Mark Valenti on Jim Braden

 Mark Valenti writes –

The book is shaping up but I'm still looking for connective tissue with a few items. I want to match Brading's known movements over the years with known Mob activity, police hustles and even some political stuff that was taking place at the same time. 

I also need corroboration for a few things concerning Joe Shimon and Brading's time in New Orleans. 

I've been attempting to run down Brading's records from his time in jail in the late 50s but I've hit a bureaucratic brick wall. I need those records to complete the picture. 

I know Brading and Pereira ran gambling dens for the mob over the years - they were reliable money, slick and for a while, untouchable. They hit towns where the police were on the take, so they operated with impunity. The mob loved those guys, so much so that Brading became a money courier for Lansky, even with him traveling to Switzerland. 

I'm chasing two other individuals who performed the same services for the Mob, whose stories are somewhat similar to Brading's. That can help me nail down exactly how he operated. 

But Brading ended up in the slammer for a number of years, during which he kept in close contact with several key mob-affiliated individuals. I'm trying to find out more about who he was in contact with in those years, because when he came out, he was set up in high style in Beverly Hills, and he came and went as he pleased, even rubbing shoulders with J. Edgar Hoover in San Diego. He was a connected guy. 

I believe he was in Dallas to make payments to key players, regardless of whether or not he knew the reason for the payments. As you know, he was in the same place at the same time TWICE in one day as Jack Ruby was, the day before the assassination. Demonstrating that would prove foreknowledge on the part of the Mob, which would go a long way toward an understanding of how the event went down. 

My research has shown: 

* Brading and George deMohrenschildt were both in the oil fields of Colorado and Wyoming at the same time in the 50s - very near each other. It beggars belief that they didn't run in the same circles - everyone knew everyone in those days. 

* Michael Paine worked in the same area at the same time for a short while. 

* Someone named Jack Ruby financed the scam of some of Brading's colleagues during this period. 

* When Brading was arrested as a young man, his lawyer was also Al Capone's lawyer. 

* He made several trips to Cuba and met up with high roller gamblers associated with the Mob.

* He was an informant to none other than crooked cop Joe Shimon, who later became an intimate colleague of Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana, and who knew a great deal about JFK's troublesome security just before the assassination. 

* Brading's pal Victor Pereira was an FBI informant. 

* Brading once lived in the same apartment complex in Beverly Hills as the one Marilyn Monroe lived in.

* Brading's colleague Roger Bauman was an associate of HL Hunt for years. Bauman is the man Brading flew into Dallas with. 

* He spent time on a farm in McHenry Illinois that was deeply connected to the Mob. 

* Brading was intimately involved with the widow of a principal member of Magnolia Oil in Dallas. Of course Magnolia Oil is a hub of JFK-related people.

* When Brading was in jail, one of his fellow inmates was Benny Binion, the famous Dallas gambling boss.

* Another connected inmate at that time was James Henry Dolan, who has been linked to Brading though Dolan's own child

* Another inmate at the time was LA mob boss Mickey Cohen.

* While in jail, Brading kept in close contact with the Smalldone mob brothers.

* Brading was in close proximity to David Ferrie in New Orleans --

* Brading and Ferrie ended up within minutes of each other in Houston in the days following the assassination. 

* Brading lied about being in bed with his wife in Los Angeles in June, 1968. They had split up months previously. 

Beyond all that, Brading avoided telling the truth during his testimony - he conveniently forgot things and when called on them, he would suddenly remember, but he was adept at shading the truth so that his true whereabouts during specific times was nearly impossible to track. 

 

He lied about who he knew, where he was, what he was doing and how he got there.