Rendezvous At Dealey Plaza II

Rendezvous With Death At Dealey Plaza –  Part II

On October 5, 1962, the morning that Caroline Kennedy recited the poem “Rendezvous  With Death” to her father at the National Security Council meeting in the Rose Garden, Lee Harvey Oswald cashed a pay check from Leslie Welding Company, where he had worked since July 19.

 

One of Oswald’s first acts upon arrival in Fort Worth in June 1962 was to go to the Texas Employment Commission and look for work, but he got more than a job from Virginia Hale and Anna Laurie Smith.

 

Virginia Hale got Oswald the sheet metal worker job at Leslie Welding, but while he was at the Texas Employment Commission Oswald asked if they knew of anyone who spoke the Russian language that he and his wife could meet.

In his article (Oswald’s Handlers) Bill Simpich writes: “Anna Laurie Smith said that she referred him to Peter Gregory, and ‘Mrs. Hall’ from the next desk, suggested Mrs. Max Clark and provided her name. This Mrs. Hall was Elena Hall, a Russian immigrant who was also part of the White Russian community …. Mrs. Elena Hall gave the names of Max and Gali Clark to Oswald at the Texas Employment Center and then went to work as a dental lab technician.”

The first person Oswald called was Gali Clark, an excellent Russian speaker, a former “Russian princess” who Simpich notes “made a point of shopping for the Oswald family and providing material support, bringing groceries to Marina at the Hall residence while Elena Hall recovered from a car accident.” In addition however, “Mrs. Hall took Marina and her baby in to live at her place during the first week of October, bought her some clothes and groceries, and had Marina’s teeth fixed with the financial help of George Bouhe….” And Elena Hall, who went from the Texas Employment Commission to work at the dental lab.

So besides getting Oswald a job, the one stop at the Texas Employment Commission got Marina and the baby a nice place to stay, and they had Marina’s teeth fixed and the Russian community bought them groceries and gave them financial help, especially George Bouhe.  

But being employed as a laborer was not something Oswald enjoyed or wanted to do and he told Gali Clark’s husband Max Clark that he hated his work at Leslie Welding and wanted another line of work. Max Clark was an attorney and industrial security supervisor at General Dynamics who knew the FBI agent who later investigated him. Clark referred to his interviewing agent Earl Haley as “Earl”, and told the Warren Commission that he was familiar with Haley and the FBI from working with them at General Dynamics. Clark was an industrial security supervisor at the Convair wing of General Dynamics, who had the Air Force contract for the first funded ICBM study.

Max Clark also had a “covert security approval” by the CIA for “Project ROCK/IDIO/SGAPEX”.

According to DeMohrenschildt, Max Clark told him he checked with his friends in the FBI and that Oswald was okay. George DeMohrenschildt testified to the Warren Commission that during one of his conversation with his Dallas CIA contact J. Walton Moore, and Moore assured him that Oswald was a “harmless lunatic”. 

After he told Max Clark he didn’t like the Leslie Welding job Oswald started skipping work altogether, though they still took him back even after he missed a few days. His boss said that he was going to be trained in more specialized work, and his last Leslie Welding punch card had “Quit” written on it, so he wasn’t fired from that job. The job lasted from July 19 until October 8, quite a stretch Oswald.

About Oswald’s work at Leslie Welding, A. J. Weberman wrote: In a February 3, 1964, Memorandum to Files, a CIA component, presumably the Office of Security, stated: “The following notation appears on the cover of OSWALD’S address book: “Mr. Bargas 200 E.N. Vacey Louv – K P1316 (The FBI memorandum does not suggest it, but I would think that Louv – K might possibly refer to Louisville, Kentucky.) The Office of Security of the CIA came up with three spurious Bargas’ from its files. [CIA 1300-479] “Bargas” was the name of OSWALD’S foreman at Louv-R-Pac, Thomas Bargas. Tom Bargas was interviewed in 1977 and asked if he saw Oswald every day he worked there? He said: “Yeah, I did see him every day. He was a sheet metal worker, we used to make ventilators. We never had any Government contracts or anything. It was all commercial buildings. Oswald always kept to himself – he wore the same old jacket.” In May 1993 Tom Bargas said Oswald never expressed any political opinions to him and was a good worker. “He was a general flunky – he did everything we put him to do. Because he comprehended so well, I was going to teach him to do layout work. Then he quit. No reason…He came in every day. He worked there two, three months, maybe longer. He didn’t miss any days that I know of…I never miss work. We went in at 7:00 a.m. and got off at 3:30 p.m.” [WCD 7; FBI DL 89-43 p360 – 1 RPG:mja – UnID; CIA 1300-479]

While Elena Hall was recouperating from a car crash, Lee and Marina had her  house all to themselves, and one night had the Clarks over for dinner to thank them for their hospitality. This is when Clark extensively questioned Oswald about his experiences in the Soviet Union, what amounted to what Simpich calls a “debriefing.”  

 

Max Clark’s file states that he “worked closely” with I. B. Hale, the husband of Virginia Hale, who got Oswald the job at Leslie Welding. A former FBI agent who was the chief of industrial security at General Dynamics I.B. Hale and his wife Virginia separated in 1960, with twin sons Bobby and Billy staying with I.B. and son Thomas staying with Virginia. 

 

            But two weeks after I.B.Hale’s wife Virginia got Oswald a job, in August 1962, their sons traveled across state lines in order to break-in at the apartment of Judith Campbell (Exner), who was on an intimate basis with President John F. Kennedy as well as Mafia chieftains Sam Giancana and Johnny Rosselli.  The break in at Campbell’s apartment was done in full view of an FBI stakeout team who checked out the Texas tags on the burglar’s car and recognized the sons of the Texas state football star and former FBI agent I. B. Hale.

 

As Simpich reasonably concludes, it seems that Hale and his sons “got caught up in a dramatic series of events that appear to have been designed to blackmail the Kennedy Administration into approving General Dynamics as the prime contactor over Boeing to build the TFX F-111 bomber at their Fort Worth plant. At the time this 7 billion dollar contract was the largest military contract in history.” In addition, one of the Hale boys had run off with the daughter of Texas Governor John Connally, and killed her by accident, or so the official reports concluded.

 

So in early October, 1962, Oswald was still working at the job at Leslie Welding, Marina was staying at Mrs. Halls while she recovered from an auto accident, and the other Russians give them food and financial assistance. But no one seemed to know where Oswald was staying. He didn’t stay at the Halls with Marina, and only stayed a few days at the YMCA, but there’s no record of where he stayed for weeks at a time during this period. The FBI even went back to interview every one of the White Russians Oswald met at this time and asked them one question, – do they know where Oswald was staying in October to early November, 1962? And every one said no.

 

According to Weberman, “Oswald checked out of the YMCA on October 19, 1962, and from October 19, 1962 to November 2, 1962, his address was a mystery to the Warren Commission. The Warren Report noted: “After Oswald left the YMCA on October 19, 1962, he moved to a room or apartment somewhere in Dallas which has not been located. It seems likely that during that time he spent several weekends with Marina at the Hall house.” 

On October 9, 1962, Oswald went back to the offices of the Texas Employment Commission and asked to see Helen Cunningham, a counselor with the commission who he had been referred by Teofil Miller. Miller had been to a dinner party with the Oswalds learned of his search for a job, and had called Mrs. Cunningham, a friend of his, and asked her to help Oswald get a job more suited to his skills and background.

After skipping out on the Leslie Welding job without notice, Oswald was still owed two pay checks for the last days he had worked, and the frugal Oswald wanted the money but didn’t want to have to go back to pick it up in person.

So on October 9, 1962, the same day he put in for a new job with Mrs. Cunningham at the ever helpful Texas Employment Commission, Oswald walked into the Main Post Office in Dallas and ordered a post office box. He  paid less than $5, used his real name Lee Harvey Oswald [See: Receipt for PO Box MFA ] and as a residence he gave the Dallas address of DeMohrenschildt’s daughter Alexandria and her husband Gary Taylor.

[BK Note: Mary Ferrell asks “Is this his first act of deception?,” but I don’t think so, not if he asked Gary Taylor if he could use his address to take out the PO box and as an address to give J/C/S, which also had Taylor’s address as Oswald’s address until he took out the PO box. So, no there was no first act of deception in using Taylor’s address here.]

Oswald was given P.O. Box 2915 and either one or two keys [See: Reference 1 and Receipt 2]. He then contacted Leslie Welding and asked them to send his final pay checks to that PO Box.

 

When Oswald endorsed his last two checks from Louv-R-Pac, he used the address of Gary Taylor. Although he never stayed there, Taylor had given Oswald permission to use his address and he did so on his Post Office box application and at Jaggers/Chiles/Stoval, his next job.

 

According to A. J. Weberman: Some of the signatures on the back of the Louv-R-Pac paychecks were not OSWALD’S. The FBI Laboratory examined the endorsements and compared them against the signature on OSWALD’S passport. They did not match, although Oswald had used his passport as identification to cash these checks, and his passport number was written on each one. The FBI stated: “Under date of December 5, 1963, the FBI Laboratory advised that the handprinting and handwriting of LEE HARVEY OSWALD, available in Bureau files, have been searched (Deleted) without effecting an identification.”…The HSCA examined 63 specimens of OSWALD’S signature, but none of the signatures on the Louv-R-Pac paychecks, although their existence had been brought to the attention of the HSCA by this researcher. The HSCA chose instead to examine: “A letter dated July 13, 1962, to Leslie Welding Co. signed LEE H. OSWALD; written on part of the page from a yellow legal pad. Blue ink. Ball point pen. Location: Archives.” [HSCA V8 p230]

George DeMohrenschildt had promised Oswald he would try to get him a good job that he would like, and through Teofil Miller and Mrs. Cunningham, that turned out to be at the Jaggers/Chiles/Stoval, a graphic arts firm.

Besides doing most of the advertising and commercial graphics for Dallas businesses, J/C/S also did classified work for the U.S. Army Map Service, placing numbers, names and captions on photographs, including high altitude photos taken by the U2 over Russia and Cuba.

 

A fellow employee, Dennis Ofstbin recalled that when they placed the names of some cities in Russia on a map, Oswald said he had been there.

 

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, in October, 1962, when no one knew where Oswald was living, he was working at a company that placed arrows and captions on photos taken by the U2 over Cuba, and J/C/S workers, including Oswald, may have placed the arrows and captions on the very props that were used to brief the President, and the President used to brief Congress and the UN during the crisis.

 

[See: Oswald at J/C/S  http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2009/12/u2-photos-of-cuba-oct-62.html ].

 

It was while working at J/C/S that Oswald wrote the word “microdot” in his notebook, and it was while working at J/C/S when Oswald is said to have had the opportunity to produce the multiple faked IDs and documents, some of which included the use of the alias A. J. Hidell.

It was at a party of DeMohrenchildt’s friends who worked at Magnolia Oil Co. in February 1963 when Oswald and his wife Marina met Ruth Paine and Volkmar Schmidt.

Just as Simpich describes how George Bouhe handed responsibility for Oswald over to George DeMohrenschildt in the fall of 1962, DeMohrenschildt was handing the Oswalds over to Ruth and Michael Paine, who would play increasingly central roles in the coincidences that would lead up to the Rendezvous at Dealey Plaza.

While Ruth and Marina bonded at the party, Oswald talked to Volkmar Schmidt, a German who worked at Magnolia Oil with most of the other people at the party. In their long conversation, Schmidt talked with Oswald about the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler, and suggested that the same should be done to other fascists, like Army General Edwin Walker.

[See: Interview with Volkmar Schmidt –    http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2008/01/volkmar-schmidt-interview.html ].

Within a few weeks of his conversation with Schmidt, Oswald ordered a rifle from an advertisement in a gun magazine, sending a money order as payment and having the rifle sent to A.J. Hidell, P.O. Box 2915, Dallas, Texas. He had previously, in early January, ordered a .38 revolver, and though ordered a month apart, they were both shipped the same day, March 20, 1963, to Oswald’s PO box.

What’s odd is that Hidell wasn’t authorized to receive mail at that PO box and no one who works at the post office recalls Oswald retrieving the packages that contained the pistol or the package with a rifle and scope. And the receipt is missing, said to have been routinely destroyed when the box was closed, although such records are normally kept and Post Office regulations require them to be kept for two years. Another odd thing is that Oswald would have had to pick up the package that was sent to A. J. Hidell, and would ostensibly need Hidell’s identification to pick up the package, which was sent to a P.O. Box that belonged to Oswald, not Hidell.

The Warren Commission maintains that Oswald mailed the money order for the rifle, postmarked March 12, and reportedly picked it up on March 25, both Tuesdays when Oswald was supposed to be at work at Jaggers/Chiles/Stoval.

Unlike his job at the TSBD, where they didn’t have a Time Card to punch in, J/C/S was pretty serious about keeping track of what they’re employees were doing and for whom.

Also please note that on the morning that Oswald was supposed to have mailed the money order for the rifle, he worked on a job for Sam Bloom, the same guy who helped John Connally and the Secret Service choose the Trade Mart over the Women’s building and thus have the motorcade drive by the TSBD.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=sear…

March 25. When Oswald was supposed to pick up the rifle and pistol:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=113…

Usually it is Conspiracy Theorists who accuse witnesses like Harry Holmes, who also delayed Oswald leaving the DPD long enough for Ruby to get into position to kill him, of lying. Holmes knew the PO regulation was to maintain such records for two years, and he keeps saying “They” did this and “They” did that. Who’s “They.” And what happened to the
person who handed the rifle over the counter to Oswald/Hidell? They don’t have Post Officer records who tell them who was working that day?  

Using a background construction site and the fact that Oswald worked six days a week at J/C/S, the official investigators concluded that Oswald took the photos of Walker’s house and neighborhood on a Sunday, before he ordered the rifle.

But instead of using the same logic to determine when he ordered and picked up the weapons from the Post Office, we are advised by the author of the official Chronology not to trust the Time Sheets of J/C/S because Oswald “lied” on them. But they didn’t ask Stovall if he allowed his employees to leave the premises and run around Dallas mailing money orders and picking up weapons at the Post Office.

Chronology of Oswald in 1962-3 IN THE UNITED STATES

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=569…

12 March 1963 (Tuesday)

Using a coupon clipped from the February issue of American Rifleman magazine, Lee went to the main post office and ordered a high-powered Italian carbine, called a Mannlicher-Carcano, from Klein’s Sporting Goods Company, a mail order house in Chicago. He sent the coupon air mail with a postal money order for $21.78 for the rifle, $7.17 for the scope, to be moounted by a gunsmith employed by Klein’s and $1.50 for postage and handling). The rifle was delivered to an “A. HIDELL, Post Office Box 2915, Dallas, Texas.”.

(FN: Oswald’s time sheet on 12 March is evidence that he probably lied sometimes about his hours. On the day he ordered the rifle, he signed in from 8:00 a.m. to 5:15 p.m., (Exhibit no. 1855, Vol. 23, p. 605). The U.S. Postal Inspector, Dallas, Harry D. Holmes, later testified that OSWALD’S order for the rifle was issued “early on the morning of
March 12”. This appears to have been the case, for the order was imprinted on Klein’s cash register March 13. Since the post office window opened only at 8:00 a.m., OSWALD probably lied when he signed in then. Thus the time sheets have to be used with caution. M&L….” [BK: Can anyone tell me what the “M&L” source designation refers to? ]  

But instead of Oswald lying on his time sheets, could Oswald have left the premises and if he wrote “Sam Bloom” on the account sheet, could he have run copy or graphics over to the Bloom office for approval during the half hour- hour time that he said he worked on their project?

That would get Oswald out of the building and in a position to mail the money order and or pick up the weapons. But it would also put Oswald in contact with people at Sam Bloom, the company owned by the man who, a year later, would help arrange for the President’s motorcade to ride past the Texas School Book Depository, a key element in the string of coincidences that led up to the Rendezvous With Death At Dealey Plaza.

[BK Note: Checking with Vincent Bugliosi, who wrote 2,000 pages of Reclaiming History on how Oswald killed JFK all by himself, you would think he would have devoted a few pages to how Oswald obtained the rifle, but without any witnesses, documents, records or any evidence Oswald actually did so, the Bug simply ignores all this and sums it all up in writing: “By coincidence, both weapons, pistol and carbine, were shipped to him on the same day a little over a week later, on March 20. Marina noticed the rifle several days later in Lee’s ‘office.’ He later draped a coat over it for concealment.” ]

 Next: Rendezvous With Death t Dealey Plaza Part III – April – September 1963.

 Many thanks to Bill Simpich, Robert Howard, Tom Scully and Greg Parker for research assistance in this story. – BK

Howard Brennan Reevaluated

Howard Brennan at TSBD

 

 

 

 

Howard Leslie Brennan

Brennan’s statement to the Dallas Police Department:

SHERRIF’S DEPARTMENT
COUNTY OF DALLAS, TEXAS

Before me, the undersigned authority, on this 22^nd day of November A.D. 1963 personally appeared Howard Leslie Brennan, Address 6814 Woodard, Dallas, Texas

Age 44, Phone No. EV1-2713

Deposes and says: I am presently employed by the Wallace and Beard Construction Company as a Steam fitter and have been so employed for about the past 7 weeks. I am working in the Kay Railroad yards at the West end of Pacific Street near the railroad tracks. We had knocked off for lunch and I had dinner at the cafeteria at Record and Main Street and had come back to see the President of the United States. I was sitting on a ledge or wall near the intersection of Houston Street and Elm Street near the red light pole. I was facing in a northerly direction looking not only at Elm but I could see the large red brick building across the street from where I was sitting. I take this building across the street to be about 7 stories anyway in the east end of the building and the second row of windows from the top I saw a man in this window. I had seen him before the President’s car arrived. He was just sitting up there looking down apparently waiting for the same thing I was to see the President. I did not notice anything unusual about this man. He was a white man in his early 30’s, slender, nice looking, slender and would weigh about 165 to 175 pounds. He had on light colored clothing but definitely not a suit. I proceeded to watch the President’s car is it turned left at the corner where I was and about 50 yards from the intersection of Elm and Houston and to a point I would say the Presidents back was in line with the last window I have previous described I heard what I thought was a backfire. It run in my mind that it might be someone throwing firecrackers out the window of the red brick building and I looked up the building. I then saw this man I have described in the window and he was taking aim with a high powered rifle. I could see all of the barrel of the gun. I do not know if it had a scope on it or not.

            I was looking at the man in this window at the time of the last explosion. Then this man let the gun down to his side and stepped down out of sight. He did not seem to be in any hurry. I could see this man from about his belt up. There was nothing unusual about him at all in appearance. I believe that I could identify this man if I ever saw him again.

H. L. Brennan

Subscribed and sworn to before me on this the 22^nd day of November A.D. 1963.

C. M. Jones
Notary Public, Dallas County, Texas

WARREN COMMISSION TESTIMONY

 

….Mr. Belin.

Mr. Brennan, could you please tell the Commission what happened from the time you sat on that retaining wall, what you saw?

Mr. Brennan.

Well, I was more or less observing the crowd and the people in different building windows, including the fire escape across from the Texas Book Store on the east side of the Texas Book Store, and also the Texas Book Store Building windows. I observed quite a few people in different windows. In particular, I saw this one man on the sixth floor which left the window to my knowledge a couple of times.

Mr. Belin.

Now, you say the window on the sixth floor. What building are you referring to there?

Mr. Brennan.

That is the Texas Book Store.

Mr. Belin.

I am going to ask you to circle on Exhibit 477 the particular window that you said you saw a man leave and come back a couple of times. …

…..Mr. Belin.

Here is a marking pencil. Will you just mark the window that you believe you saw the man. All right. And do you want to put a letter “A”, if you would, by that.
All right, now you have marked on Commission Exhibit 477 a circle with the letter “A” to show the window that you saw a man in, I believe you said, at least two times come back and forth.

Mr. Brennan.

Yes

Mr. Belin.

Did you see any other people in any other windows that you can recollect?

Mr. Brennan.

Not on that floor. There was no other person on that floor that ever came to the window that I noticed. There were people on the next floor down, which is the fifth floor, colored guys. In particular, I only remember two that I identified. ….

 

…Mr. Brennan.

Well, as the parade came by, I watched it from a distance of Elm and Main Street, as it came on to Houston and turned the corner at Houston and Elm, going down the incline towards the railroad underpass. And after the President had passed my position, I really couldn’t say how many feet or how far, a short distance I would say, I heard this crack that I positively thought was a backfire.

Mr. Belin.

You thought it was backfire?

Mr. Brennan.

Of a motorcycle.

Mr. Belin.

Then what did you observe or hear?

Mr. Brennan.

Well, then something, just right after this explosion, made me think that it was a firecracker being thrown from the Texas Book Store. And I glanced up. And this man that I saw previous was aiming for his last shot.

Mr. Belin.

This man you saw previous? Which man are you talking about now?

Mr. Brennan.

The man in the sixth story window.

Mr. Belin.

Would you describe just exactly what you saw when you saw him this last time?

Mr. Brennan.

Well, as it appeared to me he was standing up and resting against the left window sill, with gun shouldered to his right shoulder, holding the gun with his left hand and taking positive aim and fired his last shot. As I calculate a couple of seconds. He drew the gun back from the window as though he was drawing it back to his side and maybe paused for another second as though to assure hisself that he hit his mark, and then he disappeared.
And, at the same moment, I was diving off of that firewall and to the right for bullet protection of this stone wall that is a little higher on the Houston side.

Mr. Belin.

Well, let me ask you. What kind of a gun did you see in that window?

Mr. Brennan.

I am not an expert on guns. It was, as I could observe, some type of a high-powered rifle.

Mr. Belin.

Could you tell whether or not it had any kind of a scope on it?

Mr. Brennan.

I did not observe a scope.

Mr. Belin.

Could you tell whether or not it had one? Do you know whether it did or not, or could you observe that it definitely did or definitely did not, or don’t you know?

Mr. Brennan.

I do not know if it had a scope or not.

Mr. Belin.

I believe you said you thought the man was standing. What do you believe was the position of the people on the fifth floor that you saw–standing or sitting?

Mr. Brennan.

I thought they were standing with their elbows on the window sill leaning out.

Mr. Belin.

At the time you saw this man on the sixth floor, how much of the man could you see?

Mr. Brennan.

Well, I could see at one time he came to the window and he sat sideways on the window sill. That was previous to President Kennedy getting there. And I could see practically his whole body, from his hips up. But at the time that he was firing the gun, a possibility from his belt up.

Mr. Belin.

How much of the gun do you believe that you saw?

Mr. Brennan.

I calculate 70 to 85 percent of the gun.

Mr. Belin.

Do you know what direction the gun was pointing.

Mr. Brennan.

Yes.

Mr. Belin.

And what direction was the gun pointing when you saw it?

Mr. Brennan.

At somewhat 30 degrees downward and west by south.

Mr. Belin.

Do you know down what street it was pointing?

Mr. Brennan.

Yes. Down Elm Street toward the railroad underpasses.

Mr. Belin.

Now, up to the time of the shots, did you observe anything else that you have not told us about here that you can think of right now?

Mr. Brennan.

Well, not of any importance. I don’t remember anything else except–

Mr. Belin.

Let me ask you this. How many shots did you hear?

Mr. Brennan.

Positively two. I do not recall a second shot–

Mr. Belin.

By a second shot, you mean a middle shot between the time you heard the first noise and the last noise?

Mr. Brennan.

Yes; that is right. I don’t know what made me think that there was firecrackers throwed out of the Book Store unless I did hear the second shot, because I positively thought the first shot was a backfire, and subconsciously must have heard a second shot, but I do not recall it. I could not swear to it.

Mr. Belin.

Could you describe the man you saw in the window on the sixth floor?

Mr. Brennan.

To my best description, a man in his early thirties, fair complexion, slender but neat, neat slender, possibly 5-foot 10.

Mr. Belin.

About what weight?

Mr. Brennan.

Oh, at–I calculated, I think, from 160 to 170 pounds.

Mr. Belin.

A white man?

Mr. Brennan.

Yes.

Mr. Belin.

Do you remember what kind of clothes he was wearing?

Mr. Brennan.

Light colored clothes, more of a khaki color.

Mr. Belin.

Do you remember the color of his hair?

Mr. Brennan.

No.

Mr. Belin.

Now, I believe you said that after the last shot you jumped off this masonry structure on which you were sitting. Why did you jump off?

Mr. Brennan.

Well, it occurred to me that there might be more than one person, that it was a plot which could mean several people, and I knew beyond reasonable doubt that there were going to be bullets flying from every direction…….

 

…..Mr. Brennan.

I knew I had to get to someone quick to tell them where the man was. So I ran or I walked–there is a possibility I ran, because I have a habit of, when something has to be done in a hurry, I run. And there was one officer standing at the corner of the Texas Book Store on the street. It didn’t seem to me he was going in any direction. He was standing still.

Mr. Belin.

What did you do or what did you say to him?

Mr. Brennan.

I asked him to get me someone in charge, a Secret Service man or an FBI. That it appeared to me that they were searching in the wrong direction for the man that did the shooting.
And he was definitely in the building on the sixth floor.
I did not say on the sixth floor. Correction there.
I believe I identified the window as one window from the top.

Mr. Belin.

All right.

Mr. Brennan.

Because, at that time, I did not know how many story building it was.

Representative Ford.

But you did say to the policeman it was a window on the second floor from the top?

Mr. Brennan.

Right.

Mr. Belin.

And then what happened?

Mr. Brennan.

He

The Chairman.

May I ask there. By the second floor from the top, do you mean the one directly underneath the top floor?

Mr. Brennan.

Underneath the top floor, excluding the roof, yes, sir.

Mr. Belin.

And then what happened, sir?

Mr. Brennan.

He said, “just a minute.” And he had to give some orders or something on the east side of the building on Houston Street. And then he had taken me to, I believe, Mr. Sorrels, an automobile sitting in front of the Texas Book Store.

Mr. Belin.

And then what happened there?

Mr. Brennan.

I related my information and there was a few minutes of discussion, and Mr. Sorrels had taken me then across the street to the sheriff’s building…..

 

IDENTIFYING THOSE FROM THE FIFTH FLOOR AS THEY LEFT THE TSBD

 

….Mr. Brennan.

If I might add a part, that I left out a couple of minutes ago–

Mr. Belin.

Go right ahead, sir.

Mr. Brennan.

As Mr. Sorrels and some more men were discussing this, I mentioned these two colored guys.

Mr. Belin.

Yes.

Mr. Brennan.

Came out of the book store, running down the steps.

Mr. Belin.

You mean the two

Mr. Brennan.

That I had previously saw on the fifth floor.

Mr. Belin.

All right.

Mr. Brennan.

And I immediately identified these two boys to the officers and Mr. Sorrels as being on the fifth floor.

Mr. Belin.

Do you have anything else you wish to add now?

Mr. Brennan.

No; that concludes that.

Mr. McCloy.

They were running out of the building?

Mr. Brennan.

They came running down the front steps of the building on the Elm street side.

Mr. McCloy.

Did they then disappear in the crowd?

Mr. Brennan.

No; they took them in custody, I suppose, and questioned them.

Representative Ford.

The law enforcement officers stopped them, and you did what, then?

Mr. Brennan.

No. I believe Mr. Sorrels or the Secret Service man stopped them.
I am not sure, but I don’t believe an officer of the police department stopped them.

Representative Ford.

But you were standing on the steps of the Texas School Book Depository Building talking to whom?

Mr. Brennan.

Mr. Sorrels and another man, and I believe there was an officer standing there, a police officer.

Representative Ford.

And these two Negroes came out of the front door?

Mr. Brennan.

Yes, sir.

Representative Ford.

And you did what then?

Mr. Brennan.

I—

Representative Ford.

Spoke to Mr. Sorrels?

Mr. Brennan.

Spoke to Mr. Sorrels, and told him that those were the two colored boys that was on the fifth floor, or on the next floor underneath the man that fired the gun.

Representative Ford.

You positively identified them?

Mr. Brennan.

I did, at that time.

 

THE POLICEMAN: WELCOME E. BARNETT

 

Mr. Belin.

All right.
Before I go any further, do you remember the name of the officer you talked to in front of the School Book Depository Building?

Mr. Brennan.

I don’t believe I ever heard it I do not remember his name….

[Note: …..This officer was W. E. Barnett of the Dallas Police Department. In a deposition to the Warren Commission on July 23, 1964 he stated…”about that time a construction worker ran from the southwest corner of the intersection (Elm and Houston) up to me and said, “I was standing over there and saw the man in the window with the rifle.” He and I and the sergeant (Howard) all three broke and ran for the door (of the School Book Depository building). I kept the man there with me. The Sergeant ran to the back to make sure it was covered. I kept the man there until they took him across the street to the courthouse…”…..Q. How long do you think it was from the time the last shot was until the time you were at the front door…A. It was around 2½ minutes.” (Barnett may have seen the car)…..]

THE LINEUP

…..Mr. Brennan.

Well, I was just more or less introduced to him in Mr. Sorrels’ room, and they told me they were going to conduct a lineup and wanted me to view it, which I did.

Mr. Belin.

Do you remember how many people were in the lineup?

Mr. Brennan.

No; I don’t. A possibility seven more or less one.

Mr. Belin.

All right.
Did you see anyone in the lineup you recognized?

Mr. Brennan.

Yes.

Mr. Belin.

And what did you say?

Mr. Brennan.

I told Mr. Sorrels and Captain Fritz at that time that Oswald–or the man in the lineup that I identified looking more like a closest resemblance to the man in the window than anyone in the lineup.

Mr. Belin.

Were the other people in the lineup, do you remember–were they all white, or were there some Negroes in there, or what?

Mr. Brennan.

I do not remember.

Mr. Belin.

As I understand your testimony, then, you said that you told him that this particular person looked the most like the man you saw on the sixth floor of the building there.

Mr. Brennan.

Yes, sir.

Mr. Belin.

In the meantime, had you seen any pictures of Lee Harvey Oswald on television or in the newspapers?

Mr. Brennan.

Yes, on television.

Mr. Belin.

About when was that, do you believe?

Mr. Brennan.

I believe I reached home quarter to three or something of that, 15 minutes either way, and I saw his picture twice on television before I went down to the police station for the lineup.

Mr. Belin.

Now, is there anything else you told the officers at the time of the lineup?

Mr. Brennan.

Well, I told them I could not make a positive identification.

Mr. Belin.

When you told them that, did you ever later tell any officer or investigating person anything different?

Mr. Brennan.

Yes.

Mr. Belin.

When did that happen?

Mr. Brennan.

I believe some days later–I don’t recall exactly–and I believe the Secret Service man identified hisself as being Williams, I believe, from Houston. I won’t swear to that-whether his name was Williams or not.

Mr. Belin.

All right.

Mr. Brennan.

And he could have been an FBI. As far as I remember, it could have been FBI instead of Secret Service.
But I believe it was a Secret Service man from Houston.
And I–

Mr. Belin.

What did he say to you and what did you say to him?

Mr. Brennan.

Well, he asked me he said, “You said you couldn’t make a positive identification.”
He said, “Did you do that for security reasons personally, or couldn’t you?”
And I told him I could with all honesty, but I did it more or less for security reasons–my family and myself.

Mr. Belin.

What do you mean by security reasons for your family and yourself?

Mr. Brennan.

I believe at that time, and I still believe it was a Communist activity, and I felt like there hadn’t been more than one eyewitness, and if it got to be a known fact that I was an eyewitness, my family or I, either one, might not be safe.

Mr. Belin.

Well, if you wouldn’t have identified him, might he not have been released by the police?

Mr. Brennan.

Beg pardon?

Mr. Belin.

If you would not have identified that man positively, might he not have been released by the police?

Mr. Brennan.

No. That had a great contributing factor–greater contributing factor than my personal reasons was that I already knew they had the man for murder, and I knew he would not be released.

Mr. Belin.

The murder of whom?

Mr. Brennan.

Of Officer Tippit.

Mr. Belin.

Well, what happened in between to change your mind that you later decided to come forth and tell them you could identify him?

Mr. Brennan.

After Oswald was killed, I was relieved quite a bit that as far as pressure on myself of somebody not wanting me to identify anybody, there was no longer that immediate danger.

Mr. Belin.

What is the fact as to whether or not your having seen Oswald on television would have affected your identification of him one way or the other?

Mr. Brennan.

That is something I do not know.

Mr. Belin.

Mr. Brennan, could you tell us now whether you can or cannot positively identify the man you saw on the sixth floor window as the same man that you saw in the police station?

Mr. Brennan.

I could at that time I could, with all sincerity, identify him as being the same man.

Mr. Belin.

Was the man that you saw in the window firing the rifle the same man that you had seen earlier in the window, you said at least a couple of times, first stepping up and then going back?

Mr. Brennan.

Yes, sir.

Mr. Belin.

About how far were you away from that window at the time you saw him, Mr. Brennan?

Mr. Brennan.

Well, at that time, I calculated 110-foot at an angle. But closer surveillance I believe it will run close to 122 to 126 feet at an angle.

Mr. Belin.

I believe that on Friday we paced the distance between the place where you were sitting and the front door of the Texas School Book Depository Building, and it ran about–

Mr. Brennan.

93-foot……

 

FILM OF BRENNAN AT THE FRONT DOOR OF TSBD MISSING?

 

…..Mr. Belin.

All right.
Will you put a mark to “G” at the end? And I believe you said that the car that you talked to the Secret Service agent in was at point “G” approximately?

Mr. Brennan.

Right.

Mr. Belin.

Now, are these accurate or approximate locations, Mr. Brennan?

Mr. Brennan.

Well, don’t you have photographs of me talking to the Secret Service men right here?

Mr. Belin.

I don’t believe so.

Mr. Brennan.

You should have. It was on television before I got home my wife saw it.

Mr. Belin.

On television?

Mr. Brennan.

Yes.

Mr. Belin.

At this time we do not have them.
Do you remember what station they were on television?

Mr. Brennan.

No. But they had it. And I called I believe Mr. Lish who requested that he cut those films or get them cut of the FBI. I believe you might know about them. Somebody cut those films, because a number of times later the same films were shown, and that part was cut.

Mr. Belin.

Who would Mr. Lish be with?

Mr. Brennan.

The FBI.

Mr. Belin.

All right.
We thank you very much for that information.
Is there anything else that you did at point “G” or anywhere else after the time of the assassination before you went to the Sheriff’s office?

Mr. Brennan.

I walked up the steps and stood on the outside of the doorway.

Mr. Belin.

Of what building?

Mr. Brennan.

Of the Texas Book Store, while the officers or the men that I was with gave some more orders. And then Mr. Sorrels taken me across to the Sheriff’s office.

Mr. Dulles.

You did not go inside the building?

Mr. Brennan.

No; I did not.

Mr. Belin.

Did you notice any people coming out of the front stairs of the building after these two Negroes came out?

Mr. Brennan.

Well, I recall people going in and out, but a different picture I cannot remember.

Representative Ford.

Where were you standing when you identified the two Negroes?

Mr. Brennan.

On the edge of the street, outer side of the sidewalk, when the two colored boys came out of the building and came down the steps.

Mr. Belin.

Was that at point “G”?

Mr. Brennan.

Yes, sir…..

 

BRENNAN: SNIPER WINDOW BOXES MOVED

 

…..Mr. Belin.

I note in window “A” there appear to be some boxes in the window. To the best of your recollection, what is the fact as to whether or not those boxes as shown in this exhibit appear to be similar to the ones you saw on November 22?

Mr. Brennan.

No; I could see more boxes.

Mr. Belin.

In the window or behind time window?

Mr. Brennan.

Behind the window.

Mr. Belin.

I am talking in the window itself.

Mr. Brennan.

No, no. That is–I don’t remember a box in the window, these boxes I remember are stacked up behind the window, and they were zigzagged, kind of step down, and there was a space it looked like back of here.

Mr. Belin.

Now, you are pointing to a space which would be on the east side, is that right?

Mr. Brennan.

Yes.

Mr. Belin.

When you say you don’t remember

Mr. Brennan.

Well, I can see those boxes there now. I don’t know whether you can see them or not. It seems like I can see the boxes in that picture.
Am I right?

Mr. Belin.

I don’t know, sir. I can’t see them on Exhibit 471. That could be the dirty window here.

Mr. Brennan.

Here they are here. Those boxes there.

Mr. Belin.

Well, here is Exhibit 482.
First of all, I see a box on Exhibit 482, right in the window.

Mr. Brennan.

Yes; I don’t recall that box.

Mr. Belin.

Do you recall that it definitely was not there, or just you don’t recall whether it was or was not there.

Mr. Brennan.

I do not recall that being there. So, therefore, I could not say it definitely wasn’t there…….

FROM BRENNAN’S BOOK

Eyewitness to History (Texian Press, Waco, 1987, with J. Edward Cherryholmes)

http://www.kenrahn.com/jfk/history/the_deed/brennan/Brennan_book.html – Intro

 

….I looked at my watch which indicated 12:18. By now I could hear as well as sense the excitement in the air. The sidewalks were lined to capacity.

….As I sat on the wall, looking around, I had an excellent view of the whole terrain. I could see people in every direction—it was a crowd that was becoming more excited by the minute.

Directly across the street from where I sat was the Texas School Book Depository Building. By now it seemed that every window in the place was open with one or more people peering out. There was a spirit of happy anticipation and I could hear much laughter and happy conversation. People were waving from the buildings and fire escapes.

I had thought all the windows in the Texas Book Depository were occupied, but as I looked closer, those occupied seemed to be confined to the lower floors. As I worked my gaze upward, I was struck by the fact that one floor, the one next to the top, seemed to be completely empty. I didn’t think much about it as I reasoned everyone would want to get on as low a floor as possible for the best view. Then, looking at the corner of the building, I noticed one man in the window. What drew my attention to him with all of the other people in the area, I don’t know. I looked at my watch and it was about 12:22. As I watched him, he went away from the window for a few seconds and then returned. I thought perhaps he was doing a special job and had just broken away from it for a moment to see what was happening outside.

There was nothing about this young man at first glance that seemed unusual. He appeared to be about average height, maybe 5’8” to 5’10” and of average weight, tending more toward the slender side. I’m not good at guessing ages, but he seemed to be 25–35. He had on light colored clothing. The thing that caught my attention was that he was alone. Most others were sharing this magic moment with someone, but he was a solitary figure who seemed to be in his own little world. After watching him for a while, I turned to look at some of the others and noticed two black men in the window directly underneath the lone man. There were exactly the opposite. They were laughing, smiling, waving to all who could see them and “having the time of their lives.” It was a festive mood which everyone seemed to find contagious.

After looking around at the crowd for a few moments, I fastened my attention again on the curious young man who was alone on the sixth floor of the building. The most unusual thing about him, I decided, was his demeanor. It stood out in sharp contrast to that of everyone else. There were undoubtedly those in the crowd who didn’t like the President. There had been reports of anti-Kennedy feeling and speculation that some kind of demonstration might take place. But from where I was sitting and from what I could hear, it was a happy, joyous crowd, glad for an opportunity to see their President who was, even then, becoming a legend. If there was animosity in Dallas, most people were keeping it to themselves.

As I looked at the man, it struck me how unsmiling and calm he was. He didn’t seem to feel one bit of excitement. His face was almost expressionless. I couldn’t detect either happiness or hate. Again he left the window for a few seconds, but almost as quickly he resumed his position there. It was only later that I discovered, along with the nation, that he was, in all probability, checking to make certain no one was coming up to the sixth floor to interrupt what he had planned.

SUSPICIOUS CAR – 55-57 OLDS

While surveying the area, I glanced away to the side of the Depository Building and found something I could not understand. At that time there was a side entrance towards the rear of the building on Houston Street. At some point during the morning hours, the police had sealed off parking in that block and forced all cars to move. Saw horses were placed at Elm and Houston to block traffic. As I looked around I saw a lone car parked beside the Book Depository with a while male seated behind the wheel. The car was an Oldsmobile, a 1955–57 model. It is difficult to tell the exact year unless one is an expert because all those years looked nearly alike. I remember wondering why all the other cars had been made to move and this one had not.

I didn’t have the chance to study the driver carefully but he was wearing civilian clothes and appeared to be middle aged.

One thing that interested me about the car was the way it was parked. The left front wheel was pulled sharply away from the curb and the driver had the door partially open. Later I wondered if the reason for this was so the car could make a quick U-turn in a speedy departure. As I was watching the man in the car I saw a policeman who was on foot walk over towards the car and begin talking to the man in a friendly, laughing manner. So far as I could see, there was no attempt made to get the man to move his car and after chatting for a minute or so, the policeman walked back to his post. It was this fact that made me think the police should have made some report about the presence of the car, but I have never seen any other account of this “mystery car.”

As each minute passed the crowd grew more and more excited and I could feel this along with everyone else. It was a tingling sensation, a kind of mass intoxication that everyone was getting caught up in. At about 12:26 the word spread that the Presidential motorcade was approaching and it would be only a few minutes until it came into view.

The crowd was now at fever pitch and it was one of the most exciting moments in my life. If nothing else happened that day, I would still remember it always. I looked up at the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository where that quiet, strange man was hunched. He hadn’t changed his position or expression at all. He was perfectly calm and his face revealed nothing out of the ordinary. If someone had told me he was shortly about to assassinate the President, there was nothing in his behavior that would have made me suspect it.

Looking back, I know that the man was too calm, too unconcerned. If one can’t become excited at seeing the President of the United States, I wondered what it would take to move him. But the thought of assassination never entered my mind. During the several minutes I studied him, our eyes never met and he didn’t know I was watching him. I have often wondered since that time what would have happened if he had known. Would he have changed his plan? I doubt it…. He seemed not to be looking at anything in particular, rather gazing blankly into space, as if his mind were a thousand miles away. I’ve thought since that he was looking at the corner of Houston and Main from where the President would come. He seemed preoccupied. He left the window one last time for just a few seconds and then returned to his lonely vigil, At no time during all these many minutes did I see any rifle or anything that would have led me to believe that he was any kind of threat to the President.

I heard the wail of sirens from cars that were slowly approaching the corner of Main and Houston and swung around in that direction. Everyone around me was trying to do the same thing. Some moved from their positions to get a better look. From my position on the wall, I was head and shoulders above everyone else and glad that I had such a good seat. I could hear a ripple of applause beginning that would continue to swell in intensity as the motorcade drew nearer.

Two cars stopped at the corner of Main and Houston and I learned later that these were Secret Service Agents trying to secure the path of the President….

As the car came abreast of where I was sitting on the wall, Kennedy turned to wave at those on the other side of the street. The next moments have remained fresh in my mind for nearly twenty years. In one respect, the whole experience seemed to take only a few seconds. In another, it resembled slow-motion action that one sees in the movies at times. What has been recorded as taking less than ten seconds seemed like an eternity to me. I’m sure others on the scene felt the same as I. When the presidential car moved just a few feet past where I was sitting, President Kennedy looked back to our side of the street. Just at that moment the whole joy and good will of the day was shattered by the sound of a shot. It took an instant to realize that something had happened. My first instinct was to disbelieve my own ears. Nothing could have been further from my mind at that moment than that someone was trying to kill the President. My first thought was that it must have been a backfire. I’m sure many other people around me must have thought the same thing for there was no instantaneous reaction from the crowd. It was as if no one could really believe that such a thing was even possible, certainly not in Dallas.

I looked up then at the Texas Book Depository Building. What I saw made my “blood run cold.”

Poised in the corner window of the sixth floor was the same young man I had noticed several times before the motorcade arrived. There was one difference—this time he held a rifle in his hands, pointing toward the Presidential car. He steadied the rifle against the cornice and while he moved quickly, he didn’t seem to be in any kind of panic. All of this happened in the matter of a second or two. Then came the sickening sound of a second shot and I looked quickly back to the presidential car which had moved only a few feet, still not apparently aware that it was the assassin’s target.

I saw Governor John Connally reacting to being wounded and the instinctive response of his wife to try and help him. I remember thinking, “Oh my God! He’s going to kill them, he’s going to kill them all!” The immensity and horror of what I was witnessing almost overwhelmed me. I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t utter a sound. I could only watch the whole monstrous drama unfold.

Just then a woman close to me screamed in full realization of what was happening. She uttered something like, “Oh, my God!” But even as she did my eyes darted back to that solitary figure who was changing history. He was aiming again and I wanted to pray, to beg God to somehow make him miss his target. There wasn’t time to pray, not even time to think about what I was seeing but the sight became so fixed in my mind that I’ll never forget it for as long as I live. There was nothing I could do. It was a hopeless, sinking feeling. I would have gladly given my life in that moment to be able to save the President, but no one could move fast enough to shield him with his own body. Then another shot rang out.

All of this took only a few seconds. I didn’t realize at that moment that I was the only person who was actually watching the man firing the rifle. Simultaneous with the third shot, I swung my eyes back to the Presidential car which had moved on down to my left on Elm, and I saw a sight that made my whole being sink in despair. A spray of red came from around the President’s head. I knew the bullet had struck its intended target. Later, I would learn that the whole scene had taken less than ten seconds. In retrospect, it seemed like several minutes.

By the time the third shot had been fired, there was sheer pandemonium. Everyone was fully aware that the noise they were hearing was shots, not backfire. This was really happening. It was like a nightmare, only I couldn’t wake up from it. No one had to tell me what was ahead. The moment I saw the effects of the third shot, I knew that the assassin had been successful. No person could have survived that kind of wound.

Mass confusion and hysteria set in and I must admit, I was feeling it too. People were screaming. Men and women dressed in their fine suits and dresses, fell to the ground, getting them dirty, but hopefully getting out of the line of fire. At that moment, no one but me seemed to know where the shots had come from. By now uniformed policemen and plain clothes police, who I assumed were Secret Service or F.B.I. Agents came running from every direction. I jumped from the wall to try to get out of the line of fire. I never saw so many guns in my life. Most of the police were running towards the triple underpass which perhaps was a hundred feet or so ahead of the motorcade. Some were running towards an area to the right, slightly raised, which has come to be called the “Grassy Knoll.” Much speculation has been raised about whether there was another gunman there who was trying to catch the President in a cross-fire. Having witnessed the whole scene, I can say with certainty there was only one gunman present that day and all shots were fired from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. It is easy to understand why many thought the shots were coming from the area of the underpass as the buildings and open area combine to produce an “echo” effect.

Even as I hit the ground, my first instinct was to look back up to that man on the sixth floor. “Was he going to fire again?” I wondered. By now the motorcade was beginning to speed up and in only a couple of seconds the President’s car had disappeared under the triple underpass. To my amazement the man still stood there in the window! He didn’t appear to be rushed. There was no particular emotion visible on his face except for a slight smirk. It was a look of satisfaction, as if he had accomplished what he had set out to do. He seemed pleased that no one had realized where the shots were coming from. Then he did something that puzzled me. Very slowly and deliberately he set the rifle on its butt and just stayed there for a moment to savor what he had done, like a hunter who has “bagged his buck.” Then, with no sense of haste, he simply moved slowly away from the window until he disappeared from my line of vision.

I thought, “Any moment now, someone will set the police straight and they’ll charge the building to get him!” Some people were starting to get up off the ground, but as I looked around, no one was moving towards the building and I didn’t see any police available! Everyone was still trying to find out where the shots had come from.

The last thing I wanted to do was to get involved. I knew in that moment that I had to make a decision, the most important decision of my life. I didn’t have the time to think of all the possible consequences that might come to me as a result. I haven’t figured out why, of all the people who were present at the scene that day, I was the only person who saw the assassin fire, but Fate or God apparently chose me to be the witness. I was scared! I’d lived my whole life as a man who tried to mind his own business and not get involved in other’s troubles and now suddenly I was in a position where I might be called upon to play a part in one of the most momentous events in our nation’s history. As I got up from the ground, I realized I had to make a decision I would live with the rest of my life. I didn’t have time to dwell on the fact that I might be putting my life in jeopardy and possibly that of my wife as well.

I began to look for a policeman. Someone had just murdered the President of the United States before my eyes and there was no way under heaven that I was going to allow him to get away with it.

In that moment, while I was looking for police help, I heard someone say something behind me which made me angry and sick at the same time. I’ve said, before and during the time the motorcade passed I didn’t hear one adverse word directed towards the President, but just as I began to look for help, I heard a man behind me say, “I wonder if they got him!” All of my life I have tried to control a quick temper. My first instinct was to turn and go after whoever it was who had said it. I’m certain I would have taken out all of the frustration I was feeling at that moment on that individual. I didn’t even take time to think about how big he might be. At that moment I wanted to strike back for the loss that had come to me in the death of “My President.” But there were higher purposes to think about and I knew I couldn’t think about myself at that moment. I had to do everything I could to help catch THE ASSASSIN.

Finally, I saw a policeman standing at the Southwest corner of the SCHOOL BOOK DEPOSITORY and I ran across the street to get his attention.[1][4] There was much noise and confusion and people were trying to get out of the area. As I approached the policemen he said, “What do you want?” I said, “The man you want is in the building!” He said, “Are you sure?” I responded, “I sure am.” He grabbed my arm and we both ran to the front of the School Book Depository.

THE SUSPICIOUS CAR GONE

I glanced back towards the street to the side of the building. The car I had seen PARKED there before the motorcade passed WAS GONE. Although only a few moments had elapsed and all exits were blocked except one, the car had disappeared. The policeman who had been talking to the driver was gone, but I assumed he was looking for the gunman….

Many times since, especially in recent years, I have thought about the car parked alongside the Texas Book Depository and wondered where it came from and where it went. I have always wondered why the policeman allowed the car to be parked illegally beside the building with its wheels turned outward when other cars had been made to vacate the area. Of course, the paramount question in my mind was, “Who was the man sitting behind the wheel that day?”

As I watched the car, it never occurred to me that an assassination was about to take place and this might be the “get-away” car. Even though I could not have positively identified the man behind the wheel, I can say this for certain. The man was white, middle-aged and dressed in civilian clothes. I didn’t have an opportunity to study his face, so identification is impossible but I have always felt that somehow he was involved in the assassination.

Later, I would remember, “if that was a ‘get-away’ car, why didn’t it wait to pick up the killer?” Was it possible that he was being left on purpose? These questions and others tormented me for years after that experience and will never be fully answered. The one thing I knew for certain—there was a car there before the assassination and it disappeared before the assassin had time to get out of the building.

[Authors Note: Howard did not report the presence of the car beside the Book depository Building initially because he did not make an association. Subsequent to that time he had already made a formal statement and probably realized that to insert this new item might cast some doubt on his testimony. He thus determined not to say anything he could not verify absolutely. In retrospect, he acknowledged he probably should have reported it, but he wanted to be sure his testimony would stand since it was critical.]

While I was waiting for the policeman to return, I looked around again at the scene. The chaos and anguish of a few minutes earlier had subdued. There was no one still sitting on the ground and the noise and confusion had begun to settle. A curious, almost eerie quiet had descended over the area. Shortly after we got to the front steps of the building a plain clothes policeman came out of the door.[2][5] He asked me what I had seen and I told him. I gave him a description of the man I had seen on the sixth floor with the rifle. “He was a young man about 25 to 35 years old. He seemed to be of average height, not over six feet and he had dark hair that was beginning to recede.” He went to a police car that was parked nearby and broadcast the description I had given him. I learned later that this was the first description broadcast to all units of the Dallas Police Department and may have led Officer J. D. Tippit to stop Lee Harvey Oswald. After the broadcast, he and another officer returned to where I was standing. “Please come with me, I want you to show me where you saw the man with the rifle,” indicating I should follow them into the building. “Wait a minute,” I said, thinking of my wife and family, “I can’t go in there with you.” I was concerned that the man who moments before had shot the President was still in the building. “All right then will you stand right there until we come back?” I nodded yes and he went back into the building with two other policemen. Other officers were now returning from the “Grassy Knoll” and were surrounding the building.

As I stood there in front of the Depository I had a chance to think back over the past few minutes. It seemed impossible that only a short time ago I had been just another average American who had come to see the President pass by and now because of that I was an eyewitness to an assassination that would change the entire course of history.

TV REPORTER AND CAMERAMAN AT SCENE

Before I could reflect any longer I was confronted by a television reporter and cameraman. They wanted to interview me and find out what I knew about the shooting. I did not want to talk to him and I certainly did not want my picture broadcast. If there were more people involved than the young man I had seen then showing me on television as an eyewitness would be like hanging a target over my heart for someone to shoot at.

He kept asking “Who are you, what do you know about the shooting of the President?” I turned my back on him without answering. He continued to try to get me to talk even though I moved away from him. Finally I said “I don’t know anything.”

I learned later that my wife, Louise, had been watching television and was the reporter trying to interview me. Even though my name wasn’t given, she knew that I must have seen the assassination. My little grandson, who was less than two, pointed at the TV and said, “There’s Granddaddy!” My daughter Vicki had watched the whole scene in a beauty shop. I felt exposed to the whole world as I tried to evade that reporter and cameraman. I don’t know how long the reporter stayed with me, but it had to be several minutes: Each time he’d approach me I’d turn or move away a few steps. It is my sincere belief that Lee Harvey Oswald came out of the front door of the Depository while I was trying to avoid the TV reporter. If my attention had not been distracted I might have spotted him right there.[3][6]

In retrospect, maybe it’s just as well my attention was diverted. If Oswald and I had come face to face, and I showed recognition, he might have killed me to keep me from identifying him as he later killed Officer J. D. Tippit. Everything seemed to work in Oswald’s favor to make his escape from the Texas Book Depository possible.

About 25 minutes after the President was shot a man came out of the Depository and identified himself as Special Agent Forrest Sorrels with the Secret Service.[4][7] I gave him the same information that I had given to the other officers a few minutes before. Mr. Sorrels asked if I would accompany him to the Sheriffs office across the street and give them a written statement. “Of course, I will,” I said. “I want to see that man caught. I’ll do all I can to help you.”….

As I shut the car door and walked towards the house, I knew I had to tell Louise that I was an eyewitness to the assassination. I couldn’t just say nothing. Sooner or later she would find out. When and if the killer was caught, I would surely have to make an identification, so I decided the best thing to do was tell her the whole thing. When I opened the front door, Louise was standing there and I can never forget the look on her face. Somehow, she knew, I thought. But how?

My little grandson, Tyson, came running towards me, crying. “Granddaddy, I saw you on TV!” In a moment I knew that Louise had seen the reporter trying to interview me and realized something was wrong. “Howard, how are you involved?” she asked, looking me straight in the eyes. I hesitated for a minute trying to think what to say, finally I said, “It’s just a case of being in the right place at the wrong time. Louise, I was there. I saw him do it. I saw the man shoot President Kennedy. It was the most terrible thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” I told her the whole story, how I’d found a good seat on the wall and watched the man before the President came. About the awful moment when all hell broke loose and the shots rang out…

…As we watched TV, they showed the reporter trying to interview me again. I felt rage and fear at the same time. My privacy was being violated and there was nothing I could do about it. I wondered who was watching TV that might recognize me. I felt panic because I realized that if I was in any danger, then certainly Louise and my daughter Vicki and grandson Tyson might also be. By now, I recognized that I must be the only eyewitness, for I had heard of no one else coming forth as one….

While we were discussing this latest news, I saw something on the television that made me quake. I’m not certain of the exact time, but I believe it was about 5:30 p.m. that the first picture of Lee Harvey Oswald was flashed on the screen. I remember thinking, “It’s him! He’s the one who did it!” But I never said a word at the time, not even to Louise. Showing the picture of Oswald before any identification was made seemed very strange to me. Millions of people were seeing Oswald before I, the one person who could positively identify him, had been taken to an official lineup. I felt a sense of resistance within myself. How is this man going to get a fair trial?” I thought. “He is already guilty in the minds of everyone who is seeing him?”….

SA ROBERT C. LISH MAKES TV FILM DISAPEAR

….Pushing my way through this mob I found the office I’d been instructed to go to. Mr. Sorrels was there and another man who identified himself as Agent Robert C. Lish of the F.B.I. Lish was a short man of a medium weight and build who curiously wore his hat most of the time. I remembered talking to him earlier on the phone. I told Mr. Lish, “I’m not at all satisfied with this situation!” Lish looked a bit puzzled. What do you mean?” he said. “My picture has been on the television several times today without my permission and I know someone is going to recognize me and put two and two together. I want it taken off and I want it taken off right away!” Mr. Lish nodded and said something to another man who was in the room who immediately left. From that moment, my picture never appeared on that television channel again.

“I want to keep my identity a secret!” I told them. “We’ll do all we can to help you do that,” Lish said. “We want you to look at a lineup and see if you can find someone in it who resembles the man you saw on the sixth floor. I said, “I’ll be glad to cooperate, but I don’t think it’s fair for me to make an identification. Any one of a million people who saw him on television a while ago could make the same identification.” Lish smiled diplomatically.

I was led into a darkened room with lights at one end. When we arrived, a group of several men, perhaps as many as seven, were led in and made to stand in line with numbers over them. As soon as I saw him, I think he was number two, I knew without any doubt whatsoever that they had captured the man whom I saw fire the shot that killed President Kennedy. I felt a surge of emotion, a sense of outrage at this young man who had literally thrown the whole world into chaos. As I was looking at each of the men in the lineup I saw a face that I recognized. It was a Dallas Detective that I knew. He was perhaps the most well-known of all the Dallas Police and his picture had been in the papers many times. If he was there, that meant only one thing. My privacy had been broached. I felt sick and a little betrayed. I’d come to City Hall with the understanding that I would be dealing only with the F.B.I. and/or the Secret Service, not the Dallas Police.

DALLAS PD OFFICER ASKS LEADING QUESTION

The officer walked over to me sticking out his hand to shake. He greeted me by name and I knew if he knew who I was and what my connection with the case was, then others must know. He asked me, “Does the second man from the left look most like the man you saw?” He was talking about Oswald and I knew what he wanted me to say.

I felt even more angry and betrayed. I hadn’t agreed to make an identification to the local authorities. I knew that there were ways my identity could become known though the leaks in the police department and I didn’t want any part of it. I knew that they had Oswald on enough charges that he wasn’t going anyplace. He had been charged with resisting arrest and carrying a firearm without a permit. There was overwhelming evidence that he had killed Officer Tippit and so my identification in that moment wasn’t absolutely necessary. If they needed me later, I knew I could identify him.

I said brusquely, “He looks like the man, but I can’t say for sure!” I needed some time to think. I turned to Mr. Lish, who had detected my resentment and said, “Let’s go back to the office. We have some talking to do.” As we went, I commented that the man in the lineup wasn’t dressed the same way the man in the window had been.

“We forgot to tell you that he changed his clothes immediately after leaving the Depository, Lish said. When we reached the office I responded angrily, “You promised me anonymity. You people haven’t kept your word.” Sorrels looked genuinely puzzled. “What do you mean?” “If this Detective knows who I am and what my connection with the assassination is, then it won’t be long before everybody finds out.” Sorrels tried to be reassuring, “We’ll do everything we can to protect your identity, Mr. Brennan, but this isn’t entirely our jurisdiction.” I wasn’t sure just what he meant, and said so. “There isn’t anything we could do about it,” Sorrels explained. “The law is clear that murder, even assassination, is a state offense and must be turned over to local officials for investigation and prosecution!”

So it was out and I had to deal with it. No matter how hard they might try, it was only a matter of time before people would find out that the unidentified witness whose description had helped catch Oswald was really Howard Brennan. Suddenly, I didn’t feel very good. I felt very vulnerable, exposed to naked light, and I didn’t like it one bit. I knew I was going to be sorry that I decided to become involved.

While we were talking, Captain Fritz came in and asked me, “Can you make a positive identification of any of those we showed you in the lineup?” Having felt betrayed in my quest for anonymity, I was in no mood to hurry the process of exposure. I said, “You already have your man on enough charges to hold him for a long time. I’m not going to make a positive identification at the moment. If and when the time comes and you need it or have to let him go, we’ll deal with it then.” I wasn’t saying, “Yes, Oswald is the man,” nor was I saying, “No, he isn’t the one.”….

BRENNAN MEETS JFK’S DOUBLE

…About 9:30 we heard a knock at the door and we both went to answer it. Louise stayed a little behind me. It was Agent Lish of the F.B.I. Looking out I could see a car parked at the curb. Looking further I could make out that he wasn’t alone but had brought someone with him. “I’d like to see you if you aren’t too tired.”

“That’s perfectly O.K. I don’t think I’m going to sleep very much tonight anyway. Why don’t you come in and have a cup of coffee?” Lish came in and seemed more informal and friendly than I had remembered while at City Hall. “I thought we might get better acquainted and maybe answer some of your questions,” he said. As we started to pass pleasantries, another man stepped from the shadows on the porch where I had only seen his figure and moved into the light. Louise gave an audible gasp that all of us could hear and I felt a shock run through me. There standing in our little hallway was John F. Kennedy, alive again. At least that’s what I thought at that instant. The man standing there was the exact double of the late President in every detail. Had I not known that the President was dead, I would have staked my life that I was being visited by him. Every feature about him, his face, his hair, his build, even his clothes looked exactly like the President. It was as if a ghost had suddenly appeared. Even his voice sounded so much like Mr. Kennedy’s. My mind simply couldn’t absorb it all and Louise was struck dumb, her eyes wide open in amazement. Lish introduced the double as a fellow agent and apologized for not preparing us for this shocking experience. We all sat down at the kitchen table. Later I would learn that many American Presidents have had doubles, including President Roosevelt. All my life I had heard that there is someone, somewhere who looks exactly like you, but until that night I’d never known it for the truth. The agent told us some of his experiences doubling for the President. They were fascinating.

We emptied the coffee pot, made another pot, drank that and just kept the coffee and cookies in supply as we kept at vigil. A President was dead, a killer was being interrogated, a nation was in shock. Everything had slowed down to a crawl and on this Friday night as the hour grew later and later, it seemed unbelievable that my wife and I were sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and eating cookies with F.B.I. agents we hadn’t even known a few hours ago….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Washington Post’s Top Secret America

The Washington Post’s Top Secret America – WP TSA –

Began publishing today, Monday, July 19, 2010

The Washington Post’s Top Secret America is a special report, two years in the making, on government contractors doing Top Secret work for defense and national security branches of government.

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/network/#/overall/most-activity/

These articles in the Post were preceeded by a memo issued by the Director of National Intelligence, who advised contractors to maintain security, button down the hatches, and report all media inquiries to the Mission Support Office/Security.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=16229

Many of these contractors or their employees were involved in various aspects of the assassination of President Kennedy, especially the first one they use as an example, General Dynamics, but others are also mentioned, including Rockwell Collins and Kodak.

When Lee Harvey Oswald returned from the Soviet Union with a Russian wife and daughter, he obtained a job at Leslie Welding Co. through the efforts of Virginia Hale, whose husband, a former FBI agent, worked for General Dynamics, and whose twin sons  were observed by an FBI stakeout team breaking into the apartment of Judith Cambell (Exner), one of JFK’s mob dame mistresses.

Oswald became friendly with Max Clark, who also worked at General Dynamics, and debriefed Oswald extensively about his experiences in the Soviet Union.

Rockwell Collins, formerlly Rockwell International, had merged with Collins Radio, the company that handled radio communications for Air Force 1, the Vice President’s plane, the Cabinet Plane, all Strategic Air Force bombers, and also provided cover for the CIA’s maritime raider mother ship the Rex and the National Reconnisance Office when they constructed their new Headquarters in Virginia.

Kodak processed the Zapruder film in Dallas and developed the films taken by the U2 spy plane and CORONA spy satellites at the Hawkeye Works at Kodak’s Rochester, NY HQ, where the Zapruder film was reported to have been before it was taken to the NPIC the second time for the production of briefing boards.

Former Warren Commission historian Alfred Goldberg, on loan from the Air Force, who wrote the history of the Pentagon building and the attack on the Pentagon on 9/11, also wrote an important policy paper on the government’s use of private contractors and discussed the fact that these contractors, while engaged in government work, do not have to respond to FOIA requests for records, or even keep historical documents at all.

WP TSA

 

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control

The WP TSA article specifically makes note of the Christmas Time Square bomber who was caught by an alert citizen, and the failure of the Counter-Intelligence networks to identify the Fort Hood spree killer. They reported:

Last fall, U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly opened fire at Fort Hood, Tex., killing 13 people and wounding 30. In the days after the shootings, information emerged about Hasan’s increasingly strange behavior at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he had trained as a psychiatrist and warned commanders that they should allow Muslims to leave the Army or risk “adverse events.” He had also exchanged e-mails with a well-known radical cleric in Yemen being monitored by U.S. intelligence.

But none of this reached the one organization charged with handling counterintelligence investigations within the Army. Just 25 miles up the road from Walter Reed, the Army’s 902nd Military Intelligence Group had been doing little to search the ranks for potential threats. Instead, the 902’s commander had decided to turn the unit’s attention to assessing general terrorist affiliations in the United States, even though the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI’s 106 Joint Terrorism Task Forces were already doing this work in great depth.

In addition, the WP TSA reports that:

One military officer involved in one such program said he was ordered to sign a document prohibiting him from disclosing it to his four-star commander, with whom he worked closely every day, because the commander was not authorized to know about it. Another senior defense official recalls the day he tried to find out about a program in his budget, only to be rebuffed by a peer. “What do you mean you can’t tell me? I pay for the program,” he recalled saying in a heated exchange.

 

So who is in charge of these Top Secret programs, and are they effective?

 

And if we are going to do an analysis of these contractors today, why not go back historically to when the President was assassinated in 1963 and determine how he was killed, who was really responsible, and how can it be prevented from happening again.

 

And indeed, why can’t we get access to the records of the Collins Radio company and get the Air Force One tapes that are being withheld, and the records of Michael Paine and Arthur Young at Bell Helicopter, and Max Clark and Hale at General Dynamics, and learn what the Zapruder film was doing at the Kodak’s Hawkeye Works at Rochester?

 

If these companies were engaged in government work paid for by tax paying citizens of the United States, then those records should belong to the people of the USA who paid for them, and they should be open for everyone to see, including foreign intelligence agents, criminals and the American public who pays for them.

 

Among the operations these private contractors are engaged in are Psych Ops. 

 

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/functions/psychological-ops/

 

Psychological operations

Traditional psychological operations, including the creation and delivery of messages via leaflet, loudspeaker, radio or television; the newer “influence operations” associated with the creation of websites and the use of social media to extend U.S. influence, both overtly and covertly; and the separate clandestine and covert activities associated with influence, deception, and perception management.

55 results for Psychological operations

 http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/companies/kodak/

Kodak

Company Web site

Established

1888

Employees

10,000+

Affiliation

Publicly held

Ticker

NYSE: EK

Revenue

$1 billion to $10 billion

Top Secret Work

Number of Locations

1

Number of Government Clients

4

Types of Work (5)  

Types of Work

 

The Post has divided Top Secret work into ten categories. This company’s work for the government falls under the type(s) shown. For a detailed description of a category, type it into the search box above.

·                                 Air and satellite operations

·                                 Weapons technology

·                                 Information technology

·                                 Intelligence analysis

·                                 Technical intelligence

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/companies/rockwell-collins-inc/

 

Rockwell Collins, Inc.

Company Web site

Rockwell Collins, headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is recognized as a leader in the design, production, and support of communication and aviation electronics for customers worldwide. The company’s unique balance of commercial and government customers helps it to maintain stability in a volatile marketplace. Leveraging developments across both markets enables Rockwell Collins to reduce costs, extend product viability, and enhance the capabilities of its systems.

Black Propaganda & the JFK Assassination

 

THE PROOF IN THE PROPAGANDA – Black Prop Ops and the Assassination of JFK

 

            Actually there were two conspiracies associated with the assassination of President Kennedy – the first was the arrangement of his murder, the second concerns the cover-up and thwarting of justice. The second conspiracy continues today.

 

            The evidence in both cases is in the form of fingerprints – the fingerprints of distinct intelligence techniques at work. Evidence of the first conspiracy comes in the form of foreknowledge, individuals who had knowledge of the assassination before it occurred and expressed this knowledge to others. [See: List A]

 

            Fifth century Chinese philosopher and author of the classic manual “The Art of War” said that foreknowledge cannot be elicited by spirits or obtained by magic but rather can only be acquired from an operational network of spies. “Foreknowledge,” he said, “is the reason the enlightened prince and the wise general conquer the enemy whenever they move.”

 

            Proof of the second conspiracy stems from the fact that black propaganda operations were utilized before the assassination, and continue to operate today to maintain security and protect those responsible for the first conspiracy.

 

            That people had foreknowledge of the assassination before it occurred and black propaganda operations were conducted in concert with the murder indicates that the assassination was carried out by trained covert intelligence operatives and not by a lone, deranged nut case or the Mafia. This does not preclude however, members of organized crime or crazy people from being involved in the operation.

 

            That Fidel Castro and Cuba were behind the assassination is disinformation and the deception plan behind the black propaganda operation conducted in concert with the President’s murder. Over a dozen incidents, most if not all of which can be traced back to the same source, attempt to portray the assassination as the work of Castro or his G2. [See: List – B]

 

            Tracing the deceptive disinformation back to its source should also give us the source of the operation that resulted in what happened at Dealey Plaza.

 

            Since disinformation, propaganda and psychological warfare operations utilize explicit techniques, they can be identified, isolated and studied as to their content, intention and source, and thus provide a window into the nest of the responsible party.

 

            According to Ladislas Farago such, “Black Propaganda is a fundamental intelligence operation,…because it never identifies its real source and pretends to originate within or close to the enemy.”

 

            Paul Linebarger, a professor at the School for Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins University, also taught the black arts of propaganda and psychological warfare operations at his Washington D.C. home. Every Friday evening student spys would take round-a-bout means to unobtrusively get to his house where they learned the secret techniques of propaganda and deception.

 

            One of his students, Joseph Burkholder Smith (“Portrait of a Cold Warrior” G. Putnam/s Sons, N.Y., 1976), relates how Linebarger explained that Black Propaganda is “carefully labeled to be acts of the enemy.”

 

            Not a subject found in the curriculum of most colleges, the textbook is rare, Linebarger’s “Psychological Warfare – International Propaganda and Communications” (Arno Press, 1948, 1952, 1972, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, N.Y.) is a still used by today’s psychological warriors.

 

            According to Linebarger, “Psychological warfare, in the broad sense, consists of the application of parts of the science called psychology to the conduct of war; psychological warfare comprises the use of propaganda against the enemy, together with such military operational measures as may supplement the propaganda. Propaganda may be described in turn, as organized persuasion by non-violent means. War itself may be considered to be, among other things, a violent form of persuasion. War is waged against the minds, not the bodies of the enemy.”

 

            The term propaganda stems from the name of the department of the Vatican which had the duty of propagating the faith.

 

            Specifically defined, propaganda consists of the planned use of any form of public or mass produced communication designed to affect the minds and emotions of a given group for a specific public purpose, whether military, economic or political. Military propaganda consists of the planned use of any form of communications designed to affect the minds and emotions of a given enemy, neutral or friendly foreign group for a specific strategic or tactical purpose.

 

            Note that if the communication is not planned, it cannot be called propaganda, and that if does not originate from an intelligence agency or service, it is not disinformation.

 

            Linebarger developed the STASM formula for spot analysis, in which propaganda can be distinguished by the consideration of five elements – 1) Source, 2) Time, 3) Audience, 4) Subject, 5) Mission. According to Linebarger, this formula works best in the treatment of monitored materials of which the source is known. First point to note is the character of the source – the true source (who really got it out?), the ostensible source (whose name is signed to it?); also the first use source (who used it the first time?) and the second source (who claims merely to be using it as a quotation?).

 

            It is soon evident that the mere attribution of source is a job of high magnitude. A systematic breakdown of the STASM formula produces the following analysis outline: applicable to any single propaganda item, civil or military, in war or peace, spoken, visual or printed. There are five kinds of propaganda: Defense – maintains an accepted form of social action; Offensive – interrupts social action not desired; Conversionary – change allegiance; Divisive – split apart enemy compoents; Consolidation – insure compliance of occupied civilians; Counterpropaganda – refutes.

 

            Security is designed to deep useful information from reaching the enemy, while propaganda operations are designed to get information to him.

 

            According to Smith, “Linebarger’s two leading operational heroes whose activities formed the basis for lessons he wished us to learn and whose examples he thought we should follow were Lt. Col. Edward G. Lansdale and E. Howard Hunt,” who had what Linebarger called “black minds.”

 

            Besides his own textbook, Linebarger used another book in his classes, “The Big Con” by David W. Maurer (Pocket Books, N.Y., 1949), which is the story used as the basis for the screenplay of the movie “The Sting.” Maurer, a Kentucky linguistics professor, began to study the unique slang of confidence men, but developed that interest into a unique analysis of the Big Con confidence games that proliferated during the early part of the last century.

 

            That book, “gives ideas on how to recruit agents, how to handle them and how to get rid of them peacefully when they’re no use to you any longer.” As Linebarger concluded, “Believe me, that last one is the toughest job of all,” as David A. Phillips learned with Antonio Vechina.

 

            “The big time confidence games are in reality, only carefully rehearsed plays in which every member of the cast EXCEPT THE MARK knows his part perfectly,” wrote Maurer.

 

            “Propaganda is directed to the subtle niceties of thought by which people maintain their personal orientation in an unstable interpersonal world,” wrote Linebarger. “Propaganda must use the language of the mother, the schoolteacher, the lover, the bully, the policeman, the actor, the ecclesiastic, the buddy, the newspaperman, all of them in turn. And propaganda analysis, in weighing and evaluating propaganda, must be even more discriminating whether the propaganda is apt to hit its mark or not.”

Black Propaganda Operations affiliated with the Assassination of JFK:

 

1)      A leaflet was distributed to the Florida Cuban community in November, 1963 that warned of an “Act of God” that would put a “Texan in the White House.”

 

2)      Lee Harvey Oswald’s Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities in New Orleans in the summer of 1963.

 

3)      Oswald’s visit to the Cuban and Russian embassies in Mexico City in Sept., 1963.

 

4)      The photographs of Oswald brandishing a rifle and pistol and copies of two leftest but contradictory magazines in his back yard.

 

5)      The last two issues President Kennedy dealt with before leaving the White House for Texas concerned his backchannel negotiations with Fidel Castro at the UN and the discovery of a cache of weapons in Venezuela that appeared to have come from Cuba. The weapons story was later discovered to be over a year old and planted by the CIA to falsely implicate Cuba.

 

6)      Julio Fernandez, one of three anti-Castro Cubans whose boat was financially supported by Clair Booth Luce, called Luce, wife of the publisher of Time-Life on the evening of the assassination to report information on Oswald’s activities in New Orleans.  Fernandez, a former Cuban publisher, was married to an attorney who worked for Catholic Welfare Services in Miami.

 

7)      In Miami, shortly after the assassination, Dr. Jose Ignorzio, the chief of clinical psychology for the Catholic Welfare Services, contacted the White House to inform the new administration that Oswald had met directly with Cuban ambassador Armas in Mexico.

 

8)      In Mexico City, David Atlee Philips of the CIA debriefed a Nicaraguan intelligence officer, code named “D,” who claimed to have seen Oswald take money from a Cuban at the Cuban embassy.

 

9)       In New Zealand, U.S.A.F. Col. Fletcher Prouty read complete biographies of Oswald in the local papers hours after the assassination, indicating to him that a bio of Oswald was pre-prepared.

 

10)  Brothers Jerry and James Buchanan, CIA propaganda assets, began promoting the Castro-did-it theme immediately. According to Donald Freed and Jeff Cohen (in Liberation Magazine), the source of the Buchanan’s tales was the leader of the CIA supported International Anti-Communist Brigade (IAB). “Back in Miami,” they wrote, “a high powered propaganda machine was cranking out stories that Oswald was a Cuban agent…” Sturgis is quoted in the Pampara Beach Sun-Sentinel as saying that Oswald had talked with Cuban G-2 agents and fracassed with IAB members in Miami in 1962.

 

11)  Jack Anderson used Sturgis and mobster John Rosselli to keep the Castro plot propaganda story going well into the 1970s.

 

12)   The same “propaganda machine” was still pumping out the same lines in 1976 when Gaeton Fonzi interviewed Sturgis, who said that he had recently ran into a friend who worked for the “company” who reminded him of an incident he had completely forgotten about. Sturgis suddenly recalled, “that he had heard about a meeting in Havana about two months before the Kennedy assassination. At the meeting there were a number of high-ranking men, including Castro, hs brother Raul, Ramiro Valdez, the chief of Cuban intelligence, Che Guevara and his secretary Tanya, another Cuban officer, an American known as ‘El Mexicano,’ and,…oh, yea; Jack Ruby. And the meeting dealt with plotting the assassination of President Kennedy.”

 

13)   Seith Kantor, a Scripps-Howard News Service Reporter in Dallas during the assassination, couldn’t understand why his telephone call records from Parkland Hospital were being withheld because “disclosure would reveal confidential source of information.” When Kantor checked his own records he discovered his editor had told him to call another reporter in Florida or some deep background on Oswald. The reporter in Florida had everything on Oswald, FPFCC, Russian defection, New Orleans radio debate, etc., but instead of using it himself, fed it to Kantor. The reporter was Hal “the Spook” Hendrix, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Cuban Missile Crisis and earned his nickname when he “reported” on the Dominican Republic Coup on September 24, 1963, the day before it happened. His CIA affiliations became better known when he went to work for ITT in Chile and was found guilty of withholding information from a Congressional committee concerning his role in the Chilean coup.

 

14)   While other major news organizations have been exposed as CIA media assets, such as CBS News, Life Magazine, the North American Newspaper Alliance and the Copley Newspaper chain, the Scripps-Howard News Service (SHNS) stands out not only because of the Kantor-Hendrix connection, but because of the March 12 news report out of Washington. An obvious black propaganda operation that stems from NSA intercepts (note that the NSA does not issue press releases), and continues to implicate Castro in not only the assassination of President Kennedy, but in the planning of an assassination on President Reagan. This story is remarkably similar to the one that Sturgis tells [in #12] and includes many of the same conspirators. [See: SHNS Story]. Also please note that two weeks after this obvious piece of black propaganda disinformation was published, President Reagan was shot in front of the Washington Hilton by John Hinkley.

 

Example of Black Prop Op and JFK Assassination.

Why weren’t the records of this incident released by the NSA under the JFK Act?

 

Scripps-Howard News Service – By R. H. Boyce. Thursday, March 12, 1981

 

Washington – The National Security Agency has alerted the CIA, the White House and State Department to a Latin American newspaper report saying Cuban President Fidel Castro is plotting the assassination of President Reagan, Scripps-Howard News Service has learned.

 

            The NSA, which monitors published and broadcast information around the globe, does not makes such “alert” messages available to the press. But SHNS obtained a copy, which was marked “for official use only.” It included the text of the newspaper report as well as a garbled message about the news story directed to the head of Castro’s controlled news agency, Presna Latina.

 

            Without revealing its sources, the news report, published yesterday in the Caracas, Venezuela, newspaper El Mundo, asserted the assassination plot called for the slaying to be carried out by Illich Ramirez Sancho, an international terrorists known as Carlos the Jackal. Carlos is said to have organized the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, West Germany, and has been involved in dozens of terrorists acts.

 

            U.S. officials said the NSA’s action in alerting the U.S. intelligence community “suggests that while they are not necessarily ready to believe the report of an assassination plot, nevertheless they (NSA) find it at least worthy of looking into.”

 

            The Caracas newspaper story said the assassination plan, “was discussed in a meeting of the International Trust of Crime in Cojimar, an exclusive beach club east of Havana, with the participants of Montonero and Tupamaro thugs, Illich Ramirez, Ramiro Valdez, Cuban Police Minister Carlos Rafael Rodriguez and Fidel Castro.”

 

            No identification was found of Ramiro Valdez. Montonero “thugs” are terrorists operating primarily in Argentina while Tupumaros thugs operate in Uruguay. The article said Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasir Arafat also participated in the plan.

 

            Presna Latina (Latin Press) often has been used by Castro for political ends. The Pressa Latina correspondent in Caracas, at 9:47 a.m. EST yesterday, began transmitting the El Mundo article by cable to Prensa Latina headquarters in Havana. NSA monitored it. At the close of the text, Prensa Latina Caracas began adding what appears to be commentary on the El Mundo report. It reads:

 

            “Everything seems to indicate that Fidel Castro is planning the assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan in the same way that he previously ordered the assassination of John F. Kennedy and whose participation the high-ranking U.S. government circles hid…”

 

            There the Prensa Latina cable transmission stopped. Had it been ordered broken off by the Venezuela government, say U.S. officials, NSA would have added the words: “transmission interrupted,” to show Venezuela’s action. There was no such NSA notation. Officials provided no explanation of why the transmission ended in mid-sentence.

 

 

Public Opinion Polls – JFK By the Numbers

Public Opinion Polls – JFK Assassination by the Numbers  

The General Consensus – If it was an election it would be a landslide 

http://www.gallup.com/poll/9751/americans-kennedy-assassination-conspiracy.aspx 

Wednesday, July 14, 2010 Updated 04:45 PM EST  

November 2003  

Americans: Kennedy Assassination a Conspiracy

No consensus about who was involved

by Lydia Saad

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE 
PRINCETON, NJ — Americans are skeptical of the official conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he assassinated President John F. Kennedy 40 years ago, but there is no consensus about which conspiracy theory to believe.
Three-quarters of Americans recently told Gallup that they think more than one man was involved in Kennedy’s assassination. Only 19% of Americans tink it was the work of one individual. When asked who else might have been bnd the assassiation, no more than 37% of the public believes any single entity or individual was involved
The most commonly believed theory is tha the Mafia was involved (37%), followed closely by speculation that the CIA was involve). Only 18% of Americans think that Kennedy’s vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson, was involved — a theory advanced in a History Channel film on Monday, and sharply rebuked by former Johnson aides as a “smear.” Even fewer, 15% each, think the Cubans or the Soviet Union were involved. 
Overall, 63% of Americans believe at least one of the five theories tested, while 37% do not believe any of them. 
A Popular Figure  
Kennedy is well regarded by Americans today. The public is equally likely to mention Kennedy as Abraham Lincoln (17% each) when asked to name the greatest U.S. president. In fact, Kennedy has ranked first or second on this question in the five times Gallup has asked it since 1999. Kennedy exceeds all of the recent U.S. presidents on this measure today, although with 13%, Ronald Reagan comes close, ranking third. Nine percent mention Bill Clinton; George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter each receive 3%. 
Who do you regard as the greatest United States President? 

	Nov 10-12, 2003
	%
John Kennedy	17
Abraham Lincoln	17
Ronald Reagan	13
Franklin Roosevelt	11
Bill Clinton	9
George Washington	7
George W. Bush	3
Harry Truman	3
Thomas Jefferson	3
Theodore Roosevelt	3
Jimmy Carter	3
Dwight Eisenhower	2
George Bush (the elder)	2
Richard Nixon	1
Other	2
None	*
No opinion	4

 Moreover, more than four in five Americans consider Kennedy to have been either a “great” (43%) or a “good” (42%) president; only 14% of Americans consider him to have been fair or poor. This assessment is similar to what Gallup found in 1993, and slightly improved from 20 years ago, when only 31% said history would remember him as a great president. (These positive views of Kennedy’s presidency are not merely historical revisionism on the part of the public. While in office, Kennedy was also very highly rated by the public; in fact, he had the highest average job approval rating (70%) of any president in Gallup‘s history.) 

How do you think John F. Kennedy will go down in history — as a great president, a good president, a fair president, or a poor president?

JFK’s Rendezvous With Death

On a Prayer and a Poem – A Storm Coming & Rendezvous With Death  

By William Kelly (Billkelly3@gmail.com)

James Douglas, in a speech at the Dallas Coalition On Political Assassinations (COPA) annual conference in Dallas in November 2009, discussed the concept of plausible deniability, and echoed many of the thoughts from his important and increasingly significant book JFK – Why He Died And Why It Matters (2009). (1)

Douglas mentioned two small but telling incidents about President Kennedy that reflect on his personality and convictions, one a prayer, The Storm Coming, and the other a poem, Rendezvous With Death. [For complete text of speech or to see and hear on Youtube see Note (2).]

In his talk James Douglas said: ….Late at night on the June 5, 1961, plane flight back to Washington from his Vienna meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, a weary President Kennedy wrote down on a slip of paper, as he was about to fall asleep, a favorite saying of his from Abraham Lincoln – really a prayer. Presidential secretary Evelyn Lincoln discovered the slip of paper on the floor. On it she read the words: “I know there is a God – and I see a storm coming. If he has a place for me, I believe that I am ready.”

Kennedy loved that prayer. He cited it repeatedly. More important, he made the prayer his own. In his conflicts with Khrushchev, then more profoundly with the CIA and the military, he had seen a storm coming. If God had a place for him, he believed that he was ready.

For at least a decade, JFK’s favorite poem had been Rendezvous, a celebration of death. Rendezvous was by Alan Seeger, an American poet killed in World War One. The poem was Seeger’s affirmation of his own anticipated death. [For Seeger bio see: (3)]

The refrain of Rendezvous, “I have a rendezvous with Death,” articulated John Kennedy’s deep sense of his own mortality. Kennedy had experienced a continuous rendezvous with death in anticipation of his actual death: from the deaths of his PT boat crew members, from drifting alone in the dark waters of the Pacific Ocean, from the early deaths of his brother Joe and sister Kathleen, and from the recurring near-death experiences of his almost constant illnesses.

He recited Rendezvous to his wife, Jacqueline, in 1953 on their first night home in Hyannis after their honeymoon. She memorized the poem, and recited it back to him over the years. In the fall of 1963, Jackie taught the words of the poem to their five-year-old daughter, Caroline.

I have thought many times about what then took place in the White House Rose Garden one beautiful fall day.

On the morning of October 5, 1963, President Kennedy met with his National Security Council in the Rose Garden. Caroline suddenly appeared at her father’s side. She said she wanted to tell him something. He tried to divert her attention while the meeting continued. Caroline persisted. The president smiled and turned his full attention to his daughter. He told her to go ahead. While the members of the National Security Council sat and watched, Caroline looked into her father’s eyes and said:

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air –
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath –
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows ‘twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear….
But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

After Caroline said the poem’s final word, “rendezvous,” Kennedy’s national security advisers sat in stunned silence. One of them said later the bond between father and daughter was so deep “it was as if there was ‘an inner music’ he was trying to teach her.”

JFK had heard his own acceptance of death from the lips of his daughter. While surrounded by a National Security Council that opposed his breakthrough to peace, the president once again deepened his pledge not to fail that rendezvous. If God had a place for him, he believed that he was ready.

So how can the why of his murder give us hope?….

The official public record, the White House Diary for October 5, 1962 does not even reflect that that meeting took place, but it most certainly did, and the primary topic of conversation was most certainly Cuba, in particular Clare Booth Luce’s critical commentary that appeared in the issue of Life Magazine that was released that day. (4).

The gathering storm that was surely coming was clearly centered around Cuba, but the Cuban Missile Crisis, as it would become known, and take the world to the brink of nuclear destruction, had yet to acquire a name. In the days and weeks that followed however, the President’s faith and powers would be tested to the max.(5).

That same day, October 5, 1962, a chart was prepared of reconnaissance targets in Cuba for the CIA’s U2s to photograph (6.), for analysis by the National Photo Interpretation Center (NPIC) after the resumption of flights, as discussed that same day by CIA director John McCone and National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy. (7.)

After the Bay of Pigs, which brought fiasco into the popular vernacular, the Cuban Missile Crisis was the second major crisis of the Kennedy administration, and a critical buildup to the June 10, 1963 “Peace Speech” at American University, when Kennedy laid out his plans for a peaceful future for all man, but one that was not to be allowed to happen. 

Kennedy met his fate on Friday, November 22, 1963 at 12:30 pm, just after high noon on a Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas street, gunned down by lone sniper, later identified as Lee Harvey Oswald.

There is still marked today a spot on the street where the lives of President John F. Kennedy and his reputed assassin Harvey Oswald came together, intersecting at a very specific time and place, and it is only from an examination of their lives is it possible to really understand how and why Dealey Plaza happened.

Of course, if Lee Harvey Oswald was a psychotic madman, a homicidal maniac spree killer who acted without meaning or motive, none of it would make sens. There would be no connection whatsoever between the two now historic lines that were left in the wake of their lives, other than they coincidently intersected at that time and place.

Was the rendezvous at Dealey Plaza a chance, spontaneous, tragic, coincendental accident of history, or was it planned to happen in advance? Was the President killed by a Texas Yahoo nutcase, giving his death no meaning or cause, or was he the victim of a conspiracy that makes him a martyr? 

End Part I

NOTES

1) JFK & the Unspeakable – Why He Died And Why It Matters (2009) http://www.amazon.com/JFK-Unspeakable-Why-Died-Matters/dp/1570757550

Complete text of James Douglas’ Dallas COPA speech http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/sea

2)     rchq=cache:1rEwJBTfOJIJ:www.oilmpire.us/jfkunspeakable.html+Rendezvous+with+Death+JFK&cd=19&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Video of James Douglas’ Dallas COPA speech http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1rEwJBTfOJIJ:www.oilempire.us/jfkunspeakable.html+Rendezvous+with+Death+JFK&cd=19&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

3)      Alen Seeger Bio http://www.poemhunter.com/alan-seeger/biography/

 

Seeger was born in New York to parents from old New England families. Seeger’s family lived on Staten Island for ten years of his life before moving to Mexico in 1900. He lived in Mexico at an impressionable age and this had a decisive impact on his poetry

At age fourteen he returned to New York for education at the Hackley School in Tarrytown. He then went to Harvard College in 1906. He became one of the editors of Harvard Monthly and contributed verse regularly.

From 1910 to 1912 he lived aimlessly in New York before moving to Paris. He became very fond of Paris and, just after the outbreak of the World War One, he enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. He served in the trenches on the western front and enjoyed the time on sentry duty for quiet contemplation. During the Battle of the Somme he was severely wounded when advancing on the German lines. He died shortly afterwards and was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Medaille Militaire.

Allen Seeger reading his poem Rendezvous http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_MYJeme95s

4) Clare Booth Luce on the Cuban Problem Cuba and the Unfaced Truth – Our Global Double Blind. October 5, 1962, p. 53. http://books.google.com/books?id=eVUEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&dq=October+5,+1962+Clare+Booth+Luce+Life+Cuba&source=bl&ots=9ktbTUdUq8&sig=7gIbx2UpB6WTU9Ha8B4f4BeUQAY&hl=en&ei=ON82TOHnJYL48Abz-ozWAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CDwQ6AEwBg – v=onepage&q&f=false

5) Cuban Missile Crisis http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/photos.htm

6) October 5, 1962 Chart of NPIC U2 Reconnaissance Objectives in Cuba http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/6.jpg

7) Cuban Missle Crisis Memorandum of Discussion With the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) on October 5, 1962 http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/msc_cuba009.asp

Washington, October 5, 1962, 5:15 p.m.

1. McCone reviewed details of the Donovan negotiations, discussions with the President, Attorney General, Eisenhower, the decisions not to approach Congressional leadership, the discussion with Senator Javits, and the final report from Donovan. Bundy expressed general agreement.

2. At the October 4th meeting of the Special Group Mongoose(1)   was discussed in some detail as was the meeting with Carter, Lansdale, et al. in DCI’s office on that day. McCone stated there was a feeling in CIA and Defense that the “activist policy” which founded the Mongoose operation was gone and that while no specific operational activities had been (refused) the amount of “noise”from minor incidents such as the sugar, the students firing on the Havana Hotel and other matters and the extreme caution expressed by State had led to this conclusion. More importantly, however, the decisions to restrict U-2 flights had placed the United States Intelligence Community in a position where it could not report with assurance the development of offensive capabilities in Cuba. McCone stated he felt it most probable that Soviet-Castro operations would end up with an established offensive capability in Cuba including MRBMs. McCone stated he thought this a probability rather than a mere possibility. Bundy took issue stating that he felt the Soviets would not go that far, that he was satisfied that no offensive capability would be installed in Cuba because of its world-wide effects and therefore seemed relaxed over the fact that the Intelligence Community cannot produce hard information on this important subject. McCone said that Bundy’s viewpoint was reflected by many in the Intelligence Community, perhaps a majority, but he just did not agree and furthermore did not think the United States could afford to take such a risk.

3. Bundy then philosophized on Cuba stating that he felt that our policy was not clear, our objectives not determined and therefore our efforts were not productive. He discussed both the Mongoose operations and the Rostow “Track Two”.(2)   Bundy was not critical of either or of the Lansdale operations. It was obvious that he was not in sympathy with a more active role such as those discussed at 5412 on Thursday(3)   as he felt none of them would bring Castro down nor would they particularly enhance U.S. position of world leadership. Bundy seemed inclined to support the Track Two idea and also inclined (though he was not specific) to play down the more active Lansdale operation. Bundy had not talked to Lansdale but obviously had received some of the “static” that is being passed around in Washington. (Before) McCone in reporting on the discussions at Thursday’s 5412 meeting repeated the views of the President and expressed by the Attorney General it was agreed that the whole Government policy with reference to Cuba must be resolved promptly as basic to further actions on our part. In general, Bundy’s views were that we should either make a judgment that we would have to go in militarily (which seemed to him intolerable) or alternatively we would have to learn to live with Castro, and his Cuba and adjust our policies accordingly…..

Austin Cook’s Barbecue

1. XI. AUSTIN’S BARBECUE http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/jfkinfo4/jfk12/hscalojt.htm – austins
2. The FBI interviewed Austin Cook on May 15, 1964. Cook said that he had employed J.D. Tippit at his drive-in, austin’s Barbecue, at 2321 West Illinois in Dallas, for about 3 years at the time of the assassination.(107) Tippit worked on Friday and Saturday nights from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. at the barbecue as a “deterrent” to any teenage trouble from youths who frequented the establishment.(108) Cook told the FBI that he was a member of the John Birch Society, but that he had never discussed politics with Tippit and did not believe Tippit was interested in politics.(109)
3. Cook told the FBI that he never heard Tippit mention Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby or any of Jack Ruby’s clubs.(110) The FBI report of the interview with Cook did not mention whether Cook had any knowledge of or acquaintance with Ruby or Oswald.
4. The committee interviewed Cook on March 9, 1978. Cook was asked if he had known Jack Ruby. Cook replied that he may have met Ruby, but he could not recall.(111) He stated further that if he had met Ruby, that would have been the extent of their association.(112)
5. In discussing his business, Cook told the committee that he originally went into business in 1946 in a grocery store at Ninth and Jefferson Streets in Dallas.(113) Cook bought the store from a woman named Bowman.(114) Her son, Bert, stayed on at the store for about 6 months after cook bought it, and Cook and Bert Bowman remained friends for many years.(115)
6. Cook said that he and Bowman became partners in 1950 at a place they named the Bull Pen at 2321 West Illinois.(116) That business ended about 1958 when Bowman bought out his share of the establishment and took the name Bull Pen with him.(117) Cook then renamed the business Austin’s Barbecue.(118)
7. Cook stated that about 8 or 10 years ago, Ralph Paul bought the Bull Pen from Bowman, and Bowman in turn opened Pudnug’s in Arlington, Tex.(119)
8. Bert Bowman’;s wife was interviewed by FBI Special Agents Robert Lish and David Barry on November 24, 1963. She stated that she had known Ralph Paul since he first moved to Dallas from New York about 1951.(120) Mrs. Bowman said that at the time of the assassination, Ralph Paul was living in the lower level of the Bowman home on Copeland Road in Dallas.(121) Mrs. Bowman said Ralph paul was a close friend of Jack Ruby and had been of financial assistance to both Jack Ruby and Bert Bowman over the year.(122)
9. According to Mrs. Bowman, Ralph Paul expressed great concern for his friend Jack Ruby after the shooting of Oswald.(123) On November 24, 1963, Paul told Mrs. Bowman that he had spent the whole day at a lawyer’s office.(124)
10. Mrs. Bowman said she was not acquainted with any friends of Paul.(125) However, on one occasion he brought a woman to the house whom he introduced as Tammy.(126) About 4 1/2 years before, Paul had brought Jack Ruby by the house.(127) Mrs. Bowman said that Ruby remained for only a short time.(128)
11. On March 9, 1978, committee investigators interviewed Masbert Leolla Cook, the former wife of Austin Cook. Mrs. Cook related that she knew J.D. Tippit when she still worked with her husband at Austin’s Barbecue, where Tippit worked as a security guard.(129) Mrs. Cook stated further that she did not know either Lee harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby, but that Ralph Paul was a mutual friend of the Cooks and Jack Ruby.(130)

Submitted by:
MS. SURELL BRADY,
Staff Counsel.

REFERENCES

(1) The Warren Commission did, however, request that the FBI conduct a “limited” background investigation on Tippit. That check included interviews of the Tippit family, associates and business acquaintances. The FBI included the results of that check in a report in May 1964. It appeared in the Warren commission documents as Warren Commission exhibit 2985 (CE 2985).
(2) See ref. 1, CE 2985, p. 6.
(3) Id. at p. 7
(4) Staff interview of Marit Tippit Thomas, Dec. 8, 1977, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 1 (JFK Doc. No. 003988).
(5) Id. at p. 2.
(6) Id. at p. 1.
(7) Ibid.
(8) See ref. 1, CE 1974
(9) Staff interview of Murray J. Jackson, Nov. 3, 1977, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 1 (JFK Doc. No. 003090).
(10) Id. at p. 2.
(11) C.C. 1974. See ref. 8.
(12) Staff interview of Bill Anglin, Dec. 1, 1977, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 1 (JFK Doc. No. 003532).
(13) Ibid.
(14) See ref. 1, CE 2985, p. 12.
(15) Ibid.
(16) Ibid.
(17) Id. at p. 13.
(18) Ibid.
(19) Ibid.
(20) Ibid.
(21) Testimony of Calvin Bud Owens, Warren Commission Hearings. April 9, 1964, vol. VII, p. 78.
(22) See ref. 1, CE 1985, p. 9.
(23) Staff interview of Mrs. Johnnie Maxie Witherspoon, Sept. 24, 1977, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 1 (JFK Doc. No. 002372).
(24) Id. at pp. 1-2.
(25) Id. at p. 2.
(26) Ibid.
(27) Id. at p. 4.
(28) See ref. 1, CE 3001, p. 2.
(29) Ibid.
(30) Ibid.
(31) Staff memorandum to Bob Tanenbaum from Andy Purdy, Feb. 19, 1977, House Select committee on Assassinations, p. 2. (JFK Doc. No. 00837).
(32) Ibid.
(33) Ibid.
(34) Ibid.
(35) Ibid.
(36) Ibid.
(37) Ibid.
(38) Id. at pp. 2-3.
(39) Id. at p. 3.
(40) Ibid.
(41) Ibid.
(42) Ibid.
(43) Ibid.
(44) Ibid.
(45) Id. at p. 4.
(46) Ibid.
(47) Ibid.
(48) Staff interview of Wes Wise, May 11, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (JFK Doc. No. 008721).
(49) Ibid.
(50) Investigative notes received from Wes Wise (JFK Doc. No. 013919).
(51) FBI Interview of Wes Wise, Dec. 4, 1963, FBI Report by SA Charles T. Brown, file No. DL 89-43 (JFK Doc. No. 013912).
(52) FBI Interview of Milton Love, Dec. 5, 1963, FBI Report by SA Charles T. Brown, Dec. 14, 1963, file No. DL 100-10461 (JFK Doc. No. 013918
(53) FBI Report by SA Charles T. Brown. Dec. 14, 1963, file No. DL 100-10461 (JFK Doc. No. 013916).
(54) Ibid.
(55) FBI Interview of Mrs. Carl A Mather, Dec. 5, 1963, FBI Report by DA Charles T. Brown, dec. 14, 1963, file No. DL 100-10461 (JFK Doc. No. 013914).
(56) Ibid.
(57) Ibid.
(58) Ibid.
(59) FBI Interview off Wes Wise, Dec. 9, 1963, FBI Report by SA Charles T. Brown, Dec. 14, 1963, file No. DL 100-10461 (JFK Doc. No. 013915).
(60) Ibid.
(61) Ibid.
(62) Interview of T.F. White, Dec. 13, 1963, FBI Report by SA charles T. Brown, Dec. 14, 1963, file No. 100-10461 (JFK Doc. No. 013913)>
(63) Ibid.
(64) Ibid.
(65) Ibid.
(66) Ibid.
(67) Ibid.
(68) Ibid.
(69) Staff Interview of Carl Amos Mather, Mar. 20, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (JFK Doc. No. 006910).
(70) Ibid.
(71) Ibid.
(72) Id. at p. 4.
(73) Ibid.
(74) Id. at p. 2.
(75) Id. at 4.
(76) Ibid.
(77) Id. at p. 3.
(78) Ibid.
(79) Id. at p. 2.
(80) Ibid.
(81) Ibid.
(82) Id. at p. 2.
(83) Ibid.
(84) Id. at p. 3.
(85) Staff Interview of Wes Wise, Nov. 2, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations (JFK Doc. No. 013219).
(86) Ibid.
(87) Testimony of Domingo Benavides, Apr. 2, 1964, 6 Warren Report Hearings, p. 447.
(88) Ibid.
(89) Ibid.
(90) Ibid.
(91) Ibid.
(92) Ibid.
(93) Id. at p. 453.
(94) Ibid.
(95) Ibid.
(96) Ibid.
(97) Staff Interview of Jack R. Tatum, Feb. 1, 1978, House select Committee on Assassinations (JFK Doc. No. 6905).
(98) Ibid.
(99) Ibid.
(100) Ibid.
(101) Ibid.
(102) Ibid.
(103) Ibid.
(104) Ibid.
(105) Ibid.
(106) Ibid.
(107) FBI Interview of Austin Cook, May 15, 1964, Warren Commission Exhibit 2985, p. 10, 26 Warren Report Hearings, p. 488.
(108) Ibid.
(109) Ibid.
(110) Ibid.
(111) Staff Interview of Austin Cook, Mar. 9, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 2 (JFK Doc. No. 14231).
(112) Ibid.
(113) Ibid.
(114) Ibid.
(115) Ibid.
(116) Ibid.
(117) Ibid.
(118) Ibid.
(119) Ibid.
(120) FBI Interview of Mrs. Bert Bowman, Nov. 24, 1963, FBI Report by SA Robert C. Lish and David H. Barry, Nov. 15, 1963, file No. DL 44-1639 (JFK Doc. No. 004766).
(121) Ibid.
(122) Ibid.
(123) Ibid.
(124) Ibid.
(125) Id. at p. 2.
(126) Ibid.
(127) Ibid.
(128) Ibid.
(129) Staff Interview of Maevbert Leolla Cook, Mar. 9, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations, p. 1 (JFK Doc. No 006909).
(130) Id. at p. 2.