Judging Sources - New Names are Nuggets

JUDGING SOURCES

Kelly Notes: This is a first draft. My laptop is in the shop and pad is on the blink so I'm working off my phone. I appologize for spellings and typos and will correct them ASAP.

In the course of weighing the evidence and judging the veracity of sources, in evaluating the bonifides of defectors and sources the CIA determined that one way to do that is to see how much new, important and verifiable inforamtion the source provides, especially new names, new places and events not previoiusly known in the files.

After becoming familiar with most of the major players in the assassination of President Kennedy, I am always looking for new names, and when one appears it's like finding  a nugget in a gold mine or a needle in a haystack. 

This has occured numerous times over the years, but particularly when the second copy of the Air Force One tape was found among the effects of General Clifton, President Kennedy's miliary aide. 

Clifton's tape was a longer, reel to reel version of the shorter cassette tapes relesed by the LBJ Library in the 1970s that I had already transcribed, so I immediatly recognized the new segements on  the Clifton tape. 

There were two sections that stood out, one when a Colonel Dorman comes on identifying himself as General LeMay's aide, who wanted to use the channel to get an imporatnt message to General LeMay, who he said was on board a special jet enroute to Washington from Michagan. While we don't get to hear what the imporatnt message is - the Clifton tape is not a first generation copy but also an edited tape, and Colonel Dorman's name was new to me. 

I immediatley did an internet search and found that Colonel Dorman, after serving as LeMay's adjunct, transferred to a tactical figher command and was shot down and killed in Vietnam, a sad result of LBJ's assuming the presidency.

But continuing my search I discovered he was from nearby Trenton, New Jersey, not far from where I was living, and quickly discovered his widow in the phone book and called her. 

She answered and I identified myself as a resarcher who had just heard her husband talking on a recentlly released copy of the Air Force One tapes, and she confirmed that he was her husband. 

Mrs. Dorman said that on the day of the assassination she herself was working at the White House under a Mr. Castro, another new name, who was responsible for the historic renovations being undertaken at the urging of the First Lady, Mrs. Kennedy. 

She said she received a phone call from her husband at the Pentagon, and he instructed her to go home immediately. She said she assisted Mr. Castro close all the drapes and blinds at the White House and then drove home in nearby Arlington, Va., were she lived with her sons on General's Row, first stopping at a Arlinrton Cemetary chappel to pray.

Mrs. Dorman said she was aware of the tape and her husband's conversation because one of her sons complained about the attempt to market the tape included a TV appearnce by the auction company owner who said the Dorman - LeMay segment was new and conspiratorial. 

She gave me her son's phone number and I called him and he said that he didn't think the message was conspiratorial, though he said it was important. 

The son also said he was young, ten or twelve at the time of the assassination and since Arlington Cemetary was their backyard, him and his brothers and friends, sons of generals and high government officials, watched the president's burial ceremony from the branches high in a tree. 

The son said he believed LeMay was on a fishing vacation with his family in Michagan, because if he was on an imporant official mission his father would have accompanied LeMay, who did not return to DC in his regular plane.. 

The son said LeMay had his own plane, called "Speckled Trout," - a Command and Control plane with the latest electronic and communications equipment, a plane that his father had once given him a tour of.

CAPTAIN PATTERSON - aka "Stranger" 

Also on the tape is a segement early on with communicaitons between the White House Situation Room and the Cabinet plan over the Pacific enroute to Japan. 

On the tape, and as recounted by Pierre Salinter in his book "On Orders of My President," the cabinet plane was informed of the president's  death and ordered to turn around and return to Washington by someone who identified himself by his code name "Stranger." 

When Salinger informed the highest ranking cabinet member on the plane, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Rusk asked for the identify of "Stranger," saying they couldn't just take orders from soneone they didn't know, literally a stranger.

Salinger relates how they then asked the pilot for the official code book, but when the safe was open, the code book was missing. 

This required Salinger to order the Situation Room to identify "Stranger," who they say, after a few minutes consultation, was identified as Captain Patterson, someone Salinger knew personally, and could vouch for. 

Now with "Stranger" being idntified as Captain Patterson, and having his name, I did a quick internet search and found him still alive in Virginia and called him on the phone. Patterson answered, and acknowledged he was in the Situation Room at the time of the assassination, assigned to the White House Communications Agency. He also acknowledge that the Cabinet plane was missing its code book and official protocol was broken as his name was revealed. 

Patterson was open and forthcoming with me but a few days latrer refused to talk to another reporter, and I suspect someone else got to him and shut him down. 

But not before he talked to me. 

And both Dorman and Patterson are just two examples of how new names that crop up can be imporant sources of information, and I will provide some more soon, so stay tuned.