When I commenced writing I thought it would be a ramble. a walk with the object to enjoy the experience rather than getting from A to B as quickly as possible. Most of my writings are rambles. Not that I do not have a writing plan, including a list of subjects, but I remain uncertain what I am going to say until the process begins.
For this piece the list of subjects included the film Executive Action which I came across on a free film channel on Monday afternoon after a good morning when the visit to my GP produced immediate results followed by an excellent breakfast for £1.99 and later shop a shop at the supermarket produced additional bargains; I thought of saying something about the amount of time I spend each day playing games against the computer, and that my evening ended with an interesting film called the Last Glory of Troy, all on a day when it is said over 300 Members of the House of Commons out of some 650 were reported to have received letters asking them to immediately pay back a portion of expense claims from the past five years, or provide the chief investigator and his team with required information and explanation. The team will have had to examine over one million pieces of paper and check the contents to confirm that individuals had made inappropriate from unintentional mistakes all the way to calculated fraud.
I mentioned the hundreds of thousands of pieces of documentary evidence because of the quantity of material that investigators into the killing of President Kennedy in 1963 have had available to them but failed to find the truth, at times deliberately. All the expense claims now being challenged were authorised by officials employed to ensure that they had been made within the rules, rules which the House of Commons, half full with trained lawyers had themselves set. Officials cannot be trusted and Politicians even more so to establish the truth and to protect the public interest.
I had intended keeping to the writing plan after watching the 1973 film Executive Action, made in a laid back documentary style, including available footage of the execution of President Kennedy at 12.30 in Dallas Texas, 22 November 1963 and which has Robert Ryan as a billionaire Texan oil baron complete with his own luxury train unit as a chief instigator of the execution, and Burt Lancaster a disaffected Black Operations organiser for the Government, recruiting and training the three teams of killers and using his extensive contacts to fix the setting for the assassination, trying to bring on aboard a mystery elderly oil magnate figure, suggesting that the man is someone more wealthy and powerful with political and military links to facilitate in effect a coup d’etah and the subsequent cover up.
Despite all the available information secured by the Warren Commission which published some sixteen volumes of evidence and the rest of the information which in theory will become available for public scrutiny in twenty years time when the background work of the House Select Committee on Assassinations should become available, I doubt if it will ever become possible to establish who carried out the execution of the President, who were the top conspirators and who led the cover up and was responsible for the subsequent deaths of many of key figures and witnesses, and with the killing of chief suspect Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby when in police custody the most disturbing of all.
I have used the expression coup d’etah with care because there is evidence that many interests became determined to prevent John Kennedy having a second term of office and with the prospect of him being followed by his brother Bobby and then by younger brother Ted. Whether this desire, and for some an obsessive hatred became translated into the killing of the President remains an unanswered question although the 1978/9 House Special Committee went as far as saying that it was likely there had been a conspiracy and pointed the finger at the named individuals in the Mafia. I have also used the term execution as well as assassination and killing rather than murder which is usually associated to a single act by one more individuals. The idea that one man could kill a leading politician or head of state without significant assistance has always struck me as preposterous in modern times given the scale of the intelligence and military forces used to prevent such an event.
On Tuesday morning when I came to write about the film I remembered that two or three years ago I had bought an inexpensive DVD of the 1991 Oliver Stone film JFK, seen in theatre at the time and on TV but which I had not viewed since purchase and realising that both films used similar approaches and covered similar issues, the Oliver Stone film in greater detail, I decided to first watch the DVD before continuing. I then did some simple research and reading from the Internet primarily through Wikipedia and became so engrossed that another 24 hours later I am still at work and what started as a ramble has become a writing marathon.
Because of elapse of time my knowledge had become rusty and I had not kept up with some of the more recent developments including books and films although I did see the 1993 film Ruby which I only vaguely remember, in addition to JFK. I knew something of some of the conspiracy theories involving the Mafia, anti Castro Cubans and the intelligence and secret operations forces of the USA Government. I knew that the single shooter argument had been significantly discredited and had seen the Zapruder film of the shootings. I was not aware of the alleged involvement of Texan Oil businessmen and the alleged connection and involvement of Lyndon B Johnson who had been foisted on Kennedy against his will and who Kennedy planned to drop for the 1964 election.
My usual approach would be to discuss the two films and then attempt to find out how far their contents matched the available facts and then come to judgement and make any general comments about the subject in a wider perspective as well as relating the even to my own experiences, This time I felt the need to approach writing about the subject differently
It is the duty, the responsibility of all government to defend and protect the institutions of government and those who they employ in government work, and this can create problems and have unintended consequence for Representative governments with public access to information civil rights and to an open Criminal Justice system plus strong limitations on the use of executive power in peace times, than it does for dictatorships and hybrid forms of democratic government. One indicator of the extent to which a government is attempting to stick its constitutional ideals is the way it monitors its institutions and the those who work, in theory, on behalf of the people.
This duty general duty of government will include the covering up of mistakes and situations which could seriously undermine public confidence in the institutions, especially if the foundation of the state is threatened, especially if there disclosure of the use of secret operations and those commonly described as Black Ops in peace time.
I also believe that representative governments are more likely than dictatorships to make use of clandestine groups and organisations, especially international groups and organisations, including criminal organisations to undertake such operations which in turn include everything from coup d’etah in other countries, to executions, some made to appear natural deaths or accidents, to break-in’s and bugging. Other methods include discrediting either by the release of provable damaging information or by planting rumour and innuendo to framing individuals resulting in imprisonment and detaining in secured institutions concerned with mental ill health. These methods have become more sophisticated over the years with satellite surveillance, microscopic cameras, listening and tracking devices, together with a range of voluntary and paid informants. In the UK and I would expect in the USA the use of computer databases and integrated systems means that information on people, vehicles, private homes and temporary accommodations and on travel as well as telephone and computer communication can be made available within seconds to anyone, anywhere and at time with the technology.
To undertake undercover security work whether directly or indirectly a Representative government is also more likely to call on a range of individuals to assist on a voluntary or paid basis, under contracts or casually and through blackmail as well as idealism, to assist the state, whereas in the Dictatorship individuals can be recruited, trained and deployed from within the hierarchical organisations of the state and fear and blackmail are more likely to be used to supplement the work of the official forces.
Within the structure of most Representative Government there have until recently been several intelligence gathering and action organisations as well as the management of black operations, involving the three armed forces, the police and the designated government organisations such as in the UK MI 5 and 6 and probably an MI 7 named so because of the fictional character James Bond, in order to contract out Black Ops. Rivalry, competitiveness and failure to communicate between such organisations has been commons.
In addition to its own directly controlled government agencies, a wide range of individuals such as members of the Diplomatic service, the media and personalities able to travel to countries where there are restrictions such as Entertainers, writes, filmmakers, Trade Union and Local Government Officials, Members of Professional bodies and International Sports men and women are often recruited, frequently on a casual basis. Criminals and cranks are also useful because they can be discredited, restrained and got rid off more easily than others.
More recently there has been teh growth of privately organised special security organisations usually staffed by ex military, police and secret service officers. There is also the reciprocal use of the official and black ops services of friendly nations and these days international security organisations and the cooperation of the special action teams employed by the international corporations, Religious bodies because of their innate idealism and fanaticism, international political bodies and politicians, and trade unions and “voluntary” and “Independent” or “charitable” organisations including those providing aide including emergency aid are also fertile recruiting grounds for special missions. This is the way of the world.
The problem is that these systems are also open to misuse although less so under Representative governments than in Dictatorships because the media in our system has an important role as watch dogs along with Opposition Political Parties and independent interests groups.
I also understand why the Kennedy Family aroused such strong emotions in the USA. Jo Kennedy’s record suggested he was right of centre and it is factual that the help of the Mafia was accepted in the campaign where John Kennedy only obtained a 100000 more votes in total than Richard Nixon and major queries arose about the regularity of some voting. Brother Bobby as Attorney General had started his campaign against the Mafia with a dozen times more prosecutions that President Eisenhower. Moreover the Mafia had considerable links with the Anti Castro Cubans because of their involvement in gambling, drugs and vice in Havana before the revolution and they were used by the CIA to help in assassination attempts on Castro and the Bay of Pigs invasion. There were many within the CIA, among the Cuban exiles and the crime syndicates who have never forgiven Kennedy for not sending in air power and other direct military assistance to help the invasion when things started to go wrong. President Kennedy had then told the CIA that there was to be no further invasion attempts although he put pressure for action to end the regime and he was not adverse to assassination as long as the Government could not be implicated.
He had also alienated the right in USA because he appeared to be going soft against Communists and to be pro the Blacks and their demand for Civil Rights led by Martin Luther King. He was not only against escalating the USA involvement in Vietnam but asked his officials to prepare a withdrawal plan for all American Forces saying it was not a war which could be won. His successor, Vice President Lyndon B Johnson then initiated a vast increase in the deployment of forces and their weapons creating giant profits for the arms manufacturers and the industries associated with a war machine. Just how many American and Vietnamese lives would have been saved had Kennedy survived the execution will never be known.. Kennedy also negotiated the first Nuclear Testing ban treaty with Russia and the UK. The Kennedy’s were also practicing Catholics, intelligent and cultured without being so sophisticated that they were unable to communicate with voters across States, occupations and economic classes. This alienated a number of groups and interests, especially in middle America and the south. Finally there was the likelihood, not just a threat, of a dynasty with Bobby following John and Ted following Bobby and resulting in a family rule for over two decades and all three continuing to have a powerful roles in each other’s Governments.
It is also important to remember the context in which John Kennedy came to power. Throughout the Western World the role of young people in society was changing as a consequence of economic recovery from the World War, increasing employment opportunities and improved incomes, greater mobility and travel, the development of youth culture through the music industry, increasing educational opportunities and a questioning of traditional authority and its values.
The pill was also producing a sexual revolution with the traditional role and position of females questioned and challenged. This will have appeared a great threat to traditionalists of all kinds especially those on the right, and made worse as the Kennedy’s appeared not just to speak for the new generation but endorsed their values and ideals. It also should not be forgotten that this was time when the activities of Che Guevara threatened to de-stable the business relationships with central and southern America and people like me were being effective in gaining support for a unilateral approach of what many still considered was America’s Chief allay and anti Communist defender in Europe, the UK. There were therefore many ingredients brewing to create more than one plot to kill the President. What I find difficult to understand is that the family and their advisers were not all too aware of this and did not take appropriate precautions. It is fact that for the trip to Dallas where the President was known to be disliked by Democrats supporters as well as Republicans he asked for the security to be low key and the accompanying security men were positioned inside closed vehicles travelling in front and behind and therefore had little value in terms of an attack from a distance during the journey.
For the coup d’etah to work a number of steps were required. The first was effective execution. It would illogical to rely on one shooter when the opportunity was available for others and with the best situation one which enabled triangular shots, almost simultaneously. For this to take place in Dallas the motorcade had to be diverted from along the main road into an area where shooters could placed in the School Book Depository, in another high rise building and from an open grassed bank called a knoll, on top of which was fence leading to a railway line with goods carrying containers - boxcars. As was to be demonstrated it was possible to get one or two clear shots at the President from the School Book Depository when the President was travelling along the main road before the detour of a large tree, but this was a significantly better location for three shooters and for those from the other vantage points.
The films suggests that the route was changed at the request of the plotters and they had the power to do this but I have not seen the evidence that this was If the evidence is that the route was changed shortly before the visit then it would have make planning and training for the three point attack more difficult without inside information and influence, The outline of the route appeared in the Dallas media on November 16th with more precise details on the 19th. I assume the information included times.
The evidence for there being three shooters is overwhelming and that it was immediately dismissed by the authorities once Oswald had been shot and by the Warren Commission is proof of a state and federal cover up at the highest level. My considered judgement is that too little attention has been given to the cover ups and to the premature deaths of such a large number of key individual who became identified as having important roles in the unravelling of what happened.
Fifty six peopled provided statements that the shots came from the Depository or that direction and thirty people said shots were fired from the Grass Knoll. I have not tracked down how many said the shots came from the Dal Tex Building opposite the Depository and which appears confirmed by the trajectory of a bullet which hit the curb and then wounded a bystander. It significant the Warren Commission did not interviewed some of the witnesses to the shootings and to strangers in the vicinity of the shooting. A crucial piece of evidence arise from the Zapruder film and its analysis and that of the acoustic evidence and although experts disagree this evidence points to more than one shooting point.
The second area of dispute is the number of bullets recovered and the number of injuries to the President in terms of entry and exist wounds. There is general acceptance that the President was hit by at least two bullets despite attempts to prove that one bullet, known as the magic bullet could enter, exit and re-enter the body changing direction more than once! The bystander was hit by a bullet from a different direction and the State Governor by a separate one, a belief strongly held by his widow and family in Her book - From Love Field Our Final Hours. Attempts have also been made to demonstrated that it was impossible for one shooter to have fired and reloaded and aimed the rifle used from the School Depository three times within the time frame of the recorded hits, even if an expert marksman, which Oswald was not, had been able to hit a moving target from the distance and location.
The question ought to have been settled through the report of the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy but he was told to destroy his records which he did by Federal Military and Naval men who immediately took control. The brain of the president had been removed but disappeared when it was asked to be produced for the House Special Committee.
It is not surprising that immediately the President was hit the vehicles quickly moved away to the nearest hospital and that the police and security services immediately tried to identify and apprehended anyone in the area who could have been involved
A number of individual were identified with some being held in custody for up to four days, which means they were held after Oswald was killed. At the Dal Tex Building the police found an ex convict in the building and there was also a man in a leather jacket who was considered to be acting suspiciously. One man was seen leaving the Knoll by a witness who then died in questionable circumstances. The police did arrest and detain three men who they described as travelling hobo in a box car in the rail yard behind the Knoll although other witnesses said they were well dressed and clean shaven. The police explanation was that the men had spent the previous night at a hostel in Dallas where they had showered and shaved. Amazingly the Dallas authorities lost their records of these men, their fingerprints and their photos. Later records on men detailed by the police reappeared among other thousands of other documents but these could have been created later and planted.
More attention has been given to allegation that Howard Hunt used by Nixon in Watergate and involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion when local CIA Director of operations, was said to be one the men apprehended by the police and that he was reported seen in a coat and Fedora Hat crossing over the road close to the assassination spot just after it had taken place. Hunt in his official Testimony stated that he had been in Washington on the Day. The allegations about Hunt being in Dallas had appeared in a magazine and Hunt successfully won a libel suit in which Richard Helms the CIA national director of Special Operations had given evidence along with Gordon Liddy and others. However when the judgement went to appeal it was overturned and new trial then held was lost. Then after his death his son released a taped death bed “confession.”
The tape stated CIA agents Cord Meyer, Bill Harvey and David Sanchez Morales had been directly involved in the assassination and that a French gunman had shot at Kennedy from the grass knoll. He claimed that the Vice President was behind the action.
It also emerged that one of the alleged tramps found in the box car was Frank Sturgis who like Hunt had been involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion and who Hunt named in his confessions. Sturgis was identified by a witness as the gunman on the knoll, a witness who then died in questionable circumstances.
A third individual involved was said to have been a double agent working for the CIA and the Mafia with an assignment to work in Dallas and producing fake credentials. A number of witnesses separately referred to men they encountered on the day who claimed to be State Security agents and who produced credentials but these reports did not match the locations of actual agents who were deployed on the day. However the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978 rejected the identifications and involvement of people such as Hunt and Sturgis.
The belief that Hunt and Strugis could have been involved gained strength because of the involvement of the CIA and the Mafia with the anti Castro Cubans in the USA and the ill fated Bay of Pigs invasion. From those who had lost relatives all way up to and including Richard Helms Director of CIA’s Special Operations who had sponsored the attack they were angered and horrified that the President had not used air cover on the day although understandably the President and his advisers would know that to have done so would have implicated his government in the assault. They were even more hostile when he ordered the abandonment of any new plans for an invasion. This in fact did not mean that he had gone soft on Cuba and it is known that some 4000 intervals were deployed to enforce and extend the economic blockade and it is known that the President and Bobby exerted pressure for the regime to be brought to an end, but without an invasion.
This is not to imply that Helms had any role in what happened in Dallas in 1963 because after falling out with Kennedy in 1962 he went off to Vietnam to overthrow President Ngo Dinh Diem. He was brought back to Washington by Lyndon Johnson who made him Deputy Director and then Director of the CIA.. Nixon took a different view about Helms who had tried to distance his agency from Watergate with some success and was then sent off to become the Ambassador to the Shah of Iran. Helms public persona became tarnished in some eyes where he was found to have lied to the Senate to protect the still secret involvement of the USA government in the attempt to stop the socialist Salvadore Allende coming to power in Chile and the subsequent successful help to de-stable and end his administration The CIA channelled millions to fund opposition groups to the populist regime. One of the noteworthy aspects of his life his life is that Helms was responsible 150 research projects designed to explore the possibilities of Mind Control and in 1972 he ordered the destruction of most of the records so that to this day the full extent of the project remains unknown, Before he died in 2002 he was able to look back on an extraordinary life studying in Switzerland where he learnt to speak fluent French and German and then working in Germany where he interviewed Hitler during the 1936 Olympics. In 1943 he joined the OSS Secret Intelligence Branch because of his ability to speak German and at 33 he was put in charge of counter intelligence in Germany Austria and Switzerland. Later it is understood he had a role in bringing Saddam Hussein into power. The Film the Good Shepherd is loosely based on his life
That the Mafia was involved directly or indirectly in the conspiracy to execute President Kennedy became one of the stronger possibilities considered by the House Special Committee who were provided information that the CIA had worked closely with the Mafia and anti Castro Cuban exiles because of their previous relationships in developing the invasion plans.
Mafia criminals Carlos Marcello from New Orleans, Sam Giacana, Johnny Roselli, Charles Nicoletti and Santo Trafficante all confirmed that they had worked with Teamsters Union President Jimmy Hoffa and the CIA on plans to assassinate Castro.
Their thanks for these efforts was that Bobby Kennedy as Attorney General dramatically increased the number of prosecutions against the crime bosses. I have previously written about the crime boss Joseph Bonanno, the subject of a four hour two part TV drama and in the book written by his Son- Bound by Honour A Mafioso’s Story there is an explanation of the long standing ties between the Mafia and anti Castro exiles in the USA and the anger with the Kennedy’s because of the Bay of Pigs failure and Bobby’s campaign. They were also angered because of their efforts to get Kennedy elected did not appear appreciated.
It was Bonanno who identified that Jack Ruby was an associate of Sam Giacana. In 2006 the FBI revealed that mobster Carlos Marcello had confessed in detail to having organised the Kennedy assassination which was immediately given credence because previously the House Committee in 1979 had stated that they believed Marcello had been involved in a Mafia conspiracy. James Files is a man serving a 30 year prison sentence for killing a policeman and he has claimed that he worked with the CIA and Johnny Roselli and Charles Nicoletti at the behest of Sam Giacana to assassinate the President.
It amazed me at the time and half the world with me that Jack Ruby had been allowed to be in such close proximity to Oswald so that he was able to shoot and kill him. However I was not subsequently surprised when Ruby successfully appealed against his conviction and sentence and that before the new trial commenced he died, allegedly of lung cancer. Ruby had been a petty juvenile offender who became involved with the Teamsters and in 1939 he was accused of being involved in the fatal shooting of the Attorney for the Union President. He was drafted into the Air Force as a mechanic in 1943 and was honourably discharged. He returned to Chicago and in 1947 moved to Dallas. In Dallas he managed strip clubs, dance halls and night clubs bribing police officers with drink and girls and narcotics. He also made trips to Cuba, involved with gamblers and Mafia boss Santo Trafficante. Jack was also a frequenter of a restaurant in Dallas run by the Campasi brothers who were Lieutenants of Carlos Marcello. The day before the assassination Ruby went to the Campasi restaurant, and he turned to the brothers for help as soon as he was arrested for killing Oswald.
There are also those who say that in fact Ruby was a relatively nobody loser and this his alleged links with the Mafia were no more than using restaurants and managing facilities frequented by police and gangsters and a situation with is universal and does not mean that everyone participating is therefore involved with each other, let alone in conspiracies to murder.
It was thought at the time of his prosecution for murder with malice that a defence of murder without malice could have been used and with it a sentence of only 5 years. Instead his defence lawyer went for legal insanity which was rejected. He was convicted and received the death sentence. After conviction Ruby attempted to give evidence to the Warren Commission which amazingly showed no immediate interest, An Alleged Mafia hitman Frank Sheeran has gone on record of staying that in a conversation with Jimmy Hoffa of the Teamsters, Hoffa said that Ruby had been told to arrange for police officers to kill Oswald and when he failed to achieve this he had no alternative but to kill the man himself before he was taken away to prison or face execution himself for the failure.
The Warren Commission did then come to interview Ruby following representations by his sister and Ruby pressed them to take him to Washington as he feared for his life. At one point he claimed in had been infected with cancer in order to silence him and that he knew who had killed the President as part of a plot to overthrow the Government. However in his final deathbed statement he said that he alone had been responsible for the killing of Oswald which can be interpreted as a factual statement that he pulled the trigger unless he added that it was done without any pressure from anyone else whatever their motives. In 1992 a film on the life of Ruby concentrated on his publicity seeking personality, his emotional volatility, his long standing association with organised crime and the police.
In JFK attention is given to Rose Cherami a 41 year old prostitute and Drug addict who was arrested on the Highway in Louisiana on November 20, in a distressed condition claiming that there was a plot to kill the President and during the period in custody she convinced Lt Francis Fruge of her concerns and then after Ruby killed Oswald she claimed that she had worked for Ruby as a stripper and he and Oswald were close and regular homosexual friends. Fruge confirmed his knowledge to the House Select Committee. In 1965 Rose was killed in a hit and run accident
It is now time to move on to the role of Lee Harvey Oswald and, the New Orleans connection and the investigation of New Orleans District Attorney and the trial of Clay Shaw for his alleged part in the assassination plot.
Lee Harvey Oswald was born in New Orleans in 1939 and before he was 18 he had lived in 22 different homes and 12 schools. He could be aggressive and was professional assessed as having a disturbed and unstable personality and is said to have been dyslexic having difficulty to spell and write coherently!
There are two views about his alleged early belief in socialism, Marxism and communism, One is that this was all baloney and that his interest was paperback trash. Despite his background he successfully enlisted in the US Marines and in 1957 he was posted to a Japan Air base where he had direct access to highly classified information, a base from where the U2 Spy planes undertook recognisance missions over the Soviet Union. He was back in the USA where in 1959 he took a proficiency test with results which were rated poor. There are different reports as whether he had taught himself or had been taught Russian. He was by then subscribing to a Communist Paper and he had continued get into trouble with fights and a demotion. It is therefore not surprising that when he falsely requested early discharge to look after his mother this was granted, He was just 19 years of age.
He used his savings to fly to France, and then after a week in England, to fly to Helsinki where he successfully applied for a Soviet visa and travelled by train overnight to Moscow.
When his first application to remain in the USSR was refused he told the US Embassy he wished to renounce his citizenship and then told the Russians he had information useful to them. A Visa to stay was granted and in the USA his record was amended from honourable discharge to undesirable. This recorded change is significant.
Although he wanted to stay in Moscow the Russians sent him to Minsk, given a job but was also subsidised to enable a life style significantly better than his colleagues with a good flat. One version is that he kept in contact with KGB during his stay while the other is that the KGB kept him under surveillance during his 34 month there
During his stay Gary Powers was shot down from a U2 plane which had set off from the air base where Oswald had been stationed. In 1961 he met and quickly married a Russian girl, Marina aged 19 years. Their first child was born 11 months later. Before the birth he applied to return to the USA with his bride and this was agreed returning to Dallas Fort Worth area in June 1962, While this was few months before the Cuban Missile Crisis relations between the USA and Russia had deteriorated. That he was allowed home at all is to say the least odd and that he was not immediately arrested and investigated for treason is extraordinary. It is known that the CIA thought his wife was a Russian Spy although she could not speak English.
Between then and working at the Book Depository it is known that Oswald had several jobs, caused problems, joined an anti Communist émigrés group and mistreated his wife.
There now comes an incident which neither film reports and which suggests that Oswald may have been more actively involved than some believe.
An attempt was made on the life of Major General Edwin Walker, an anti communist segregationist Member of the John Birch Society who was arrested and charged with insurrection, seditious conspiracy and other charges but the local grand jury refused to indict him. Later the authorities claimed that the retrieved bullet had been shot from the same riffle and was similar to two of the bullets used in the Kennedy killing. The Warren Commission conclude that he had been the attempted assassin and the US Select Committee of Assassinations stated the evidence strongly suggested that Oswald did this shooting on April 10th 1963. However it is important to draw attention that the assassin missed and that although Oswald had trained as a marksman when a service man he had just qualified.
It is my understanding that someone using Oswald’s address and signature, although with a different name purchased the rifle and the hand gun by mail order and that the hand gun was that used to kill the policeman after the Kennedy Assassination. It is odd that having gone to trouble of buy the weapons through mail order he then visited a gun dealer and had a telescopic sight fitted giving is real name and address. There is also a report of someone claiming to be Oswald having a row with a car dealer said to be at a time when he was elsewhere. Much has been made of a series of photographs including one showing Oswald with the rifle, a photo which experts say is authentic and his wife that she took the photo. Others however claim that from the shadow on the face and ground the photo could have been an amalgam with the faced of Oswald superimposed on the body
Oswald out of work yet again returned to New Orleans and was joined by his wife where he attempted to set up a branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a communist body but was rejected because having no previous contact the organisation was suspicious of him. He then lost his job in New Orleans and attempted to join an anti Castro organisation and a few days after this he was handing out pro Castro leaflets. A fight let to Oswald being arrested for fighting with a Pro Castro activist.
What is then known is that while his wife returned to Dallas, Oswald took a bus to Mexico telling everyone he was on his way to Cuba before returning to the Soviet Union. He eventually obtained a Visa to Cuba, from the Mexico City embassy on October 18th after going back to Dallas on October 3rd and gaining a low paid job making the orders from at the School Books Depository on October 16th. At this time he lived in a rooming house during the week under a false name and spent weekends with his wife who was staying with friends while awaiting the birth of their second child born on October 20th. It is during this time that there is record of CIA agents visiting his wife because it is said they thought she was a Russian Spy.
On November 21st he got help from a friend for a ride into Irving, ostensibly to pick up curtain rods and returned carrying a long paper bag.
The film JFK makes much of the difficulty Oswald had in being a shooter let alone the only shooter of the President. During the morning Oswald worked with his supervisor on the sixth floor of the building and then coinciding with the period just before motorcade by he went down five flights of stairs to a rest area for his lunch where he was seen by another member of staff. He then claimed that he went up one floor to purchase a cold drink from a machine,
Within a couple of minutes of the shooting a patrolman had entered the building contacted the supervisor and they were making their way up the building when they met Oswald on the second floor and after the supervisor confirmed that he was an employed worker he was allowed to continue back downstairs with a note being made that he did not appear flustered or out of breadth,
Much has been subsequently made of the apparent fact that Oswald had to travel back upstairs from the rest room, collect the rifle from where it had been hidden, settle and prepare for the arrival of the motorcade and then fire one or more shots from the rifle, then hide the weapon on the side furthest away from the window and then calmly walk downstairs. This does not ring true about everything else that is known about the man. If he was the shootist did he manage more than one shot and did he hit the President causing the death? These are questions which will never be known.
What happened next does fit the Oswald personality but questions have also been raised. He was the only employee to leave the building and he is got on a bus and then a taxi to his lodgings when it is assumed he collected his hand gun
He was next seen by a patrolman in his vehicle 1.3K away. The vehicle stopped and the patrolman is thought to have called upon Oswald to stop whereupon Oswald fired four shots killing the officer. Still holding the weapon he continued to walk away as witnessed by a number of other individuals in the street. Oswald then made his way along the road stopping at the entrance to a shoe store and then entered the nearby Cinema Theatre without buying a ticket. He was followed by the store owner who had been listening to the radio and was suspicious of Oswald and he advised the Ticket Cashier who called the police. There was a violent struggle it which Oswald was reported to have attempted to use the weapon
District Attorney Garrison and his team behind the prosecution of Clay Shaw for his alleged involvement in the murder of the President attempts to show that the distance and time scale made it questionable that Oswald was able to reach where the police office was killed and then the Shoe shop and Theatre, By 2pm he was at the police station and shortly charged with both murders and then appeared before a local Justice of the Peace to be held for the murders. During the time at the Police station media reports had access to Oswald twice and he denied involvement in the killings.
Oswald was then interviewed at the police station by a large number of people during the next two days but no official record was made of the interviews.
At 11.21 on Sunday morning, handcuffed to an officer and with TV cameras allowed to be present in the basement of the police station to show the event live Oswald was shot to death by Jack Ruby the manager of various Dallas night places for male entertainment. Oswald‘s wife was taken into custody and eventually released with National Security Protection until her evidence to the Warren Commission. She then returned to Dallas where she remarried and still lives, Her story was the subject of a 1993 TV Film Fatal Deception.
The Executive Order and JFK films claim that Oswald was framed to be the only killer. investigated at length. Some are fantastical but plausible in the crazy world where the highest officers of state lie in the national, party political and personal interest and where the intelligence services use a wide range of individuals, some cranks and some posing as cranks.
One fantastical was explored by the British writer Michael Eddows who wrote books published in the USA and in the UK claiming that during his stay in the USA Oswald was replaced by a double who returned to the USA with Marina with the expressed intention of causing problems which led to the successful assassination attempt, This led to an exhumation of the body with the permission of his former wife in 1981 and although badly decomposed because of water penetration into the coffin, tests confirmed that the body was that of Oswald.
A 1966 FBI document revealed that the head of the KGB who was in New York at the time of the shooting was convinced the assassination had been organised and later a high ranking Soviet bloc defector described a conversation with Nicolae Ceausescu in which the former leader claimed that the Kremlin had killed or plotted to kill ten international leaders including Imre Nagy, the Shah of Iran, the Italian Palmiro Togliatti and President Kennedy. He provided details of the plot to kill Mao Zadong naming Lin Biao of the KGB and that everyone in his circle was convinced the KGB was involved in the assassination of Kennedy. Retired senior CIA officer Cord Meyer had stated that the CIA had learnt from a defector that the KGB had organised the assassination out of revenge for the Cuban missile crisis. The problem is that Cord himself was also named as possible conspirator in the killing of the President.
While the idea that a Soviet planted double was killed by Ruby has been exploded, the existence of a look alike gained credence when it was revealed that in a memo written before the killing J Edgar Hoover stated that an impostor appeared to be using Oswald’s personal details. This confirms that he had a relationship or was under surveillance of the FBI in addition to his admitted involvement with the CIA, This aspect was covered in a 1996 book -The Second Oswald by Professor Richard H Popkin but the allegations have been countered by the evidence on handwriting and the photograph.
In 1995 a former US Army intelligence Officer and then an assistant with the National Security Service published evidence that both the CIA and the FBI had deliberately tampered with their records about Oswald and they withheld information which could have alerted authorities that he posed a threat to the President. He subsequently named someone he thought was a key figure in the killing. Separately a former CIA officer David Atlee Phillips was said to also be Maurice Bishop who worked with an organisation of anti Castro Cubans called Alpha 66 and its founder claimed that at meetings with Phillips, Oswald was also present.
The notion that the CIA had been involved was enhanced by the findings of the House Select Committee. In concluding that there had been a conspiracy to kill the President, the Committee expressed surprise and concern that the Security Service had not provided adequate protection in Dallas, or analysed, investigated and used information in their possession which could have led to proving better security on the trip. It was usual to sweep the area before the visit and post armed agents on roof tops and other vantage tops on the look out for snipers and others behaving suspiciously Recent employees of buildings alongside the roof or buildings where the public had ease fo access would have been given special attention. The House Committee also drew attention that the President had asked that his security be discrete and in the film Executive Action this fact was reported to the conspiracy organisers in Texas as adding to the opportunity which the visit provided them to make the kill.
It is now appropriate to deal with the inquiries of New Orleans District Attorney which led to the trial of the cultured influential and alleged homosexual businessman Clay Shaw charged with conspiracy to murder the President. On November 25th a New Orleans lawyer Dean Andrews Jnr, the day after Ruby killed Oswald, contacted the FBI to say that on the day of the shooting he had been contacted by a man calling himself Clay Barnard asking if he would defend Oswald. Something about which Mr Andrews then gave evidence to the Warren Commission.
Later in the month a New Orleans private investigator, Jack Martin made claims this one of his colleagues, David Ferrie was involved in the assassination. Ferrie was reported to be working for a lawyer retained by the New Orleans Mafia boss. The matter was investigated by District Attorney Garrison but not progressed although Garrison remained concerned and read the whole of the Warren Commission publications and was struck by inconsistencies and many unanswered questions. He decided to reopen the investigation and instructed his staff to give the matter their full attention.
Earling Carothers Garrison, known as Jim, became convinced of a local conspiracy behind the killings which must have had links with the security services, the military, government and business. Some continue to believe that he attempted to connect coincidences and hindsight into a conspiracy without evidence, some thought that although he had the fundamentals of what had happened he failed in the task, while others that he was himself the victim of a cover up stretching down from the federal Government.
Garrison did not believe he had the evidence to convict Clay Shaw who he believed was Clay Barnard, a man with links to the CIA, and with Ferrie who in turn had links with Oswald and in JFK. Garrison was persuaded by an unknown high level and informed official from Washington to go to a trial before further action is stopped. This man reminds of Deep Throat, the informant in the uncovering of Watergate and the resignation of Richard Nixon who had been defeated by Kennedy. The informant tells Garrison that he is closer to the truth than he realises and that by go to trial with his assessment of the full story, it could persuade others to come forward and break the cover up conspiracy.
After starting his investigation Garrison was contacted by a serving prisoner, a male prostitute who claimed that he had heard former Catholic student Priest Ferrie discussing the proposed coup d’etah with a man he knew as Clay Barnard when attending homosexual parties at his home. He was able to described the internal contents of the home including having a meal sitting at one end of a long table with the meal served by a liveried waiter
Clay Barnard is identified as Clay Shaw but on interview Shaw denies this, denies being a homosexual and of knowing Ferris or the convict Willie O Keefe or being involved with the CIA.
Clay Shaw was discharged from the army in 1946 having served in the war with the General staff and was decorated by three nations -. the USA France and Belgium. After the war he returned to his home town and established a Trades centre for the sale of domestic and imported goods, He became an important figure in the community, known for his charitable work and for trying to preserve buildings in the French Quarter.
The centrepiece of the Shaw Trial was the testimony of Perry Russo who claimed that he and attended a party with Oswald, Ferrie and Clay Barnard who he identified in court as Clay Shaw. He said this group had discussed killing Kennedy. The problem with this testimony is a that a note of meeting between Russo and a staff member of the District Attorney indicated that while he had met Shaw twice it was not at the party. Another witness who said he had met Clay Barnard at a building owned by Shaw and who had admitted to him being the leading citizen was discredited as being paranoid.
Also at the Trial was Guy Bannister, a career member of the FBI who set up a private investigation team, He was a outspoken anti Communist, a member of the Minutemen and the John Birch Society and the Louisiana Committee on Un-American Activities, a leading figure in Anti Castro activities including the Operation Mongoose where the CIA used 4000 individuals to undermine the Cuban economy in every and anyway. Bannister was said to be running a training camp for Cuban Exiles although most of these allegation could not be proved.
Jack Martin lived in New Orleans and worked with Guy Bannister as a Private investigator and blew the whistle on Banister and David Ferrie, Martin was really Edward Suggs with a long history of coming to the attention of the police for impersonating them and disturbing the peace as well as performing illegal abortions.
Ferrie had trained to become a Catholic Priest but was dismissed after taking boys to a brothel and other misdemeanours. He subsequently became a pilot but lost his job in 1961 after being twice arrested on moral charges. He then went to work for Guy Banister who he had come to know previously because of similar political interests, He was an outspoken anti communist and also started to work with the right wing Cuban exile Sergio Arcacha Smith head of the CIA backed Cuban Revolutionary Front in New Orleans and in early 1962 his office was in the same building of his friend Guy Banister Ferrie and Smith were directly involved in a raid on ammunitions depot in Louisiana from which weapons, grenades and ammunition was taken. Ferrie took up invitations to speak to civic groups on political issues and he launched such a tirade against Kennedy that he was asked to leave the podium when addressing the Military Order of World Wars. Ferrie and Banister worked for New Orleans Mafia Boss Carols Marcello at one point in an attempt to block his extradition back to Guatemala. It is claimed Ferrie flew Marcello to the USA from Guatemala, It was said the a deal was made in which Marcello would make substantial donations to the anti Castro movement in return for concession in Havana when Castro was overthrown.
November 22 1963 was a day when Bannister was in a great mood because Marcello was acquitted in the deportation case and Kennedy had been killed. Martin who had been drinking with his boss was shocked by the openness of what Bannister was saying that the two got into an argument and Bannister pistol whipped Martins resulting in his having to taken to Hospital. Among the issues which Martin then brought to the attention of Garrison was that Ferrie had revealed to him plans to kill Kennedy and that Ferrie’s ability as a pilot was to be used in the getaway after the killing, Martin thought it was Ferrie who had taught Oswald to use a rifle with a telescopic lens Martins went on a search for photographs showing that Ferrie and Oswald had an association going back to the time when Ferrie was adult member and Oswald a youth member of the Local Civil Air Patrol group,
A photograph was located showing the two at the same eat out with others. Ferrie in turn commenced his own follow up visiting Oswald’s landlady and a former neighbour to scotch a report that Oswald had Ferrie’s Library card in his possession when arrested, Martins also made other allegations including that Ferrie had hypnotised Oswald, This is not as fanciful as it seems taking account that within five years the head of the CIA had ordered the destruction of the records of the secret 150 research projects into Mind control which the CIA had been funding.
Garrison became convinced that Bannister, Ferrie and Shaw had been actively involved in the plot to kill the President and that Oswald had been selected as the fall guy. Less than a week after the New Orleans State’s Item newspaper broke the news of the Garrison investigation in 1969, Ferrie was found dead at home. The cause of death was said to be natural but two suicide notes were also found. The day the story broke Ferrie had telephoned a Garrison aide to say that the publicity meant he was a dead man. Garrison was convinced Ferrie was murdered
Ferrie had denied knowing Oswald but six witnesses stated that Oswald had attended meetings of the Civil Air Patrol which Ferrie then headed. In 1978 a young FBI informant also claimed that Ferrie and Oswald continued to be in contact and that Sergio Smith knew Oswald,
The former Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director of the CIA said that Ferrie was connected to the CIA with involvement in Cuban activities.
Sergio Smith had moved to Texas from New Orleans before the trial and the Governor of Texas refused the request from Garrison that Smith be extradited back to New Orleans to give evidence at the trial of Clay Shaw,
As other witnesses were discredited it was not surprising that the Jury took only an hour to find Clay Shaw not guilty. Shaw maintained his lack of knowledge and contact with everyone mentioned and that he had an involvement with the CIA. In 1979 Richard Helms testified under oath that Clay had been one of the 150000 businessmen, journalists and others who had been contracted, that is paid by the CIA for their services and that Clay’s role had been to provide information on his visits abroad, mostly in Latin America.
Clay Shaw died in 1975 aged 61 from alleged natural causes with no autopsy performed. In the Final Report of the House Select Committee it was concluded that the Committee was inclined to believe that Oswald had been in the company of Ferrie, if not also Clay Shaw during the three months before the assassination and that witnesses at the trial had established an association between the three men without proving what that association was about.
I have to make the point that it would not be surprising that in the circles of the Mafia, the Cuban Exiles and Right wing fanatics who hated Kennedy there would be kudos in being thought to have played a part in the killing, just as those who the CIA used in their operations in relation to Cuba may well have overplayed their role and significance whereas those who were more directly involved in the plot or worked closely with CIA especially from ideals and patriotism would have taken steps guard against their involvement being made public or risking the position of other.
(For the record in JFK Tommy Lee Jones played Shaw, and Kevin Costner Garrison, Garry Oldman played Oswald who met Marina and her two daughters as part of preparations for his role. Kevin Bacon played Willie O Keefe teh convict. Jack Lemon Jack Martin, Sissy Spacek Garrison‘s wife and Donald Sutherland the Washington mystery man.
There have been several works concentrating on the role of Oswald including three films using the device of a trial. In 1986 London weekend Television carried out an unscripted trial over 21 hours in length using real lawyers and a real Judge).
One of less known conspiracies has been promoted by a veteran police officer Craig Roberts in his book - Kill Zone 1994 and Jim Marris in his Book Crossfire. These argued the killing had been organised by those hostile to Executive action taken by the President allegedly related to his approach towards maintaining the Federal reserves
I cannot end without making reference to the clam made by Garrison at the Trial and in the film that Texan Vice President Lyndon B Johnson was responsible or at best had prior knowledge of the plot and took no action to prevent the killing.
In addition to the claims of Howard Hunt previously reported the major allegation comes from a mistress of the Vice President who with an employee of Clint Murchison Texan Oil Magnate. She claimed that LBJ attended a dinner at the Murchison’s mansion shortly before the assassination after which LBJ is alleged to have told his mistress that the Kennedy‘s will never embarrass him again. In 2003 a book was published by Barr McClellan called Blood Money and Power. How LBJ killed JFK. The book claims that the motive was that Johnson was to be dropped as Vice President in the 1964 elections, and that he wanted to have the power to cover scandals about himself. It argues that he was assisted by his friend and attorney Edward Clark and that a smudged fingerprint found at the Depository belonged to a Johnson associate who had undertaken the shooting and that the operation had been financed by Texan oil magnates including Murchison and one name other. Claims of the leadership in the plot by Oil magnates was a key aspect of the film Executive Action. When the book was used for a TV series on the Men who Killed Kennedy shown on the History Channel the family of LBJ and his former Aides made representations and it was subsequently agreed not to show the programme again. It could be argued that the Johnson reversal of the Kennedy approach to Vietnam and his decisions on Richard Helms adds to the conspirator beliefs about his role
There is also the contrasting record on domestic matters after he gained power in his own right in 1964.It is one of the vest records of the 20th century with signing legislation which upheld civil rights, introduced Medicare and Medicaid, furthered environmental protection and promoted education as well as programmes to help the poor. He laid the foundation for fundamental changes which have brought President Obama into Office forty years later.
I would like to believe that if these is some form of self aware conscious being after physical death, the three Kennedy brothers now look onto Obama’s America with broad satisfied smiles on their faces. However I fear more those with a continuing hatred of the 20th century enlightenment and which will have deepened with the election of President Obama.
