed Oswald, which
might not have come as a surprise, although he told the FBI later that his
reaction was “one of shock and disbelief.” However, he chose not to visit
Ruby in jail either that day or later, nor speak to the Dallas Police after
returning to the city. Later Meyers told the FBI that he thought “…in
light of the apparent hectic activities then ensuing at the police station it
would be better if he did not do so.” Wasn’t that thoughtful of him?
Meyers was asked about Aase by the
FBI and referred to her in a disparaging manner, describing Jean as a “dumb,
accommodating broad.” He also indicated that his wife was not aware of
their relationship (which possibly enabled him to convince Griffin and Hubert
of the W.C. not to mention her during his testimony, giving the impression he
had gone to Dallas by himself). He later suggested to the HSCA that Jean
had been a “party girl” and a “semi-professional hooker”, and also described
her as a “kid”, even though she was twenty-seven.
When I first contacted Ms. Aase by
phone in 1992 after discovering she was living in Minneapolis (through a
comment made by Meyers to the HSCA, who were trying to locate her), I learned
that she had never read Meyers’ remarks about her. To my surprise, she
had also never read any of the books (at least sixteen) which make reference to
her, beginning with Garrison’s 1970 book Heritage of Stone (in a
footnote), but more extensively in his 1988 bestseller On the Trail of the
Assassins, amongst others (she is the first person described in the 1993
reference book Who’s Who in the JFK Assassination, as names are listed
alphabetically).
Ms. Aase was quite hesitant to
answer any of the questions I had asked her in a letter preceding my phone
call, but wanted to know right away if Meyers was still alive. I got the
distinct impression that Jean still feared for her safety. When I later
mentioned to her that Meyers had died in 1985 (through contact with author
Anthony Summers, who was working as a consultant for the Frontline documentary
on Oswald that aired in November, 1993), the news seemed to be a source of
relief for her. As a result, she began to open up, and subsequently
agreed to meet with me for lunch when I phoned her in Minneapolis on my way
home by bus from a conference in Chicago in the spring of 1993. After
learning that she had a doctor’s appointment and would be out for several hours,
I arranged to call her in the afternoon (as another bus was available at 5:00
p.m.). However, her telephone line was continually busy, as was the case
when I buzzed her apartment located close to the downtown area. I suspect
she might have been advised to take the phone off the hook.
After I arrived home three days
later I phoned her, and she claimed that the phone had not been working
properly. At the same time, she also revealed that she had hired a lawyer
and that all further communications would have to be through him.
Possibly hoping to take advantage of increased interest in the subject leading
up to the 30th anniversary, Jean’s lawyer stated in an April, 1993 letter
to me that the fee for an interview, subject to “format, length, location,
etc…will start at $3000”, which implied that Jean might have something
important to reveal. A tentative date of June 15, 1993 was agreed upon
for an interview, in which I would also be representing Frontline, but it
fell through when I was informed by a representative of the program that PBS
has a strict policy of not paying for interviews. Consequently, neither Aase
nor Meyers were mentioned in the documentary (which was rebroadcast for
the 40th anniversary in November, 2003). Anthony Summers
subsequently asked that his name be withdrawn from the closing credits, given
the emphasis placed on Oswald likely being a lone assassin (Tony’s voice can
still be heard in several interviews, however).
Nevertheless, with some persistence
and encouragement from Tony, I was eventually able to obtain an interview with
Jean through her lawyer, which took place near the University of Minnesota
campus in May, 1998 for a mere $300 fee (which Tony kindly paid), across the
street from where a young student from Hibbing, MN named Robert Zimmerman began
performing folk songs in 1959-60, calling himself “Bob Dylan.”
Unfortunately, I came away from the decidedly brief 45-minute conversation over
lunch with the distinct feeling that Jean had been encouraged by her lawyer to
either be vague in her answers or totally change what she had previously
stated. She claimed that it was a long time ago, making it difficult to
remember certain events, despite the fact it was undoubtedly a very shocking
experience for her.
As for changing her story, Jean had
suggested in a 1993 telephone conversation with another consultant, Gus Russo,
(also working for the FRONTLINE documentary), that she already knew Meyers by
Sept. 24, 1963 when a call was made by David Ferrie to her apartment building.
However, since she had never heard of Ferrie, she insisted the fifteen-minute
call must have been for Meyers (11). Meyers denied when questioned by the
HSCA that he ever knew Ferrie, although his business phone records showed he
had been in New Orleans for several days in mid-November, 1963. Contrary
to what she had said to Russo, however, Jean insisted during our conversation
in 1998 that she didn’t meet Meyers until sometime in October, 1963. In
regard to his death, she now claimed that she was sad to learn he had died, not
relieved as I had concluded was the case in 1993, even though she never saw or
heard from Meyers again after the trip to Dallas. She also knew
from our previous correspondence how he had disrespectfully described her both
in 1963 and 1978, and was most likely not treated with much respect by
Meyers.
She also claimed to have returned to
Chicago because of her job as a part-time waitress on Nov. 23, the day before
Oswald was shot, although she had told the Chicago FBI in Chicago in Dec. 1963
that she had returned with Meyers on Nov. 25. Meyers provided the same
date to both the W.C. and the HSCA (their recollections were almost identical,
as though rehearsed). As for her job, the FBI report stated that she was
unemployed, and made no mention of her having been laid off. Of course,
if she was a call girl, she certainly wouldn’t have revealed that, which is
likely how she got to know Meyers in the first place (whom she thought was a
bachelor.) In addition, she claimed that the FBI had phoned her, even
though two agents’ names appear on their report, who had earlier in the day
interviewed Meyers at his place of employment, with no suggestion that it was
conducted over the phone (which would be very unusual.)
If Jean did return abruptly on
November 23 following the assassination, it could be that she became frightened
about her relationship with Meyers, and possibly even knew that pressure was
being put on Ruby to kill Oswald. I was able to obtain the second page of
a FBI report with Joyce Lee McDonald, a Ruby employee who had met Jean
(although she recalled her name was “Ann”). Joyce had arranged to go
shopping with her on Nov. 23. For some reason, only page one of the FBI
report was included in the Warren Commission’s volumes; a handwritten note was
included with page two stipulating that page two be excluded from the W.C.
exhibits. Miss McDonald told the FBI that she was unable to reach “Ann”
at the Cabana Motor Hotel, and never saw her again. This suggests that
Jean might not have returned to Chicago with Meyers on Monday, Nov. 25 after
all, but was told by Meyers to pretend she had, so she wouldn’t have to explain
her sudden desire to leave Dallas on the day after Oswald’s arrest.
In February, 2002, I phoned Jean
again in regard to my research and the fact that author Joan Mellen was
interested in interviewing her for a biography on the life of Jim Garrison, but
was told bluntly that she did not want to discuss the subject, and suggested I
contact her lawyer, which I attempted to do. She also threatened to call
“the Attorney-General” if I didn’t leave her alone. Unfortunately, the
lawyer did not reply to my letter nor to a phone message, and recently I
discovered that his office number is no longer in service. Given that
Jean was quite poor, I doubt very much that she was able to retain him all
these years. (I also had signed a 50-50 agreement in regard to possible
royalties when I interviewed her, but was never sent a copy of it, despite
requesting one several times.) I personally believe Jean Aase, like
Curtis Craford, knows much more than she has ever revealed about events in
Dallas that weekend. It’s unfortunate that the HSCA did not make more of
an effort to locate her under her real name.
Even though Hoover was determined to
short-circuit any effort to prove the existence of an organized plot to kill
both JFK and Connally, with multiple shooters involved, his report provided to
President Lyndon Johnson in December, 1963 did make the assumption that
Connally was shot independently of JFK, as reflected on page 13 of The
Torch is Passed, published by the Associated Press that month:
“…The President probably never heard the shot or knew what hit him. It
was a piece of metal a little bigger than an ordinary pencil. It struck
him in the back [not the neck], penetrating two or three inches [not going
through his throat]. He was struck as he turned to his right to
wave. His hands snapped up reflexively to his throat [the Dallas doctors
identified a throat wound, which they believed was an entrance wound, as it was
neat and round, the size of the end of a pencil].
Wordlessly, he slumped
over toward his wife [after being driven backwards and to his left, as shown in
the Zapruder film, which the FBI had viewed]. In the jump seat ahead,
Gov. John Connally turned and a second bullet [more likely the third bullet]
caught him in the back, passed through, struck his right wrist and lodged in
his thigh. The third and last shot hit the back of the President’s head
above ear-level, as he was bowed forward.”
As noted, the A.P. report failed to
mention the apparent throat wound, which Life magazine had earlier
attempted, unbelievably, to reconcile with Oswald’s alleged placement in the
TSBD’s sixth-floor window, located behind the motorcade. Writer Paul
Mandel claimed that the Zapruder film showed “…the President turning his body
far around to the right as he waves to someone in the crowd. His throat
is exposed – towards the sniper’s nest – just before he clutches it.”
Anyone who has viewed the film, as Mandel had, knows with absolute certainty
that JFK did not turn around, and, in fact, would have had difficulty, as he
was wearing a brace to support his ailing back. Life magazine
had the nerve to run Mandel’s article in both the December 6, 1963 issue as
well as a special memorial issue, which has been republished both in November,
1988 and again in November 2003. Mandel died quite young in 1965, and no
reference to this blatant lie was made by author and former Life journalist
Loudon Wainwright in his 1988 book about the history of the magazine. In
addition, neither he nor Richard Stolley, who purchased the Zapruder film on
behalf of Time-Life, appeared to be aware of this deception, when I contacted
both of them in the late 1980s, first by letter, and then by phone.
Although the FBI was aware that one
shot had missed its target, striking the pavement near bystander James Tague,
this important detail was also not mentioned in their report, suggesting that
at least four shots had been fired in less than seven seconds, an impossibility
for the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. Nor was there any reference to
the fact that Connally had been hit less than two seconds after JFK, which
again could not be accomplished by that rifle, regardless of who was firing it,
although the HSCA suggested it was possible if the rifle was fired using the
iron sights only. Of course, that would require a fair amount of regular
practice, which could not be associated with Oswald, even when he was in the
Marines.
In regard to the nature of the
wounds, TIME magazine reported in their December 27, 1963 edition, based on
leaks from the official autopsy conducted in Bethesda, Maryland, that the
throat wound was actually caused by “a fragment of the last bullet, which
literally exploded in Kennedy’s head”, (even though the wound was very neat),
along with a description of the bullet that struck JFK in the back “some six
inches below the collar line”, having penetrated “but two or three
inches.”
Newsweek magazine also reported on the autopsy in
their December 30 edition, adding that the whole bullet found at Parkland
Hospital “probably dropped out of the President’s body” onto his
stretcher. None of this information was consistent with one bullet going
through both Kennedy and Connally, as the Warren Commission later
concluded. The likelihood of multiple shooters was also supported by the
fact that JFK’s shirt and jacket had a bullet hole six inches below his collar,
consistent with the information leaked from the autopsy, as well as Connally’s
assertion that he had reacted to the first shot that hit President Kennedy, a
split second before he was hit (which he described quite accurately from his
hospital bed before ever viewing the Zapruder film.) One of the Secret
Service agents riding in the follow-up car also described, in a report written
on Nov. 22, one shot striking “the boss” six inches below his collar.
Of course, the famous film, which
was not shown on television until 1975, clearly showed that at least one shot
was likely fired from in front of the motorcade, as JFK was driven violently
backwards and to his left as a result of the head shot. In fact, it
happened so fast that not a single bystander saw the backward movement, such as
Jean Hill, Mary Moorman, Gerald Brehm or Mary Woodward. In the case of
Woodward, as a reporter on her lunch break, she dashed back to the Dallas
Morning News and immediately wrote a report for the morning newspaper,
which was published the next day. In it, she described a shot coming from
behind her, as she stood with two other colleagues on the north side of Elm St.
directly in front of the grassy knoll (12). Unbelievably, none of the
women were interviewed by the Warren Commission.
When Life magazine carried
their extensive report on the Warren Commission’s conclusions in their Oct. 2,
1964 edition, they included a frame from the Zapruder film (321) showing JFK
being driven backwards, with a caption that read: “The assassin’s shot
struck the right rear portion of the President’s skull, causing a massive wound
and snapping his head to one side.” In fact, Kennedy’s entire upper body
had been driven backwards (even though his head had been driven forward at high
speed covering only two frames or 1/9 of a second before reversing direction,
suggesting the possibility of two simultaneous head shots from two different
directions).
As for Life’s careful
wording, they were concerned enough about the suggestion of a frontal shot to
actually release (at great expense) a second edition with a different caption
that read: “The direction from which the shots came was established by
this picture taken at the instant a bullet struck the rear of the President’s
head and, passing through, caused the front part of his skull to explode
forward.” In their haste, however, they forgot to change the photo, so a
third edition was released, with frame 313 replacing frame 321, which now
showed JFK’s head exploding, but prior to the backward movement. Clearly,
Time-Life had caved into pressure from the U.S. government to report what the
Warren Commission desperately wanted the public to believe: that only one
assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was involved in both the murder of President
Kennedy and the accidental attempted murder of Governor Connally, thanks to the
creation of the “single-bullet theory”, initially proposed by Arlen Specter, a
young lawyer on the Warren Commission staff and later a senator from
Pennsylvania (13).
The ongoing controversy surrounding
the assassination is certainly justified, despite author Gerald Posner’s
attempt to end it with his 1991 book Case Closed, followed by the
FRONTLINE documentary on PBS in November 1993, as well as ABC-TV’s broadcast in
November, 2003 of a computer analysis supporting the single-bullet theory
(hosted by the late Peter Jennings, who had recently become an American
citizen, but unlike fellow anchorman and Canadian, Robert McNeil, was a staunch
supporter of the Warren Commission). There continue to be questions related
to such matters as: the conflicting medical evidence between Dallas and
Bethesda; Oswald’s motivation to kill JFK, knowing that LBJ was waiting in the
wings; the condition of Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle and whether it was
even fired that day; the actual number of shells found below the sixth-floor
window (as the Dallas Police inventory list only included two shells, with no
mention of a third shell with a dented lip); Oswald’s ability to fire three
shots and more likely four, given the restrictions of the weapon and his
questionable skills as a rifleman; conflicting eyewitness reports as to the
source of the shots; the suppression of evidence that the CIA and the Mafia had
been attempting to assassinate Fidel Castro since 1960; Oswald’s possible links
to David Ferrie, Guy Banister, Clay Shaw and others in New Orleans, all with
connections to various branches of the U.S. government, as well as
right-wing organizations; and the suspicious and conflicting comments made to
me by both Curtis Craford and Jean Aase, both linked to Jack Ruby (15), and
still concerned for their safety after all these years.
Even though the Warren Commission
believed Oswald had the means and opportunity to kill President Kennedy, his
motive was difficult to grasp, especially since he was adamant that he hadn’t
killed anyone and was nothing more than a “patsy.” His wife, Marina, was
especially perplexed, since Lee had nothing but good things to say about
JFK. During her fourth and most revealing interview with members of the
Warren Commission (at an air force base outside Dallas) in early Sept. 1964,
she suggested that perhaps her late husband was trying to kill Governor
Connally.
Of course, Marina was not aware of
Jarnegin’s letter to the FBI claiming to have overheard such a conversation
allegedly involving Oswald and Ruby, but it made much more sense to her.
As stated earlier, it is difficult to understand why he would want JFK to be
replaced by Lyndon Johnson, a Texan wheeler-dealer, associated with both
Connally and Korth, as well as a corrupt protege named Bobby Baker. At
that very moment, Baker was being investigated by a Senate committee, which had
been an embarrassment to President Kennedy because of Baker’s longtime
affiliation with LBJ.
In fact, Life magazine
published a photo of Johnson and Baker on the cover earlier in the month, and
the November 22 issue included an update on the Senate hearings. Playing
up this politically charged situation, Richard Nixon, while in Dallas,
suggested to the press before he left Love Field on November 22 that he
believed Kennedy would be forced to replace Johnson with someone else as
Vice-President. A few hours later, that was no longer going to happen, as
LBJ became the next president of the United States.
With the death of John Connally in 1993, it looked for a moment like an exhumation
might take place, as requested by lawyer James Lesar, president of the
Assassination Archives and Research Center in Washington D.C., in order to
determine once and for all how much “lead” was still in Connally’s wrist and
thigh, and whether it could be matched to the “magic bullet.”
Unfortunately, a request to exhume the body made by the F.B.I. office in Dallas
was flatly rejected by Mrs. Connally. In 2003 she co-wrote a book
entitledFrom Love Field: Our Final Hours with President John F. Kennedy, but it
fails to mention the exhumation request. Nor was she asked about
the subject when she appeared on “The Larry King” show, but since the program
was videotaped, there was no possibility of the subject being raised by a
viewer. Hopefully, legal action will eventually overturn her
decision, so we will finally begin to learn what really happened in Dallas,
Texas on November 22, 1963.
- Peter R. Whitmey, Abbotsford, BC, Nov. 18, 2007
Endnotes
The Social Security Death Index does
not include a listing for Robert Edward Lee Oswald, nor does it for Lee Harvey
Oswald. I wrote to both the head office in Maryland as well as the
regional office in New Orleans for an explanation a few years ago, but did not
receive a reply from either. Marguerite Oswald’s death is listed,
however. As for whom Korth represented, many books state that he was
Marguerite’s lawyer, but given her testimony, it is clear he represented Ekdahl.
Documents in the Warren volumes also confirm that Korth was Ekdahl’s lawyer.
According to Priscilla Johnson
McMillan in her book Marina and Lee, Oswald brought home extra copies of
the exit visa application, in case he made a mistake. In fact, he did,
and it was a most peculiar one. Under “birthplace”, written in Russian,
and later translated by the U.S. State Dep’t (with “sic”next to the error), he
indicated he was born in “New Orleans, Texas, USA”! See my article “Did
Oswald Come Back?” at http://www.jfk-info.com/sitemap1.htm.
After writing to Betty McDonald in
1988, she kindly sent me a 90-minute tape of her recollections, which clearly
indicated she was not impressed with Oswald in the slightest. Later
I sent a copy to the head of research for the Frontline documentary,
Miri Navasky, who had learned about it from Edward Epstein, to whom I had
mentioned the tape in a letter. Epstein, who had referred to Betty in his
bookLegend: The Secret Life of Lee Harvey Oswald, was a close friend of her
father, Victor Navasky, a writer.
For a detailed report on Laura
Kittrell’s allegations, see William Weston’s two-part article “Laura Kittrell,
Oswald’s Employment Counselor” in the final two issues of The Fourth
Decade, Nov. 2000 and Jan. 2001. Kittrell’s 90-page manuscript, written
in 1966, in which she mentions having seen photos of Craford in the Warren
Commission volumes, is available from the JFK Archives. The HSCA record number
is 180-10086-10308.
In the March, 1967 issue of Esquire,
the “billboard incident” was depicted in cartoon form (in vivid colours),
accompanying an excerpt from a new book on the life of Jack Ruby. Ruby
had died in January from cancer, shortly before he was to be released from jail
to await a new trial to be held in Wichita Falls, TX after his appeal was
successful (as a result of pre-trial publicity and prejudicial statements made
to the media by Sgt. Dean of the Dallas Police). Oswald’s brother,
Robert, has lived in Wichita Falls for many years.
Rosenbaum’s article was included
with numerous other newspaper and magazine articles on the controversy
surrounding both the JFK assassination as well as Oliver Stone’s film “JFK” in JFK: The
Book of the Film, assembled by Oliver Stone’s head of research Jane Rusconi,
which includes an earlier transcript, with footnotes, citing sources.
Rosenbaum is a Yale graduate, having been in the same class as both Stone and
George Bush, Jr.
For further details about Ferrie’s
long distance phone calls, as well as a lengthy list of most of his long distance
calls over a two-year period, including the Sept. 24 call to the building
where Jean was living, see my article “Did David Ferrie Lie to the Secret
Service?”
See my article entitled “Mary E.
Woodward: The First Dissenting Witness”
She also wrote an article in November, 1983 for the Albany newspaper (sent to
me by, Mark Zaid, who was a law school student at the time), also available at
the same site, in which she stands by her original recollections of hearing and
feeling a shot pass overhead from the knoll. She also felt the same way
in an interview for the program “The Men Who Killed Kennedy”, which has been
shown on The History Channel (U.S. version) numerous times.
For further details about media
coverage in 1963-64, see my article “Deception and Deceit: Media Coverage of
JFK’s Assassination”
Vincent Bugliosi, who prosecuted
Charles Manson and co-wrote Helter Skelter, published a 1612 page book
entitled Reclaiming History in the spring of 2007 (with over 900
pages of endnotes on a disc). Not surprisingly, he argues throughout the
book that Oswald was a lone assassin and attempts, at times persuasively, to
debunk every conspiratorial theory in existence.
In regard to Craford, Bugliosi doesn’t mention my ongoing contact with him,
including my Dec. 2001 interview and the “hit man” revelation, even though he
does include a scathing review of Joan Mellen’s book in his endnotes. Nor
does he refer to Ron Rosenbaum’s Time essay from 1992. He does
make periodic reference to Craford, describing him as a “drifter”, a “drifter
kid”, a “handyman”, a “utility worker” and a “roustabout.” He concludes
that various alleged sightings of Oswald in the company of Ruby were most
likely based on the fact that Craford, according to Bugliosi, “definitely
resembled Oswald.” In his opinion, these were actually incidents
involving Craford and Ruby. I would agree with him on this point.
However, he stops short of suggesting for a moment that Craford might have, in
fact, been impersonating Oswald, which I believe is a strong possibility,
although Craford didn’t necessarily know that JFK was to be assassinated.
In regard to Craford’s decision to leave Dallas quite abruptly on Nov. 23 (not
Nov. 22, as he had told his second wife, Shirley), Bugliosi states in an
endnote that “Conspiracy theorists throughout the years have suggested that
Larry Crafard’s sudden departure may have been connected, in some way, to the
assassination…But they haven’t been able to come up with the smallest speck of
evidence that his departure had anything to do with the murders of Kennedy and
Oswald.” He fails to point out that even Warren Commission lawyer, Burt
Griffin, now a judge, expressed to the HSCA his ongoing suspicion related to
Craford’s departure, which he also expressed to me in 1993. Based on
Craford’s comments to both author Joan Mellen and myself, it is clear that he
is holding back information that should have been divulged to either the FBI or
the Warren Commission. Both Burt Griffin and the late Leon Hubert
were not satisfied with Craford’s response to many of their questions either.
One aspect of their “interrogation” involved Craford’s trip to Michigan,
which allegedly included several car rides. Although he claimed his
trip didn’t involve any stopovers, he could not account for eighteen hours
between the time he left on November 23 and when he arrived at his sister’s
cabin on November 25.
However, when I interviewed Craford in Dec. 2001, he revealed that he had
stopped to visit someone in Chicago, which supposedly is when he heard on the
radio that Ruby had killed Oswald. He also claimed to have met
Charles R. Isaacs, the American Airlines employee, whose name, place of
employment and Dallas phone number (as of 1961, but which was changed twice,
although at the same address) were listed in Jack Ruby’s notebook. In my
opinion, Chuck Isaacs was probably the person referred to as “Isaacs” in the
Winnipeg Airport conversation overheard by the late Richard Giesbrecht on Feb.
13, 1964. Based on what he heard, Isaacs appeared to be linked to both
Oswald and Ferrie.
As for Jean Aase, whom I have discussed periodically at the newsgroup
alt.assassination.jfk since 1998, Bugliosi only cites a Dave Reitzes Internet
article which makes reference to my contact with her in an endnote. (Reitzes
also believes that Oswald was a “lone nut.”)
I was disappointed that Bugliosi makes no reference to any of my own articles,
especially since he indicated that he had subscribed to TTD/TFD, which carried
most of my articles, including reports about: Priscilla Johnson McMillan
(in three parts, plus several updates); the Winnipeg Airport Incident (three
articles, including one about another similar pre-assassination conversation in
the same airport lounge overhead by a woman); the Cubana Airlines flight of
Nov. 22 with a major Canadian connection; the role of the media in 1963-64 (only
available via the Internet); the alleged Oswald FBI note (which might have been
Craford’s doing); a lengthy critical analysis of Jean Hill’s allegations (also
only available through the Internet, although widely distributed back when I
wrote it); a summary of my three-part audiotaped interview with Perry Russo
(based on a presentation given at a SUNY-Fredonia conference in 1996); David
Ferrie’s long distance phone calls showing he had been in Dallas several times
in 1963 (including a twelve-page list of calls made over a two-year period, but
with November, 1963 calls mysteriously not available when subpoenaed by
Garrison’s office); Mary Woodward’s eyewitness account suggesting a shot from
the knoll, along with her own 1983 report for an Albany, NY newspaper
supporting her original recollections; the intriguing allegations of Cecil Lee
Small from North Carolina, brought to my attention by an article mailed
anonymously from New Orleans; the question of Tom Tilson’s credibility; New
Orleans lawyer Clem Sehrt and his connections to Oswald, his mother and
Marcello; Pershing Gervais, a former assistant to Garrison, who attempted to
frame him (with a major Vancouver, B.C. connection); and the allegations of
John Meier, a former aide to Howard Hughes, related to the assassination,
through a book published only in Canada (The Age of Secrets, written by aVancouver
Sun reporter, who lived near Meier in a Vancouver suburb).
I wrote to Bugliosi earlier this year, and in reply, he indicated that he would
be interested in reading my work, much of which is now available on the
Internet.
However, I would have to send him a copy of my articles, as he stated that he
does not own a computer!
