National Security Council Meeting - 1962
Rendezvous at Dealey Plaza
On a Prayer and a Poem – A Storm Coming & Rendezvous
With Death at Dealey Plaza
By William Kelly (bkjfk3@yahoo.com)
These two seemingly disparate events, when examined closely, help show how their intentions, decisions and actions would lead to their crossing paths, intersecting at Houston and Elm Streets in Dallas over a year later, and how those who really accomplished what Oswald is credited for, go unidentified, unheralded and unavenged.
James Douglas, in a speech at the Dallas Coalition On
Political Assassinations (COPA) annual conference in Dallas (in November 2009), discussed the government policy that makes it possible - the concept of plausible deniability, and he echoed
many of the thoughts from his important and increasingly significant book JFK – Why He Died And Why It Matters
(2009). (1)
In his talk 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).]
The Prayer
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?….asks Douglas ,
and it is up to us to answer that question.
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.)
It’s possible Oswald or someone he worked with placed the
arrows and captions on those charts.
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, reportedly gunned down by
lone sniper, later, and falsely identified as Lee Harvey Oswald.
There is still an x marked today at the 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 spontaneously and without meaning or
motive, none of it would make sense. 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
2) Complete text of James Douglas’ Dallas COPA speech http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/sea
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
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/msc_cuba009.asp
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…..
Rendezvous At Dealey
Plaza
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 but had quit and got a better job at a
graphics arts firm.
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, it was not an act of deception 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 –
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.
March 25. When Oswald was supposed to pick up the rifle and
pistol:
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
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….”
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.”]
How come there isn’t one post office employee or witness who
remembers handing a rifle and pistol over the counter to Oswald, and with the
pistol, if it was collect on delivery, Oswald had to hand money over for it,
and nobody can recall this interaction with the most famous assassin on the
planet?
Your storytelling gives me hope. Thank you. Thank You. May you be so Blessed. Pray for Caroline.
ReplyDeleteBill This is the most important peace of info that i have researched with your name on it, to bad you didn't follow up with God father of White Russins Boris Pash
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