The AARC presents a new series of lectures commemorating and honoring the legacy of President Kennedy, the inspirational meaning of his term of office, and the consequences of his assassination sixty-one years ago.

In the words of the distinguished British scholar Malcolm Blunt, “Jesus Christ, what we lost when we lost that man.”

Bill Simpich continues with part 2 of his research into the complicity of journalists in the JFK assassination, the careers that profited from this crime, and what happened to the journalists who tried to take a stand – with a special focus on two Dallas/Fort Worth journalists, Kent Biffle (Part 1) and Thayer Waldo (Part 2), and their relationship with both the case and the Oswald family from 1959 to 1967.  There will also be an emphasis on how a few law enforcement officers like Dallas police officers George Lumpkin, Pat Gannaway, and Jerry Hill, Assistant DA Bill Alexander, and local Secret Service agent Mike Howard succeeded in manipulating the national media into demonizing Lee Oswald as the lone assassin in the first hours after the assassination and afterwards.

The Dallas Journalists & Law Enforcement that Molded the Assassination Coverage

By Bill Simpich

You thought that story was wild. Wait till you hear this story.

Okay, I’m Bill Simpich and I’m going to offer you the biography of Dallas reporter Thayer Waldo, a story that has never been told properly. I think you’re going to enjoy it and really be thinking hard after you hear it.

Thayer Waldo wrote for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and he claims to have been the last individual to shake hands with President Kennedy at Love Field before his car drove off. And Mr. Waldo is reported in this police report I’ve got here, as being at the Trade Mart waiting for the motorcade to arrive.

“Mr. Waldo, accompanied the captain to the police car. Mr. Waldo stated to me that he heard the first bulletin which came over the Dallas police radio, and it was, ‘Bulletin. The president has been shot. It is feared that others in his party have been wounded. The shots came from a triple overpass in front of the presidential automobile.’”

And for those of you who are geographers, that’s also the same direction as the grassy knoll. The sixth-floor of the Book Depository, conversely, is behind the automobile.

If you take a look at the dispatch, the dispatch says just that. You hear Jesse Curry saying, “Go to the hospital, Parkland Hospital, have them stand by. Get a man up on top of the triple underpass and see what happened up there.”

Then you turn to the newspaper the following day and unlike all the other stories, what you see is Mr. Waldo’s article saying, “Security Question Remains Puzzler.  Behind the tangled web of tragic circumstance surrounding the assassination one unanswered question: How could it have been permitted to happen?”  Nobody else is asking that question. Nobody.

Now, Mr. Waldo had a very interesting background. His wife in the late 1930s was a woman named Grace Clements. She was not only a head of what’s known as the surrealist painter’s movement, she was an artist, but she was also a member of the local communist movement in the Oakland area. So, he saw the communist movement, if you will, firsthand. And he also—it’s kind of like Mr. Oswald, Mr. Waldo had an interesting background, because his father was a business manager at the Stars and Stripes. He was a captain of infantry during the previous war, World War I. And the Stars and Stripes, of course, is a daily newspaper of the United States Armed Forces. He was a president and editor of McClure Newspaper Syndicate. He was well -connected, very tied to the military. And Mr. Waldo is very familiar with the communists.

Now, he went to South America after World War II. And here’s from the FBI reports. “Thayer Waldo reported to Stringer for Drew Pearson.” Remember Drew Pearson, famous journalist for the Washington Post, had the racier stories, more liberal type stories? “In Uruguay in 1948, where he known for inaccurately reporting embassy events, he allegedly friendly with a group of Spanish communists in Uruguay. Reports from Uruguay also disclosed that Waldo derogatory remarks regarding U.S. policy in Latin America and expressed himself as sympathizer in Soviet politics.”

Then it goes on, “Waldo also reportedly served as correspondent to Pearson and Ecuador in Colombia. After being invited to Ecuador by President Galo Plaza, Subject took steps in 1950 to renounce U .S. citizenship…” Like Oswald, sound familiar? “… and obtained Ecuadorian citizenship in order advance official position with latter government. Later decided retain US citizenship…” Again, just like Oswald. “In 1953 was administrator of El Sol, leftist daily in Quito.” That’s Ecuador. “Then he launched the Pacific Post newspaper later that year with a man named Francis Sutherland. That lasted for a small time, only until the two men had a falling out. This falling, the feeling was aggravated when Sutherland charged that Waldo had raped his wife. After the breaking of the partnership, Mrs. Sutherland is reported to have stated that Waldo carried with him his CP (Communist Party) membership card and that he had tried to convert her to communism.”

All this business about the Sutherland’s, I question how much of this is true, whether it is true. So much of this, I think, Waldo and maybe working with Mr. and Mrs. Sutherland, I think all this deserves a lot more investigation to find out why he’s getting painted with this broad brush.

“In June ’53, Waldo deported from Ecuador by the new president. They changed presidents quite a bit for writing derogatory articles concerning the Ecuadorian government.” So, first he’s invited, then he’s kicked out, he’s deported from Uruguay, and we’re gonna see more deportations in his history to come. “January ‘60, Havana Station reported Waldo as American newsman from Mexico City in Havana, who might be offered editorship of the English Language Times in Havana.”

So, he’s, and then late January ‘60, “Mexico station reported subject discussed six-week tour of Cuba with a embassy officials. And then the files show he resided in Mexico City for two years prior to late 1960.”

So, there’s that piece of story, but then here’s another; here’s an FBI or CIA story. This is “1960, Waldo is identified as an overt contact of the Office of Naval Intelligence and he was living in New York City with the BCIU First Avenue, New York City.” The BCIU has lots of guests like the ambassador, George Allen, like the director of the USIA, US Information Agency, Intelligence -oriented, and the executive editor of the Washington Post.

What’s the BCIU? it is the Business Council of the International Americas, and he’s their media consultant. He’s tape recording dozens of interviews with dozens of individuals for Spanish language radio programs where the council will broadcast for medium wave outlets in that area, and the English version is going to be used by the Voice of America. So, you can tell this guy is somehow working both sides of the street.

Here’s the San Francisco Chronicle article saying, “This reporter,” (Waldo reporting to himself about himself) “… spent the first half of 1960 in Cuba. At that time, with the U.S. Embassy, still in operation, fully staffed, eight of its personnel were CIA agents, three worked for the FBI, each of the armed services have from one to five operatives assigned to intelligence work. No special effort was required to learn these facts or to identify the individuals so engaged. Within 30 days of arrival in Havana, their names and agency affiliations were made known to me without solicitation by other correspondents or embassy employees. The latter included one CIA man who volunteered the identities of all three persons accredited to the FBI and a Cuban receptionist, outspokenly pro-Castro, who ticked off the names of three CIA agents with entire accuracy, a later check confirmed. In addition to embassy staffers, the CIA had a number of operatives. I knew 14, but I’m satisfied there were more among the large colony of resident U.S. businessmen.”

He is giving away the company store in the newspaper! In the newspaper. This is highly treacherous material that’s not supposed to be out there.

So, this is really, really, bizarre for him to be putting this in the paper. If he’s putting this in the paper, he’s doing it on purpose to, at the directions of people in intelligence, otherwise they literally wouldn’t be doing it.

Okay, now, from July 1963 to October 1964, Waldo is serving as the feature editor of the Star-Telegram in Fort Worth, Texas. And furthermore, I think it’s worth mentioning here that in 1956, while working for the El Paso Herald Post, he became acquainted with a man named John Sutton, who was then a lieutenant in the U.S. Army in Fort Bliss, Texas, assigned to special communications. He did not see Sutton again until Waldo, having spent about a year and a half in the Dominican Republic on a BCIU project, and as correspondent for a number of U.S. papers, accepted that job of feature editor for the Star-Telegram. Again, that’s the middle of 1963. So, he’s got this working relationship with Sutton, which is going to come up soon here.

Now, Waldo, not only does he shake hands with JFK, claims to be the last guy, but he went directly from the Trade Mart to the police headquarters, the afternoon of November 22, within 30 minutes after learning the president was shot. “When I arrived to Dallas police headquarters, I was the first reporter in any medium so far as I know. Certainly, there was no other evidence to reach the third floor of headquarters. No one attempted to stop me or ask for any identification at that time.”

So, but he’s had quite a day there.

George Butler

And over the next couple of days, his big contact becomes a man named George Butler, who was a lieutenant or captain, as he describes it, in the Dallas Homicide Division. On the day that Oswald is, shot two days later, the 24^th, “Butler came to the Commerce Street end of the ramp, and called out the reporters, “Come in.” Waldo said he and the other reporters entered the ramp at which time a uniformed officer checked their credentials. He said that Butler was an extremely nervous man, so nervous that “when I was standing asking him a question after I’d entered the ramp and gotten down to the basement area,” (and Butler is the head of security according to Waldo) “… just moments before Oswald was brought down, he was standing profile to me and I noticed his lips trembling as he listened and waited for my answer.” Waldo said that when the Dallas detectives escorted Oswald out of the hallway and into the ramp, “it was necessary for them to walk within a few feet of the rear end of the parked police car where Waldo was standing with the ABC man.” Waldo said, as they passed, “the ABC man pushed the microphone out in front of Oswald’s face and asked, ‘Do you have anything to say?’ A man in a hat made one long lunging step from Waldo’s right to the front of Oswald, shoved out his hand, and shot Oswald.”

Now, so Butler, in my mind, is one of the key suspects of this entire plot involving JFK, Oswald, Tippit, you name it.

After a week after the assassination, this man I mentioned, the Army officer in El Paso, John Sutton, who is now living in Fort Worth, he asked Waldo if they could meet at the Dallas Press Club. When they met, Sutton told him he had an informant that had seen Ruby and Tippit and Bernard Weissman together at the Carousel Club.

Remember this story?

This is not the same story, by the way, as the Jarnigan story. This is another story. And he was reluctant to come forward because he had an affair with a stripper that the informant did, and feared he would lose his work and his family if it got out.

Now, as I mentioned earlier when I was talking about Commission Document 1, the FBI report that came out in early December, that report said that Oswald, “a loner all his life, acted by himself.” So, it got leaked to the press. And the question got out pretty quickly, why was the FBI probe leaked to the press?

Very, very good question people were asking that at that time the FBI etc, look pretty sweet with this kind of thing going on. Meanwhile, Sutton and Waldo get together and Sutton introduces him to his informant.

He tells him his informant is Phil Burns, white male late thirties five foot eight, hundred forty-five pounds, chestnut hair glasses, employed at an advertising agency on account of one of Sutton sponsors. Sutton told Waldo a little bit later that he had called the advertising agency and learned Phil Burns’ actual name; his actual name was Paul Bridewell.

Burns said to Waldo that Ruby introduced him to J.D. Tippit and Bernard Weissman. They shook hands. Burns walked away. Heard nothing.

If you want to know my opinion about this whole story about Paul Bridewell, Phil Burns, whether it was made up by Sutton or made up by somebody else. I don’t think Waldo made it, but I’ll tell you this much, I think the whole story about Ruby introducing him to Tippit and Weissman was made up by Burns. It was to get Waldo engaged in red herring type stories.

Dorothy Kilgallen

Waldo said that he was too scared to publish the story and other information that he had about the assassination. He’d been working with Mark Lane at this point. Mark Lane introduces Waldo to Dorothy Kilgallen. Her article about the Tippit, Ruby and Weissman meeting appeared on the front page of the Journal American. And this is like December 8th, two weeks or so, I think, after the assassination.

Around that same time, Marguerite Oswald’s in the paper. She’s going, “I know my son.” And she thinks, as we know, that her son is an agent for American intelligence.

And so, this whole article, December 8th, just attacks Marguerite Oswald up and down the street. And the Journal American picks it up from the AP. The Journal American loves dirt on a variety of subjects. They are really a dangerous outlet in terms of foisting crazy stories.

And you see they’re at the top of the list of press that Hoover watches very carefully. He’s got a little stamp. The stamp has the Washington Post, the Daily News, the Evening Star, the Washington Papers. Then you got the Herald Trib, Journal American, Mirror, Daily News, Post, New York Times. Then you got the communist press, The Worker, The New Leader. Then you got the capitalist press, the Wall Street Journal. You got the popular press, The National Observer, which is nowhere anymore and back to the communist press of People’s World. Those are the 12 people he thought were most important, those papers were the most important on the JFK case.

Can you imagine? It shows you what his agenda is. Meanwhile, more nonsense is getting into the press courtesy of Lonnie Hudkins. Hudkins Advises on December 17th, he’s just returned from a weekend in Dallas where he’s talked to Allan Sweatt from the Chief Criminal Division He’s the Chief, Sheriff’s Office. It’s his opinion Oswald’s being paid $200 by the FBI as an informant in connection with their subversive investigations. He furnished the alleged informant is S-172.

I mean, this is a kind of informant that Jim Hosty worked with all the time. They got paid $200.

Here’s another letter from Hoover to the Warren Commission counsel J. Lee Rankin.

Who’s doing this, spreading this story? Joe Goulden, who’s writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He uses 179. Goulden is the guy, by the way, who handles the documents of the Estate of David Atlee Phillips. Goulden is not the guy who I consider a truth teller. And the other people who work with Hudkins to spread this story was Bill Alexander and Hugh Aynesworth, who said they made it up to try to prove that their phones were being tapped by the FBI. I don’t believe these gentlemen for a single moment about anything for a variety of reasons, most of which I think you already know.

Now, here’s the National Guardian, which is the left-wing newspaper in the United States, a progressive news weekly. Their headline is “A Grave Doubt Plagues the United States” and “Is Oswald Innocent? A Lawyer’s Brief,” and they run Mark Lane’s brief attacking the evidence, where some of this evidence is now getting squirreled right inside Mark Lane’s stuff, which I think actually wound up hurting Mark Lane’s credibility. He’s got a lot of good stuff and the bad stuff, I think, is this kind of nonsense.

Now shortly after Rankin writes Marguerite a letter saying,

“I would like to acknowledge receipt of your telegram requesting your attorney be permitted to cross -examine any witnesses whose testimony is taken by this commission, in particular testimony Marina Oswald, and I enclose a copy of your letter to your attorney, Mark Lane.”

Mark Lane and Marguerite want him to have the right to cross-examine these witnesses.

And here is one of the great, great events of dirt, and it comes right from Marguerite’s testimony to the Warren Commission. She’s going to fly out in early February of ’64 to testify, her and Marina. And so, she told Mr. Mark Lane, “I’m not going in the car with Mr. Mike Howard.” He’s the Secret Service guy. And there was another Mr. Howard, by the way, who came that day, and that was Pat, Mike’s brother. I don’t know whether he was his brother or not. We’ll have to find out.

“Sir, that day I was going to leave for Washington. And I said, ‘Mr. Lane, I’m scared to death.’ He says, ‘Don’t worry. I will call Mr. Walden …’“ That’s Mr. Waldo who is the Star-Telegram reporter, “’… and ask him to accompany you.’ And Mark Lane called Mr. Waldo of the Star-Telegram and asked him to company me and Mr. Walden did accompany me with these two Secret Service men to the airport. And when Mr. Walden entered my home, I told him I’m so glad you were here because I didn’t want to go with this agent by myself.”

And I’ve got a photo here courtesy of, none other than Dale Myers, where he superimposes Waldo’s picture with the headline on the Star-Telegram, “Witness to Assassination Waits to Name Oswald. Negro to Give Details.” Who was that witness? Who was that Negro? Well, here’s Mark Lane quoting from what Mike Howard said to him after he dropped off Marguerite.

Mike says to Mark Lane, “Wait till that old black boy gets up in front of the Warren Commission and tells his story. That will settle everything. Yes, sir. He was right there on the same floor looking out that next window, and after that first shot he looked and saw Oswald and then he ran. I saw him in the Dallas Police Station. He was still the scaredest cat “n” I ever saw him. I never saw him tell the officer, ‘Man, you don’t know how fast and fast is ’cause you didn’t see me run that day.’ He said he ran and hid behind the boxes ’cause he was afraid Oswald would shoot him.” Mike Howard then explained that the Negro witness had been arrested by the Special Services Office of the Dallas Police for gambling. And since he was familiar with that branch of the Dallas Police, he immediately gave himself up to that branch. Mr. Howard alleged that he had visited the Negro witness while he was in custody of the special services in the Dallas jail.

And then what happened was, Thayer Waldo ran that article the next day, not with those exact words, but saying that there was a witness who was in protective custody by the Dallas Police. And it was a six-column piece and it made a lot of headlines that you can imagine and lots of letters and this and that. And then Thayer Waldo wound up writing the declaration after Lane tipped off the paper that– and others, I might add– as to Waldo’s identity.

And Mike Howard was his informant. Mike Howard had really pulled a fast one up on Waldo is what had happened.

Waldo writes a declaration.

Well, the way he told it was, “Well, when that old black boy—(this is coming again from Mike Howard)– well, well, then when that old black boy gets before the Warren Commission and tells what he knows, that will stop them all talking.” Pat Howard turned half around in his seat and gave me an elaborate wink with raised eyebrows as if to say, ‘So here’s what I was telling you about.’ He looked and saw Oswald kneeling at the next window with a rifle aimed at the street. Mike Howard said the Negro later told the Dallas police officers to whom he surrendered, ‘I was scared to death. I thought he would kill me too. I just turned and ran way over to the far side of the room and squeezed me down beyond some empty crates.’”

So yeah, Mark Lane pretty well accurately got what Thayer was told by Mike Howard. And Waldo wrapped up his statement to his editor saying under penalty of perjury, “They slapped a vagrancy charge on him so they could hold it, Mike said. He was still just about the scaredest negro I ever saw, nothing but whites to his eyes.” About as racist as you can get. “They have now transferred him somewhere else, I understand. I don’t know where.”

So, here’s the letter Mike Howard wrote, and we just dug this out of the archives a couple weeks ago. Thank you very much, Chad Nagle, for the hard work. What Mike told Forrest Sorrell’s back in February ’64 was, “He was supposed to have heard the shots just above him and had hidden for fear that he might have been shot also. When the Negro found out someone had shot the president, for fear of getting involved, he allegedly had a record of vagrancy or some other minor violation with the Dallas Police Department. My brother and I were laughing about it, not paying any attention to our passenger till he leaned from the back seat and said, ‘Is this Negro going to testify before the Warren Commission?’ I laughed. I said, I didn’t know; that I had never talked to the man and wasn’t even assigned to the assassination investigation. My brother said, ‘I don’t know the name of the Negro or where he was now.’ My brother said, ‘They’re probably holding him in protective custody on a vagrancy charge.’ We all laughed. And then Mike goes, ‘I did not know Waldo was a reporter at the time, he was riding in my car. I knew him only as a friend of Mark Lane, the lawyer of Oswald and his mother, Marguerite.’”

But Pat Howard testified about many months later to the FBI, and Pat admitted, “Mrs. Oswald identified this individual who was to accompany them as Thayer Waldo, a reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.” Period.

So, the Howard’s couldn’t even get their own story straight, but they didn’t think they were going to get in trouble, and you can bet they did not get in trouble.

The Waldo report to the FBI after this happened, after the article ran a couple days later, Waldo told the FBI that after the story was originally written, the source, Mike Howard, called him on the phone, and the only change in the story was the fact that the witness was not on the sixth floor but on the fifth floor.

He had to massage that little bit and that was the part he massaged and told Forrest Sorrels and then he changed it and then he told Thayer that he got that little part wrong. A pretty important part to get wrong, I might add.

“Jack Revill, Special Services Bureau, Dallas Police, advised he knows of no witness was being held in protective custody. He stated that in his opinion with respect to the story in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the witness referred to may possibly be Charles Douglas Givens.”

Charles D. Givens

Now, who’s Charles Douglas Givens? I’ll tell you who Charles Douglas Givens is. He was on the sixth floor during the morning filling orders with Lee Oswald on November 22. Lee was standing by the elevator in the building at 11:30 when Givens went to the first floor. When he started down in the elevator, Lee yelled at him to close the gates in the elevator so Lee could have the elevator returned to the sixth floor. On the morning of November 22nd. Givens observed Lee reading a newspaper in the Domino room where the employees eat lunch about 11:50 AM.

So here we are 11:50 AM; Given sees Lee eating lunch, reading the paper.

Now, Givens was only one of four witnesses who stated they saw Oswald on the first floor during lunchtime. William Shelley, supervisor of the floor laying crew said, “I do remember seeing him when I came down to eat lunch about 10 to 12,” as did the building’s janitor, Eddie Piper, who said he saw Oswald just at 12 the clock. Carolyn Arnold saw him at about 12:20. Pat Speer points out that Givens began to change his story within days of Howard’s talking to Waldo.

The February 21st ’64 cover story of Life Magazine, which treated Oswald’s sole guilt as a proven fact, revealed a few minutes after noon as the president and his wife were pulling away from the airport in the open presidential limousine, an employee in the School Book building, Charles Givens, saw Oswald on the sixth floor and said, “Let’s go down and watch the president go by.” “Not now,” Oswald responded. “Just send the elevator back up.”

So, what that means is that now, instead of seeing Oswald in the lunchroom at 11:50, they’re saying, “Oh, right after noontime, Mr. Givens saw Oswald up on the sixth floor and staying on the sixth floor.” That’s pretty serious.

Marguerite Oswald

So, here is the exchange between Marguerite and Earl Warren. I want people to understand just how strong Marguerite was during this period of time before we finish the Givens story.

Earl Warren: “It’s not an accusation about your son. It’s an accusation about your son in Texas courts. That’s an entirely different proceeding. We’re here to do justice and be fair to everyone. And it’s our main and only purpose in serving on this commission. None of us cherish this responsibility.”

Mrs. Oswald: “I’m sure, sir.”

Earl Warren: “And the only satisfaction we can derive is to be fair to all concerned. And I assure you that’s our objective.”

Mrs. Oswald again: “I do not imply this commission will not be fair; I know about the men on the commission; they’re all fine men including yourself Chief Justice Warren. But I do state a fact that I do not think that you can come to a true conclusion. I want that for the record.”

And she says, “I implore you, I implore you in the name of justice, to let my son, Lee Harvey Oswald, accused of assassinating the president, I the mother of this man who’s the accused mother, be represented by counsel.”

Chairman: Before you leave Mrs. Oswald, may I say to you first the commission’s not here to prosecute your dead son, it is not here and it was not established to prosecute anyone.”

And Marguerite says, “I’m not in agreement with you. One thing I want to make clear, we do not know the questions you’re asking to myself or Marina or the other witnesses and I contend that you cannot ask him the pertinent questions because you don’t know what I know and what Mr. Lane knows. And so, you will have an analysis in the long run, a conclusion.”

And then Rankin says to Mrs. Oswald, “He was being prepared to become an agent inspired by his recruiting officer?”

Marguerite Oswald: “Yes, sir.”

Rankin: “By what you have told us about reading the Communist literature and this one pamphlet and also the manual of the Marine Corps?”

Marguerite Oswald: “Yes, sir, and then living to when he’s age 17 to join the Marines, which I knew and which he did at age 17 on his birthday.”

Now Rankin goes, “What else do you base your idea that he was ever an agent or became an agent on?”

Mrs. Oswald: “Many many things. We always watched I Led Three Lives, the program about Philbrick, we always watched that, and when Lee returned from the Marines in the service, the three days he was there with me, the program was on and he turned it off. He said, ‘Mother, don’t watch that. That is a lot of propaganda.’”

We’ve heard Robert say he watched it, but that’s Mrs. Oswald. And she also tells us that after he came back from the Marines, he said it’s propaganda, which of course was true.

Mark Lane

Mark Lane talks about the Warren Commission’s refusal to appoint him, he said the dead and absent were tried in the courts of Nuremberg as a last resort to prevent embarrassment, they appointed the president of a bar association to conduct the defense of Oswald. And then they forgot all about it.

And Lane added, “It is the first time in history that counsel has been appointed forgetting about the counsel retained by the family.” The guy did nothing. He sat there like a, you know, like a mannequin.

In April, Givens changes his story to the FBI. No longer Oswald’s alibi witness. Givens was now the Warren Commission star witness. He alone, among all the witnesses, is supposed to have seen Oswald on the sixth floor of the Book Depository by 11:55 and never saw him downstairs between 11:30 to 12:30. And this comes from Don Thomas’ essay, Rewriting History, “Hence Givens gave two accounts of Oswald’s whereabouts, one in November that tended to corroborate Oswald’s alibi, and a second in April that tended to incriminate him, yet his statement in November contained no mention of Oswald on the sixth floor, while the statement in April contains a denial that he’d seen Oswald elsewhere.”

So, that’s the Givens wrap up, and that’s the way the Givens story has been told for the last 60 years, as not an alibi, but rather the great accuser.

Now, Waldo, about a month later, in May, he gave a deposition to the Warren Commission and he told the FBI later on that he didn’t get into all these events and the reason why was because he was enjoined before beginning his formal declaration please confine yourself exclusively to the events of November 24th 1963.

Now as damning as it was about George Butler, you don’t read anything else about George Butler anywhere. And Waldo’s statements about all these other events, which were incredibly important, were not allowed to be part of the testimony.

Now, what did Waldo do? He offered an Warren Commissioner interview person, Leon Hubert, a manuscript he wrote with reporter Ed Johnson, called The Dallas Murders. He offered it to him on the record. Hubert didn’t want it. So, who did he work with instead? Dorothy Kilgallen.

That’s who he gave his story to, as I mentioned. And that was published, I had the date wrong. It was actually not published until September the 3rd, 1964.

Who else was he working with? He was working with people like Jim Koethe and Bill Hunter. And Ed Johnson. Koethe was the one focused hardest on the book publicly. Waldo did not want to be publicly associated. He was scared for his life, scared for his family. Koethe’s associates were Waldo, Johnson and Bill Hunter. Koethe, Waldo and Johnson covered the presidential visit for their papers and all three of them covered the assassination and the ruby trial. Koethe’s task for the book was an in -depth study of the leaders in Dallas. Koethe was killed supposedly with a karate chop coming out of his shower later in September 64, days after Kilgallon’s heart attack and then falsely accused of being gay. Bill Hunter, who had been assisting on the book, had been killed five months early, shot while sitting down in a police station by a Long Beach officer who first said he had dropped his revolver and then changed his story and said he was playing quick draw like Quick Draw McGraw with his partner when the gun went off.

Within a week, I’ve done work on grand with around grand jury proceedings and arrest and this is unbelievable what I’m gonna tell you here. Within a week, a 22-year-old ex-con from Alabama named Larry Earl Reno was picked up selling Koethe’s personal effects and held on suspicion of murder.

As opposed to his personal effects he had in his house, the notes of his book. They were never found, just like Dorothy Kilgallen a year later. When the Reno case came before the grand jury, district attorney Henry Wade secretly instructed the jurors not to indict an extraordinary move for a chief prosecuting officer with as strong a case as he had. So, he put on a whole case and then he told the jurors not to indict.

Can you imagine? And the jurors went along with Wade. And then, you know, Dorothy Kilgallen went on to write a column a month later saying, Maybe You Didn’t Know. And she was furious about the whole situation involving the Warren Commission report, which just came out days earlier, days after the Koethe killing.

Kilgallen wrote, “At any rate, the whole thing smells a bit fishy. It’s a might too simple that a chap kills the president of the United States, escapes from that bother, kills a policeman, eventually is apprehended in a movie theater under circumstances that defy every law of police procedure, and subsequently is murdered under extraordinary circumstances.”

Now, as a result of this terrible drama with the article that blew up in his face in May of ’64, Waldo was asked, basically, to depart from his newspaper, and then he was asked to depart, as we’ll see, from Mexico himself in 1967.

How did this series of events occur? Bill Turner was quoted in the Mexico City paper in ’67 telling this story. Waldo explained his resignation from the University of the Americas in Mexico City as resulting from pressures applied to university officials by powerful American business interests following his talk at the Foreign Correspondents Club, debunking the war on reporters. Waldo went on vacation in Los Angeles. In July, Turner said he wired his resignation and then followed up with a letter to the head of the university.

So, he wound up writing for the local paper in Illinois called the Alton Evening Telegraph, a real step down.

From then, Waldo had a pretty tough life. He wound up living in Mexico in the 1980s. I found a good article about reuniting a child he gave up for adoption two years before he died. He died in 1989 under mysterious circumstances in the embassy in Mexico City.

And the question has to be asked, was he one of ours or was he one of theirs?

And by ours, I mean the research community as opposed to theirs, meaning the people who were involved in the cover-up of this assassination, if not worse.

And I am confident in walking through this material that Thayer Waldo was one of ours and the other side spent its time packing the record, or attempting to pack the record through him.

And the last thing I want to say is that Bridwell story, the informant, the fellow who Waldo wound up telling the story to, he was already out of the business and he was a guy in. He said, maybe you can do something with it. And the guy he gave the Bridewell story to was no one else other than Larry Shiller, who wrote all those bogus books with poor Norman Mailer, who was forced to do it because he hadn’t paid his taxes, needed to curry favor with the powers that be. So, he wrote Oswald’s Tale and all those other books.

I love Norman Mailer. I’m not a fan of Larry Shiller for obvious reasons. And Larry worked with the FBI trying to find this guy and they had nothing but bogus leads, like him living in Oregon and this and that. But I found a guy who I think really was Bridwell and which led me to believe that Sutton was probably on the level and Waldo was probably on the level ’cause I found a guy named Paul Bridwell who had Texas connections, had Texas lineage. Although he didn’t grow up there, he had spent time there. And in fact, he left the service in July of 1963 and probably found himself at that advertising agency in Dallas.

The guy’s name, Paul Bridwell.  Well, he was there at Guadalcanal and he was out there in Saipan. And years later, its commanding officer had the duty of protecting the CIA headquarters out there on Saipan.

And so, when they were out there looking for all people, you’re not going to believe this, Amelia Earhart. He gave them some good leads and at the same time, he made their job very difficult. He was security -oriented. I don’t think Bridwell was involved in killing JFK. And I don’t think he probably wasn’t even wittingly involved in the cover. He may have been unwittingly. He may have been wittingly. His job was security. He was a security guy. He made sure people were not able to get to the far side of the island where the CIA facility was. He did give our local reporter a couple of helpful leads on the Earhart story, I believe, I don’t believe they were phoney.

So, there it is. It’s wheels within wheels. I think Waldo was one of ours.

Thank you.

NOTABLES:

Jim Koethe – Dallas reporter, murdered Sept 1964 by a karate chop by an unknown assailant in his home.  The notes to his book on the assassination were never found.

Bill Simpich: Civil Rights attorney, author of ground-breaking articles focusing on the hidden intricacies of the CIA, a leading and insightful analyst of the intelligence files associated with Lee Harvey Oswald’s enigmatic episode in Mexico City seven weeks prior to President Kennedy’s assassination. Bill’s eBook, State Secret, was published in 2013 and may be read in its entirety courtesy of Bill and the Mary Ferrell Foundation:  State Secret: Wiretapping in Mexico City, Double Agents, and the Framing of Lee Oswald.

The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend is the story of twelve individuals with intelligence connections who shaped the life and stories around Lee Oswald – who built his “legend.” From Oswald’s sojourn to the Soviet Union to his time as a re-defector in the US South, Bill sifts through the record to uncover surprising truths about the man and his legend.

This series is the backstory of the research that culminated in Bill’s book State Secret. A brand-new preface, epilogue, and the text of each essay – including links to the primary documents in the National Archives – can be read by clicking HERE.

Copyright © AARC. All rights reserved.

The AARC presents a new series of lectures commemorating and honoring the legacy of President Kennedy, the inspirational meaning of his term of office, and the consequences of his assassination sixty-one years ago.

In the words of the distinguished British scholar Malcolm Blunt, “Jesus Christ, what we lost when we lost that man.”

Autumn Too Long: Observations in a Time of Fading Light

by Charles R. Drago

a wind has blown the rain away and blown
the sky away and all the leaves away,
and the trees stand.  I think i too have known
autumn too long

— e. e. cummings

Submitted for your approval…

Envision a flickering television screen:

FADE IN

EXT. LIMBO – NIGHT

WILL TANNER, early forties, passes warily through a waterlogged curtain of fog and its fifty-one shades of gray.  He is drawn toward distorted voices.  As in most dreams, colors are dull, point-of-view perspective comes and goes absent apparent reason.  The terrain is surreal, figures with bloody wounds materialize along Will’s route, wave like spectral Windsors at a parade, then dissolve into the enveloping mist.

Will is dressed entirely in black – turtleneck sweater, pants, athletic shoes.  Strapped onto his torso is a black shoulder holster in which a pistol is visible. As the curtain slowly parts, Will begins to make out, just a few feet away and square on its mark, the outline of a short human figure holding a rifle.

Will approaches and sees not a living person, but a four-foot-tall cut-out of Lee Harvey Oswald lifted from one of the infamous “backyard” photos.  Hanging from its neck is a sign that reads, “YOU MUST BE TALL AS LEE TO RIDE.”

Will passes the cut-out as the sound resolves into children’s excited laughter.  The air clears.  He steps up to a chain link fence.  Within its confines is an amusement park ride.  Scaled down models of the Lincoln limousine in which President John F. Kennedy was assassinated move along twin tracks.  In each car there are two rows of two seats.  Two children are in each of the first two rows.  The rear bench seat is occupied by metal figures of JFK and Jacqueline Kennedy as they appeared in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

The cars move past Animatronic statues of waving motorcade onlookers.  The children wave back.  As the cars pass beneath a two- dimensional mock-up of the Texas School Book Depository, Oswald’s face and a rifle barrel emerge from the sixth-floor “sniper’s” window.  Loud blanks are discharged.

The metal presidential heads, set on hinges, snap forward, then automatically pop back.  The children are laughing. Will, now dressed impeccably in a gray Saville Row business suit, raises his eyes to the Oswald window.  Again and again the face of the Dallas patsy emerges.

Finally the face is not Oswald’s.  It is Will’s.

*********

Have all of our labors and sacrifices come to this?  Reducing the study of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy to the equivalent of an amusement park ride for eternal adolescents?  Should it be our faces that appear in the window?

The opening dream sequence from Episode One of my limited series Autumn Too Long purposefully poses more questions than it can possibly answer.  We shall address at least a few of them now.

In order to begin honorably with a set of my own First Principles that inform this essay, I am obliged to pay homage to “Meditations,” that most profound and durable work of Marcus Aurelius.  In it he offered this First Principle: “Of each particular thing, ask: What is it in itself, in its own constitution?  What is its causal nature?” For nearly 30 years, alone and in the company of souls great and small, I’ve attempted to answer those questions as they pertain to the long solved/unsolved murder of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Thus I offer the following:

Anyone with unfettered access to the evidence in this case who does not conclude to the degree of metaphysical certitude — “infallible assent to a proposition recognized as necessarily true” — that President Kennedy was assassinated by criminal conspirators is cognitively impaired and/or complicit in the crime.

And this:

Our goals as radical historians now must be to define and effect justice for President Kennedy and the untold millions, past, present and future, collaterally damaged by his assassins.

And this:

To attain these goals, we must abandon regurgitation and instead commit to cogitation — abandon all efforts to re-investigate long-explained phenomena and then declare established truth with an air of discovery.

And finally this:

We are at war with President Kennedy’s assassins, we have yet to return the fire from Dealey Plaza with lethal accuracy, and those who choose to seek profit from promoting what they know we already know open themselves to characterization as war profiteers.

How can we explain the insistence of a vast majority of celebrated Kennedy assassination researchers upon endlessly planning a route without having identified a destination?  What is their end game?  What are they after?  Why do they bother?

This phenomenon hardly is restricted to our shared inquiries. Writing in The End of Science of what he perceives to be scientists’ fear of reaching for absolute answers, John Horgan notes: ” …after one arrives at The Answer, what then? There is a kind of horror in thinking that our sense of wonder might be extinguished, once and for all time, by our knowledge. What, then would be the purpose of existence? There would be none … Many scientists harbor a profound ambivalence concerning the notion of absolute truth. Like Roger Penrose, who could not decide whether his belief in a final theory was optimistic or pessimistic. Or Steven Weinberg, who equated comprehensibility with pointlessness. Or David Bohm, who was compelled both to clarify reality and obscure it. Or Edmund Wilson, who lusted after a final theory of human nature and was chilled by the thought that it might be attained. Or Freeman Dyson, who insisted that anxiety and doubt are essential to existence … ”

Maybe.

Or is it greed and/or ignorance driving the regurgitators?

A word may be in order concerning Keats’ currently fashionable Negative Capability ” quote, “of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without irritable reaching after fact or reason.” End quote. The usefulness of this quality as a medium for the refinement of our investigative focus is defensible: so many possibilities, so little time. Yet it is the very discomfort of which the poet speaks that gives birth to the resolve required to overcome the bastards who would mire us in mystery. And since both “fact” and “reason” remain firmly within our reach, the adoption of Negative Capability as a defining principle for our efforts would be at least stupid, if not immoral. We have no right to the luxury of not knowing.

George Michael Evica

Let us leave behind, at least for a few blessed moments, those out-of-tune, regurgitating castrati.  Permit me to re-introduce to all who truly seek to define and effect justice for President Kennedy my beloved friend, mentor, spiritual guide and now spirit guide, Professor George Michael Evica.

George Michael ascended 17 years ago, but always I refer to him in the present tense.  George Michael is a polymath of the highest order.  Among his areas of expertise which he discussed from classroom

and conference podiums as well as on the printed page and via electronic media are Myth and Ritual in Literature, Genre Studies in Literature, Literary Criticism, Consciousness Development and the Symbolic Process, Linguistics, Film Studies, Creative Writing, and Investigative Reporting. He pursued Advanced Studies in Linguistics and Anthropology at Columbia University and Advanced Studies in Myth and Literature at the Hartford Seminary Foundation. All of these disciplines and areas of inquiry and expertise — in the aggregate a furious storm of inspirational influences unsurpassed before or since — thoroughly inform his Kennedy-related endeavors.

Only the great knight errant Peter Dale Scott stands shoulder-to-shoulder with George Michael at the forefront of our battalion of Satyagrahi.

It is all but forgotten that George Michael organized and hosted the first national conference on the Kennedy assassination in October, 1975, at the University of Hartford.  Jim Garrison was the keynote speaker, and he made certain to praise George Michael’s incomparable scholarship and absolute commitment to the searches for truth and justice.

George Michael is the first to understand the Kennedy assassination and other intelligence operations as by-design dramatic constructs, replete with all of the form’s essential elements.

James J. Angleton.

Evidence? Literati — storytellers — proliferate within the ranks of Kennedy assassination suspects.  A most compelling example: While a Yale undergraduate, James Jesus Angleton edited the literary magazine Furioso.  He carried on and published correspondence with Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, e.e. cummings, and T.S. Eliot, among other justly celebrated writers.  At the risk of committing criminal understatement, I surmise that by the time Angleton assumed the duties of CIA Chief of Counterintelligence, he had become capable of exhibiting at least seven types of ambiguity.

Among other professional writers who, fairly or not, crowd the line-up of suspects are David Atlee Phillips, E. Howard Hunt, Edward Lansdale, and Clay Shaw.

Within A Certain Arrogance: The Sacrificing of Lee Harvey Oswald and the Cold War Manipulations of Religious Groups by U.S. Intelligence, his final book-length historical inquiry into the assassination and certain related pre- and post-event actions, George Michael supports and refines this assertion.

“Psychological manipulations of individual groups, whatever the procedures may have been called in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, drew upon discoveries in anatomy, mesmerism, hypnotism, counseling, studies in hysteria, rhetorical theory, psychoanalysis, advertising, behavior modification, and psychiatry.  In the same periods, the literary forms of irony, satire, and comedy and the less reputable verbal arts of slander, libel, and manufactured lies were applied.”

Now, before we are tempted to argue that the harsh realities of war often require an honorable combatant to mimic, for a limited period and with noble intent, the darker designs of an evil foe, George Michael reminds us that, “Most of these genres and strategies were enlisted in the service of social, class, and political power.”

Haunting the pages of A Certain Arrogance is a revelation so menacing in its assaults on convention as to provoke a reflexive shielding of our eyes from its searing illumination.  Yet George Michael could not spare us the psychic pain that is the unavoidable side effect of his radical scholarship insofar as such suffering remains the sine qua non for the eradication of the common malady we would treat.

Within the nucleus of the disease, George Michael discovers and reveals “a treasonous cabal of hard-line American and Soviet intelligence agents whose masters were above Cold War differences.”

Combined with lessons taken from my own decades of study, George Michael’s conclusion contributes to my certainty that the assassination of President Kennedy was a supra-national operation

George Michael and his brilliant, beautiful wife Alycia Brierley Evica welcomed me into their family, and I eagerly returned the compliment.  The stories I could tell … but they are for another campfire.  For our purposes, I shall often refer to the Evicas’s influence on my assassination research and, indeed, on the development of my modest skills as an investigator and evaluator of deep phenomena.

For now … November is a cruel month, and one that figures all too prominently in the life and times of George Michael.

It was on a brilliant, unnaturally warm November morning in 2007 that loved ones laid him to rest.

As I carried the incongruously small urn that contained his physical remains, my thoughts drifted to another November day, when George Michael and I had found ourselves in Dealey Plaza at dusk, far from the madding crowd.  Light was filtered thinly through brittle leaves and sorrow.  And I asked if he too sensed the presence of unquiet spirits.

As usual, George Michael was light years ahead of me.  He said that he had experienced such feelings on many occasions in that terrible place.  He spoke at length, his voice quiet yet redolent with conviction, about his certainty that the fight against the forces that assassinated President Kennedy, the same forces that today prowl the killing fields of the Middle East and eastern Europe and Africa and Asia and the Americas, endure into the next world.

The peace within Saint John’s churchyard where George Michael and Alycia find their rest represents but a temporary respite.

Permit me to offer two original hypotheses for your consideration.  First up, what I have termed within the context of the Kennedy assassination, and by extension, in intelligence operations in general, as the “Doppelganger Gambit.”

“Doppelganger” classically is an unrelated human double and, in literature, often a harbinger of evil and even doom.  “Gambit” may be defined as “a clever action in a game or other situation that is intended to achieve an advantage and usually involves taking a risk.”  What I am describing finds two or more iterations of the same operation, individual, object, or occurrence that, upon examination, lead investigators to irreconcilable conclusions that ultimately promote internecine, inquiry-stymying conflicts.

Note, as revealed in our studies, the presence — with apologies to crows everywhere — of a double-murder of doppelgangers: Oswalds, rifles, Zapruder films, brains, autopsy films and reports, two official U.S. government investigations producing conflicting conclusions, identifications of conspiracy Sponsors, Facilitators and Mechanics (more on those categories in a moment), and attack scenarios.

This is not to discount the related manifestations of “natural doppelgangers,” which may best be appreciated as examples of “high strangeness.”

Thus the foundational objectives of the Kennedy cover-up are brilliantly served: endlessly prolong debate of the undebatable, afford to the lone nut lie the illusion of a level playing field with the conspiracy truth, and generate a paralytic sense of “we’ll never know” helplessness among all but the most impassioned, astute investigators.

Which leads us to focus on my second original hypothesis: my suspicions regarding the so-called “Chicago plot” Dallas doppelganger. I am doing so at greater length insofar as the research community majority’s egregiously superficial and complacent acceptance of the subject’s ludicrous paper-thin official narrative speaks powerfully to my regurgitation-cogitation observations.

My primary source is “The Plot to Kill JFK” by Edwin Black, as published in “The Chicago Independent” of November,1975.

President Kennedy is scheduled to attend the Army/Air Force football game in Chicago on November 2, 1963.  As best can be discerned, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and the U.S Secret Service (SS) — receive two tips alerting them to a plot to assassinate the chief executive as he rides in a motorcade from the airport to the sports stadium.  Its route includes a 90-degree turn during passage through a warehouse district with multiple tall buildings.

The tips are said to come from an informant known to history only as “Lee”.  The source of a separate tip identifying as an assassin one Thomas Arthur Vallee remains unknown to this day.

The “Lee” tip describes a four-man hit team of “organized, paramilitary assassins”.

On Thursday, October 31, a rooming house landlady reports to law enforcement authorities her discovery of rifles with telescopic sights and a map of the presidential motorcade route laid out on the bed of one of the “organized, paramilitary team’s” members (all four of the Latino suspects were staying at her facility).  In response, 24-hour surveillance by the CPD and SS is ordered.

Surveillance is blown when an SS agent follows the vehicle of two men fitting the landlady’s description down a dead-end alley.  The suspects turn around and pass the agent, whose window is lowered and the volume of his official radio is turned up.  Hearing official chatter, the suspects realize that their cover has been neutralized.

Early the next day, two of those sloppy housekeepers from the “organized, paramilitary team” are picked up and brought to the SS.  They never were arrested. There are no known records of their interrogations — if any were conducted.  Are bells ringing?

Now we focus our attention on aspects of the life of Thomas Arthur Vallee — our story’s Lee Harvey Oswald doppelganger.

It seems that Vallee …

• Joined the United States Marine Corps in the mid-1950s.
• Was assigned to a U-2 base, Camp Otsu, in Japan.
• Home in the States, was assigned to recruit and train anti-Castro guerrillas for a return to Cuba, where they will assassinate The Beard.
• Held extreme conservative military views.
• Owned an M-1 Rifle.
• Gained employment in a warehouse building overlooking the presidential motorcade route.

More bells ringing? …

Based on the aforementioned anonymous tip, CPD officers Daniel Groth and Peter Shurla are assigned to follow Vallee, who they are determined to “get off the street.”  On the morning of November 2, they get their chance.  They pull over Vallee in his white Ford Falcon for a minor traffic violation.  They observe a knife on the passenger seat.  They arrest Vallee, charge him with unlawful use of a weapon, and proceed to search his vehicle’s trunk.  In it they find 750 rounds of M-1 ammunition.

Allegedly under duress, Vallee consents to a search of his home by Groth and Shurla, where sure as shootin’ they discover the M-1.  There are no known records of the serial number of Vallee’s weapon ever having been checked.

Two members of the four-man “organized, paramilitary team” remain at large.  The threat level is heightened.  Accordingly, the SS recommends that President Kennedy’s Chicago trip be cancelled.  And so it is.  The official excuse presented to the public: The president must remain in Washington to monitor events in Southeast Asia in the wake of the coup in South Vietnam that resulted in the murders of the Ngo brothers.

Are you sitting down?  The two detained members of the “organized, paramilitary team” are released and disappear from history.  And it gets better.

Subsequent to the unraveling of the Chicago charade, President Kennedy is allowed to make his previously scheduled trip to New Orleans — even after a “credible” warning of an assassination attempt in the Crescent City had been received, and with the certain knowledge that Chicago’s Modern Assassins Quartet remained at large.

I mention in passing that Thomas Arthur Vallee was not called to testify before the Warren Commission.

James W. Douglass reminds us that a contemporaneous attempt to check Vallee’s auto registration found that it was “frozen,” or classified, and available only to the FBI.

By 1975, Officer Shurla had been elevated to the force’s highest level intelligence unit.

Officer Groth, known to maintain significant intelligence connections, commanded the CPD team that assassinated Fred Hampton and Mark Clark.

Northern Illinois University Professor Dan Stern discovered that Groth received FBI and CIA high-level training, and that the CPD and CIA were “very tight.”

Thus my hypothesis holds that the Chicago charade is suggestive of the storytelling genius of one or more of the assassination conspiracy’s key Facilitators.  It was, I submit, a designed doppelganger — crafted in its beyond-coincidence yet superficial mirror images of Dallas plot-related components to function as a bodyguard of lies protecting the one true operation from damage caused by anticipated all-but-inevitable leaks.

Leaked threats of a Dallas hit involving a trained team of assassins shooting the president from a warehouse with the aid of a former Marine who helped control U-2 missions from a secret CIA base in Japan plausibly could be attributed to the alleged Chicago operation and its doppelganger elements.

The results?  Chicago was blown, Dallas was safe.  Heightened security measures on November 22 were deemed unnecessary.

There simply is no other satisfactory explanation in terms of operational requirements for why Thomas Arthur Vallee, the Chicago patsy, would be so closely modeled on Lee Harvey Oswald.  And it must be noted that those similarities, in the case of the alleged Windy City shooter, were paper thin — just close enough to cover Dallas leaks. The deeper elements of Oswald’s background that qualified him to be the “perfect patsy” were absent from the Vallee profile.

And why was a key Chicago charade informant publicly identified as “Lee”?

So does my Chicago hypothesis stand to reason?  The late H.P. Albarelli, Jr. may have agreed with me, given his revelation, on page 325 of his A Secret Order: an intelligence officer who declined to be named in the book told him, “It’s a common ploy within the CIA.  Sometimes there can be three or four operations in play at one time but only one is actually fully planned and intended to go forward.”

Another bit of admittedly circumstantial evidence must be noted.  On what would be the last night of his life, President Kennedy responded to Texas Congressman Henry Gonzalez’s urgent plea for him to cancel his Dallas visit due to active serious threats, with an assurance that I paraphrase: “Don’t worry, Henry.  The Secret Service has taken care of it.”

Indeed they had.

To my knowledge, challenges neither to my Doppelganger Gambit nor my Chicago plot hypotheses — nor, for that matter, any challenges to the stale, conventional interpretations of these matters — has been forthcoming

Regurgitators regurgitate.

A final point regarding the post-Chicago career advances of CPD officers Groth and Shurla.  Can we detect a pattern developing?  A rewards system?  Captain William Westbrook of the Dallas Police Department has been linked to the fatal shooting of Officer J. D. Tippit.  He later turns up in Laos and involved in CIA actions.  Marrell ‘Mac’ McCollough, the Memphis police officer with intelligence connections clearly visible in photos kneeling next to the fallen, fatally wounded Martin Luther King, Jr., soon thereafter secured gainful overseas employment with the CIA.  The odyssey of Thane Eugene Cesar, who as you will recall was the uniformed security guard positioned directly behind Robert Kennedy when he was assassinated — a journey that delivered Cesar to the Philippines where he comfortably lived out his days — has yet to be fully examined.

At this point, reconsideration of the Dallas patsy may be of value.

Who was Lee Harvey Oswald?  What was Lee Harvey Oswald?  A poetically insightful answer to those questions was provided by American novelist James Lee Burke — although he likely was not thinking of the accused assassin when he wrote, in Rain Gods:

“If an individual, through either his own volition or events over which he had no control, found himself taking up residence in a country undefined by flags or physical borders, he could be assured of one immediate and abiding consequence: He was on his own, and solitude and loneliness would probably be his companions unto the grave.”

And Graham Greene, long before “Oswald” became a household curse, nailed it with precision and concision in The Quiet American:

“Innocence is a kind of insanity.”

George Michael now must take a second curtain call.  Not long before his ascension, he was approached by a young, full-of-herself graduate school filmmaker and asked if he would cooperate in the making of a documentary focused on his academic career in general and his Kennedy assassination research in particular.  He agreed, and filming soon commenced.

All that has survived the wee documentarian’s sudden and shocking abandonment of the project are brief outtakes in which George Michael shares his thoughts on important areas of Kennedy-related investigations.  They are available on the Mary Ferrell Foundation website.  Offered here is a transcript of George Michael’s views on Oswald.

“We’re looking at a multiplicity of characters and characterizations.  And Oswald was a self-characterizer.

“People think the whole essence of ‘I want to be a spy’ defines him.  Not necessarily.  There’s a kind of openness to experience, there’s an intelligence there, there’s a need to know, there’s duplicity, a kind of serious quietness about the person, and transformations which are very curious, very important.

“I’m interested in his speech patterns … grammar and rhetoric … logic or illogic …and how he goes right to the point, for example, incredibly and accurately pinpointing where he has to go.

“There is one-half a degree of separation between Lee Harvey Oswald and covert operations of the CIA.

“Once you have worked in the ‘field’ of Oswald and studied Oswald, you begin to see how many diverse and interesting and sometimes major contradictions there are in the Lee Harvey Oswald story.”

A third Evica curtain call?  Why not?

In JFK Lancer’s Kennedy Assassination Chronicles, Volume 4, Issue 1, George Michael wrote, “In 1992, at the ASK Conference in Dallas, Charles Drago, novelist and investigative historian, first proposed an amnesty/immunity commission program relative to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  Drago, now a contributing editor [to this publication], reached sympathetic ears in both the media and the assassination research community.  I began a close association with Drago at that time, and we both prepared for the moment when an amnesty proposal would have the greatest impact.”

That moment arrived when arguably the most prestigious JFK research conference series not called ASK — let’s refer to it as “Bengal” — at its 1997 Dallas event, announced its support of our formation of an independent task force to draft legislation establishing a legislative amnesty initiative.  Its goal would be to encourage surviving material witnesses in the assassination to come forward.

The sole founders of that original JFK Truth and Amnesty Commission are George Michael, attorney William Xanttopoulos, researcher Chris Courtwright, and this writer.

We designed the initiative to be the logical successor legislation to the historic JFK Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.  It was modeled on the South Africa Commission of Truth and Reconciliation, and was intended, in the words of George Michael, “ … to make historical sense of the flood of new and important documents made available by the Assassination Records Review Board.”  He added, “We are offering what most likely will be the last opportunity for these witnesses to clear their consciences, serve their country, and tell the truth.”

Bengal generously allowed the founders to conduct an informal introductory meeting in one of its conference’s break-out rooms.  More than 50 conference attendees were extraordinarily excited about our plans to the point where, unasked, they wrote checks to support them.  George Michael accepted the checks for safekeeping and took responsibility for setting up a non-profit corporation, including its financial component.

Then a top Bengal executive to whom we shall refer as “Kerr,” who had promised to provide live-or-die financial and logistical support to our effort, determined that a surprise was just what the moment called for. Kerr marched onto the break-out room’s dais with a well-known Kennedy researcher in tow and, without our permission, installed him as the putative Commission’s executive director.

George Michael privately informed Kerr that the addition to the Commission’s leadership structure she demanded was, for numerous reasons, unacceptable.  The response: he stays, or our support goes.

Within 48 hours, George Michael and I secured unanimous agreement among Commission founders to withdraw from the Bengal affiliation.  George Michael ripped up the checks and returned them to the original donors.

I strongly suspect that those with the most to lose if the Commission had moved forward had acted swiftly and effectively.  And I can’t help but wonder if the same forces have blunted the more recent efforts to create a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

I note for the record that none of the founders of that second attempt took the time and effort to research, let alone acknowledge our earlier effort.  So I conducted a comprehensive education campaign, recounting our origin story every time I saw a Social Media announcement touting the current work.  Only Professor Peter Dale Scott, a member of the later commission’s board, stepped forward to state publicly that, in his opinion, our groundbreaking initiative was worthy of the JFK research community’s attention and respect.

No one followed his lead.

The later commission, comprised of a “Who’s Who” (or as I prefer, “Who’s What?”) of Kennedy assassination researchers, apparently chose for its first formal act the submission of a petition to the United States government demanding release of all relevant sequestered files and physical evidence.

Years later, presuming a petition was ever submitted, a response remains … anticipated.

If these handkerchiefs-in-their-sleeves warriors had been on the march in Germany in 1940, they likely would have submitted to the Reich the following:

Dear Chancellor Hitler,

We the undersigned respectfully request that you reconsider your policies regarding the Jews of Europe.

Kindly,

What they and others have yet to understand is that speaking truth to power is almost always an exercise in frustration.  Instead we must speak truth about power to those who are victimized by it.

Let us conclude by restating and reexamining my marching order with which I opened this essay — an order I have not the slightest authority to impose.

We are obliged, morally and professionally and as a matter of personal honor, to apply all that we have learned through our investigations to define and effect justice for John Fitzgerald Kennedy and for all collaterally damaged by his assassins.

Rest assured that I am not arguing for an abandonment of new research into the Dealey Plaza attack, including its preparations, execution, and ongoing cover-up, and the identity and motives of its Sponsors, Facilitators and Mechanics.

After all, please recall that earlier I made reference to the Kennedy assassination as a “solved and unsolved” case.  Conspiracy has been proven.  Justice has not followed.

“The CIA” is most frequently — and incorrectly — identified as the assassination’s Sponsor.  The mindless assigning of guilt to a soulless corporate entity is, in this instance, the equivalent of crediting the chisel for the sculptor’s creation.

The CIA is, in my opinion and that of many others, nothing other than a secret police force servicing the global agendas of those individuals and families that, unencumbered by flags, anthems, pledges, and lines on maps, inhabit the highest levels of economic, political, and cultural power and influence.

You know — the Sponsors of the Kennedy assassination.

So what of justice?

I have neither the wisdom nor the temerity to attempt to define justice in this case — at least not without the collaboration of individuals far wiser and confident than am I.  The late novelist and poet Jim Harrison was similarly flummoxed by his own search for justice’s very definition.  He presented the problem in this heart-wrenching, brilliant passage from his novella Legends of the Fall:

“People finally don’t have much affection for questions, especially ones so leprous as the apparent lack of a fair system of rewards and punishments on earth.  The question is not less gnawing and unpleasant for being so otiose, so naïve.  And we are not concerned with the grander issues: say the Nez Perce children receiving the hail of cavalry fire in their sleeping tents.  Nothing is quite so grotesque as the meeting of a child and a bullet.  And what distances in comprehension: the press at the time insisted we had won.  We would like to think that the whole starry universe would curdle at such a monstrosity: the conjunctions of Orion twisted askew, the arms of the Southern Cross drooping.  Of course not: immutable is immutable and everyone in his own private manner dashes his brains against the long-suffering question that is so luminously obvious.  Even gods aren’t exempt: note Jesus’s howl of despair as he stepped rather tentatively into eternity.  And we can’t seem to go from large to small because everything is the same size.  Everyone’s skin is so particular and we are so largely unimaginable to one another.”

Jim Harrison.

And what if somehow we can arrive at a definition of justice and a methodology to effect it?  Won’t the Manichean world view re-assert its dominance and drag us back to states of ignorance and injustice and suicidal, unresolvable conflict?

Won’t the “Wayang Kulit,” the Indonesian shadow play in which leather puppets represent good and evil locked in eternal conflict, continue its endless series of revivals?

Some years ago, sickened by images of great white trophy hunters grinning emptily as they posed with the innocents they had slaughtered, I wrote the following brief poem — a hopeful conjuration to summon salvation and justice:

beauty beyond repair

the fabric of the heart,
torn by the gentlest rain,
are the innocent spared pain
by the god of bullets

is the fading thought of the den,
where cries dissolve to light,
and then reunion, as if night
were just a story

take them for your wall,
seek their courage from seasoned hearts,
where you end is where the wolf starts
the elk soars the pheasant gallops the elephant walks on water

How dare we think that we can end the madness?  Forget Lee Harvey Oswald — who do we think we are?  Are we, as I once naively boasted from a conference podium, the Lakota of AIM … the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising … the Viet Cong of Tet … the Palestinian resistors of Gaza?

How does our quest end for us?  We turn again to novelist James Lee Burke for guidance. In this ruminative passage, written in the voice of his fictional Cajun detective Dave Robicheaux, he seems to tell us that the universe has no arc, but rather is a circle on which we run through eternity.

Burke:

“Down the canyon, smoke from meat fires drafted through the cedar and mesquite trees, and if I squinted my eyes in the sun’s setting, I could almost pretend that Spanish soldiers in silver chest armor and bladed helmets or a long-dead race of hunters were encamped on those hillsides.  Or maybe even old compatriots in butternut brown wending their way in and out of history — gallant, Arthurian, their canister-ripped colors unfurled in the roiling smoke, the fatal light in their faces a reminder that the contest is never quite over, the field never quite ours.”

FADE TO BLEAK.

THE END

Charles R. Drago is an author, screenwriter, jazz critic, media host and festival producer, and radical historian focused on the political assassinations of the 1960s and related deep events. He has lectured and published widely on the latter topics at scholarly conferences and meetings and in scholarly journals throughout the United States.

Mr. Drago contributed the “Introduction” to A Certain Arrogance by George Michael Evica, a book-length investigation of U.S. intelligence manipulations of liberal religious and educational institutions during the Cold War.  Professor Evica referred to him as “the conscience of JFK research community.”  He is also the author of the “Afterword” to Coup in Dallas, by H.P. Albarelli, Jr..

Mr. Drago is the creator of Autumn Too Long and Phantoms of the 7^th, limited series for premium cable, and the author of the novel Mairh: A False History, all works in progress.

Copyright © AARC. All rights reserved.

The AARC presents a new series of lectures commemorating and honoring the legacy of President Kennedy, the inspirational meaning of his term of office, and the consequences of his assassination sixty-one years ago.

In the words of the distinguished British scholar Malcolm Blunt, “Jesus Christ, what we lost when we lost that man.”

By Dan Alcorn

Earlier this year, the  Assassination  Archives  and  Research  Center  filed  a  petition  with  the  U.S. Supreme  Court  to  bring  a  freedom  of  information  case  before  that court.  The  case  involved a freedom  of  information  request  for  individuals  that  are  related  to  the  assassination  of  President  Kennedy  in  1963.

There  are  three  subjects  of  the  Freedom  of  Information  request:  the  first  is  David  Harold  Byrd,  who  was  the  owner  of  the  Texas  School  Book  Depository  building  in  1963.  That’s  where  the  shots  were  said  to  have  been  fired  at  the  president.  The  second  subject  of  the request  is  Werner  von  Alvensleben,  who  had  been  an intelligence asset – a double agent  for the  U.S.  OSS  in  World  War  II, and  who  was  associating  with  David  Harold  Byrd,  the  owner  of  the  Book  Depository  building  around  the  time  of  the  assassination. The  third  subject  of the  request  was  the  Doolittle  Report  in  1954.

General James Doolittle

President  Eisenhower  commissioned  Jimmy  Doolittle, a World  War  II  hero,  to  examine  the  covert   activities  of  the  CIA  with  the  goal  of  making  them  more  effective  and  efficient.  [See The Doolittle Report] Jimmy  Doolittle  conducted  a  fairly  quick  review  of  CIA  activities  and  then  made  certain  recommendations.  This is of interest because  Jimmy  Doolittle  and  David  Harold  Byrd  were  substantial  friends  according  to  General  Doolittle  and  so  that  is  another  connection  that  we have that we  are  interested  in.

We  have  not  been  able  to  get  access  to  the  operational  files  of  the  CIA;  they’ve  refused  to  give  us  access  to  any  of  the  operational  files  about  these  three  subjects  of  the  investigation.  This  is  important  to  us  because  we  have  sourcing  from  the  Dallas  Morning  News  that  Werner  von  Alvensleben  was  in  Dallas  in  late  1963  as  the  guest  of  David  Harold  Byrd.  And  this  is  important  as  we  get  into  the  background  of  Werner  von  Alvensleben  because  at  one  time,  earlier  in  his  career  in  1933,  he  had  been  an  assassin  for  Heinrich  Himmler,  the  Nazi  leader  in  Hitler’s  Germany,  and  that  makes  it  relevant  to  exploring  what  was  going  on  in  1963.

Back  to  a  little  background  of  the  owner  of  the  Book  Depository  building;  it  is  surprising  that  not  all  of  these  facts  have  been  known  until  this  point  because  we’re  61  years  beyond  the  assassination,  yet  there  are  key  relevant  facts  that  are  still  emerging.  I  saw  the  name  of  David  Harold  Byrd  on  the  historical  plaque  on  the  side  of  the  building,  the  Schoolbook  Depository  building,  when  I  was  in  Dallas,  maybe  20,  25  years  ago,  and  I  noticed  David  Harold  Byrd,  BYRD,  spelled like the  famous  political  family  in  Virginia,  the  Virginia  political  Byrds,  who  basically  controlled  the  politics  of  the  state  in  almost  the  entire  20th  century.

When  I  saw  that  name,  I  thought  they  couldn’t  possibly  be  connected  in  any  way,  but  I  was  wrong.  It  turns  out  that  they  were  related,  they were  distant  cousins,  but  they  were  related  and  they  developed  a  relationship  through  David  Harold  Byrd,  the  owner  of  the  Book  Depository  building, who  became  a  financial  supporter  of  the  activities  of  Admiral  Richard  Byrd,  who  was  the  brother  of  U .S.  Senator  Harry  F.  Byrd.

Who  was  David  Harold  Byrd,  the  owner  of  the  Book  Depository  building?  We  know  that  he  was  a  founder  of  the  Civil  Air  Patrol  in the entire country, and  he  served  as  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Civil  Air  Patrol  on  a  national  level.  He  was  on  the  National  Executive  Committee,  which  had  about  11  people  on  it.  He  was  the vice  chairman  for  a  good  period  of  time  and  chairman  at  another  time.  This  is  relevant  because  Lee  Harvey  Oswald  was  a  cadet  in  the  Civil  Air  Patrol  when  he  was  in  New  Orleans  in  High  School  and  that  has  led  some  to  believe  that  there  might  be  some  meaning  in  Oswald’s  membership  in  the  Civil  Air  Patrol.

Why  are  we  interested  in  David  Harold  Byrd  as  the  owner  of  the  Book  Depository  building?  It’s  because,  after  the  assassination,  Byrd  ordered  the  sniper’s  window  removed  from  the  building  and  set  up  in  his  mansion  in  Dallas  as  a  display  item.  And,  it  was  reported  that  various  social  events  thereafter  occurred  in  front  of  that  window.  As  seen  in   photographs  of  the  window  in  Byrd’s  house,  there  are  various  depictions  of  the  single  bullet  theory  that  are  taped  to  the  window  panes,  and  it’s  clearly  made  as  a  display  item  that  supports  the  official  Warren  Commission  version  of  the  assassination  and  the  single  bullet  theory.

As  I  mentioned,  there is  also  interested  in  Byrd’s  relationship  with  Jimmy  Doolittle.  Jimmy  Doolittle  turns  out  to  have  been  a  high-ranking  intelligence  advisor  to  President  Eisenhower  and  a  substantial  friend  of  David  Harold  Byrd.

Among  other  people,  our  research  has  found–  were  known  to  David  Harold  Byrd,  was  an  Ernst  Udet.  U -D -E -T,  and  he  was  the  number  two  in  the  Luftwaffe  to  Hermann  Göring  in  Nazi  Germany.  Byrd  describes  Udet  as  a  close  friend  in  Byrd’s  autobiography,  and  Udet  was  in  charge  of research  and  development  for  the  Luftwaffe,  which  is  the  theme  that  seems  to  run  through  some  of  these  connections:  the  forward -looking  research  and  development  process  for  aviation  and  aerospace.  Aviation  was  the  basis  for  the  relationship  between  Byrd  and  Ernst  Udet  of  the  Luftwaffe.

Our  interest  in  Werner  von  Alvensleben  is  that  he  ran  a  big  game  hunting  concession  in  Portuguese  East  Africa  called  Safarilandia.  This  was  said  to  be  the  largest  big  game  hunting  operation  in  Africa.  Von  Alvensleben  had  gone  to  Africa  in  World  War  II  where  he  ultimately  served  as  a  double  agent  for  the  OSS  in  Portuguese  East  Africa.  After  the  war  he  tried  to  come  to  the  United  States,  but  he  was  denied  permission  to  migrate  to  the  United  States,  and  he  stayed  in  Portuguese  East  Africa  and  created  the  big  game  hunting  operation.  He  had  an  elite  clientele,  King  Juan  Carlos  of  Spain  was  an  example,  Stavros  Niarchos,  the  shipping  magnate,  was a client.  David  Harold  Byrd  was  reported  to  be  a  client  at  Safarilandia.  And  the  Dallas  Morning  News  reported  that  Byrd  was  at  Safarilandia  on  November  22, 1963.  And  that  is  a  story  that  places  Byrd’s  location  at  the  time  of  the  assassination.

There  is  some  corroborating  evidence  for  that  in  the  form  of  a  photograph  of  an  elephant  with writing on it saying “shot  by  Harold  Byrd  December  7th  1963.”  This  is  part  of  a  photo  series  that  was  produced  on  the  hunt  that  Byrd  was  said  to  have  attended.  And  this  photo  series  was  created  by  von  Alvensleben’s  nephew,  Christian  von  Alvensleben,  and  he  has  posted  it  on  the  internet  under  the  website  as  “Mozambique  1963.”

However,  this  photo  series  raises  some  troubling  questions.  One  is  that  Christian  von  Alvensleben  shows  a  photograph  that  he  identifies  as  David  Harold  Byrd  arriving  at  Safarilandia  for  the  November  22nd  Safari  hunt.  But, the  person  in  the  photograph  is  not  David  Harold  Byrd,  it’s  just  clearly  not  him.  It’s  an  older  gentleman,  but  not  David  Harold  Byrd.  We  don’t  know  who  this  individual is.

There  are  no  photographs  in  the  Christian  von  Alvensleben  photo  series  that  are  identifiable  as  David  Harold  Byrd,  nor  is  he  in  the  photograph  with  the  elephant  that’s  been  shot.  David  Harold  Byrd  is  not  in  that  photograph,  though  it  says  the  animal  was  shot  by  him.  So,  it  has  raised  a  question  about  whether  David  Harold  Byrd  was  in  fact  in  Safarilandia  in  Portuguese  East  Africa  at  the  time  of  the  assassination,  as  there  seemed  to  be  another  individual  there  identified  as  Byrd.  There’s also someone  in  the  photo  series  named  Tom  May  who’s  identified  as  a  Dallas  schoolbook  publisher  and  it’s  not  known  who  this  individual  is  as  well.

In  researching  Werner  von  Alvensleben  and  his  big  game  hunting  operation,  I  came  across  the  information  that  von  Alvensleben ‘s  favorite  rifle  was  the  Mannlicher-Schoenauer  rifle. Of  course,  I  was  familiar  with  the  Mannlicher  -Carcano  because  that’s  the  rifle  said  to  have    been  used  to  kill  President  Kennedy.  I  wasn’t  aware  of  the  Mannlicher-Schonauer.  I  did  some  research  and  it  turns  out  that  the  Mannlicher-Schonauer  was  the  finest  hunting  rifle  of  that  era,  it  was  an  Austrian  rifle.

It  was  said  on  numerous  sites  devoted  to  guns  and  ammunition.  that  the  Mannlicher-Schonauer  and  the  Mannlicher-Carcano  rifles  used  essentially  identical  ammunition. Very  difficult  to  tell  the  two  cartridges  apart.  There  are  sources  among  the  blogs  that  say  the  ammunition, some  ammunition  was  manufactured  with  the  purpose  of  being  used  interchangeably  between  the  two  rifles.  Well, this  rifle  was  the  favorite  rifle  of  Werner  von  Alvensleben,  the  big  game  hunter.  It  was  also  favored  by  other  big  game  hunters  of  the  time because  of  its  ability  to  stop  large  animals;  that  was  what  it  was  particularly  effective  for.  In  researching  the  Mannlicher-Schoenauer  rifle  I  came  across  testimony  to  the  Warren  Commission; it came  up  before  the  Warren  Commission in the following way: Warren  Commissioner  John  McCloy  was  at  a  session  in  which  the  FBI  ballistics  expert, Robert  Frazier,  testified.  John  McCloy  interrupted  the  questioning  to  ask  his  own  question,  which  was  whether  the  three  hulls (cartridges)  that  were  found  on  the  sixth  floor  of  the  Book  Depository  building  could  have  been  fired  by  a  Mannlicher-Schonauer  rifle  rather  than  a  Mannlicher-Carcano  rifle.  FBI  expert  Frazier  responded  that  he  was  not  familiar  with  the  Mannlicher-Schonauer  rifle,  and  so  he  could  not  express  an  opinion  because  he  just  did  not  have  sufficient  knowledge  to  answer  the  question.  John  McCloy  responded  that  he  himself  owned  a  Mannlicher-Schoenauer  rifle  and  that  he  was  familiar  with  it.

The  question  never  was  answered in  the  Warren  Commission  testimony  on  ballistics.  It  was  left  unanswered  and  it  leaves  open  the  possibility  for  further  investigation  whether  the  shells  that  are  at  the  National  Archives  that  came  from  the  6th  floor,  whether  they  are  indeed  Mannlicher-Carcano  hulls (cartridges).

In  understanding  the  background  of  David  Harold  Byrd  and  how  he  came  to  be  the  person  that  he  was,  I  came  across  the  fact  that  he  was  a  significant  U.S. government  contractor  in  the ownership  of  companies  that  contracted  with  the  U.S.  government.  His  company, TEMCO,  was  set  up  after  World  War  II  to  continue  aviation  manufacturing  in  the  Dallas-Fort  Worth  area.  Dallas-Fort  Worth  had  been  the  site  of  some  of  the  factories  in  World  War  II  that  manufactured bombers during  the  Roosevelt  administration.  When  the  war  ended,  the  people  who  ran  these  plants  wanted  to  continue  the  work,  and  they  approached  David  Herold  Byrd  about  obtaining  financing  to  be  able  to  continue  building  planes  for  the  government.  And  he  did  finance  and  took  a  large  ownership  stake  in  TEMCO,  which  stood  for  Texas  Engineering  Manufacturing  Company.

Research  showed  that  TEMCO  became  a  prime  contractor  for  the  Air  Force  in  the  field  of  electronic  warfare.  This  began  in  the  early  1950s  when  with  the  Korean  War  there  was  a  big  step -up  in  military  contracting  and  the  Air  Force  picked  five  contractors  to  do  sole source  contracting  for the  Air  Force  to  outfit  the  secret  electronics  onto  Air  Force  planes  that  could  be  used  then  to  fly  into  hostile  airspace  or  near  borders  of  hostile  countries.  This  was  the  important  reconnaissance  function  of  the  Air  Force.  These  planes,  the  jet  version  that  came  out  later  in  the  50s,  was  the  RC -135  reconnaissance  plane  and  TEMCO,  Byrd’s  company, financed and performed  the  electronics  outfitting  of  the  RC -135.  The Air  Force  set  up  a  sole  source  non-compete  contracting  arrangement  for  five  companies.  TEMCO  was  one  of  the  five  companies  that  performed  this  work.

Out  of  this  work  from  TEMCO  developed  a  company  called  E-Systems  and  E-Systems  stood  for  the  part  of  TEMCO  that  was  working the  electronics  for  electronic  warfare.    TEMCO  merged  with  Ling  and  Vought  in  1960  creating  a  company,  LTV,  Ling  TEMCO  Vought,  that  became  a  large  defense  contractor  in  the  1960s.  Out  of  Ling  TEMCO  Vought  Electro  Systems  developed  doing  this  electronics  work  and  then  the  name  was  changed  to  E-Systems  in  the  1960s.  E-Systems  is  well  known  as  a  very  large  CIA  contractor  and  one  of  the  significant  ones  of  that  era.

Research  showed  that  in  1975,  because  of  the  Church  Committee  investigation,  the  CIA  needed  to  sell  its  Air  America  proprietary  airline; CIA decide it would be best to unload it because of the controversy, so the CIA asked  E-Systems  if  they  would  buy  Air  America  from  the  CIA.

E-Systems  decided  that  they  did  not  want  all  of  Air  America,  but  they  would  take  the  Air  America  ground  maintenance.  function.  And  so,  they  bought  Air  Asia  from  the  CIA  in  1975.  There  are  documents  on  the  CIA  website  that  show  this,  and  this shows how  close  E-Systems  was  to  the  CIA.  There  are  also  documents  on  the  CIA’s  website  that  indicate  that  when  Robert  Gates  was  appointed  deputy  director  of  the  CIA  in  the  late  1980s,  he  was  making  goodwill  trips  around  the  country  to  various  cities,  and  there  was  a  proposed  itinerary  for  Dallas  when  he  went  to  Dallas  and  the  proposed  itinerary  began  with  a  trip,  a  visit  to  E-Systems  corporate  facility  in  Dallas  and  then  on  to  the  Dallas  Morning  News  and  then  to  an  appearance  at  the  World  Affairs  Council  in  Dallas.  So, another  indication  that  E-Systems  was  closely  aligned  with  the  CIA  and  as  I  say,  E-Systems  came  out  of  a  company  financed  by  David  Harold  Byrd  doing  electronic  warfare  mechanical  work.

In  addition,  the  Carswell  Air  Force  base  in  Fort  Worth  was  the  headquarters  of  the  Eighth  Air  Force,  and  the  Eighth  Air  Force  was  the  primary  bombing  organization  from  the  United  States  that  was  sent  to  England  during  World  War  II  to  bomb  Germany.  It  was  really  the strongest  bombing  power  that  the  U.S.  military  had.  And  the  Eighth  Air Force  was  commanded  at  times  in  World  War  II  by  Jimmy  Doolittle.  And  it  was affiliated  with  the  Strategic  Air  Command  under  Curtis  LeMay.   Research found  a  photograph  of  a  VIP  inspection  of  the  Carswell  Air  Force  Base  in  1949.  And  that  photograph  shows  Curtis  LeMay,  Richard  Russell,  Senator  Richard  Russell,  who  was  Chairman  of  the  Armed  Services  Committee  of  the  Senate  and  was  on  the  Warren  Commission.,  Ramey,  who  was  the  head  of  the  8th  Air  Force,  Stuart  Simington,  who  was  Secretary  of  the  Air  Force  in  1949,  Lyndon  Johnson,  U.S.  Senator  from  Texas  at  the  time,  and  Homer  Thornberry,  who  was  a  member  of  the  U.S.  Congress.  The  caption  for  this  photograph  said  there  were  two  other  VIP’s present who  weren’t  in  the  photograph.  One  was  Amon  Carter,  the  famous  businessman  from  Fort  Worth,  and  the  other  was  D.  Harold  Byrd,  Vice  Chairman  of  the  Civil  Air  Patrol.  This  gathering  occurred  at  the  inspection  of  Carswell  Air  Force  Base  in  1949.

So,  the  conclusion of the research has  indicated  there  are  connections  from  the  ownership  of  the  Schoolbook  Depository  building  to  some  of  the  most  secret  elements  of  the  government,  classified  elements,  and that  these  are  significant  connections  and  they may  have  significance  in  our  research  and  analysis  of  the  information.

Thank you.

*************************************************************************

Dan Alcorn: Formerly a law partner of AARC co-founder, the late Bud Fensterwald, has served on the AARC board since 1991, and was a founding director of the Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA) and served on COPA’s board until the end of the Assassination Records Review Board process in 1998. Dan has represented requesters in precedent setting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) cases in the trial and appellate courts in Washington, D.C., including cases related to the JFK assassination, the Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination, allegations of misconduct in the FBI crime laboratory, death squad activity in Central America, and intelligence abuses, among other issues.

Partner 1985-1999, Fensterwald & Alcorn, A Professional Corporation specializing in Litigation, Constitutional Law/Freedom of Information, International Law, Labor & Employment/Security Clearances.

Admitted to the bar, 1980, Virginia. 1984, District of Columbia.

Director: Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, 1990-1996.

Vice-Chairman, 1994-1996 . Member: District of Columbia Bar, Virginia State Bar.

Founder, Dulles Corridor Rail Association, 1998.

Director, Assassination Archives and Research Center, 1992- 2023.

President, Assassination Archives and Research Center, 2023.

DANIEL ALCORN has been listed as an AV lawyer by Martindale-Hubbell. Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Executive Director Stuart Statler called Mr. Alcorn, “a lawyer’s lawyer” after his work on the FBI Crime Lab FOIA case.

On the C-SPAN Networks:

Daniel S. Alcorn, as a Board Member for the Assassination Archives and Research Center is featured on three videos in the C-SPAN Video Library; the first appearance was a 1997 House Committee as a Counsel for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Copyright © AARC. All rights reserved.

The AARC presents a new series of lectures commemorating and honoring the legacy of President Kennedy, the inspirational meaning of his term of office, and the consequences of his assassination sixty-one years ago.

In the words of the distinguished British scholar Malcolm Blunt, “Jesus Christ, what we lost when we lost that man.”

By Bill Simpich

Good afternoon. I’m Bill Simpich, and I’m going to start by offering you a snapshot of a journalist named Kent Biffle, who was active with the Fort Worth Press, and we’re going to discuss the Fort Worth Press as a separate newspaper, and also as the Fort Worth and Dallas coverage of Oswald and things like Oswald in the four years before November 22nd because, you remember, he was a red defector and that’s the kind of man bites dog story that gets you headlines.

So, the way the story begins is that Oswald defected in the end of October 1959. And when it hit the press, the headline is “Fort Worth Man Asks Red Citizenship. Passport turned in at Moscow.” And other headlines were like “20 -year -old Marine to Renounce Citizenship,” with little quotes from Oswald. And then you will see, if you turn to the Fort Worth paper someday, a photo of a gentleman who looks like Oswald with a woman and a little girl all looking at the newspaper. The gentleman looks like Lee Oswald, but in fact it’s the best Lee Oswald double you could ever ask for. It’s Robert Oswald, and that’s his wife, Vada, and their daughter, with the headline, “Brothers’ Turn to Reds Puzzles Fort Worth Man.”

These are examples of the press coverage that was being obtained, and the fellow who wrote two articles in particular during this time of November is a man named Kent Biffle. He was an informant with the FBI a couple years later in ‘61 on the mafia side of things, answering to Robert Barrett. And he wrote articles not just for the Fort Worth Press, but also the Fort Worth star telegram. Then later we’ll find him with the Dallas Morning News. Kent wrote an article on the 1st of November saying, “Fort Worther may become Russian, so he can write about experience.” Then, about the 16th of that month, he actually tried to place a three -way call to Lee Oswald in Moscow while his mother was hiding on the other end. And so, the FBI taped it, wiretap, if you will. And in the stories, you’ll see that Lee says hello, hello, and he hears his mother’s voice and he flips and he hangs up on her. So, the headline is, “Moscow Phone Went Dead, Turncoat Hangs Up on Mother.” And that word “turncoat” is highly charged. I saw it again and again in the stories and the term itself, which was not unknown, but was popularized around the Oswald case by Kent Biffle. And Lee Oswald clipped Kent’s story, and it can be found in his possessions. He wrote about it when he wrote John Connally asking for his discharge to be upgraded.

So, very significant article. Fascinating information about this case during November ‘59 is I found one clip in the Star-Telegram actually stating that the remainder of this dispatch was held in censorship. It’s kind of a overflow from the censorship of World War II but it’s still jarring to see a story about Oswald or anybody for that matter in 1959 being withheld through censorship. Kind of mind boggling.

Marguerite Oswald

So, I’m gonna step up the story now because Kent did write a story in ’62 when Oswald came back. So, it’s not like he dropped the ball on him. And in fact, Marguerite tracked with Kent and used the Fort Worth Star-Telegram as a dropping off place for her mail and her phone calls in the 1960 period, which is quite amazing when you think about it. And it’s not to say that Marguerite is some kind of spy. Rather, it’s to say that Marguerite, who I have a lot of faith in as a witness, and I think she really got a bad rap as a woman and as an older woman and as a working -class woman from even the research community, but especially, of course, from the press who seized every opportunity to denigrate her. She was working very closely with Biffle. Biffle was paying her money to give him stories and that’s why she was so eager to work with them because she was so poor. She was as poor as she could be and she worked with a lot of prominent people taking care of their kids. She took care of the mayor of Arlington’s kids, and she took care of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s publisher’s kids, the Carters, Amon Carter, Jr. And Mr. Carter was considered the, you know, the dean of Fort Worth. Lee Oswald even went to his camp, it was called the Carter camp. And she worked at Carter’s house until 11 days before the 22nd of November. And I bring all this up to show just how prominent this defection of Lee Oswald was in Fort Worth and Dallas alike.

Now, I want to close this portion with Mr. Biffle by the last days before November 22nd. And, in particular, I want to focus on a quote from Tom Dillard who worked for the Dallas Press. He was a photographer. His quote is this, “So, at Love Field everything went fine up to the point that the whole day became a great frustration for a photographic person.  First thing, parades were usually handled with a flatbed truck for pool and certain selected photographic personnel to ride in front of the presidential car in presidential parades.” Again, to ride in front of the presidential car in presidential parades. “That was cancelled at the last minute. We were put in Chevrolet convertibles to ride several cars back. I think we were about six cars back. Bob Jackson and I and a couple other boys were in this parade. This put us totally out of the picture.”

And I’ve got these photos courtesy of Vince Palamara from Mexico City and Nashville and a variety of other locales, all showing the president behind the photo cars. The photo car is in front and then the presidential car follows and you can see JFK waving to the crowd in all these other towns, but we don’t have that photo in Dallas. Why not? It’s because, in my opinion, the Secret Service fellow changed the order of the motorcade and put the press people in the back and, I say, specifically so there wouldn’t be good photos of the president getting shot up.

Now I’ve got another press clip I’m gonna just give you the headlines for these. these. This headlines from the Dallas Morning News since November 15, 1963. And it says, “Tight Schedule, JFK Motorcade Seems Unlikely.” Goes on to say, “Despite numerous requests, the Chamber of Commerce says prospects for motorcade there aren’t too bright. A tight schedule and security regulations stand in the way.” Now, after that, I’ve got another clip. This time it’s from Kent Biffle two days later on the 17th. It says, “Incident Free Day, Urged for JFK Visit.” And Kent’s lead paragraph is, “Dallas leaders urged Saturday against any demonstrations or incidents during President Kennedy’s visit here Friday.” And, sure enough, on November 19th, two days later, it was confirmed that not only would there be a motorcade, but they print right in black and white what the directions of the motorcade are gonna be: “The motorcade will then pass through downtown on Harwood and then west on Main, turning back on to Elm at Houston, and then out Stemmons Freeway.”

I mean, you’re talking about press here and security? Here’s another article the next day in the Dallas Morning News. This is the 20th of November:

“Breakfast entry due by way of kitchen. President Kennedy is insured of a cook’s tour prior to making his appearance Friday at a Hotel Texas breakfast in his honor.”

That was the 22^nd, morning of, in Fort Worth.

“The Secret Service, which guards the president, has laid out the most direct route for the Kennedys to take from the elevator to the grand ballroom. It’s through the kitchen.”

Can you imagine telling the public what the entryway is going to be through the kitchen? Absolutely outrageous.

At the same time, here’s James Yule. Now it’s one day before November 22nd. Yule is the police press liaison, and he’s privy to all the inside skinny from the press that kind of work, frankly, that Jerry Hill used  to do. Yule reports that more than 400 officers, including 40 State patrolmen will be deployed for Friday’s presidential visit in what police officials described Wednesday as the most elaborate security arrangements ever made here. And they get into all the details, about 40 State officers, 13 Dallas County Sheriff’s officers, a police detail of 250, just spilling all the beans, unbelievable.

And sure enough, you know, we now have access to the Secret Service lineup for the motorcade. And we know that the presidential limousine, I should say, was number four, and that the National Press camera car was about six back in number 10, and this main camera car again moved from the front to the back of the murder case so JFK could not be photographed.

Vince Palamara blames Floyd Boring in Washington for the Secret Service for this move, saying that Winston Lawson on the ground merely executed Boring’s plan, which was spelled out three days before the assassination. And now, four day four cars beyond the camera car all the way near the back, there’s a local press pool car and after the cameraman and who’s in there but none other than Kent Biffle himself and other local individuals who literally crashed the motorcade, as one of them said, they “unofficially” joined the motorcade at Love Field rather than having been a planned vehicle. And this allowed Biffle, by accident or design, to be right in front of the Texas School Book Depository within moments after the assassination.

And what Biffle claims he did was he claims he ran to the grassy knoll because he thought shots might have come from there because people were running that way and then he ran right back to the front door of the Book Depository and then he ran inside the door and a man who ran inside the door supposedly the very same time as he was a photographer with a movie camera named Tom Alyea, who’s pretty well known among research community, and Alyea claims, “I ran upstairs with the Secret Service men. It boiled down to the fourth, sixth floor. They looked for the gun. I filmed 400 feet of film of the Secret Service men looking for the assassin, climbing over boxes, looking over rafters, and the actual finding of the gun.” If you can believe it, the only two men who got inside the book depository, beyond the first floor who were actually reporters, were Tom Alyea and Kent Biffle. And Kent and Tom were there for the finding of the shells and the finding of the Mannlicher-Carcano, and Alyea filmed this. Alyea threw the film out the window, then most of his film was mysteriously destroyed. We just have tiny pieces of it left. And both, most interestingly, both Biffle’s story and Alyea’s story were buried.

Alyea did not come forward and claim credit like any reporter usually would. Kent Biffle wrote an article, in fact, two articles on the 23rd of November. With his name for the Dallas Morning News and in neither one did he admit that he was up on the (sixth) floor in the 22nd. Again, you’d think he and Alyea would be touting this all over the world and instead they kept it very much to themselves. And I question why.

The article was about the assassin crouching and taking deadly aim. And I want to read a portion after Biffle gets into great detail about how three cartridges were found at the corner window, the cold drink bottle with the fried chicken and the Mannlicher rifle found nearby. He quotes Truly the superintendent. He quotes he cites Lumpkin using scores of firemen and policemen to search the building all these details that only somebody on the scene would know and then he cites an anonymous employee of the textbook firm who I think is in fact Truly stating, I’ve never seen this quote anywhere else, “I don’t know if you’re interested in this, but one of the fellows who works here is gone can’t find him anywhere. He’s 23, about five foot nine, weighs about 150 pounds. I’d have to check the payroll section to be sure, but I think he’s been here a couple months. His name is Lee Oswald.” And Biffle claims that he was there for a long period of time thereafter and left, and only after he left did he realize that Lee Oswald was the same person that was the focus of his articles and interactions with Marguerite four years earlier. I find that frankly impossible to believe.

Now, as an aside, I want to say that there were many other individuals that were key in this as well. Bob Schaefer from CBS News fame, he worked for the Star-Telegram, he drives Marguerite as it turns out at the police station; and Pierce Allman was camped out at the Book Depository, but never got past the first floor. Robert McNeil was writing for the Dallas Times Herald. He was working, he was at the Book Depository, but never got past the first floor as well. And then he headed off to Parkland. Jim, his partner later on, Jim Lehrer, who also wrote for the Times Herald. He heard the discussion not to use the bubble top, which was amazing. There’s so much that can be said about the Dallas press and their various roles. But for today, my focus is on Biffle and his colleagues in the big picture, how they framed this story to kind of ruin what happened.

Specifically, I want to call people’s attention to people like Forrest Sorrells who entered the building and said that he came upon a Negro janitor who hadn’t seen anybody leave through that door. Sorrells asked for the manager and was shown to Mr. Truly. Sorrells asked that a list be prepared of the names and addresses for all the employees of the book depository. He was looking for potential witnesses and had no basis for suspecting an employee; well, we know the story of the roll call and I’m going to get there in just a moment. The fellow who ran the story of the roll call was Pat Ganaway. He was in charge of the Special Services Bureau which was basically the intelligence wing of the Dallas police, and there was a description this is Gaeton Fonzi wrote about this back in ’71:

A description of Oswald, for instance, went out over the police radio within 15 minutes after Kennedy was killed. Captain Ganaway, in charge of the police’s Special Service Bureau, later explained that Oswald’s description was broadcast because he was missing from a roll call of the Book Depository employees. He was the only one who didn’t show up and couldn’t be accounted for.

And Gaeton points out, as most of us know, I think, that the facts are that there was no roll call. That 48 of the 75 employees were outside when the president was shot. And that Ganaway quote is picked up in the Dallas Morning News the next day. “He was the only one who didn’t show up and couldn’t be accounted for.” So again, 48 were outside at 12:30, five had not reported for work that day. Others left the building almost immediately upon hearing the shots. Many employees were not allowed to enter the building after the assassination and thus were absent when the police search began. But Mr. Biffle, who had spent much of the afternoon in the building where he’d witnessed officers discovering the rifle, the shells and more, he claimed that he saw two roll calls. He says at the second one at 2:30, everyone was there, but Oswald. Oswald, of course, was already in custody by 2 o’clock. 73 FBI reports reveal 41 were in custody or had left by 2:30. So, this is utter nonsense in his story from November 23rd.

And Ganaway, in fact, with Revill, are party to the famous Kaminski list of the names and addresses of the employees at the location where the Harvey Lee Oswald name comes up as first in line. And then there’s all these check marks on that list pointing out who we hasn’t been able to interview yet. So, this whole roll call business is utter and complete nonsense.

There’s a second story that Kent Biffle writes the same day saying suspected killer defected to Russia in ’59. And I’m going to read the last two paragraphs of this incredibly detailed article, which state that, “The Fair Play for a Cuba Committee founded in New York in 1960 as a group dedicated to supporting the government and policies of Cuban premier Fidel Castro. The group announced its formation in a full-page ad in a New York newspaper. The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee investigating the financing of the ad found that the money came from the Cuban Mission to the United Nations.” Dozens of very deep pieces of information pre -internet that the local columnist has in his article one of, you know, at least two if not more from that day while neglecting to tell us he was on the scene that day. Biffle goes on by November 28th to write an incredibly detailed article about Oswald and his supposed acting alone that day, and it’s so well written, that I suspect it was the model for what’s known as Commission Document 1, which was created about 10 days later by the FBI as its report on the assassination. I think it was one of the main documents they relied on. And it, in turn, CD1 is the framework for nothing less than the Warren Report itself. As many of us know, the FBI investigation was virtually what was rubber stamped by the Warren Commission. They did very little writing of their own.

So, the Kent Biffle story, I ask it this way, was he witting or unwitting? Was he simply given all these leads and told to shut up and your career will be much better and he basically was a cover -up participant, or is it possible that he was even part of the set -up itself? More to discover. But Biffle has not gotten the focus he deserves. He is one of the many people of a dozen or more, I’d say, that I would consider persons of interest in the assassination of the president.

Thank you.

ALAN DALE: Thank you, Bill. May I ask a couple of quick things, touch upon a couple of quick things with you?

BILL SIMPICH: Sure. You like the story?

ALAN DALE: Yes.

BILL SIMPICH: Have you ever heard it before?

ALAN DALE: I’ve heard elements of it. News to me that Biffle and Alyea referred to Secret Service during the search.

BILL SIMPICH: I had never seen that till just a few weeks ago. I found that almost by accident.

ALAN DALE: And I, I’ve never heard that most of Alyea’s film was accidentally destroyed or went missing?

BILL SIMPICH: Yes, destroyed

ALAN DALE: Great.

BILL SIMPICH: Yeah, no kidding.

ALAN DALE: Yeah. When do we think that Kent Biffle is (finally) drawing attention to himself by making the connection that this figure, Lee Oswald, is the same person that he was focused upon some time earlier in relation to the Marguerite Oswald angle.

BILL SIMPICH: Biffle doesn’t talk about his connection with Oswald for decades.

ALAN DALE: Oh my God, I didn’t realize that.

BILL SIMPICH: No, he never, I mean, why isn’t he touting himself? I mean, this is kind of what one of the things I wanted to explore. The biggest reason I have a hard time believing that Biffle was part of the setup for the hit, was the fact that he worked with Oswald’s family so closely in ’59 and ’60. It’s stunning to me that nobody found this before me. The person, of course, who led me sort of towards it was Peter Dale Scott, who couldn’t understand why Marguerite was reporting to the Star-Telegram all this, you know, getting her mail there and shit. And that’s what led me to it. I was like, Jesus Christ. I mean, you go through those early Fort Worth newspapers, it’s unbelievable.

ALAN DALE: Yeah. I get it.

BILL SIMPICH: So, but the part that I’m really I’m glad we’re waxing about is the part I really don’t understand is why in the world wouldn’t Biffle try to make his career on the fact that he knew Oswald back in ’59…

ALAN DALE: Exactly the way Pamela or whatever… Priscilla McMillan did.

BILL SIMPICH: Right. Right. I mean, that kind of notoriety vaults your career.

ALAN DALE: It draws attention to itself as arguably inexplicable. It seems perverse.

BILL SIMPICH: Yeah, and he does he didn’t do it on day one and he didn’t do it on day seven and he didn’t do it till year 20, and even then he low balled it.

ALAN DALE: Yeah, astounding.

BILL SIMPICH: So anyway, I mean, for like a year, I was like, this guy’s part of the hit, but now, now I’m getting more nuanced. I’m like, I’m not convinced he’s part of the hit. I think he was being coached by people who were part of the hit.

ALAN DALE: That’s very plausible.

BILL SIMPICH: Yeah, because why else are they telling him to shut up? It makes no sense for him to be shutting up.

ALAN DALE: Thank you so much for participating.

BILL SIMPICH: See you in a bit.

RELATED: DOWNLOAD BILL’S SUPPLEMENTAL LECTURE IMAGES: JOURNALISTS AND MORE AS A PDF BY CLICKING HERE.

Bill Simpich: Civil Rights attorney, author of ground-breaking articles focusing on the hidden intricacies of the CIA, a leading and insightful analyst of the intelligence files associated with Lee Harvey Oswald’s enigmatic episode in Mexico City seven weeks prior to President Kennedy’s assassination. Bill’s eBook, State Secret, was published in 2013 and may be read in its entirety courtesy of Bill and the Mary Ferrell Foundation:  State Secret: Wiretapping in Mexico City, Double Agents, and the Framing of Lee Oswald.

The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend is the story of twelve individuals with intelligence connections who shaped the life and stories around Lee Oswald – who built his “legend.” From Oswald’s sojourn to the Soviet Union to his time as a re-defector in the US South, Bill sifts through the record to uncover surprising truths about the man and his legend.

This series is the backstory of the research that culminated in Bill’s book State Secret. A brand-new preface, epilogue, and the text of each essay – including links to the primary documents in the National Archives – can be read by clicking HERE.

Copyright © AARC. All rights reserved.

The AARC presents a new series of lectures commemorating and honoring the legacy of President Kennedy, the inspirational meaning of his term of office, and the consequences of his assassination sixty-one years ago.

In the words of the distinguished British scholar Malcolm Blunt, “Jesus Christ, what we lost when we lost that man.”

By Greg R. Parker

Lay of the Land

The post-1967 Summer of Love West Coast vibe has been described as a haven for psychedelic fascists – wolves hunting lambs amid the detritus of a decaying society, but where the baubles of hope and wisdom, free love and true charity still hung as the magnets.

The level of decay was in direct proportion to the number of freelancing prophets, sects and occult societies gathering adherents. When the people are hungry, feed them bullshit, is the unstated motto of every conman and woman who ever pitched a tent, commandeered a soapbox, sold snake oil, or promised salvation, universal wisdom, or the power to obtain all you wish.

It was no place for a young Christian Jordanian refugee whose childhood memories were of watching neighbors being literally blown to bits, and whose father abandoned his family soon after arriving in the United States. Let’s not forget that the backdrop to the June 1968 Robert F. Kennedy assassination was a deeply unpopular war and the recent assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. One of the few who might truly deliver any respite at all from the excesses of greed and conflict, and the privations caused by lack of education or institutionalized inequality, was Robert Kennedy.

Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was the ultimate lamb… making it supremely ironic that “Sirhan” translates as “wolf”.

The real face of 1968

Labels

Originally, Sirhan had been accused of committing the assassination of Robert Kennedy because RFK had affirmed that he would go ahead with the sale of 50 fighter jets to Israel, and Sirhan believed the jets would be used against his homeland. But as Philip Melanson has pointed out,

• The jets were originally promised by President Lyndon Johnson in January 1968 (though it must be added, the exact number of jets was not settled and that even by September of that year, Johnson was not committing to 50)
• Humphrey, McCarthy, and Nixon were all supporters of Israel and of the sale of the jets

Melanson goes on to discuss political scientist James W. Clarke’s attempts to construct a workable timeline that pinpoints the catalyst for Sirhan’s obsession. Clarke nominated a newspaper article of January 9 in which Kennedy is quoted as saying that the US should “supply whatever weapons [Israel] needed to offset whatever the Russians were supplying the Arabs so that Israel can protect itself.” This was not an outlier policy – it was mainstream and had bipartisan support. In fact, the only real objections were coming from the Pentagon which was worried that the sale might leave the US short in Vietnam.

Two months after RFK was enunciating his policy on military aid to Israel, Israel attacked Jordon. UPI reported in part that, Israel came under rebuke from the Vatican for its reprisal thrust into Jordan, and the Soviet Union said Israel must be punished for threatening world peace. Both sides claimed victory in the 15-hour battle Thursday that sent Israeli jets and tank columns smashing into Jordanian territory…”

It would be May before Sirhan’s alleged homicidal rage against just a single proponent of this mainstream policy would manifest itself in his writings. In support of this, one of two news clippings allegedly found in Sirhan’s pockets after his arrest, was from the May 26 issue of the Pasadena Independent Star-News by columnist David Lawrence. This article noted in part that Kennedy favored aid to Israel “with arms, if necessary to meet the threat of the Soviets.” It seems that both Melanson and Clark were unaware of this story, or its alleged discovery on Sirhan, along with other pocket litter. The flip side of this is that Kennedy had qualified the provision of military aid in both the January article cited by Melanson and Clark, and in the May article Sirhan is said to have had on him.  This aid was provisional upon it being necessary to offset the aid being offered to Arab countries by the Soviets.  It’s what we call ‘wiggle room.’

Yorty responding to sarcasm during questioning by RFK

Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty was one of those politicians who started somewhere on the Left and drifted with glacier-like efficiency to the Right, along the way, seeing Communist opponents everywhere and endorsing Richard Nixon over fellow Democrat, John F.Kennedy in 1960.

One day after the assassination, Yorty went public proclaiming that Sirhan was motivated or directed by Communist influences. It was one of a flood of false reports trying to link Sirhan to Communists. The Yorty accusations were based on a two-and-a-half-year-old police report that a car registered to Sirhan’s brother, Adel, was seen in the vicinity of the hall used by the Marxist-based WEB Dubois Club, a statement by a postman that he delivered to Sirhan what he suspected was Communist literature⁴, and that according to Sirhan’s notes RFK had to die by June 5 – a date that Yorty falsely claimed was marked by the Black Panthers to be the first day of Black Revolutionary Protest. As it turned out, the literature being delivered to Sirhan was not communist in nature. It was from the Arab Student League. And Adel’s car had likely been borrowed by Sirhan the day it was seen near the WEB Dubois Club. Sirhan had an old school friend named Walter Crowe who was a member.

So, Sirhan was an anti-Semite. Or a communist. Or Pro-Black Power. Whatever he was, he was most certainly anti-RFK – and it was one of those first three that was the cause of his “anti-RFKism.” At least that is what we are supposed to believe. Although the anti-Semite tag has been the most popular meme, when drilling down, there is no more basis for it than the other labels. Yes, he was certainly no fan of Israel, but given his background, this is entirely understandable. In any case, many around the world oppose Israeli occupation of the West Bank without being anti-Semites.

Ironically, on May 18, while Sirhan was writing that “my determination to exterminate RFK is becoming more the more [sic] of an unshakable obsession,” RFK was at the University of Kansas making the point that as important as stopping the Vietnam War is, there were other critical election issues such as poverty, the problems inherent in major cities, and race relations. But equal to those, he listed what he called another type of poverty – a poverty of satisfaction, purpose and dignity. There was no mention made of Israel. It was a speech which would have had a positive impression on Sirhan, had he heard it.

The Occult

It is well established that Sirhan was a member of AMORC on and off from 1966, having lessons by correspondence, and that he was showing interest also in Theosophy.

What has been missed or at least misunderstood is an understanding that he was also studying Sex Magick as practiced by Aleister Crowley. It should not be a surprise. There was much crossover between AMORC, Theosophy, and Crowley’s Thelema and Ordo Templi Orientis. In fact, according to a prominent publisher specializing in these areas, “although neither of those two groups [AMORC and Rosicrucian rival, the Fraternitas Rosæ Crucis] were ever practitioners of black magick, they both do have links to sex magick.”

According to a former employee of the Broughton Book Store, Sirhan had been in there on five or six occasions looking for books on metaphysics, cultism, eastern religious teachings… and on one occasion, black magic. Whether or not he was successful in finding such literature, the term “Black Magic” appears in his notebook, along with obscure references to sex magick rituals as described in Crowley’s Book of Lies. The misspellings in his notes suggest, however, that he was not learning from literature, but verbally from another party. Indeed, though such rituals can be performed solo, the norm would be in tandem with at least one other.

An alternative explanation for the bad spelling and other issues is that Sirhan was being instructed via a shortwave radio he kept in his room. It has been suggested as far back as 2011 that this radio played a part in what transpired in the Ambassador Hotel on June 5, 1968. According to Prof Daniel P. Brown of Harvard, it is possible that the radio was used for both waking “coercive persuasion” and hypnosis. Brown is an expert in hypnosis and spent long periods of time with Sirhan, calling him one of the most hypnotizable subjects he has ever assessed. I might add that drugs may have also been put into the so-called cakes of light used in at least one of the rituals, though this would need to assume he was given these “cakes” and did not make them himself.

The Star Sapphire

The Star Sapphire is a sex magick ritual described by Crowley in Chapter 36 of his Book of Lies. All sex magick rituals are used to “manifest” your inner-most desires.  They would not be used, for example, to enable you to pick up a gun and shoot someone since, even if that is your innermost desire.  You do not need magic to manifest the ability to do it.  In Sirhan’s case, it is far more likely he was trying to attract both money and the affections of one, Peggy Osterkamp, on whom he had a crush.  Someone else, however, may use such rituals to “manifest” their desire for you to pick up a gun and shoot someone. Just remember that all magicians are deceivers and that all magic is deceit. And some people are happy with that arrangement.

Excerpt from Sirhan’s notebook. Note the misspelling of “sapphire.”

The word “sapphire” is written phonetically under a series of triangles – some overlapping to form hexagrams. According to this ritual, “a red triangle is the descending tongue of grace; the blue triangle is the ascending tongue of prayer”. Joining them to form the hexagram is symbolically interlocking God and Man. Such rituals date back to ancient Egypt – for example, The Sacred Ritual of Ankh-Ka… which is also known as The Ritual of the Sacred Triangles. Here, you form the six-pointed star known as the Triad of Light and Darkness. Note that Sirhan has written the word “Trine” above “Saffire” – which has a similar meaning in the occult to the word “Triad” used in the ancient Egyptian ritual.

Sex rituals, as the name implies, are sexualized rituals, and as stated, are usually – but not always, performed with at least one other. It is not possible to tell from Sirhan’s writings if he actually conducted such rituals, let alone if he had any “helping hands.” But what they do show at the very least, is an interest in them – and therefore an interest in what he may be able to “manifest” by using them.

Sirhan was often teased at school and in his workplace about his lack of girlfriends. It must have burned. It burned enough at least to turn to unusual “remedies.’ And Peggy was cute with that little turned-up nose. Another carrot used by both the occult and intelligence agencies is money, where the target has a weakness or real need for it. And again, we see references to large sums of money in Sirhan’s writings… along with some evidence of enmity toward those of wealth, including remarks made about RFK’s wealth, to the bartender at the Ambassador. There are no known indications that such enmity goes back any further than any of the other concerns that consumed him during 1968.

The question stands: if Sirhan had a partner in performing these rituals to help him “manifest” wealth and the girl of his dreams, was that person busy “manifesting” the assassination of RFK using Sirhan?

A name that crops up later in the notebook is “Thom Troward.” Troward is the granddaddy of the modern self-improvement movement and the source for much of the material used in The Secret which promises “you’ll learn how to use The Secret in every aspect of your life—money, health, relationships, happiness and in every interaction you have in the world.”

Troward was an English author who died in 1916.  His works influenced the New Thought Movement and Mystic Christianity. The New Thought Movement was a US attempt to amalgamate “ancient wisdom.” It currently encompasses metaphysics, “positive thinking” as popularized by Norman Vincent Peale, the laws of attraction, healing, life force, creative visualization, and personal power. All branded under different labels and monetized by hustlers to the nth degree.

The Mass of the Phoenix

Sirhan had the term “Black Magic” written in his notebook. This was a few pages after the entry about The Star Sapphire. Under it, we see the number 44.

The last two lines have reference to the ten degrees or levels to be attained in AMORC.

Chapter 44 of Crowley’s Book of Lies concerns The Mass of the Phoenix – a one person ritual involving the consumption of a home-made wafer Crowley called a “cake of light.” There are a number of different ingredients that can go into a cake of light, although it must include some bodily fluids. One ingredient that can be used is port wine – and “port wine” is also mentioned in Sirhan’s notes.

Debunking the Dr. William Joseph Bryan Myth

Bryan was charged in Nevada with furnishing liquor to a minor — an 18-year-old girl. It was further alleged that he was discussing the concept of “free love” with her at the time. He was extradited from California in 1961 to face the charges filed by DA William Raggio. Raggio would later become embroiled in the Sinatra Jr kidnapping on both a personal and professional level (he was a friend of Ol’ Blue Eyes). Later still, Raggio would have a major dispute with Jim Garrison over the latter’s investigation into the JFK assassination.

Bryan claimed the charge was politically motivated (at the time of the incident, he was running for local office in Sparks). Convicted and fined $1,000, Bryan later surrendered his license to practice medicine in that state.

During a 1973 Dallas murder trial in which Bryan had been called as an expert witness for the defense, he was forced to admit under cross-examination, that he was currently serving five years on probation with the California Board of Medical Examiners after being found guilty of sexual misconduct with four female patients. One of the conditions of his probation was that “whenever respondent shall perform any treatment upon a female patient involving hypnosis or other therapy, he shall have an adult female present as an observer, or such hypnosis or therapy shall be otherwise visually monitored by such adult female.” Some claims, both about and by Bryan, have proven impossible to verify (especially the uncited claims found in uber-conspiracy books) including that he was a fundamentalist preacher and another, that he was a Bishop of the Old Catholic Church. One however, made by Bryan himself, can be ticked as true: he was indeed the grandson of multiple presidential candidate and anti-Darwinian crusader, William Jennings Bryan. His father, WJB’s only son, William, Jr, made a name for himself as U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona and serving as Regent of the University of Arizona. In 1921 he moved to Los Angeles and practiced law at the office of Isadore B. Dockweiler. WJB, Jr then served as federal commissioner for the San Francisco Exposition of 1939. This was the year following his appointment by President Roosevelt as Collector of Customs for the port of Los Angeles.

Another claim by Bryan which may be true is that he was a technical consultant for the movie, The Manchurian Candidate. Whilst it has not been verified, it has at least been verified that he had similar roles in the cult classics, Tales of Terror and Dementia 13. One more unverified claim in conspiracy books is that he was a drummer for a short period in the Tommy Dorsey Band. However, I suspect that Bryan is being mixed up with singer Bryan Anthony who had a short stint with the band.

Bryan also claimed he had been the one-time Air Force Chief of Medical Survival Training. This has been extrapolated by various conspiracists into his having worked in “the covert brainwashing unit of the Air Force.” For the record, here is what it actually refers to: “medical survival training, including specialized training for one’s specialty as a Special Operations Command Medical Officer (Health Administrator, Physician Assistant, or any Specialist under AFSC 48X) to ensure success during an operation while in the field with limited supplies.” At a stretch, and it is a big one, this may include mind control techniques…though his self-described expertise in “brainwashing” is hardly supported by his known futile attempts to use such techniques on females for his own personal pleasure.

Bryan was the hypnotist who helped Albert DeSalvo remember how he committed the murders associated with the Boston Strangler. There are reasonable grounds to believe that Bryan fed DeSalvo information that lent credence to the eventual confession via leading questions.  Of some interest is that Sirhan had written in his notebook “God help me… please help me. Salvo Salvo Salvo Di Di Salvo Die S Salvo.” Some use that as evidence of Sirhan having been hypnotized by Bryan. But this would make the whole plot Amateur Hour, if true. What plotters, who would obviously know about the automatic writing already implicating Sirhan, would allow the DeSalvo entry to remain in the book when it leads straight back to the hypnotist they used? It is more likely that Sirhan read about the hypnosis used on DeSalvo and subconsciously understood that he himself was getting in too deep.

In 1974, David Rendin, Science Editor for the National Education Association, did a four-part series exposing the American Institute of Hypnosis run by Bryan. The AIH had been operating since 1956 teaching hypnosis and acupuncture. Rendin exposed it by simply forking over the dollars for a four-day course on Medical, Dental and Surgical Acupuncture. At the end of the course, he not only received a certificate for acupuncture, but also a certificate stating he had “satisfactorily completed prescribed courses of study, and having presented proper credentials, and having demonstrated thorough knowledge and proficiency in the use of hypnosis” and was “hereby elected to membership in the professional association division of the American Institute of Hypnosis.” Trouble was, not once during the course, did he or any other participant, receive any training whatsoever in hypnosis or its use. Then again, nor did any of them actually administer acupuncture needles to themselves or others with or without guidance. In short, the AIH was a diploma mill. And to add a touch of audacity, it also offered courses in the “Successful Treatment of Sexual Disorders.” This was run by the sexual predator himself, Dr Bryan. Brochures for this course advise participants to “wear comfortable clothing,” that many “new and unusual teaching methods” will be employed including “three laboratory sessions, a special demonstration session of artificial aids, a film on frigidity and a three-and-a-half-hour workshop.” The best part? He referred to himself in these brochures as “Big Daddy!”

At this point, a brief word on his Wikipedia entry is necessary. I am not among those who dismiss Wikipedia out of hand. Such dismissal shows a basic misunderstanding of how any encyclopedia is compiled and what types of records can be used as citations. As with any source of information, you need to check the citations used for any particular entry before accepting or dismissing it.

That said, the Wikipedia entry for Bryan is abysmal, noting the Christian/Turner hypothesis that Sirhan had been hypnotized by Bryan to fire blanks at RFK, while making only cursory mention of some of the misconduct charges he had faced and no mention at all of the very real question mark over the legitimacy of his Institute. In fact, it uses a single source to make him appear to be an important figure in the development of hypnosis in therapy.

Bryan was a self-promoting scam-artist and sex fiend. His claim of having been involved in CIA programs like MKULTRA are not only not supported by any documentation as far as it can be ascertained, but come to us only via prostitutes he had bragged to. Having checked the claim in many books and online sites without finding a single citation in support, except on Wikipedia (which cited a book which accepted Bryan’s bragging as Gospel), this is the only evidence that exists. As pointed out previously, his use of hypnosis to take advantage of young women, failed miserably assuming they were programmed to forget. That alone shows he was not up to the job of programming a patsy. The suspension of disbelief when it comes to Bryan is not a “one off” in conspiracy literature. The sad fact is any claim by anyone can get a free pass if it can be assimilated into the theory being pushed.

Love, Peace and Understanding

A few names in Sirhan’s notebook have drawn little if any attention. Maybe because some are misspelled and therefore are not recognized, or maybe because the names run counter to the preferred narratives and labels applied to Sirhan and therefore need to be ignored.

Let’s start with the name written as “Wajieduddien”. This is a misspelling of “Wahiduddin” – as in Wahiduddin Khan, an Indian Islamic scholar and peace activist born January 1, 1925. He received numerous awards for his peace activism and was listed as one of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world. In 2001 he founded the Center for Peace and Spirituality. However, it was back in 1967 that he started to address public and private gatherings to advocate for policies which were nationalist, inter-nationalist and inter-faith in nature.

Now looking at other words and names on that page:

“Sukroot” This is a misspelling of the Sanskrit word “sukrut” which translates as “good work/deeds” or “virtuous.”

“Illuminati” while the Illuminati are the bad guys in many conspiracy theories, historically, its members wanted to drag the world from the darkness of superstition. It is not known in   what   way   Sirhan understood the society, but it was, and remains, a misused term of division.

Copies of Al Hilal

 “Al Hilal” This is probably a reference to the Egyptian arts magazine of the same name. It has been published monthly since 1892 and is the type of magazine that Sirhan would have had delivered and which was (wrongly) suspected of being communist in nature.

Master Kuthumi, according to Madame Blavatsky, was a Mahatma who later became an Ascended Master and was one of her inspirations for Theosophy. Historians believe now that Kuthumi never existed but rather, was an invention of Blavatsky to support her work on Theosophy.

Despite such skepticism, Theosophists continue to accept Kuthumi as doorkeeper to the Ancient Mysteries, and as a world teacher alongside Jesus. Tellingly perhaps, he is also known among adepts as “a Master Psychologist,” “a sponsor of youth” and “a Master of unconditional love and non-judgement.”

Um Kulthoum is a misspelling of Umm Kulthum, an Egyptian singer, songwriter and film actor covering a 50-year span between 1920 and 1970. She is a national icon in Egypt and has inspired several Western performers, including Bob Dylan.

Noted for her improvisational ability, she famously sang live on air during the Six Day War against Israel… “We will come back by force of arms (…) The Arab army is with you (…) The tragedy of Palestine pushes you towards the border (…) The victory is for you.”

Abdel [?] Wahab whose full name was Mohammed Abdel Wahab – was another famous Egyptian singer, songwriter and actor of the period known for his patriotic songs, including nationalist and revolutionary anthems such as “Ya Masr tam El-Hanna” (Oh Egypt, Happiness is Here) and “Ya Nessmet El-Horria” (The Breeze of Freedom).

Sout Sawtushark(?) “Sout” and “sawt” are alternative spellings for a type of urban music found in Kuwait and Bahrain. The full meaning here is yet to be found. In Arabic, it translates as “sound.” The second part of the word written by Sirhan is a misspelling of “oushack” which is a Persian style rug – the same type that appears in folklore as flying carpets. It appears then that Sirhan was indicating a rug used in occult practices, prayer, or music recitals.

Basem Is an Arabic male given name.

Conclusions

At Sirhan’s 1969 trial, hypnotist Bernard Diamond testified that the case was “an astounding instance of mail-order hypnosis, dissociated trances and the mystical occultism of Rosicrucian mind power and black magic.” In short, the defense would argue that Sirhan acted under mind-control, but it was self-induced.

I would argue that this defense was correct, but incomplete.

Sirhan can be likened to a computer infected with a malicious AI program.

We have seen the meme a hundred times in science fiction.

In Sirhan’s case, someone was feeding him material and wiring him to make connections after he had placed himself under hypnosis. This could have been done in person, or via shortwave radio.

Another analogy might be someone taking over your social media profiles – your recognizable face to the world – in order to profit, or to do you and/or others harm – often with the damage done before you even realize there is a problem.

We can see by virtue of having decoded some of the words in his notes, how the narrative toward killing RFK was spun.

SUKRUT! – do good deeds!

What are good deeds? Spreading peace and enlightenment like the Illuminati, Wahiduddin Khan and Master Kuthumi. Those are doers of good deeds.

Defending one’s homelands against Israel is a good deed and will bring peace! Listen to the patriotic songs of Umm Kulthum and Mohammed Abdel Wahab and become inspired!

And finally… those who aid Israel, like RFK, must die in the interest of peace.

Sirhan’s entry into this quagmire of deceit was being 23, fatherless, rudderless and without a girlfriend, but with a giant crush on one young lady who had a turned-up nose… and who knows? possibly even a liking for polka-dot dresses. And so, he drifted toward the wolves with their shingles hanging so prominently with their promises of good fortune, self-discovery, and magic.

The plotters certainly knew his “type” in females and found someone who would be sure to catch his eye at the Ambassador. She would pull the Sirhan trigger. Of course, no one would rely on someone like Sirhan to hit and kill the target. He was simply there as a diversion and to take the fall, regardless of where his bullets went. As in the assassination of JFK, if you control the evidence, and the witnesses, you control the narrative – especially if your designated fall guy is dead or robbed of memory.

Precedent Case

For a precedent case, we go back to the April 9, 1948 assassination of Colombian politician, Jorge Gaitán in Bogota, the nation’s capital.

Both Gaitán and Robert Kennedy were young charismatic liberal leaders on the campaign trail.

Both Gaitán and Robert Kennedy were seen as a danger to the status quo.

Both were shot by pistol at close range in front of multiple witnesses.

Suspicious characters were seen with the accused in the lead up to the gunfire and left the scene immediately after it.

The alleged assassins, Juan Roa Sierra and Sirhan Bishara Sirhan were 26 and 24 years old respectively.

Both alleged assassins were raised in fatherless homes.

Both came from superstitious cultures.

The remains of Juan Roa Sierra after being beaten to death and dragged through the streets

Both were in and out of employment.

Both saw themselves as having much more potential than circumstances were allowing them.

Both drifted towards the occult for answers to their situations.

Both kept notebooks with strange entries.

Both became members of the Californian cult known as AMORC via correspondence.

Both practiced self-hypnosis under instruction from AMORC.

Both practiced rituals aimed at obtaining all they desired under instruction from AMORC.

While Sirhan claimed no memory of what happened at the time he pulled out his pistol and began firing, Roa was killed by a mob before he could give any information.

In both cases, sections of the media, some US government departments and agencies, and conservative politicians tried to lay the blame at the feet of communists, with many on the Left blaming political foes, religious extremists, and corporates backed by US military and/or intelligence networks.

**********************************************************

Greg R. Parker is an Australian researcher/writer. He is a former federal public servant within the Department of Social Security and a special project officer for the Northern Territory Environmental Health Unit.

Prior, between and after holding those positions, he has been a general laborer, shop salesclerk, factory worker, cleaner at a beach market, manager of an employment agency, carer in a group home, performance poet, barman at an outdoor concert venue, and a shop owner. After retiring, he got bored and worked as a school crossing guard for 4 years, but is again retired.

He is the founder of the ReopenKennedyCase (ROKC) forum which is no longer operating but remains viewable online as a valuable research resource.

He also has a personal website at  gregrparker.com which covers all of his pet interests, and a substack page here

Parker is currently juggling multiple JFK projects, including updating and completing his biography, Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War (taking the story from where it leaves off in 1959 through to the assassination weekend), a major work (and possible book) on the bus passengers to Mexico City – a joint project with David Percox, and writing and recording a collection of songs relating to the ’60s assassinations which will be available soon. [JOE DARCY and the NEW DISEASE: NOV 22, 1963]

Parker is unique among assassination researchers. His great, great grandfather was an English convict sentenced to 7 years for the theft of some cloth. He stayed when he gained his freedom. His grandmother (a grand-daughter of the convict) was the daughter of a half French-Canadian half Cree Indian mining engineer.

Among his other relatives was a magician who once held the world record for lying on a bed of nails.

An autodidactic, Parker left school at 14, and among his other endeavors, he was an amateur boxer, a rugby league player, and most joyously of all – a survivor of a 2-year stint as a home parent until his twins were old enough to start school.

His research has been cited in numerous books and articles.

RECOMMENDED: In conjunction with a series of recorded discussions with Alan Dale at JFKConversations.com, Greg has produced a deep and invaluable study-guide that can be found HERE: Lee Harvey Oswald’s Cold War Supplement 

Copyright © AARC. All rights reserved.