Thursday Night at the Cabana Lounge

THURSDAY NITE AT THE CABANA LOUNGE – A Harmonic Convergence –

By William Kelly

It had all the appearances of a normal Thursday night in Dallas in 1963. A big convention was in town, the hotels were booked solid, restaurants were busy, the nightclubs were jumping and the President was due to visit the next day.

The President’s impending visit however, was almost an afterthought, and was not even mentioned in most conversations that night. Instead, it was a typical social evening, except the next day, those who socialized at the Cabana lounge that Thursday night would play peculiar roles in the unfolding drama that included the murder of the President.

When Jim Braden and Morgan Brown checked into the Cabana that Thursday morning, they told the desk clerk they would be staying until Sunday, November 24, and were assigned room #301. They would go to their rooms for a while before having a few drinks downstairs at the Bon Vivant lounge.

Ed Meyers and his companion Jean Aase moved from the Love Field Ramada to the Cabana because, Meyers later said, of the noise at the airport.

Meyers would later recall that he had previously stayed at the Cabana on other occasions he was in Dallas, including the grand opening gala, which was said to be quite an affair since Doris Day was one of the owners and the Cabana would become known for its high powered Hollywood entertainment.

Lawrence Meyers’ brother Ed was staying at the classically refined Adolphis Hotel, across the street from the seedy Carousel Club, but Ed and his wife Thelma came over to the Cabana for a special party. Ed and Thelma owned a number of Pepsi Cola franchises in Brooklyn, New York, and had just returned from Mexico City where they met with Larry’s son Ralph, who was also said to be registered at the Cabana that night. Ralph had served in the Army Security Agency, was trained in Russian and the Monterey Language Institute and served at a top-secret base in Turkey before working as a Chicago bus driver. Ralph was described as being a journalist living in Mexico City.

Larry Meyers and his girlfriend Jean, Ed Meyers and Ed’s wife and maybe Ralph, would later be joined at the Meyers’ table by Jack Ruby. They would all eat dinner, have a few drinks and share a toast and a few laughs on a typical Thursday night in Dallas. None of them were aware of the catastrophic events that would overtake them the next day. Or were they?

The circumstances of that evening would never be adequately explained, the official chronology of events, whether by contrivance or mistake, can be shown to be wrong, and significant lines of inquiry would be left dangling as loose ends that would never be completely resolved.

In reconstructing the events around the assassination of President Kennedy, the official government investigators put together a chronology of Jack Ruby’s activities, beginning with the morning of the assassination, Friday, November 22, 1963. According to the Warren Report: "Scrutiny of Ruby’s activities during the several days preceding the President’s arrival in Dallas has revealed no indication of any unusual activity."

"The Commission has attempted to reconstruct as precisely as possible the movements of Jack Ruby during the period November 21 – November 24, 1963. It has done so on the premise that, if Jack Ruby were involved in a conspiracy, his activities and associations during this period would, in some way, have reflected the conspiratorial relationship…Ruby’s activities during this 3-day period have been scrutinized for the insights they provide into whether the shooting of Oswald was grounded in any form of conspiracy."

The official chronology reads: "The evening of the President’s visit. – On Thursday, November 21, 1963, Jack Ruby was attending to his usual duties as the proprietor of two Dallas nightspots – the Carousel Club, a downtown nightclub featuring striptease dancers, and the Vegas Club, a rock & roll establishment in the Oaklawn section of Dallas…Ruby arrived at the Carousel Club at about 3 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, as was his custom, and remained long enough to chat with a friend and receive messages from Larry Crafard, a handyman and helper who lived at the Carousel…."

"Ruby’s evening activities on Thursday, November 21, were a combination of business and pleasure. At approximately 7:30 p.m., he drove Larry Crafard to the Vegas Club which Crafard was overseeing…Ruby returned to the Carousel Club and conversed for about an hour with Lawrence Meyers, a Chicago businessman. Between 9:45 and 10:45 p.m., Ruby had dinner with Ralph Paul, his close friend and financial backer. While dining Ruby spoke briefly with a Dallas Morning News employee Don Campbell, who suggested that they go to the Castaway Club, but Ruby declined."

"Thereafter, Ruby returned to the Carousel Club where he acted as master of ceremonies for his show and peacefully ejected an unruly patron. At about midnight Ruby joined Meyers at the Bon Vivant Room of the Dallas Cabana where they met Meyers’ brother and sister-in-law. Neither Ralph Paul nor Lawrence Meyers recalled that Ruby mentioned the President’s trip to Dallas. Leaving Meyers at the Cabana after a brief visit, Ruby returned to close the Carousel Club and obtained the night’s receipts. He then went to the Vegas Club which he helped Larry Crafard close for the night; and, as late as 2:30 a.m., Ruby was seen eating at a restaurant near the Vegas Club." (WR.p.334)

In 1978, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) compiled a more comprehensive account of Ruby’s activities, but it too would be defective. In a chronological listing of events for November 21, 1963, the HSCA reports:

"At about 11 a.m., Max Rubberg,…saw and talked to Ruby at the AAA Bonding Service…Between noon and 2:30 p.m., John Newman received a call from Ruby at the Dallas Morning News about ads for Ruby’s clubs. Mrs. Norman E. Lewis…saw Ruby sometime during the day in a car at the expressway and Main St. and a few minutes later at Munger and Live Oak streets….Ruby was seen at the Carousel Club by Joyce Lee McDonald,…Sam Campisi,…saw Ruby with Ralph Paul at the Egyptian Lounge..for 45 minutes, beginning about 9:45 or 10 p.m. Ruby had a steak during the evening at the Egyptian restaurant and was seen by Joe Campisi. From 10 to 11 p.m., Jean Aase, Chicago, and Lawrence Meyers saw Ruby at the Carousel Clbu and later, about midnight, saw Ruby at the Cabana Motor Hotel, Dallas. At the Cabana, Ruby was seen by Edward Meyers, Brooklyn, N.Y…"

The HSCA report then begins a more detailed narrative chronology of Ruby’s activities for the next day, when he awoke about 9:30 a.m. on that fateful Friday, November 22, 1963, but it is the events of that Thursday evening, November 21, that are more significant in developing evidence of conspiracy.

The basic official version of vents was maintained by both the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee in 1978. Ruby’s presence at the Cabana Motel that night later became significant when it was revealed that mob courier Jim Braden and his oil man associate Morgan Brown were also registered there that night, even though there is no evidence they met with Ruby or Meyers.

As far as I can determine, the official story remained unchanged and unchallenged until Beverly Oliver wrote an article in the Third-Fourth Decade Magazine, defending herself against attacks concerning her credibility. Some researchers had questioned whether she really is the "Babushka Lady" who filmed the assassination in Dealey Plaza. Seen in photos and films of the assassination, and branded the "Babushka Lady" because of her attire, she remained a mystery women until she came forward in 1970 after meeting Gary Shaw.

She subsequently told researchers and wrote in her book, that while visiting the Carousel Club one night in early October, 1963, Jack Ruby introduced her and Jada to Lee Harvey Oswald, who Ruby said, "was from the CIA."

While there is still some doubt about the "Babushka Lady," no one else has yet to come forward to make a similar claim, and her film, which she says was confiscated by FBI agent Regis Kennedy, may yet turn up. Whatever the final verdict is on these points, Beverly Oliver remains a credible witness on other aspects of the case, especially as to what happened on that Thursday night. It has been ascertained without a doubt, that in November, 1963, Beverly Oliver was a 17 year old, blonde entertainer (singer) at Abe Weinstein’s Colony Club, knew Jack Ruby and despite her age, was a frequent visitor to his Carousel Club. And apparently had a date with Ruby on the night before the assassination, the details of which come into play.

In defending herself in the "Third-Fourth Decade" article Oliver almost off handly mentions that she was at the Cabana lounge on the night before the assassination, dancing with a man she knew as Donny Allen Lance, who she later identified as Jack Lawrence. She knew "Lance-Lawrence" from the Carousel Club, which he frequented with Ruby’s roommate George Senator.

While Jack Lawrence has denied visiting the Carousel Club, or dancing with Beverly Oliver at the Cabana lounge on the night before the assassination, stirring more controversy over Oliver’s credibility, her response is: "He’s not the first married man to deny visiting the Carousel Club, there must be ten thousand men who have denied being there. I don’t know why he has to lie, because I’m not accusing him of anything."

Indeed, why does it matter if Jack Lawrence went to the Carousel Club or danced with a seventeen year old blonde at the Cabana lounge?

Lawrence was an automobile salesman for the local Lincoln-Mercury dealership, who lived at the Dallas YMCA, and was separated from his wife, who lived in West Virginia. [See: JACK LAWRENCE].

I too want to know why such an apparently innocuous item on the chronology would be a subject of contention.

According to Beverly Oliver, Jack Ruby invited her to a party at the Cabana Motel, where they met Mr. Meyers. Ruby and Meyers talked while she danced with a man she knew as "Donny Allen Lance," a Carousel patron and friend of Ruby’s roommate George Senator. After dancing she rejoined Ruby and Meyers at their table, then accompanied them to the Egyptian Lounge for dinner. They returned to the Cabana shortly before midnight.

Seems pure and simple, cut and dried, no problems there. Except for the official record. At first reflection the difference in the sequence of events does not appear to be that important, or significant, especially if the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald himself had not yet decided to kill the President. If there was no conspiracy, no-one was supposed to be cognizant of the historical events that would overtake them within the next 12 hours.

But if there was a conspiracy, there should be general circumstantial and some specific probative evidence of conspiracy even if those responsible for the crime attempted to conceal the particulars. Applying Professor Peter Dale Scott’s "negative template" methodology, which considers what is omitted from the official reports as most worthy of further inquiry, what actually occurred that night must be of supreme significance.

Even if Beverly Oliver is not the "Babushka Lady," and did not meet Lee Harvey Oswald "from the CIA" at the Carousel Club, and even if Jack Lawrence is not the Donny Allen Lance she claims to have danced with, there is evidence to support her contention that Ruby had dinner with Lawrence Meyers at the Egyptian Lounge that night. And if true, this exhibits clear, hard, probative evidence of conspiracy that can be introduced into a court of law.

It is significant that Ruby ate dinner with Lawrence Meyers, rather than Ralph Paul, as the official record reflects, because Meyers was accompanied to Dallas by one Jean Aase (aka Ann West), who received a telephone call from the New Orleans law office of G. Ray Gill, on September 24, 1963. Gill was the attorney for New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello, and Sept. 24 is the day Oswald departed New Orleans for Mexico City.

In addition, while at the Egyptian that night, Ruby and Meyers made some phone calls from the private office, where the restaurant’s owners are known to have made phone calls to Marcello [See: Dallas policeman Joe Cody ].

The Egyptian Lounge is where Ruby met Dallas Morning News advertising salesman Don Campbell, who provided Ruby with an alibi for the not only his whereabouts at the time of the assassination, but for when Ruby was at Parkland Hospital, a fact that Ruby tried to conceal.

Finally, the official record states that Ruby only stayed at the Cabana for a few minutes, around midnight, when it appears that he was there more than once that evening, staying much later than the official record reflects and for reasons that had an effect on the outcome of the weekend’s activities.

In recapping the events of that night, the FBI report [Dec. 20, 1963] places Lawrence Meyers and his companion Jean Aase with Ruby at the Carousel Club early that evening.

"[Meyers]….stated he pursued his normal business affairs [selling sporting goods equipment to department stores] ….and in the evening following dinner he went to Jack Ruby’s Carousel Club. Mr. Meyers stated that on this trip to Dallas he was accompanied by Miss Jean West who he had known casually in Chicago. He described Miss West as a ‘rather dumb, but accommodating broad.’ He further pointed out that his association with Miss West is not known to members of his family or to his business associates. When he and Miss West arrived at the Carousel Club he introduced her to….Jack Ruby, and Ruby joined them at their table…" [WCE2267].

Mary Ferrell’s chronology reads: "Between 9:45 and 10:30 Jack went tot eh Carousel Club. Between 10 and 11 Jack met with Lawrence Meyers and Jean Aase at the Carousel Club. Stripper Betty MacDonald, (aka) Joy Dale also saw Meyers and Jean Aase at the Carousel Club.

Betty MacDonald knew Meyers from the previous month – in October, when she was working at a failing Dallas State Fair show called "How Hollywood Makes Movies." [Note: Can anyone get a make on this film, there must be a record of who produced it and what it’s all about – BK]

At Ruby’s urging, Meyers gave MacDonald a $300 check for undisclosed services, which Ruby cashed (keeping a %), and when the show folded, Ruby took in MacDonald as a dancer and roustabout Larry Crafard as an all around gofer and assistant. MacDonald, who knew Jean Aase as "Ann West," went shopping with Meyers’ companion while he was otherwise occupied – with Ruby or playing golf.

When Lawrence Meyers and Jean Aase arrived at the Carousel Club that evening they found Ruby serving as the Master of Ceremonies between strip shows. Since the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA) rules prohibited stripper shows from being continuous, there were twenty minute breaks during which time Ruby spun a roulette type "big wheel" and gave away prizes. According to Mary Ferrell’s chrono, "Dallas Morning News employees Charles Miller and George Landers saw Ruby give away the prizes and watched him ask a drunk person to leave the club… Beckey Jones, the Carousel cigarette girl, saw Jack there, as did Billy Don Williams."

The FBI report notes: "Meyers advised that he and West remained at the Carousel Club for approximately one hour, returning to the motel at about 11:00 PM. Mr. Meyers stated that while at the Cabana he had invited Ruby to join him at the Cabana Motel for a drink with him and his brother, Edward Meyers, and Edward’s wife, who were attending a [Bottler’s] convention in Dallas. He said that shortly thereafter, Jack Ruby came to the motel where he was introduced to his brother and his wife. Ruby remained at the motel for only a few minutes before he left, saying he had to return to his club."

At about 9 o’clock that evening, still at the Carousel Club, Meyers said he told Ruby to "meet me at the Cabana Motel at 11 o’clock that evening."

Warren Commission Counsel Bert Griffin had the foresight to ask Meyers where he had been in the time between he left the Carousel Club and when he met Ruby again at the Cabana around midnight. Meyers responded: "I haven’t got the vaguest recollection of where I had dinner that night." (WC Vol. 15. 626).

When Beverly Oliver was asked to repeat her recollections of that night a number of times, she added a few more details each time. "There’s a lot of misconceptions about that night," Oliver said, "but all I know is that there was a big party. I’ve since learned it was a Pepsi Cola bottling party, but I didn’t know what it was when I went except that Jack was going to this party and wanted me to go with him to meet with a friend of his. We went to the Cabana…and went upstairs to the Mezzanine, where there was a party going on. Jack spoke with a couple of people but did not introduce me. He met this Mr. Meyers on the Mezzanine, they shook hands. We went back downstairs to the Bon Vivant Room, a supper club with a big dance floor, which had top name big band orchestras.

Oliver: "We sat in the Bon Vivant Room, had a drink, Donny Allen Lance and I danced a few dances, I came back to the table and Jack said he wanted to go have a steak. I asked why we didn’t just eat right there, but Jack said he wanted to treat Mr. Meyers to a real steak. So we went to Campisi’s Egyptian Lounge around 10 or 10:30. I didn’t know Mr. Meyers very well. I don’t know much about him. I was just around him for a short while. He was very neat looking, well dressed, and demanded respect. Even Jack called him ‘Mister Meyers.’ I do remember he had a brother there, but I never met the brother, and I was under the impression that he had a female companion with him, and that’s why we didn’t stay too long at Campisi’s. They went and made a phone call back in Joe’s office,…and as soon as they made that call we left and went back to the Cabana. When we got there, before midnight, they went their way and I went mine."

"All I know is what happened," Oliver asserts, "I can’t explain the official reports because I haven’t read them. I need to be shown some stuff before I get worried about what went on that night. I know that if anything fishy happened that night it happened after we went back to the Cabana and I left."

Although Oliver said she doesn’t know who Ruby and Meyers called from Campisi’s office that night, it has been established that Joe and Sam Campisi were close associates of Carlos Marcello of New Orleans. Since Joe Campisi first met Carlos Marcello on a golf course, Campisi testified that he sent Marcello 240 pounds of sausage every Christmas, and phone records reportedly indicate that Campisi called Marcello as many as six times a day.

In addition, Dallas Policeman Joe Cody told Nightline (Nov., 1994) that, "Jack (Ruby) knew the Campisis. I’ve seen them together on numerous occasions. Jack ate there at he Egyptian Lounge. He’d come in and they’d shake his hand and sit down. Sometime Joe Campisi would sit with him. If I came in, I’d sit with Joe Campisi and Jack Ruby. We knew each other well….The Campisis did know Carlos Marcello because one day I was in Joe Campisi’s office and he called Marcello on the phone, and I talked with Carlos on the phone."

In his 1978 testimony Joe Campisi confirmed that the only time Jack Ruby visited his home was to have a barbequed steak, supporting Ruby’s contention that Campisi enjoyed a reputation for fine steaks. Although Joe Campisi said he was off that Thursday night, his brother Sam told the FBI that Ruby did have dinner there, but said that Ruby’s companion was Ralph Paul, instead of Lawrence Meyers.

Meyers told the House Committee in 1978 that he recalled having dinner with Ruby sometime that weekend, but thought it was Saturday night, after the assassination, but when Ruby’s whereabouts have been established elsewhere. In addition, Meyers too, as with Carlos Marcello, said that he came to know Joe Campisi from playing golf with him and they became friendly when Meyers relocated to Dallas.

While Jack Lawrence denied visiting the Carousel Club, he did admit (to Sheldon Inkol in the Third-Fourth Decade) that he did go out drinking that Thursday night with co-workers from the Lincoln-Ford dealership, "at a piano bar on Mockingbird Lane," a few blocks from Campisi’s Egyptian Lounge.

Dallas Morning New ad man Don Campbell was also at the Egyptian Lounge that night, and asked Ruby to accompany him to another bar. According to Mary Ferrell’s records, "Campbell asked Jack to go to the Castaway Club after supper, but Jack refuses because the manager of the Castaway Club had hired Joe Johnson’s band away from Jack at the Vegas Club."

After leaving the Egyptian, "We then went back to the Cabana," recalls Oliver. "We were back at the Cabana by midnight, when my ride picked me up and took me to Fort Worth. They went their way and I went mind. I have absolutely no recall of any suspect conversation or anything fishy that night. At least if it did it was not under my earshot, or happened after I left."

The official chronology is succulently summarized by Gerald Posner ("Case Closed," Random House, 1993, p. 368): "After dinner, (Ruby) returned to the Carouse….Shortly before midnight he drove to the Bon Vivant room at the Cabana Motel, where he joined his Chicago friend Meyers, Meyers’ brother Eddie, and sister-in-law Thelma. When Ruby found out that Eddie Meyers worked for Pepsi Cola, he spent the conversation trying to interest him in his twistboard product…Ruby left the Cabana Hotel by 12:30 A.M. and returned to the Carousel to get the night’s receipts."

The Warren Report (p. 334) also refers to Ruby’s time at the Cabana as "a brief visit" while Seith Kantor (in the "Ruby Cover-Up," Zebra Books, 1978, p. 81), reports, "Ruby spent only a short time in the Bon Vivant Room with Meyers,…his movements for the next two hors are unknown. But at 2:30 (A.M.), Ruby telephoned an employee at his own club (Crafard)…and said he was STILL at the Cabana." (CD5226).

Kantor wrote: "Ralph Paul, a back-room business associate of Ruby’s, told the Warren Commission that Ruby could be very secretive about his comings and goings. Ruby didn’t want his employees to know when he slipped out of town, in order to keep them from stealing his profits, Paul said." Ruby did slip in and out of Cuba on at least three occasions, keeping two of them secret even from his friends, and he was secretly in Las Vegas fro two days the week before…Ruby kept his appearances at Parkland Hospital and at the Dallas Police station on Friday and Saturday secret. He concealed the relationships he had with a wide range of people – such as Tom Davis the gunrunner, and such as a mystery telephone voice he delt with in the days leading up to the shooting. Ruby was getting a series of phone calls at the Carousel from an unidentified man who would never leave a message when Ruby was out. Larry Crafard, the young handyman at the club, asked Ruby about these strange telephone calls but Ruby told him to mind his own business." ("Ruby Cover-Up," p. 104)

Mary Ferrell’s chronology notes that during the two hours of missing time, when Ruby was known to have been at the Cabana, "Jack got angry with the Cabana motel employees for not telling him about a telephone call. He searched the records of the Bon Vivant Room booth B26 for the name. They think it was Martin, Martins or Martel. The Secret Service checked Jack Martin and Layton Martins to see if they were the man."

It is not recorded what Ruby did after he left the Meyers’ table at the Cabana at 12:20 A.M., and began to look for "Mr. Martin," but at 2:30 A.M. he joined Larry Crafard at the Lucas B & B Restaurant, next door to the Vegas Club, which Crafard had managed and closed that night. Between 3:30 and 4 in the morning Ruby dropped off Crafard at the Carousel Club and returned to his apartment, where George Senator was already asleep.

Meanwhile, driving east in an Oldsmobile station wagon with Arizona plates and a Goldwater bumper sticker, Chauncey Holt and the three other passengers – Joe Canty, Leo "the Lips" Moceri and Charles Nicoletti were supposed to meet Cuban Homer Echavarria at the Cabana Motel that night, but had car trouble that delayed them until early the next morning.

Holt said that he helped manufacture false identifications, including some Secret Service credentials, under orders from George Twombly, a CIA affiliated California bank president and Vice President of a major bottling company, who was probably at the bottler’s convention in Dallas that weekend. Twombly, Holt said, was an associate of Donald Kendell, the attorney for Pepsi who was definitely at the convention with Richard Nixon.

Holt also said that Jim Braden’s friend Morgan Brown, who checked into the Cabana that night, had a brother, Melvin Grant Brown, an accountant for Twombly. [Note: Braden’s Washington D.C. attorney is also named Twombly].

There have also been reports that Jack Ruby’s boyhood friend from Chicago, Dave Yaras, was also registered at the Cabana that night. Yaras was, at the time, a prominent figure in the Chicago Syndicate anti-Castro Cuban nexus and a Florida Teamster officials. According to Holt, whose brother was also a Teamster official, it wasn’t a coincidence that the connected mobsters stayed at the Cabana, which was owned by actress Doris Day and her attorney, Jerry Rosenthal, whose partner, Duane Clark shared office space with Jim Braden at 8500 Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles, California.

Ed Reid (in "The Grim Reapers," Bantam, 1970, p. 230) wrote, (Jay) "Sarno, who owns fourteen hundred shares in the Desert Palace (casino)…has a real talent for knowing where the money is. He and his partner, Stanley Mallin,…put together a chain of plush motels called Cabana, stating in Atlanta, Georgia, and spreading out to Dallas, Texas, and Palo Alto, California. An interesting story behind the Cabana concerns the business merger of two fairly well-known names: Doris Day, America’s Number One screen virgin, and James Riddle Hoffa, America’s Number One purveyor of labor’s pension funds. Doris, with Cabana partners Sarno and Mallin, has benefited greatly from loaned Teamster pension greenbacks, $5 million worth."

Jim Braden, Morgan Brown, Ed and Thelma Meyers, Ralph Meyers, Lawrence Meyers, Jean Aase, Jack Lawrence, Jack Ruby, Beverly Oliver, Dave Yaras, Homer Echevaria, Mr. Martin, Phil Twombly, Don Kendell, Richard Nixon and a belated Chauncey Holt, Joe Canti, Leo Moseri and Charles Nicoletti. What a crew to have at a party.

The next morning Jack Ruby stopped by the offices of H.L. Hunt while Morgan Brown was visiting there, and then spent more than two hours at the Dallas Morning News preparing his club ads with Don Cambell, who he was with the night before at the Egyptian Lounge.

Beverly Oliver says she filmed the assassination as the "Babushka Lady," while Jim Braden was taken into custody as a suspicious person at the scene. Jack Lawrence passed through Dealey Plaza on the way to work and promptly vomited when he got there. He later called the authorities that Lee Harvey Oswald had taken a car for a spin from the dealership a few weeks earlier and was fired for doing so.

Ed Meyers went to the Pepsi convention with Kendell and possibly Twombly, while Nixon left town earlier that morning.

Jean Aase stayed in her Cabana room while Lawrence Meyers played a round of golf at an Air Force golf club north of Dallas.

Although they had registered at the Cabana until Sunday, Morgan Brown abruptly checked out of the Cabana Motel at 2:01 P.M., as Lee Harvey Oswald was being interrogated for the first time and Chauncey Holt and two other "tramps" were being escorted from the rail yard behind the Texas School Book Depository to the Dallas Sheriff’s office where Braden was also taken. After being released, Holt claimed that he caught a ride to Redbird Airport from Braden, who went on to Houston by commercial flight to catch up with his fleeting pal Morgan Brown.

Braden and Brown then went to New Orleans where they shared office space with oil geologist Vernon Main, Jr., on the 17^{th floor of the Pierre Marquette office building, where Carlos Marcello’s attorney G. Ray Gill has his offices and from where someone called Jean Aase’s Chicago apartment on Sept. 24th, 1963, the day Lee Harvey Oswald left New Orleans for Mexico City.}

Jack Ruby meanwhile, stalked, shot and killed Oswald, while Larry Crafard took five dollars out of the Carousel cash register and hitch-hiked out of town.

Lawrence Meyers and Jean Aase left Dallas without notifying authorities of their contacts with Ruby. He was never asked, during his testimony, whether he had dinner with Ruby at the Egyptian Lounge on the night before the assassination.

Lawrence Meyer’s brother Ed and his wife went back to Brooklyn to run their Pepsi Cola company, while Ralph Meyers went on to study the early Indians of Mexico.

Ralph Paul, in his answers to questions put to him by investigators, never mentions having dinner with Ruby the night before the assassination, bolstering Oliver’s contention that it was Mr. Meyers who accompanied her and Ruby to the Egyptian, rather than Paul.

Joe Campisi visited Jack Ruby in jail, where Ruby died of cancer before he could be retried.

Betty McDonald provided an alibi for the assailant of a Tippit murder witness who subsequently changed his story, but not before she was arrested and found dead, hanging in her cell.

Nicoletti is said to have been in another city at the time, but he was murdered before he could testify before the HSCA. Moceri disappeared, Canty died in a plane crash, but both Braden and Morgan Brown testified before the HSCA, testimony that was classified and locked away until the JFK Act of 1992.

Jean Aase, Jack Lawrence and Larry Crafard have all been located by researchers, but none have testified on the record about what happened that night.

Beverly Oliver is now married to a minister, and doesn’t understand why her story of what happened that Thursday night is so strange or controversial. It was just a typical Thursday night in Dallas.

When the Beatles came to Dallas they ducked down in their limo when they passed through Dealey Plaza and they stayed at the Cabana Motel, which is now a prison.

[Note: Many thanks to Earl Golz who provided Cabana recipts for Braden and Brown; and Peter Whitmey for locating Jean Aase and Larry Crafard. I look forward to their testimony when we get to Congress and court.]

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