The Girl on the Stairs-Was Oswald Even at the Sixth Floor at the Time of the Assassination?

                                 The Girl on the Stairs- Was Oswald Even at the Sixth Floor

                                              at the Time of the Assassination?

                

                                                      John Delane Williams

There is a good chance that the reader might not be familiar with the author of The Girl on the Stairs, Barry Ernest. [1] Yet he has been involved in pursuing the assassination since 1967, when he was a student at Kent State University. Like a lot of us fellow travelers researching the assassination, he was attending to his day job and living his life. Arguably, his interest in the assassination probably helped abbreviate his first stint in college. He entered the Navy, served as a radar man, and then, more deliberately, returned to college at Point Park College in Pittsburgh, studying journalism. He then worked at newspapers in New York, Syracuse, and York, Pennsylvania, where he was an investigative reporter and a feature writer. Eventually, he became a press secretary and director of communications for the State of Pennsylvania. He still lives in Harrisburg.

 

At Kent State, his JFK journey began when a classmate asked him, "Hi, I'm Terry. Why is it that you believe in the Warren Report?" [2]

 

As Ernest tried to explain his then conviction, his classmate, and soon to become a friend, challenged him to look more deeply into the issue. Terry left behind a copy of a Playboy magazine, turned to an interview of Mark Lane. Ernest's reading of the article resulted in his missing his logic class. Ernest's solution to this class-cutting was to go to a bookstore and buy Lane's Rush to Judgment. [3] In Lane's making mincemeat out of the Warren Report, Ernest read about a witness named Victoria Adams.

 

When Ernest returned the magazine, Terry again asked him if he still believed the Warren

 Report. Ernest's reply was still in the affirmative, but with new questions about Victoria Adams. Terry continued to give Ernest more assignments on pursuing the trail of the assassination. [4]   

 

This reportage style, wherein Barry Ernest reflects on his thoughts at a given point in time, together with a chronological approach to his writing, is used. Ernest was given a gift in having excellent tutors. He had a long standing relationship with Harold Weisberg, and also with Penn Jones. Early on, Ernest settled on pursuing the place of Victoria Adams in regard to understanding more fully the JFK assassination. In that he chose to pursue information on Victoria Adams, it is interesting to note that he neither confirmed that she was living or dead until 2002, some 35 years after he began his journey. Not only did he eventually find her alive, she was willing to help him in his pursuit of truth.

 

Who Was Victoria Adams?

 

Victoria Elizabeth Adams was born in San Francisco. She was abandoned by her parents at 11, and became a ward of the state. She had several foster families. She attended and graduated in 1959 from Presentation High School, a Catholic school for girls in San Francisco. In high school, she worked part-time as a writer for the Monitor, a San Francisco Catholic newspaper, which is where her foster father at the time worked. Upon high school graduation, she entered the Ursuline Order as a novice in St. Martin, Ohio.  After a two-year novitiate, she taught sixth grade at Catholic schools in Atlanta and Dallas. She lost her fervor for Catholicism and did not wish to continue teaching in Catholic schools. She went to work with the Scott Foresman book company as an office-survey representative at the Texas Schoolbook Depository in Dallas. [5]

 

 She was working there on November 22, 1963, watching the presidential motorcade with three other employees, Sandra Styles, Elsie Dorman (who was recording the motorcade with a movie camera), and Dorothy Ann Garner, from a fourth floor window. Their view was obstructed by trees when they heard something like a firecracker. Then Victoria Adams walked down the only staircase with Sandra Styles. Both were in their high heel shoes. They walked down the stairs to the first floor. No one was noticed nor sounds of other persons were heard on the staircase. They proceeded toward the back entry where they encountered a large black man on their way out. Victoria Adams mentioned to him that she thought the president may have been shot. They went out the back entry, going no more than 20 feet when they were stopped by a policeman.

 

They then went to the front of the building, where they heard a police broadcast coming from a radio on a policeman's motorcycle. The radio said that the shots may have come from the fourth floor of the Texas Schoolbook Depository building. Because Adams and her co-workers had been on the fourth floor, she became apprehensive. Adams saw a man at the corner of Houston and Elm Street that she would later realize was Jack Ruby. Styles re-entered the building first, with Adams re-entering shortly thereafter. In the next several months all four women were interviewed regarding their experiences and observations. The two women who went down the stairs (Adams and Styles) corroborated each other's statements. [6]

 

After being interviewed by several men, Adams was cleared to go to her apartment shortly after 2 P.M. When she got to her apartment, she sat down and wrote in detail all that she had seen and experienced to John O'Conner, who was the editor of the Monitor, the San Francisco Catholic newspaper where Adams had worked as a high school student. O'Conner never received the letter.   

 

 Among the four co-workers, only Victoria Adams was interviewed by the Warren Commission. Her interviewer was David Belin. Her reportage of the events of November 22, 1963 concurred with her statements to the FBI, with one major exception: "After the third shot, following that, the third shot, I went to the back door and encountered Bill Shelley and Bill Lovelady on the way out to the Houston Street Dock." [7]

 

This change was crucial; Shelley and Lovelady did not enter the building until 5 to10 minutes after the shooting. Were this change true, Adams and Styles would have come down the stairs too late to see or hear Oswald on the stairs. But did Victoria Adams say what she was reported as having said? As we will see later, Roger Craig's testimony was altered in significant ways. Finding the original recording or interviewing Victoria Adams would help answer this question.

 

Victoria Adams moved from Dallas to the home office of Scott Foresman in Chicago in July, 1964. She was given the chance at a transfer and she jumped at it.  But Chicago is where the trail ran cold for Ernest.

 

Some of the details in the intervening years would be revealed to Ernest when he finally made contact with Victoria Adams in 2002. She worked at Scott Foresman in Chicago for two years. She'd hoped that they would help her continue her education with some financial help; Scott Foresman was unwilling to do this. She met and married a man who lived in the suburbs of Chicago. Later, they moved to San Diego. [8] There she worked as an office manager for several surgeons. She went back to college and got a degree in general education. She then moved into real estate and continued her education, culminating in receiving a degree in business administration and achieving summa cum laude. The couple chose to take a trailer on the roads for the next six years, seeing America. They next relocated to the Seattle area, and eventually moved to Oregon, where she settled again into the real estate business. Ernest finally contacted Adams in 2002. She passed away in 2007. [9]    

 

Ernest's First Trip to Dallas

 

In March 1968, Barry Ernest made his first trip to Dallas and Dealey Plaza. He had begun correspondence with Eugene Aldridge, who had been mentioned in one of the books Ernest had read regarding the assassination. Aldridge met Ernest at Dealey Plaza and Aldridge proceeded to give Ernest a guided tour of the Plaza. Aldridge also took Ernest to Midlothian, where Ernest was introduced to Penn Jones. Jones asked Ernest to try to interview Kenneth Cody, a man whose telephone number appeared twice in Lee Harvey Oswald's notebook. Jones thought a young outsider would have a better chance of talking to Cody, whom Jones thought might have been scheduled to fly one or more assassins out of Dallas on the day of the assassination. Ernest did talk to Cody, who surmised that Oswald, whom he had never spoken to, might have copied the number down from a property that Cody was trying to sell. Cody was asked if he had a pilot's license or knew how to fly a plane. A simple "Nope" seemed to handle Jones interests. [10] Jones felt that J.D. Tippet was as much a patsy as Oswald. [11] Jones suggested that Ernest talk to Carroll Jarnagin, a lawyer who claimed he saw Oswald and Jack Ruby talking at the Carousel Club. Jarnagin was very concerned with becoming a victim of those that were eliminating assassination witnesses, and was too afraid to impart any information.[12]

 

A productive meeting occurred with Roy Truly, Superintendent of the Texas School Book Depository building. Though Truly refused Ernest's request to see the stairs, Ernest went there anyway, unbeknownst to Truly. Oswald had told the police that he had been eating his lunch on the first floor lunchroom, then going up to the second floor to get a drink, where he was encountered by Officer Marion Baker. Could it be possible that Oswald was telling the truth? [13]        

 

An interview was conducted with S.M. Holland, a supervisor for the Union Terminal Railroad, who witnessed the motorcade with perhaps the best view of it from the overpass.  Holland reported four shots, including one from behind the fence on the knoll. [14] Carolyn Walther, who saw two men in the sniper's nest, was questioned by the FBI, but not the Warren Commission. She passed by Abraham Zapruder on the fateful day, and heard Zapruder say that President Kennedy was shot in the forehead, from the front. Walther ended with, " I know what I saw and I know what I heard. And it's not what the government is telling us how it happened." [15] Ernest's first trip to Dallas seems quite productive. One discordant note was that he still had no leads on trying to track down Victoria Adams.

 

 

The National Archives and Meeting Harold Weisberg

 

Ernest began going to the National Archives in his search for Victoria Adams. Initially, his friend Terry accompanied him. One day, they were allowed to watch the Zapruder film several times. Later that night, Terry said, "I've grown tired of it. We're never going to know the truth anyway. That film [the Zapruder film] proved it." [16]

 

Ernest continued on in his search for Victoria Adams. One day at the National Archives, he saw someone he thought he knew; then he realized he knew him from the pictures on his books. It was Harold Weisberg. Weisberg said, "Gary (Schoener) told me you might be here. He speaks highly of you. Pull up a chair and we'll talk a bit." [17]  Weisberg asked Ernest to  make copies of certain materials and send them to him, in care of Jim Garrison's address. Ernest complied with Weisberg's request the following day.

 

A Second Visit to Dallas

 

Dropping out of college at the time of the Vietnam war was an invitation to the draft board to send a draft notice. Ernest avoided this fate by enlisting in the naval reserves. In July 1968, he was scheduled to enter the navy in the next month. He went to Dallas, on an assignment from Weisberg. Weisberg wanted Ernest to inquire about files and pictures that were still in Sheriff Bill Decker's possession. Decker blew him off. A second visit was made to Carroll Jarnagin. Jarnagin was adamant that the person he saw talking to Ruby WAS Oswald.

 

Next, arrangements were made to meet Roger Craig, a former deputy sheriff who saw Oswald get in a green station wagon minutes after the assassination. When questioned about the "car" Oswald got into, Oswald replied, "That station wagon belongs to Mrs. Paine--don't try to drag her into this." [18] Deputies confirmed a green station wagon was parked at the Paine's address. It appears this information wasn't consistent with the information the Warren Commission was seeking. Craig told Ernest that when he read his testimony in the Warren Commission report, his testimony was significantly altered; among the changes was that the color of the station wagon was changed from green to white. [19] Ernest got to see how the police treated Craig. Craig was stopped for allegedly running a red light. Ernest interjected that he had been watching the lights, and Craig had gone only through green lights. Then the police checked Ernest's drivers license, and questioned him. Eventually, the police let Craig go, this time. [20] In his search for Victoria Adams, there were no new leads.  

 

Going into the Navy

 

Ernest's "hobby" of researching the JFK assassination did not please the military. Ernest was asked by Weisberg to look for JFK's official death certificate. Ernest had written both the Department of Defense and the Bethesda Naval Hospital in hopes of finding the certificate. Both responded that they could not locate the document. Copies of both letters also ended up with the Office of Personnel. His entry into the navy was expedited to the next day, to an aircraft carrier docked in Portsmouth, Virginia. He found ways to continue his search in the Archives, and by chance, found the misplaced death certificate for JFK, signed by Kennedy's personal physician, Rear Admiral George Burkley. Ernest surmised that after reading the death certificate, it was clear that Burkley had placed the shot in the back much lower than had been reported by the autopsists. A copy was made; Ernest had succeeded in this assignment from Weisberg. [21]

 

Upon getting out of the navy, Ernest went to college at Point Park College, where he majored in journalism, got married, started a career in journalism; in short, he was getting a life. He did follow the House Subcommittee on Assassinations. (HSCA) Ernest sums up his efforts in 1981:

 

                "Victoria Adams, was lost, my efforts to find her fruitless and wasted.

                 There were no leads. At this point, I had lost my focus, perhaps even my

                 determination. Maybe Terry was right after all. I began to wonder if any of

                  this was really worth it anymore. Then, when I stopped wondering, I quit." [22]

 

Getting Back in the Saddle

 

The hoopla related to the release of the Oliver Stone film, JFK (1991), brought new interest in the assassination, and Ernest's occasional newspaper articles and radio appearances gave rise to him being asked to lead discussion groups on the topic, though his new efforts would be less frequent due to his job responsibilities.

 

Ernest began going back to the National Archives again. In May, 1999, Ernest made a discovery regarding Victoria Adams in a letter to J. Lee Rankin, General Counsel for the Warren Commission, dated June 2, 1964. In the letter, Martha Joe Stroud, Assistant United States Attorney under Barefoot Sanders, was forwarding corrections of Victoria Adams testimony given to David Belin. Stroud also stated that, "Mr. Bellin (sic) was questioning Miss Adams whether or not she saw anyone as she was running down the stairs. Miss Garner, Miss Adams supervisor, stated this morning that after Miss Adams went downstairs, she (Miss Garner) saw Mr. Truly and the policeman come up." [23]

 

That letter pinpointed the time of Victoria Adams and Dorothy Styles going down the stairs quite closely, it also appeared to lend credence to Oswald's alibi that he was in the lunchroom during the assassination, and not on the sixth floor. Ernest went to see Harold Weisberg to tell him about his findings. Weisberg told Ernest that it was time for him to write a book about his search for Victoria Adams. [24]

 

A Third Trip to Dallas

 

Ernest's third trip to Dallas occurred in October 1999, some 31 years since his last visit. He found Dealey Plaza to be somewhat of a circus. Included in the performers was Robert Groden, hawking his books from a cardboard table. Some hucksters were selling JFK papers, and others were doing "tours" of Dealey Plaza to naive visitors with money. He met with Joe Cody, a nephew of Kenneth Cody. Joe Cody was a retired policeman, who had been friends with Jack Ruby from around 1950. Ironically, Cody had purchased a handgun, and gave it to Ruby (though it was still in Cody's name). It was the gun that Ruby used to murder Oswald. This set of circumstances was embarrassing to Cody within the police department.

 

James Leavelle had interviewed Victoria Adams back in 1964. Leavelle vaguely remembered interviewing her, but said her statement wasn't germane to what they were looking for. They were looking for information that would prove Oswald guilty. Ernest went to visit Gary Mack at the Sixth Floor Museum. Mack showed him the film that Elsie Dorman filmed from the fourth floor window, standing with Veronica Adams, Sandra Styles, and Dorothy Garner. This film would have shown what Victoria Adams would have seen on that fateful day. The film was jumpy, and ended when trees interfered with the vision of the motorcade. [25]

 

Finding Victoria Adams   

 

 On February 2, 2002, Larry Roberge, a friend of Ernest's, following a lead, e-mailed a potential Victoria Adams to ascertain if she was the person Ernest was looking for. It indeed was the correct Victoria Adams! [26] The next day, Ernest e-mailed Adams, explaining his efforts and interest in pursuing the truth in her story.

 

Victoria was then 61 years old and living on the West Coast. Reflecting back on her time in Dallas, Ms. Adams (her now preferred name) stated, "Still, I saw what I saw and my testimony apparently didn't fit what the government wanted. That is too bad. Repeatedly I had asked that my testimony be confirmed by another witness who was with me part of the time, but I was basically blown off." [27]

               

James Leavelle showed up at her new apartment (she'd only moved in the day before, and the apartment was in her roommate's name) asking to interview her. When she said that she had already been interviewed by the police several times, Leavelle indicated that their records had been destroyed by a fire. The whole thing seemed bogus (there was no fire), and Adams had informed no one of her new address. Only by following her would they know where she lived. [28]

 

Later she was questioned in Dallas by David Belin. He did an "off the record" dry run of the questions he would ask during the recorded testimony. Victoria Adams was told to answer the questions exactly as she did in the "off the record" session. At the end of the session, Belin asked if she had anything to add. To his surprise she said yes, and added that she had seen Jack Ruby in front of the Texas Schoolbook Depository right after the assassination. A transcript was later delivered to her office for her corrections. None of her corrections appeared in her final published testimony. Neither did she say that she saw Bill Shelley and Bill Lovelady, nor did it appear in the transcript that she corrected. [29]

 

In a later interchange, Ernest asked Ms. Adams about the Martha Joe Stroud letter where Stroud stated that Dorothy Garner saw Roy Truly and Office Marion Baker come up the stairs after Victoria Adams left. Ms. Adams stated, "Miss Garner corroborated what I know I did and when I did it." [30]

 

When asked about her speaking to Bill Shelly and Bill Lovelady before exiting the building wherein Adams had mentioned to them President Kennedy might have been shot, she replied that she did say that to a fairly large black man who she thought was a warehouse worker. In regard to Bill Shelley and Bill Lovelady, she emphasized, "They weren't there." [31]

 

The interview with Leavelle that occurred at her apartment also had the Shelley-Lovelady interaction. She stated that this was an insertion and not part of her answers. Ms. Adams stated,"...if I didn't see them, why would the police put that in there? Is this why the police lied to me about a fire, so they could interview me again?" [32]

 

Also, the statement at the end of her Warren Commission testimony had the indication that she had waived her rights to reviewing her testimony. Clearly, they sent someone to bring a typescript to her to review her statement. If she had waived her right to review them then that was unlikely to have happened. Ms. Adams summed this up by stating, "I suspect my testimony has been doctored, but I had no proof since I had no copy of the original." [33]

 

Sandra Styles

 

Fortunately, contacting Sandra Styles was much easier than finding Victoria Adams. Knowing that she graduated from Baylor University, Sandra Styles Butler was listed as an alumna. After contacting the University, within a few hours, Ernest had her address, telephone number, and e-mail address.  Ernest called  her on February 13, 2002, and asked her when she and Miss Adams left the fourth floor window. She replied, ‘I don’t remember any more.” [34]

 

Ernest then said, "Mrs. Butler, please think hard. Do you remember whether you actually saw Kennedy’s car go into the overpass?" [35]

 

She answered, "No, I don’t remember that at all. That was when we left." [35]

 

She mentioned that no one was heard on the back stairs. A few  people were milling around on the first floor; one was a black man. When asked if she saw Shelley and Lovelady there, she thought they may have been in front of the building with the other employees. [36]

 

When told that Miss Adams testified that she saw Shelley and Lovelady on the first floor, Mrs. Butler replied, “I can’t imagine why Vicky would have said that--if she did. They definitely were not there.” [37]

 

After Ernest spoke with Sandra Styles Butler, he contacted Victoria Adams again. She was not surprised by Mrs. Butler’s comments. Ms. Adams was happy that for the first time someone had talked with both her and Sandra and uncovered the truth. [38]

 

Ernest and Adams remained in contact for the next six years. She died of cancer on November 15, 2007, less than two months after informing Ernest of her condition. [39]

 

Mrs. Garner

 

Barry Ernest self published an earlier version of The Girl on the Stairs in 2011. Later in June 2011, Ernest spoke with Mrs. Garner. Mrs. Garner and the other three employees, Sandra Styles, Victoria Adams, and Elsie Dorman, were watching the presidential motorcade from a fourth floor window of the Texas Schoolbook Depository. Mrs. Garner told the FBI that she remained on the fourth floor until approximately 2:30 P.M. Mrs. Garner replied that the girls (Miss Styles and Miss Adams) left immediately to go down the stairs. After the girls went downstairs, she (Mrs. Garner) went to  a storage area by the freight elevator and the stairway where she could see the activity in both the elevator and the rear stairway. Mrs. Garner was asked if she had seen Lee Harvey Oswald come down the stairs after Miss Adams and Miss Styles went down the stairs. She answered, “No, I don’t remember that. I don’t remember seeing him at all that day--except on TV.” [40]

 

Another Trip to the National Archives

 

Ernest went back to the National Archives to examine once again the testimony of Victoria Adams. He found that two versions of her testimony then existed. One version, apparently the one he saw in 1968, had no corrections, nor any other ink marks, but now had an inked signature,  with Victoria Adams' name affixed. This version was declassified from Top Secret twice, first on November 21, 1967, and a second time on February 9, 2011, coincidentally two months after the Stroud letter was revealed in Ernest’s self published version of The Girl on the Stairs. The second version was unsigned without corrections, with  a somewhat different form of "Top Secret" on it. Ernest also wished to examine the official stenographer’s tape. Ernest put in a formal request to see the tape. Three weeks later, Ernest received a reply from the National Archives, in which they indicated the tape could not be located. [41]

 

A Criticism of Ernest

 

One sentence in the book seemed totally out of place in a book that could be seen an exoneration of Oswald for being one of the persons shooting at the president: “And the first thought that hit me was why, why in  the world would Oswald wait until the presidential limousine turned the corner on Elm to shoot his victim?” [42] After ostensibly showing that Oswald was not on the sixth floor, but in the lunchroom, why then put him back there? It would have been more responsible to have used “a potential shooter” rather than “Oswald”.

 

What Does Ernest’s Book Tell us?

 

The immediate point that is made is that Lee Harvey Oswald was most likely on either the first or second floor of the Texas School Book Depository, and thus not on the sixth floor, at the time of the assassination. We know this from the interviews with the three women, Victoria Adams, Sandra Styles Butler, and Mrs. (Dorothy Ann) Garner, together with the letter by Martha Joe Stroud sent to J. Lee Rankin, General Counsel for the Warren Commission, on June 2, 1964.

 

A second point that is made is that, at some level, changes were made in Victoria Adams testimony. Were her testimony left as she most likely gave it, together with the statements of the other two women, Sandra Styles and Mrs. Dorothy Ann Garner, and the Martha Joe Stroud letter, placing the blame for the assassination on Oswald and no other person would have been patently absurd. The unmistakable conclusion would seem to be that persons either on the commission, but more likely, staff members, deliberately made changes in the evidentiary material that facilitated errors in the findings of the Commission. One likely reason for the introduced errors was “saving the appearances”. [43] The appearances saved by the Warren Commission were that a lone gunman was identified, there was no need to consider a conspiracy, and all was well with our government. The truth needed to be covered up to save these appearances. By using an advocacy approach to their research efforts, necessarily a case was built against Oswald. American jurisprudence relies on an adversarial process to attempt a just decision. But the Commission did not allow an advocate for Oswald in the proceedings (Mark Lane volunteered to be the advocate for Oswald, later writing  Rush to Judgment.) [44]

 

A third point that can be made relates to the question, why would a shooter pass up a point blank shot, such as would have been the case for a shooter in the "sniper's nest" on the sixth floor? Ernest suggests and many others have concurred, that the shot was passed up because a crossfire would have been a likely strategy. [45] Instead, I would pose an entirely new question. At the time of the assassination, were there ANY shooters on the sixth floor? How did such shooters exit the Depository? Not only was Oswald not seen or heard on the sixth floor at the time of the assassination nor shortly thereafter, nor was anyone else. No one was seen or heard coming down the stairs. The possibility is that the sniper’s nest was staged to frame a patsy. Investigating the sniper's nest on the day of the assassination was short circuited by less than adequate police procedures. We know that the paper bag was picked up and handled by the police before the police photographers had a chance to photograph it as it was when the police arrived.  The police failed to wait until Lt. Carl Day could take photographs of the undisturbed area near the window on the sixth floor. A photograph was then taken on November 25, 1963 of the reconstructed sniper's nest area. [46]

 

Notes

  1.  Ernest, B.W. (2013). The Girl on the Stairs. Gretna, LA: Pelican.

  2. Ibid., p. 31.

  3.  Lane, M. (1966). Rush to Judgment. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.

  4.  Ernest (2013). pp. 31-33.

  5.  e-mail from Barry Ernest January 27, 2014; Ernest (2013). p. 48, pp. 242-250.

  6. Ernest (2013)., pp. 38-44.

  7. Ibid., p. 39; 6H388.

  8. Ibid., pp. 61-62.

  9. Ernest, B.W.  e-mail reply to a query by J.D. Williams, 1/24/2014.

10. Ernest (2013)., pp 65-66, 71-73.

11. Ibid., p. 76.

12. Ibid., pp. 80-81.

13. Ibid., pp. 67-71.

14. Ibid., pp. 77-80.

15. Ibid., pp. 81-83.

16. Ibid., p. 98.

17. Ibid., p. 109. Curiously, I met Gary Schoener, a presenter at a workshop I attended in the 1990's. I knew that Schoener was a highly respected psychologist, but I knew nothing of his previous involvement In JFK research.

18. Ernest (2013)., p. 125.

19. Warren Report (1964). The Associated Press, p. 64.  

20. Ernest (2013). pp. 128-129.      

21. Ibid., pp. 142-143, 151-154.

22. Ibid., p. 177.

23. Mary Joe Stroud letter to J. Lee Rankin, June 2, 1964. A photocopy appears in Ernest (2013),                     p. 298.

24. Ernest (2013)., pp. 214-218.

25. Ibid., p. 227, pp. 224-234.

26. Ibid., pp. 239-240.

27. Ibid., p. 241.

28. Ibid., pp. 244-246.

29. Ibid., pp. 246-247.

30. Ibid., p. 253.

31. Ibid., p. 256.

32. Ibid., p. 256.

33. Ibid., p. 256.

34. Ibid., pp. 258-259.

35. Ibid., p. 259.

36. Ibid., p. 260.

37. Ibid., p. 261.

38. Ibid., p. 262.

39. Ibid., p. 264-265.

40. Ibid., p. 268.

41. Ibid., p. 281.

42. Ibid., p. 231.

43. Barfield, O. (1988). Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press..       

44. Lane, M. (1966).

45. Marrs, J. (1989). Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy. New York: Carroll & Graf.

46. Savage, G. (1993). JFK First Day Evidence. Monroe, LA: The Shoppe Press. p. 150.

 From JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly-e,2014, Vol. 1, No. 2, 3-16               

                                                   The 50^th Anniversary in Dallas

                                                            John Delane Williams

 Friday November 22, 2013                                      

The 50^th anniversary of the JFK Assassination conferences in Dallas were a special occasion-there were three conferences, The Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA), November in Dallas (NID), and the 50^th Anniversary of JFK’s Assassination, held in Arlington. At least one speaker appeared at all three conferences, Dick Russell. Beyond the conferences, there were the other attractions, at least to JFK researchers.

First, there was the overwhelming police presence preceding the observance at Dealey Plaza. Every road near the Plaza was blocked to traffic. Some four blocks away, there at least 25 motorcycle policemen visable. One couldn’t help but think, if only there was this kind of protection in 1963. I didn’t have a ticket to the observance, and had last seen it when Walt Brown was the master of ceremony. I went to my room and slept for two hours, having gone from Portland (OR) to Dallas by way of Atlanta on a red eye flight. I did get to meet persons I had only had e-mail correspondence with previously. I was to meet Ernst Titovets at the “meet and greet”, which I slept through due to the red eye flight. I met him just before the buffet banquet. He did look very similar to his picture on his recent book, Oswald: Russian Episode. It was upon reading his book that I made my first e-mail query almost two years previously. Titovets wrote the book about his being Oswald’s best friend while Oswald was in Russia. Titovets completed the manuscript in 2000, but got it published in 2010. At the time Oswald was in Russia, Titovets was in medical school. After receiving his M.D., Titovets received a Ph.D. and later, a D.Sc. His work has been in medical research with an emphasis on brain chemistry, and how the chemistry of the brain affects a person’s functioning. With us also was Gary Severson, a good friend and a person I’ve collaborated with in previous JFK research. Gary had a friend with him, Mark Newman, who I learned was quite knowledgeable about the events in Dallas 50 years ago. As it happened, the four of us spent a lot of the next three days together.

After the banquet, three keynote speakers addressed the COPA audience: Cyril Wecht, a renowned pathologist who has been a contributor to investigations of the JFK assassination as well as numerous other celebrity deaths. Just one of his numerous books is Cause of Death. He has held many conferences near his home. He is one of the best known and respected investigators of the JFK assassination, and a vigorous 88 year old, seemingly in the prime of his life. Yet he had the presence to note the need to pass the torch to a new generation of searchers for the truth. It was a pleasure to get a chance to shake Wecht's hand and thank him for his many efforts.

Titovets’ book is a straight forward account of Titovets experiences with Oswald. He describes Oswald’s early difficulty with the Russian language. It was clear to Titovets that Oswald would have to think through his responses to Russians speaking by first thinking through the response in English and then giving his response in Russian.  Titovets' interest in Oswald was to give Ernst a chance to practice his English with a native English speaker (albeit Southern American). Oswald also had interests that corresponded to Titovets own, particularly the opera. Oswald had at least two tutors in Russian, one of them assigned by the Communist Party. In Titovets' presentation, he wondered how John Armstrong would conclude that Oswald would not have spoken a word of Russian in Russia. It is true that Armstrong’s book came out before Titovets' book did, but Titovets would have been available to be interviewed, as well as any number of people who Oswald had conversed with in Russian (most of whom, however, did not speak English).

Mark Lane appeared through a video feed from his home. Lane is a longtime, and perhaps the best known critic of the Warren Commission. His Rush to Judgment is a seminal work on the failings of the Commission. Lane particularly spoke of the failings of the Secret Service in Dallas. He also authored Plausible Denial.   

I  also met Judyth Vary Baker for the first time. Judyth seems to be a controversial person in the critical community, though she seems to  be an honest reporter of her experiences and of the things she has been told. If the persons telling her information are less than honest, she can only report what she was told, and what she has experienced. She is vigilant in trying to resurrect Lee Harvey Oswald's reputation, and some might find that offensive. She is the best witness for Lee Harvey Oswald's activities in New Orleans for May to September, 1963. She is the author of Lee Harvey Oswald (2006), Me & Lee (2010) and the forthcoming Ferrie. I might add that she is also a sincere and giving person.

Saturday November 23, 2013

The COPA morning session began with Robert Groden's presentation regarding his new photo book, JFK: Absolute Truth. The book did seem to have enhancements that were interesting. Perhaps just as interesting to me is how Groden's appearance has changed. I first saw him in 1999 at a conference in Minneapolis. More recently, I saw him selling his books in Dealey Plaza. When he was introduced by John Judge, I turned to Gary Severson and said, "That's Robert Groden?" One might suppose the continual harassment by the Dallas police regarding his selling his books in Dealey plaza had taken some degree of toll on him. I thought about buying his book until I found out that it's price was $75 on a cash only basis. I never carry that much cash on me. I take the view that anyone who tries to rob me would find it had very little payoff.

Gary Aguilar has always impressed me as a knowledgeable and dynamic speaker. He has addressed the medical evidence in several forums and was a consultant to the Assassination Record Review Board. In his presentations he described how the magic bullet was even more magical than reported by the Warren Commission.

Daniel Sheehan has a long history as a lawyer in some of the most interesting cases in the past 40 years, including suing The U.S. government to get the Watergate Papers published, the Karen Silkwood case, the Watergate burglary case, and the Iran/Contra case. He has turned his attention to the JFK assassination, and his Rulers of the Realm: "The Wise Men": The Assassins of President John F. Kennedy." This book is to be published by Counterpoint Press in 2014.

 Stan Weeber has researched the rather lengthy number of persons connected to Denton, Texas and their relationship to the JFK assassination. Joan Mellen, author of "Farewell to Justice", a critique of governmental interference in Jim Garrison's investigation and prosecution of Clay Shaw. She is updating that book and planning one on Mac Wallace. Wayne Smith reported on the machinations at the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The editors of JAMA were apparently trying to resurrect the conclusions to the Warren Report. With time, the editors lost their credibility and were replaced at JAMA. Smith wrote an article, JAMA Knows Best, which of course, was NOT published in JAMA

Russ Baker, the author Family of Secrets, a book about the Bush crime family, related in particular about the strange meanderings of George H. Bush on November 22, 1963. Though he had been in Dallas, he drove to  Tyler, Texas, and contacted the FBI to inform on a seemingly unsuspecting acquaintance, but more likely, to establish he was not in Dallas. Though Baker did not discuss this, apparently George H. Bush was at a meeting, that included Richard Nixon, J.Edgar Hoover, and Clint Murchison (the party was at Murchison's home) when LBJ waltzed in and announced that Kennedy would be eliminated the next day. This act by LBJ made each of the person's present required to report the threat to the president, which apparently none of them did. Bush's actions, first to report to the FBI that he was in Tyler, might render him not to be a suspect. Later, he apparently forgot where he was on November 22, 1963. Funny how certain dignitaries all had amnesia about a day that is embedded in the memories of the rest of us.

Saturday Evening (The 50th Anniversary Conference at Arlington)   

 

This conference was arranged by Judyth Vary Baker, a seemingly enormous undertaking. She is to be thanked for her efforts. It seemed to be a very credible conference. The conference was a wonderful gesture for her. She definitely deserves a "Thank You" from the critical community.

The first speaker was Dick Russell. Russell discovered Richard Case Nagel who was the person about whom The Man Who Knew Too Much was written. Nagel was the person who walked into a bank in El Paso on September 20, 1963. He took two shots into the plaster of the wall in the bank, without endangering anyone in the bank. He drove off in his car, but seeing the policeman who was inside the bank he pulled over, onto the sidewalk and said "I guess you got me. I surrender." In the next several weeks, he would only say that he didn't want to go to Dallas, because he didn't want to be found guilty of murder and treason. Nagel reportedly was directed by the KGB to kill Oswald to get the Soviets off the hook in case anything happened to President Kennedy. Nagel wanted to avoid murdering Oswald; in the case that Oswald were suspected of killing Kennedy, Nagel wanted to be in jail at the time of the assassination. Nagel had sent a registered letter to J. Edgar Hoover about the reasons for his actions just prior to his shooting in the bank. Russell also discussed three planned attempts on President Kennedy's life in 1963. The attempts were planned in Miami, Tampa, and Dallas.

John Delane Williams and Ernst Titovets addressed the language proficiency of Lee Harvey Oswald in Russia. Williams had read  Titovets' book, Oswald: Russian Experience, which unbeknownst to Titovets, basically destroyed John Armstrong's  (Harvey and Lee) conclusion that Oswald spoke no Russian during his stay there, 1959-1962). It was Armstrong's view that Oswald was actually someone who originated from Eastern Europe and was a false Oswald. The language proficiency of this "fake" Oswald  would give him away as a spy. Titovets book gives a history of Oswald's learning Russian. The Communist Party assigned an instructor to teach Oswald Russian. The instructor used a book based approach, which was ineffectual. Oswald struggled with the language; for some time, he appeared to think in English, before attempting to talk in Russian. Over time, he gradually became more proficient. Oswald's apartment was bugged by the KGB, so they would have noticed if Oswald would revert to his "native" Russian language. Titovets emphasized that Oswald has been misrepresented as being a proficient shooter and a person capable of the acts attributed to him. Titovets saw Oswald as a peaceful and likable young man who seemed most unlikely to be capable of the actions described in the Warren Report.   

The last speaker of the evening was Gary Severson, a retired social science teacher from John F. Kennedy High School in Bloomington, MN and an investigator into JFK assassination issues. His presentation regarded his own experiences when attending a speech at The University of North Dakota Fieldhouse as a 16 year old high school student.  He and a friend, Bruce Folsom, arrived at the Fieldhouse just prior to the speech, and their being quite familiar with the Fieldhouse, they found four sets of doors open. After they got into the mens locker room after having gone through the first three open doors  they then  entered a third floor access that  to the upper balcony seats. From the balcony, they could see that two seats were vacant in the front row, so they continued through a crowd of 12,500-15,000 persons and proceeded to the two seats directly in front of the podium in the first row. Gary was rather surprised that no one attempted to stop him. He often wondered, who was supposed to have the seats that they occupied. He learned that they were assigned to Thomas Clifford, then a Vice-President and Dean of the College of Business at the University of North Dakota, and his wife. He was scheduled to be representing the University at a meeting in Western North Dakota. He also learned from his readings that persons involved in plotting the JFK assassination  (the committee, according to James Hepburn, Farewell to America (1968) p. 298) were present during JFK's conservation tour through the Midwest and West  from Wisconsin to California, September 24-29, 1963, which included JFK's time at the University of North Dakota on 9/25/1963. As they came near the Fieldhouse, Severson and Folsom noted snipers on the roof. Later when Severson saw the movie Executive Action (1973), the movie had a scene similar to the one he saw that day, with snipers on the top of a building. Were the snipers he saw sent there by the "Committee" (from Farewell America) sizing up a possible means to assassinate President Kennedy?

There should be a word spoken about the uncooperativeness of the weather. Temperatures remained around freezing from Saturday through Monday. Judyth had scheduled a memorial service for Lee Harvey Oswald at his grave on Sunday afternoon. I had intended to attend, but no travel was advised on the local highways. I understand that 50 brave souls withstood the weather for the ceremony.

Sunday November 24, 2013

Two archivists discussed their holdings. Rex Bradford, works with The Assassination Archives and Research Center and the Mary Ferrell Foundation, whose site can be accessed at www.maryferrell.org. Ben Rogers, Director of the W. R. Poage Legislative Library contains the papers of Penn Jones, Jr., Mary Ferrell, Jack White, John Armstrong, Gary Shaw, John Kelin, Roy Schaeffer, Paul Hoch, Dick Russell, Gus Russo and others. Much of this is available at www. baylor.edu/lib/poage/jfk/ .

Abraham Bolden, the first black to be a member of the White House Secret Service detail, appeared through a video feed. Bolden is the author of Echo from Dealey Plaza, a telling of his being derailed when trying to be allowed to testify before the Warren Commission. Bolden helped foil a purported attempt of assassination of JFK in Chicago in November, 1962. One interesting detail that Bolden revealed during his presentation was that just prior to the Dallas trip, 11 Secret Service agents resigned.

Joseph McBride, the author of the book Into the Nightmare, looked into the murder of J.D. Tippet. McBride contends that Tippet was an underperforming policeman whose wife was on the verge of divorcing him because of his infidelities. All this has been swept under the table, and Tippet has been accorded hero status. 

Dawn Meredith appeared on behalf of John Armstrong, reading Armstrong's article, Harvey, Lee and Tippet: A New Look at the Tippet Shooting. This article has been published at least twice, once in Probe (1998, Vol. 5, No 2) and The Dealey Plaza Echo (2012, Vol. 17, No.2, pp. 8-22), as well as being available on the web at www.ctka.net/pr198-jfk.html. No update has been done since its original publication.

John Judge did make an intriguing comment.  The interaction described here occurred at the time of an Assassination Symposium on JFK (ASK) Dallas, which Judge was directing. On addressing Oswald's purported attempted shooting of a police officer at the Texas Theater, Judge asked two police officers who were present  during Oswald's arrest, "Did the police use a gun drop with Oswald?" A gun drop occurs when the police sometimes drop a gun and then use it as evidence against the person being arrested (or worse, killed). The gun drop allows the police to claim self defense to their actions (in Oswald's situation, being beat up by the police). One of the police officers, replied, "Well, MAYBE." One could argue the Oswald likely neither used nor attempted to use a firearm on that fateful day.

Two unusual things then occurred. First John Judge, noting that 11/24/2013 was the 50th anniversary of Oswald's  murder, asked that those in attendance  to observe a moment of silence. Afterwards, Ernst Titovets took the podium and announced that  copies of his book, Oswald: Russian Episode, which was selling for $60 a copy, would be given free to anyone interested at the conference. Titovets gave away over 100 copies, and was busy autographing them for over an hour.

That afternoon, blustery and just above freezing, Ernst Titovets, Gary Severson, Mark Newman, Christian Allgood (a young former student of Gary Severson), and John Delane Williams planned to lunch at Campisis Egyptian Lounge. But first, Ernst and John went to the Adolphus Hotel, the site of the Lancers November in Dallas Conference. We went to see Andy Winiarczyk, of the Last Hurrah Bookshop. Ernst was going to get the remainder of his books, and John went to visit with Andy. The Lancers program had more than doubled in price since 2006, making the COPA all the more attractive. But there was one presentation that seemed very interesting. Barry Ernst had sought out Victoria Adams, who was on the stairs at the Texas Book Depository; she did NOT see Lee Harvey Oswald walk past her, even though she was there at the critical time. Adams decided that it was best to take a several year powder, in the hope of living a somewhat longer life. John has since ordered Barry Ernst's book, The Girl on the Stairs: The Search for a Missing Witness to the JFK Assassination (2013).

The five conference attendees then proceeded to Campisi's Egyptian Lounge. The previous night they'd erroneously gone to the other Campisi  establishment, only to find out that the original Campisi's was on Mockingbird. As might be expected, Campisis was a large but traditional Italian restaurant, with its own intrigue. Jack Ruby was a frequent patron and had his own favorite booth to sit in, which of course we had to try out. It was after 3 PM on a blustery Sunday, and we were among the few diners. Before ordering, we had the waitress take our group picture. Most of us had cameras, so several shots were taken. Ernst was unfamiliar with the cuisine so we made our suggestions. As The manager came by (he was married to a Campisi), Gary inquired how did Campisi's have the additional Egyptian Lounge in its name? The manager explained that in 1946, when the Campisi's bought the restaurant, they weren't long on cash. The place had been called the Egyptian Lounge. They just added the Campisi sign to it. It became a source of pride. They had started with almost nothing, and had become quite successful. Their name for the restaurant reminded them of how far they had come. After dinner/lunch, noting the lack of patrons, Gary then asked the manager to give us a tour and let us know something of the lore. He gladly obliged. One room was reserved for the VIPs back in the day. The manager proceeded to tell us some of the luminaries. Many of them were athletes or coaches from the Dallas Cowboys. Another huge room was filled with pictures. One picture was a large photograph of Rocky Marciano, given to them on a visit less than a week before his fatal plane crash. A picture of Jack Ruby, in his arrest mug shots (an odd choice), adorned another wall. Again many of the other pictures were entertainers, athletes or movie stars. Among the athletes were many boxers, several relatives of the manager. Two of his nephews were outstanding boxers in the 50's and 60s. An uncle was on the boxing commission. At the conclusion of tour, Ernst gave the manager an autographed copy of his book. Then, though it was getting dark, we went to Dealey Plaza and went to various locations and recalled what had happened (or possibly happened) at each of them going through the various theories. It was a great time.   

                      

  

Published in JFK-E/ Deep Politics Quarterly, Vol 1, No. 1, 14-22, January 2014.                        

.

LBJ: Mastermind of the JFK Assassination and Colossus

John Delane Williams, Ph.D.

                                       JFK PUBLICATIONS

BOOKS

Williams, J.D. Waite, R.G. & Gordon, G.S. (2010). John F. Kennedy History, Memory,                   Legacy :An Interdisciplinary Inquiry. Grand Forks: The University of North Dakota.

         www.und.edu/JFKConference.  

CHAPTERS IN BOOKS

Williams, J.D. (2001). The qualitative-quantitative continuum: Research on the JFK assassination. In R. Hathaway, Ed. Annals of the Joint Meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Educational Research and the National Academy of Educational Research 1998-1999 (pp. 317-328). Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

Williams, J.D. & Severson, G. (2010). Lee Harvey Oswald: North Dakota and Beyond. In                             Williams, J.D., Waite, R.G. & Gordon, G.S. (Eds.) (2010).John F. Kennedy History,                        Memory, Legacy: An Interdisciplinary Inquiry. pp. 318-336. Grand Forks: The                               University of North Dakota. www.und.edu/JFKConference.  

ARTICLES

Williams, J.D. (1997). Flashback: A review. The Fourth Decade: A Journal of Research on the John F. Kennedy Assassination, 4(4), 14-17.

Williams, J.D. (1997). Nightmare in Dallas. The Fourth Decade: A Journal of Research on the John F. Kennedy Assassination, 4(6), 21-26.

Williams, J.D. (1998). Did Castro kill Kennedy? A Review. The Fourth Decade: A Journal of Research on the John F. Kennedy Assassination. 5(4), 19-22.

           

Williams, J.D. (1999). LBJ and the assassination conspiracies.  JFK Deep Politics Quarterly. 4,2, 25-28

Williams, J.D. (1999). LBJ: A closer look: A review. The Fourth Decade: A Journal of Research on the John F. Kennedy Assassination. 6(4), 3-6.

Williams, J.D. (2000). Oswald in North Dakota? Part I. The Fourth Decade: A Journal of Research on the John F. Kennedy Assassination, 7 (2), 21-26.

Williams, J.D. (2000). Oswald in North Dakota? Part II. The Fourth Decade: A Journal of Research on the John F. Kennedy Assassination. 7 (3), 19-22.

           

Williams, J.D. (2001). Murder in Dealey Plaza: A Review. The Fourth Decade: A Journal of Research on the John F. Kennedy Assassination. 8, (2), 12-17.

Williams, J.D. & Conway, D. (2001). The Don Reynolds Testimony and LBJ. Assassination Chronicles. 7, (1) ,19-28.

Williams, J.D. (2003). Why is Morris Jaffe Interesting? The Dealey Plaza Echo, 7,2, 30-39.

Williams, J.D. (2004). What McClellan does not tell us.  JFK Deep Politics Quarterly.  9, 3, 19-24.

Williams, J.D. (2004). Was the FBI Searching for Oswald the Day Before the Assassination?  The Dealey Plaza Echo, 8,2, 46-52.

Williams, J.D. &  Cousins, K.T.  (2005) Judyth and Lee: Was their Employment at  Reily Coffee a Chance Event? Dealey Plaza Echo, 9,2, 37-43.

Williams, J.D. (2005).Estes named Cliff Carter as the Master Strategist in the JFK Assassination. JFK/ Deep Politics Quarterly, 10,4,13-19.

Williams, J.D. (2006). Ultimate Sacrifice: The Whole is Less than the Sum of its Parts JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly, 11, 3, 15-22.

Williams, J.D., Cousins, K.T. & Baker, J.A. (2007). Judyth and Lee in New Orleans. Dealey Plaza Echo. 11, 1, 24-43.

Williams, J.D. (2007). Dr. Mary’s  monkey; Edward Haslam, an insider’s account (Part One).JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly, 12, 4, 22-36..

Williams, J.D. (2007). Dr. Mary’s  monkey; Edward Haslam, an insider’s account (Part Two).JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly, 12, 4,

Williams, J.D. (2008). Shock Doctrine: A New Paradigm for the JFK Assassination? JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly, 12, 4, 12-19.

Williams, J.D. (2008). Echo from Dealey Plaza: Abraham Bolden. The Dealey Plaza Echo. 12 , 51-54.

Williams, J.D. (2009). Who was Richard Cain? JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly. 13,

Williams, J.D. (2009). How “Typical” Was the Protection for President Kennedy in Dallas? Dealey Plaza Echo. 13, 1, 1-4.

Williams, J.D. (2010). Triangle of Fire-A Review. JohnDelaneWilliams.blogspot.com.

Williams, J.D. (2010). Did JFK Agree to the so-Called C-Day Coup Against Castro? JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly, 15, 2, 11-22.

Williams, J.D. (2011). Inside the Record Review Board. Part I: The Medical Witnesses. JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly, 16, 2,7-18.

Williams, J.D. (2011). Inside the Record Review Board. Part II.: Fraud in the Evidence. A Pattern of Deception. JohnDelaneWilliams.blogspot.com .

Williams, J.D. (2011). Inside the Record Review Board. Part III: The Political Context of the Assassination. JohnDelaneWilliams.blogspot.com.

Williams, J.D. (2012). Head Shot-A Physicist Analyzes the Assassination. JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly,17,1, 14-20.

Williams, J.D. (2012). Murder from Within-A Thirty-Seven Year Wait. JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly, 17, 3, 14-18.

Williams, J.D. (2013).An Early Prescient Researcher--Thomas G. Buchanan. JohnDelaneWilliams.blogspot.com.

Williams, J.D. (2014). The 50th Anniversary in Dallas. JFK-E/Deep Politics Quarterly,1,1, 14-20.

REVIEW:

Williams, J.D. Me & Lee. How I Came to Know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald. Judyth Vary Baker. In Amazon.com, November.

REPORTS:

           

Williams, J.D. & Severson, G. (1999). Reports of Sightings of Lee Harvey Oswald in Stanley, ND in the summer of 1953. Grand Forks, ND: Author. 

           

Williams, J.D., Severson, G. & Williams, J.A. (1999, December). Typescript of an interview with Lyle Aho regarding a possible Lee Harvey Oswald in Stanley, ND. Grand Forks, ND: Authors.

VIDEOS:

           

Williams, J.D., Severson, G. & Williams, J.A. (1999, August). An interview with Lyle Aho regarding a possible Lee Harvey Oswald in Stanley, ND. Grand Forks, ND: Authors (Research Video).

AUDIO INTERVIEWS WITH TRANSCRIPTS

           

Williams, J.D. and Severson, G. (November 16, 2001; transcript 2002).  Interview of Dennis David concerning JFK Assassination Information at Bethesda, MD. Dallas, TX.

Williams, J.D. and Severson, G. (November 17-18, 2001; transcript 2002). Interview of Madeleine Brown concerning JFK Assassination Information in Dallas. Dallas, TX.

PRESENTATIONS:

           

           

Williams, J.D. (1998, December). The qualitative- quantitative continuum: Research on the JFK assassination. Paper presented at the Association for the Advancement of Educational Research annual meeting. Jacksonville, FL.

Williams, J.D. (August 15, 2002). LBJ and the Kennedy assassination.  St. Paul, MN: The Twin Cities (MN) JFK Assassination Research Group.

           

Williams, J.D. (April 9, 2004). Investigating the Major Texas Conspirators in the JFK Assassination.  St. Paul, MN: The Twin Cities (MN) JFK Assassination Research Group.

Williams, J.D. (April 9, 2004).Ruby and Oswald: Connections. St. Paul, MN, The Twin Cities JFK Assassination Research Group.

Williams, J.D. (September 7, 2004). Organized Crime and Relationship to JFK Assassination.  Bloomington, MN.  The Twin Cities JFK Assassination Research Group.

Williams, J.D. (September 10, 2005). Recent research on Judyth Baker and New                 Orleans aspects of the JFK Assassination.  Richfield, MN. Presentation to the           Twin Cities JFK Research Group.

Williams, J.D. (September 8, 2006). The JFK Assassination: The Place of Judyth                  Baker. Richfield, MN.  Presentation to the Twin Cities JFK Research Group.

Williams, J.D. (September 11, 2007). Edward Haslam, his witness and New Orleans.

          Richfield, MN. The Twin Cities JFK Research Group.

Williams, J.D. & Severson. G. (September 25, 2008) Was Oswald in North Dakota? The UND JFK Conference, Grand Forks, ND.

Williams, J.D.   (Chair). (September 26, 2008) Symposium: Research on the JFK Assassination. The UND JFK Conference. Grand Forks, ND.

Williams, J.D. & Titovets, E. (November 23, 2013) Did Oswald Speak Russian in Russia?

Arlington 50th Anniversary Conference, Arlington, TX.

                                      An Early Prescient Critical Researcher--Thomas G. Buchanan

                                                                      John Delane Williams

Reading Talbot’s Brothers [1] brought my attention to an early JFK researcher, Thomas G. Buchanan, who was prescient regarding both the Warren Report and issues related to the assassination. The American edition of his book, Who Killed Kennedy [2], was published in May 1964, five months before the Warren Report was published. Moreover, much of the book was filed with the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, at  the request of a staff member of that commission, Howard P. Willens. The book was first published in several different languages and widely available in Europe. Buchanan had attended both Yale and George Washington University. He was a veteran of World War II, and had been a journalist in the U.S. until caught up in the McCarthy witch hunts in the 1950’s; he had a previous involvement with communists in the U.S. [3] He moved to France and continued being a political correspondent for several magazines in Europe and Asia. He became interested in the assassination of President Kennedy, and began writing articles about the assassination early on. The book, Who Killed Kennedy, grew out of these early articles.

 

A Review of Prior Presidential Assassinations

 

Who Killed Kennedy had one curious feature: it is one continuous text without chapters. It also contains no index. Buchanan addressed the idea that, like other American assassins, Oswald was a lone person without co-conspirators. The three previous presidential assassinations were reviewed. Though John Wilkes Booth was the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, he was part of a conspiracy that included several other persons. Two other persons were to be assassinated at exactly the same time: Secretary of State William H. Seward was to be assassinated by Lewis Thornton Powell, and Vice President Andrew Johnson was to be assassinated by George Atzerodt.  Though the latter two failed in their objective, they and Mary Surratt, a tavern owner, in whose tavern the plans were made, were all executed. Booth had been killed earlier, trying to return to the South. Three more conspirators were given life sentences. One conspirator turned state’s evidence and went unpunished, and Mary Surratt’s son, John, escaped to Canada. This group was in turn just one of several cells financed by the Confederacy to assassinate Lincoln and other figures in his government. The conspiracy led all the way to Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederated States of America. Clearly Booth did not act alone.

 

James A. Garfield was the second American President to be assassinated. His assassin was Charles J. Guiteau, a 39 year old Republican of the Stalwart faction. Garfield overcame the Stalwarts efforts and received the Republican nomination on his way to winning the presidency. The only Stalwart in his choosing persons for positions in his administration was his Vice president, Chester A. Arthur. Guiteau and several of his Stalwart compatriots were left out of the mix. Buchanan argued that Guiteau reasoned that were he to kill Garfield, that the new President Arthur would replace Garfield’s choices with Stalwart Republicans. Guiteau would soon recognize that the public favor would turn against them, given Guiteau’s admission that the act was committed on behalf of the Stalwarts. Though his lawyer would attempt an insanity plea, Guiteau would be found guilty and executed.

 

Leon Czolgosz was a 28 year old American born son of Polish immigrants. He had worked as a laborer and had been attracted to anarchist writings, presumably due to President William
McKinley’s actions regarding big business. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was passed in 1890 to protect small businesses from the monopolies. McKinley came to office in 1896, and in the 5 ½ years of his presidency, no prosecutions were begun under the law, despite there being several multi-million dollar trusts established in defiance of the legislation. Czolgosz shot McKinley twice; McKinley died 8 days later. When questioned about his motive, Czolgosz quietly replied, “I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime.” [4] After an eight hour trial and a 34 minute jury deliberation, Czolgosz was convicted and subsequently executed.

 

Buchanan reviewed these assassinations to refute the idea that, “All Presidents of the United States to date who fell to an assassin’s bullet were the victims of deranged men who had no accomplices and no political motive.” [5] Buchanan seemed to accomplish this objective.

Buchanan argues that, “…whoever killed the President in Dallas could not possibly have acted from sudden impulse. All the evidence points to a thorough scientific planning of the crime.  Nor does it seem conceivable that an assassin temporarily deranged by sudden passion could, immediately after, at the culmination of his frenzy, stand and drink a Coca-Cola. Certainly the President was not the victim of sudden passion.” [6] 

 

On Insanity

Buchanan stated:

      For the only time a prosecutor says that the defendant was insane is when he is trying

      to convict a dead man. Such convictions can only be useful when they shield the living.

      “And an investigating agency declares that it can find no motive for the President’s

      assassination but the murderer’s insanity, it does not mean that no motive can be

      found. It only means, perhaps, that the investigation was a failure.” [7]

Buchanan’s digression on insanity addresses the attempt by the President’s Commission having tried to pass off Oswald’s motive as insanity. Buchanan addressed what was then known about Oswald and his actions and behaviors and concludes that Oswald was not insane; later in the book he concludes that Oswald was not the assassin.  

The Presidential Motorcade

District Attorney Henry Wade announced on November 24 that evidence had been found that proved the crime was premeditated. A map was found in Oswald’s rented apartment. The map was said to be of possible locations for the murder of the President. One location was the book depository, which not only was marked, but had a line indicating the trajectory of the bullet. Instead, it was a map of potential places to work—and he did get a job at the book depository. Since Oswald accepted the job and reported to work on October 14, and since a final choice for the motorcade route was not made until November 15, his accepting the job more than a month earlier on what would be  the actual motorcade route could not possibly be conceived as premeditation.

 

When the first shot rang out on November 22, 1963, several observers discerned that it came from in front, possibly in the direction of the railroad bridge on the underpass. Policeman Seymour Weitzman identified the shot coming from that direction and started running  toward the railroad bridge, until he was told to go to the Depository. Mary Woodward, a reporter for the Dallas Morning News reported the shot came from the direction of the bridge. Charles Drehm [Brehm?] thought the shot came from in front of Kennedy. [8] The reaction of the limousine driver William Green could be explained by a shot from the front. Were he to have perceived that the shot came from the front, he wouldn’t want to drive in that direction for additional shots. But with a shot from the rear coming next, he would push down on the accelerator to get the President out of the firing zone.  

 

A man and a woman were reported running on the railroad bridge over the underpass directly after the shootings. They were chased by a motorcycle policeman who was thwarted by a wire fence. [9] Wade said on November 23 that preliminary reports indicated that more than one person was involved in the shooting. [10] Buchanan would eventually posit that the first shot did indeed come from a shooter on the railroad bridge.

 

Four different interpretations of the shootings in Dealey Plaza were given through time by the President’s Commission. New information kept destroying earlier interpretations. Their final interpretation was that exactly three shots were fired, all by Lee Harvey Oswald, with one shot missing, and one shot, “the magic bullet” following an impossible route, doing considerable damage to both President Kennedy and Governor Connally, yet emerged in pristine condition, committed by a shooter who was a poor marksman, and who could not possibly perform beyond world class marksmen ( who could not replicate the feat attributed to Oswald), further restricted by an inadequate weapon. The interpretation also required dismissing the testimony of both Governor Connally and his wife that Conally and Kennedy were hit by separate bullets. The further likelihood is that Oswald was either in the lunchroom or on his way there at the time of the shootings.   

 

Prints on the Mannlicher-Carcano

 

The President’s Commission claimed that they had scientific evidence that Oswald fired the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, the imputed murder weapon. As it happens, the only evidence they had of Oswald having touched the weapon was a palmprint on the underside of the barrel, indicating that Oswald had handled the Mannlicher-Carcano when it was disassembled. One could conjecture that Oswald might have readied the rifle for the actual shooter. This conjecture would have been unacceptable, because it would imply a conspiracy. The efforts of the commission were to establish an Oswald working alone. The rifle did have several fingerprints, one of which was unidentified, but none of them belonged to Oswald.  With Oswald’s fingerprints on many of the nearby boxes, but not on the rifle, it was unlikely that Oswald was wearing gloves. He had nitrate on his hands, but not on his cheek. This would seem to preclude Oswald having recently shot the rifle. The one unidentified print on the rifle was finally identified in 1998. It belonged to Mac Wallace. [11]. Wallace was a known henchman for the new president, Lyndon Baines Johnson. That finding, were it to have made known at the same time as the other prints on the Mannlicher-Carcano would have brought suspicion to Johnson into focus regarding the conspiracies surrounding the assassination. [12] Were this information available at the time of the assassination, Johnson’s presidency could have been very brief. The course of American politics would have undoubtedly been considerably altered.

 

Buchanan’s Take on the Shootings in Dealey Plaza

 

The first shot came from in front, probably from the railroad bridge. Buchanan based this conclusion from the descriptions of the wounds by the Dallas physicians who attended the President at the Parkland Hospital, together with the observations of witnesses who saw a man and a woman scrambling on a walk on the railroad bridge. The shooter likely went either toward the parking area to enter an automobile, or continued to a freight warehouse. He could have run through the building and emerged on Houston Street, where he could have then entered the Dallas Morning News Building. Buchanan speculated that the first assassin could have been Jack Ruby. Ruby was seen at the newspaper at 12:20 PM when most of employees cleared the building. When they returned at 12:45, Ruby was there at that time also. The second shooter was in the Texas Schoolbook Depository. Buchanan conjectured that Oswald was in some way an accomplice to the second shooter. Perhaps Oswald’s role was to bring the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle for use in the shooting.

 

Was it a Mauser or a Mannlicher-Carcano? Or both?

 

Seymour Weitzman, the police officer credited with finding the rifle in the book depository, gave a detailed description of it. “This rifle was a 7.65 Mauser with a bolt action equipped with a 4/18 scope, a thick leather brownish-black sling on it. The rifle was between some boxes near the stairway. The time the rifle was found was 1:22 P.M. Captain Fritz took charge of the rifle and ejected one live round from the chamber.” [13] This statement came from Weitzman’s signed report on November 23, 1963. There seems to be no room for doubt that the rifle found WAS a Mauser. Later, the rifle said to have killed President Kennedy was a Mannlicher- Carcano. Buchanan handles this seeming inconsistency thusly:

 

     The authorities in Dallas have informed us solemnly that Kennedy was murdered by

     a Mauser. The men who made this first statement were all competent to practice

    their profession. I believe them. They informed us later that the President was killed

    by a Carcano. I believe that, also. I am forced to the conclusion that there were two

    weapons. I deduce that there were two assassins. [14]

 

It is possible that two different policemen could have found rifles and brought them back to the police station, one of which was the Mannlicher-Carcano. When it was determined that Oswald owned a Mannlicher-Carcano, this became the only weapon of the necessarily (to avoid the concept of conspiracy) lone gunman.

 

The Shooting of J.D. Tippet

 

Buchanan’s take on the J.D. Tippet shooting was that Tippet called Oswald to the squad car. Tippet’s presumed assignment was to badger Oswald into pulling his gun. When that occurred, Tippet was to draw his gun and eliminate Oswald; presumably Oswald could identify some of the co-conspirators. Buchanan took the positive test for nitrates as proof Oswald had recently fired a gun. It would also be proof that Oswald had handled some cardboard boxes that morning. There are alternative explanations to the Tippet incident. One of them would be that an Oswald impersonator played his role, but outdrew Officer Tippet. And of course, Buchanan may have been correct. However, I would be inclined to think that Oswald would not have stayed in the movie theater as long as he did if he had just shot a police officer.

 

Did Oswald and Ruby know each other?

 

With the information available to Buchanan in 1964, he surmised that the answer was yes. This interpretation is based on the F.B.I. report that Bill de Mar, a ventriloquist who was performing at Ruby’s nightclub (The Carousel), saw the two men talking at the club eight or nine days before the assassination. The President’s Commission (The Warren Commission) did not want the water muddied with such assertions. That they knew each other puts Oswald’s murder in a new light. The unmistakable interpretation is that Ruby killed Oswald to keep him quiet. And with Ruby’s seeming friends in the police department, Ruby’s ease at entering the police station as Oswald was being led past the reporters was suspicious. Recall also that Ruby attended the Friday night press conference and corrected the speaker about the name of the group that Oswald had been distributing pamphlets for in New Orleans (Fair Play for Cuba). “(C)omplicity of the police  with Ruby seemed so evident to people of all countries, all political opinions, outside the United States that any possibility that the official explanation of the President’s assassination might have been accepted was, thereafter, shattered.”     [15]

 

Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?

 

Buchanan concludes that: “Oswald was not at this time [in Dallas] what he professed to be-a Marxist- and there is good reason to suppose he never was.” [16] But to profess to be a Marxist in Dallas, he was a brave man and “a most imprudent man unless he had somebody to protect him. And in all the cities in the state of Texas the last place a radical would go, looking for a job, was Dallas,  unless he already had a job.” [17] When Oswald went to a stenographer in Fort Worth, Pauline Bates, to type his manuscript on Russia, he strongly hinted that he was a kind of freelance spy. He was without government assistance, but with government approval. [18]

 

Buchanan did not see Oswald as the person depicted by the Warren Commission, a crazed loner. Clearly Oswald also had to have income other than that indicated in his official tax information. The implication is that one or more government agencies [perhaps the FBI or CIA] had ways of getting money to him. How else could he undertake a trip to Mexico? If Oswald did kill Officer Tippet, it was a kill or be killed situation.

 

 

A Possible Substitute Patsy at the Schoolbook Depository

 

As difficult as it would seem to be employed in a job and be a radical in Dallas, as it turns out there was yet another radical employed at the Texas Schoolbook Depository. They were both brought to police headquarters and questioned on November 22^nd, 1963. The other radical employed at the Schoolbook Depository was a bookkeeper there. His home was searched, and he was questioned for six or seven hours. If Oswald were not targeted to take the blame, an effective substitute was available. [19]

 

Who was Behind the Assassination?

 

Buchanan builds a case, not for specific individuals, but rather for persons with certain characteristics within two industries in Dallas. Oilmen come to mind; they were aware that President Kennedy was in favor of reducing the oil depletion allowance (then 27½%) and perhaps eliminating it. This “gift” to the oil producers was very highly valued, and they loathed to lose it.  Oilmen, in their initiation into the oil “game”, are invariably gamblers. With a going rate of about 1 in 8 oil wells actually producing oil, many would give up the ghost early on. For those with deep pockets or some degree of luck, the payoff from oil, particularly the 27½% depletion allowance, would have paid handsome dividends. For these successful oilmen, oil ceases to be a gamble; their wells come in with sufficient success, particularly with the depletion allowance, that the gambling aspect is no longer present. Since the oilmen were more gamblers than businessmen, they might seek to express their gambling elsewhere. One such point of gambling was the attempt to make Dallas the center of the U.S. business and stock markets in the early 1960’s, which clearly was unsuccessful. [20]  

 

Oilmen’s major threat was the left wing politicians’ intent on reducing or eliminating the oil depletion allowance.  Kennedy supporters made a pledge to ‘“close the loopholes in the tax laws by which certain privileged groups legally escape their fair share of taxation.” The pledge said, “among the more conspicuous loopholes are depletion allowances, which are inequitable.”’ [21] With Kennedy pledging to remove the oil depletion allowance in his next term, he clearly was viewed as an enemy by oilmen.

 

A second group of Texas interests deemed to be at risk from Kennedy’s agenda was the persons in the defense industry. The Texas defense factories could be brought to a standstill by recent actions by President Kennedy.  Kennedy’s pursuit of détente with Nikita Khrushchev, if continued, would lead to disarmament both for nuclear weapons and the production of war materials. “I believe the murder of President Kennedy was provoked, primarily, by fear of the domestic and international consequences of the Moscow pact: the danger of disarmament which would disrupt the industries on which the plotters depended and of an international détente which would, in their view, have threatened the eventual nationalization of their oil investments overseas.” [22]

 

It was Buchanan’s view that the Dallas contingent was as opposed as any area of the country to rapprochement with Russia; no other area was more convinced that the United States could survive a nuclear war, and that we could go on and win the war, if we made the first strike, and it might be worth it. That assessment, is a gamblers view. “But in Dallas, we have one of the most powerful and wealthy oligarchies in the world—controlled, as no society ever has before—by men whose instincts are not those of businessmen, but of gamblers. I suggest the impact of this fact upon world history, in any country that possesses the atomic bomb, is terrifying.” [23]

 

‘If a man believes that, under some circumstances, it is worth the risk of ending life on this planet to achieve some national objective, he will hardly flinch at ending one life, if the chances are remote that he will be detected.” [24]

 

In the previous presidential assassinations, there were no denials of the act. After the fact, there were the explanations of the reasons. Such was not the case in the Kennedy assassination. No one has ever voiced responsibility, nor given their explanations.       

     

Since the assassination, various agencies have sought to hide their own guilt, claiming the act could not have been anticipated, since it was the act of a madman. These same agencies also claim Kennedy was partially to blame, for failing to take more precaution. Having failed to find the real conspirators, they claim the only accomplice was the President himself. Buchanan’s final words were, “We, the people, are the only watchmen Kennedy will ever have now. Let these watchmen, then, awaken.” [25]

 

Notes:

1. Talbot, D. (2007). Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years. New York: Free Press.

2. Buchanan, T.G. (1964). Who Killed Kennedy? New York: Putnam.

3. Simkin, J. (2013).Thomas G. Buchanan. spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKBuchananT.htm

4. Buchanan, p. 61.

5. Ibid., p. 66.

6. Ibid., p.73.

7. Ibid., p. 74.

8. Ibid., p. 64

9. Ibid., p. 85.

10. Ibid., p.86.

11. Brown, W. (1998a). TSBD Evidence Places LBJ “Hit Man” in “Sniper’s Nest”. JFK/Deep Politics              Quarterly, 3, No. 3, Extra; Brown, W. (1998b). The Sordid Story of Mac Wallace. JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly, 3, No.4, 22-27.

12. Williams, J.D. (1998).LBJ and the Assassination Conspiracies. JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly, 4, No.2, 25-28.

13, Buchanan, p. 118.

14. Ibid., p. 120.

15. Ibid., p. 150.

16. Ibid., p.155.

17. Ibid., p. 155.

18. Ibid., p.158.

19. Ibid., pp.174-175.

20. Ibid., pp. 184-187. Later, Buchanan claimed H.L. Hunt helped fund the assassination.

21. Ibid., p. 184.

22. Ibid., p. 187.

23. Ibid., p. 190.

24. Ibid., p. 190.

25. Ibid., p. 198.