As outlined in the OSS Operational Manual - used by the CIA as the basis for JMWAVE and other Field Service Headquarters - there were a number of facilities in Dallas that could have served as such a facility - including the Sheraton Hotel - which was designated as a public fall out shelter during a national or local emergency, and the Dallas Civil Defense Emergency Operations Center (DCDEOC).
The DCDEOC was under the command of Colonel Jack Crichton, who at the time of the assassination, was at a conference at the Adolphis Hotel, but left there to view the motorcade a block away. He then said he returned to the hotel before taking a role in the assassination drama by suggesting to the Dallas police that Ilya Mamanatov serve as a translator for Marina Oswald. A suggestion that was taken up.
Rather than Crichton, it is more than likely that Colonel Boise B. Smith, a former Dallas policeman for decades, and assistant director of the DCDEOC, was on duty at the underground communications bunker at the time of the assassination.
Other Colonels affiliated with the shelter are Colonel John W. Mayo and Colonel Charles W. McCoy, both of whom need to be further identified.
The DCDEOC was under the command of Colonel Jack Crichton, who at the time of the assassination, was at a conference at the Adolphis Hotel, but left there to view the motorcade a block away. He then said he returned to the hotel before taking a role in the assassination drama by suggesting to the Dallas police that Ilya Mamanatov serve as a translator for Marina Oswald. A suggestion that was taken up.
Rather than Crichton, it is more than likely that Colonel Boise B. Smith, a former Dallas policeman for decades, and assistant director of the DCDEOC, was on duty at the underground communications bunker at the time of the assassination.
Other Colonels affiliated with the shelter are Colonel John W. Mayo and Colonel Charles W. McCoy, both of whom need to be further identified.
The Bunker: Command Center Of JFK Assassination Or
Merely The World's Most Interesting Basement?
For photos and graphics go to original link:
Shocking True Stories and Political Sleaze
Editor Ken Silverstein
By David Bonner
January 9, 2018
During the 1968-69 school year, I attended preschool
at the Dallas Health and Science Museum in Fair Park. I didn’t know it at the
time, but there was an underground bunker beneath the playground outside our
classroom. Known as the Dallas Civil Defense Emergency Operations
Center (EOC), it became operational in 1962 to serve as a command post for city
officials in case of nuclear war.
Unlike an ordinary fallout shelter, it was intended
to shelter only government officials, not the general public.
Some conspiracy theorists believe the bunker could
have played a role in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
But first, some relevant background.
THE MUSEUM
The museum was founded in 1946 as the Dallas Health
Museum by a group called the Dallas Academy of Medicine, which was “made
up of doctors, dentists, and lay people” who aimed to create a “common channel
of enthusiastic effort for all the forces of health in Dallas and the
Southwest.” The goal of the museum was “to provide health education for the
public in order to protect health and cure disease,” and no admission fees were
charged.
Executive Director Horace Dodson “Dixie” Carmichael
presided over numerous renovations, expansions and innovations at the museum
from 1956 to 1979. Carmichael was formerly with the Red Cross, where he served
as a field director during World War II, and then as a Texas state
relations officer.
The museum’s preschool was launched in 1957 as the
only such science-based program in the nation.
My teacher, Annie
Riley.
The word “Science” was added to the museum’s name in
1958, possibly inspired by the National Defense Education Act of the same year,
which was part of a general increase in science funding in response to the
launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union. A domed planetarium was added to the
museum at that time. Sitting in there and staring up at the “stars” is my most
vivid preschool memory.
In 1981, the museum was rebranded as The Science
Place, and in 2012 it left Fair Park for a new downtown location (a few
blocks from Dealy Plaza), becoming the Perot Museum of Nature and History
— the result of a $50 million gift from the Ross Perot family.
THE BUNKER
1961 artist’s rendering
of proposed bunker (Dallas Times Herald).
2001 photo with playground
equipment visible behind the shrubs, with giant State Fair ferris wheel in
background. (Photo: Eric Green)
The bunker was a project of the Dallas City-County
Civil Defense and Disaster Commission. Officials of the organization are seen
in the picture below examining a model of the structure.
Commission Chairman John W. Mayo summarized the
purpose of the bunker in a statement at the dedication ceremony:
“This emergency operating center is part of the
national plan to link federal, state and local government agencies in a
communications network from which rescue operations can be directed in time of
local or national emergency. It is a vital part of the national state and local
operational survival plan. May our country be spared the trial of ever having
to use this structure for its ultimate purpose.”
In addition to running a mortgage company (as
indicated on the letterhead above), Mayo was also a local American Legion post
commander — an ardent anti-Communist by definition, as indicated in the
following passage from an exhibit catalog for the Dallas Museum of Art:
“In March of 1955, Col. John W. Mayo, Commander of
the Dallas metropolitan Post No. 581 of the American Legion, sent a
communication to the trustees of the Art Museum decrying many of the museum’s
policies and saying that the post objected ‘to the museum patronizing and
supporting artists….whose political beliefs are dedicated to destroying our way
of life.”
The other name on the letterhead is Boise B. Smith,
who is listed as Director of the organization. He had been an active member of
the Dallas police since the 1930s. Shown below posing with one of the four-ton
steel bunker doors.
Civil Defense historian Eric Green provides details
of the bunker on his Civil Defense Museum website:
“The Old Dallas Civil Defense Emergency Operations
Center (EOC) is located under the playground front of the Science Place
Planetarium building at Fair Park in Dallas, Tx. This EOC was to function as a
relocation shelter for Dallas government officials in the event of a nuclear
attack. It was from this shelter that officials would have tried to coordinate
recovery efforts involving community shelters, radiological monitors, police,
fire, sanitation and other services.”
“Construction of the EOC lasted from 1960 to 1961 at
a cost of $120,000. The City of Dallas paid $60,000 and the federal government
paid the additional $60,000. This shelter is a blast shelter in the true sense
of the term. It is equipped with large concrete and steel blast doors which
bolt shut when closed for sealing purposes. The exterior blast door is plainly
visible nest to the sidewalk on the southeast side of the building.”
“The EOC also is equipped with air ventilators
containing “ant-blast valves” which would close to prevent blast pressure from
entering the shelter. The air circulation system was built with a separate air
filteration room complete with a wall of air filters to remove fallout
contaminants from the incoming air.”
According to a March 27, 1962 Dallas Times Herald
article the shelter was officially opened on April 1, 1962 at 3 PM.
Marilyn W. Waters was on the museum staff for 45
years, from 1961 until her retirement in 2006. In 2014 and again this year, I
interviewed her via email about the bunker.
“It was well underway when I came and was just being
completed. The executive director (H.D. Carmichael) had a background with
emergency preparedness when he worked for an arm of the Red Cross. He was
always interested in civil defense issues and was on some important committee
dealing with emergency preparedness.”
“There was a citizens activist group connected with
the then newly formed Dallas City-County Defense and Disaster Commission
(DCCDDC) and to the best of my recall, our Exec. Director was part of the
group, especially with his Red Cross disaster relief background.”
“Civil
Defense, the fire department, and the police department all at one time had
emergency stations down there,” she added, and the museum was permitted “to use
the large meeting/planning room whenever the Civil Defense people were not
having training.”
An exception was during the Cuban Missile Crisis,
when “armed guards were placed at the entrance so that only authorized persons
could enter.
As for the construction of the bunker, Waters said:
“It leaked like crazy — radioactivity would have seeped in the leaks! The sump
pumps to force sewage up to the ground level didn’t work well so sewage backup
would have been a problem.” She reckons that it “would have been vaporized with
any strike near downtown.”
By the late 1970s, Civil Defense, the fire department, and the police department had each gradually abandoned the bunker. “When they pulled out, they left odds and ends of early 1960’s radio equipment and other items,” Waters explained. “All working engines, foodstuffs, etc. were removed and we were left with an interesting basement — except when the hydraulics malfunctioned on the 4-ton lead-lined doors that sealed off the stairs down into the shelter! We used the shelter for a classroom, storage and other things over the years.”
By the late 1970s, Civil Defense, the fire department, and the police department had each gradually abandoned the bunker. “When they pulled out, they left odds and ends of early 1960’s radio equipment and other items,” Waters explained. “All working engines, foodstuffs, etc. were removed and we were left with an interesting basement — except when the hydraulics malfunctioned on the 4-ton lead-lined doors that sealed off the stairs down into the shelter! We used the shelter for a classroom, storage and other things over the years.”
Colonel Charles W. McCoy – Asst. Director
Was Col. Charles W.
McCoy at the controls when JFK got shot?
(Photo: Eric Green)
When researcher Eric Green toured the bunker in
2001, the radios shown in the 1965 newspaper clipping above were still there,
as he writes on his website:
“I couldn’t believe the radios were still there when
I took the tour the first time. They were still there the second time I went
back in 2003 but had been removed in 2013. The large box on the desk used to be
on the floor. It had been badly rusted and damaged by water. The radio power
and antenna cables run up to boxes and conduits on the ceiling above each
cubicle. These radio antenna conduits run through the women’s restroom and out
of the back wall of the shelter. [I don’t know where they go from there.]
THE CLASSICAL MUSIC CONNECTION
On the Civil Defense and Disaster Commission
letterhead shown above, the office address of Boise B. Smith is identified as
being the WRR Transmitter Building in Fair Park.
WRR, the museum, and the bunker have many things in
common.
An online exhibit by the Dallas City Hall provides
the following historical summary of WRR, the station-of-choice for Dallas-Fort
Worth highbrows since 1964, when it switched to an all classical format:
“WRR is the municipally owned radio station operated
by the city of Dallas. It not only pioneered the local airwaves, WRR was the
first licensed broadcast station in Texas and the South and the second
broadcast station issued a commercial license in the United States.”
“Until the departments had their own internal
support, WRR supplied and maintained all radio equipment for police, fire, park
and recreation, water, public works and the former Health Department. At its
peak it furnished dispatching services for Dallas County, Cockrell Hill police
department, and private ambulance services (in the days before 911) . DRR
discontinued these adjunct services in 1969.
At Fair Park, with the
Cotton Bowl in the background.
In 1973, an addition to the Dallas Health and
Science Museum was built as the new home of WRR. Marilyn Waters recounted
that development:
“Their first location in Fair Park was in a building
just off the main street of the State Fair Grounds. Over time they had amassed
considerable funds and wanted to build in the Fair Park. The Dallas Health
Museum wanted to expand. Architects came up with a plan that would give the
museum more space and provide additional space for WRR. Especially to house
their growing operations. Eventually a second floor was completed converting
the small office area upstairs to a full second floor complete with
classrooms.”
WRR addition on the
left side of the Museum.
THE BUNKER AND JFK
Among assassination buffs, suspicion of the bunker
hinges on the fact that Jack Crichton, a key figure in some JFK conspiracy
theories, was involved with the Dallas Civil Defense and Disaster Commission.
An oilman with connections to the Bush family, Crichton was the failed
Republican nominee in the 1964 Texas gubernatorial race.
In his book, Family of Secrets, veteran
reporter Russ Baker notes:
“In April 1, 1962, Dallas Civil Defense, with
Crichton heading its intelligence component, opened an elaborate underground
command post under the patio of the Dallas Health and Science Museum. Because
it was intended for ‘continuity-of-government’ operations during an attack, it
was fully equipped with communications equipment.”
“With this shelter in operation on November 22,
1963, it was possible for someone based there to communicate with police and
other emergency services. There is no indication that the Warren Commission or
any other investigative body or even JFK assassination researchers looked into
this facility or the police and army intelligence figures associated with it.”
Peter Dale Scott, the JFK assassination researcher
who coined the term “deep state” to describe those in the federal executive
bureaucracy who allegedly wield inordinate power behind the scenes, attributes
a prominent role to Crichton:
“Since World War II, secrecy has been used to
accumulate new covert bureaucratic powers under the guise of emergency planning
for disasters, planning known inside and outside the government as the
‘Doomsday Project,’ known more recently as ‘continuity of government (COG)
planning.’ It was ‘originally concerned with decapitation of the U.S.
government after a nuclear attack….all this doomsday planning can be traced
back to 1963. When Jack Crichton, head of the 488th Army
Intelligence Reserve Unit of Dallas, was also part of it. This was in his
capacity as Chief of Intelligence for Dallas Civil Defense, which worked out of
an underground emergency operating center.”
Scott adds: “Six linear inches of Civil Defense
Administrative Files are preserved in the Dallas Municipal Archives. I hope an
interested researcher may wish to consult them.”
In the meantime, we can consult Marilyn Waters, who
was working at the museum, above the bunker, on the day JFK was assassinated.
“My boss at the time, H.D. Carmichael, had one of
the limited invitations to attend the luncheon where Kennedy was to speak. He
was very excited about the opportunity. Once he left the building to drive to
the Trade Mart, I hopped in my car to go over a couple of blocks to get a plate
lunch. For some reason that day, I didn’t turn on the radio but just headed
back to work. The minute I walked in, other staff members immediately began to
try to tell me what had happened. It was so shocking, so unbelievable, we just
stood around looking at each other we were not sure if this was a part of a
major conspiracy or what.”
Waters was aware that Dallas was a hotbed of
paranoid right-wing activity in those days. “Nut country,” as JFK reportedly
called it. She continues:
“Meanwhile, my boss was waiting with a thousand
others at the Trade Mart for the president to arrive. An announcement was made
to those waiting that the president had been shot. My boss was a canny old
field news reporter and knew people with press passes. He managed to get in
with the press and get out to Parkland Hospital to the Emergency Entrance. I
don’t think that he ever got inside. Just to the entrance. He was there when
they made the final pronouncement. He shared all of this with us back at the
museum via phone.”
So, was there any unusual activity at the bunker
when JFK was shot?
“No, we didn’t notice anything suspicious about the
shelter on that ominous day,” Waters says. “We racked our brains later trying
to think but nothing came up.”
Seymour Melman, the noted leftist professor of
industrial engineering and fallout shelter skeptic, once said: “We ought to
learn something from the Second World War in this respect, and the bombing
there, even by Second World War bombs in Hamburg, Tokyo, and other cities
showed that shelters became centers for incinerating or asphyxiating the people
who were in them.”
Although the Dallas museum bunker may well have been
better suited for managing an assassination than a nuclear war, its ultimate
function was apparently serving as the world’s most interesting and expensive
basement.
David Bonner is a Washington Babylon contributing
writer and senior analyst of pulp affairs. Direct response copywriter and
author of the newly published coffee table book “Selling Folk Music”
(University Press of Mississippi).
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