AARC Bethesda Day 3 Saturday

SATURDAY - September 27, 2014 – Morning Session 

CUBA AND THE CIA

Brenda Brody introduced Peter Kornbluh, the director of the NSA – the “other” NSA – the National Security Archive, who has frequently and successfully sued the government for the release of sensitive information, especially about the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the coup in Chile and other Deep Political events.  [The National Security Archive]

As also recounted in his new book (“Back Channel to Cuba – The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana” w/ William M. LeoGrande), Kornblugh gave an interesting and detailed report on the backchannel negotiations between JFK and Castro in the months and days leading up to the assassination, without actually saying they were related to his murder. It was all done through improvised channels, Kornbluh said, noting that “there is a department of dirty tricks but no department of peaceful tricks,” and Kennedy certainly preferred talks and negotiations over violence and war.

[Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana by William M. LeoGrande | 9781469617633 | Hardcover | Barnes & Noble / Project MUSE - Back Channel to Cuba / Back Channel to Cuba : NPR]

While I didn’t get a chance to ask my question to him while he was on stage, I did catch up to him just beyond the door and talked to him for a few minutes with a few others who wanted to follow up on his presentation – Morley, Simpich and Lesar.

Did the anti-Castro Cubans learn of the supper-secret backchannel negotiations? That’s what I want to know.

I mentioned the fact that Arthur Slesinger told Anthony Summers that if the anti-Castro Cubans did learn about the secret talks that would have certainly given them motivation to kill Kennedy, if they needed any more after the Bay of Pigs, but Kornblouh responded that while they might have, he didn’t come across any indication that the anti-Castro Cubans learned about the talks.

Before the others got to him, I asked Kornblouh another quick question – did he think the death of the key intermediary - network TV reporter Lisa Howard suspicious? Kornblough described Howard as “the Barbara Walters of her day,” and described her role in detail, but he did not think her drug overdose death suspicious.

“No,” Kornblouh said, “I looked at that very closely and she was depressed and got a prescription for 20 pills and added a zero and got 200 and bought a soda and went and killed herself.”

I thought this suspicious, not only because of the similar deaths of Marilyn Monroe and Dorothy Kilgallon, but because from what I had learned, she died on a Sunday when the drug store was closed and so had to get the pharmacist to open up just to serve her. And then he sells her a Coke and lets her kill herself in his parking lot? Anyway, call me a conspiracy theorist, but I’m not convinced that the death of Lisa Howard isn’t suspicious.

In the meantime, down in the Breakout Room, Patrick Speer (DVD “The Mysterious Death of Number 35”) did his talk on “The Single-Bullet Theory, Voodoo Science, and Zombie Lies” that Marie Fonzi later spoke highly of. I also agree with Pat’s assessment of the conference at the Ed Forum [Ed Forum Link]

The Breakout Room should have been on the same floor as the main conference room so people could easily move back and forth, but for the most part, the conference ran smoothly and was a major success.

For the first time I met the prolific writer Lamar Waldron ("Withheld in Full," “Legacy of Secrecy” with Thom Hartman, “Ultimate Sacrifice: John and Robert Kennedy and the Murder of JFK” who gave me a copy of his book “Watergate: The Hidden History / Nixon, The Mafia, and the CIA.”  We had an intense but short conversation on some esoteric details of the JFK case – he gave me a new name – Frank Ippolito, and we joined the mutual admiration society, as I think Waldron’s primary theory holds water and is basically what happened. That is - a CIA plot to kill Castro was hijacked and redirected to kill JFK at Dealey Plaza, and this is what John Newman is coming to understand when he finds a “plot within a plot.”

While the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro get all the attention, I think the Valkyrie plot as described to the Joint Chiefs of Staff by Desmond FitzGerald on September 24, 1963 [See: Higgins Memo] is the specific plan that was redirected to JFK at Dealey Plaza, and not one of the earlier Mafia plans. While the Mob has used snipers as hit men, as they did with Bugsy Siegel, they don’t do disinformation and black propaganda, a key ingredient in the Dealey Plaza operation.

Waldron’s talk “Withheld in Full” also reflects on the extreme number of significant records still being with held for reasons of national security and as detailed in his book “Legacy of Secrecy.”

Relegated to the Breakout Room, Gaeton Fonzi’s widow Marie Fonzi (“The Last Investigation” by the late Gaeton Fonzi with introduction by Marie Fonzi) did a talk called “On the Home Front,” and later gave me a typed transcript of a statement Fonzi recorded  for his Third Decade conference speech that was played at the Wectht symposium: 

“In 1976, more than a decade after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy – and long after a majority of Americans had decided they didn’t believe the Warren Report – the United States Congress announced it was going to conduct a [quote] ‘full and complete investigation.’ - Congress lied. Congress said that its new investigation would be more impartial than the Warren Commission’s, would examine with unbiased finality every piece of evidence, and would explore the possible involvement of every individual or group with the means and motivation to kill the President. Congress lied. Congress said that its probe would debunk all the wild theories and crazy speculation that had sprouted over the years and that it would confront all the unanswered questions surrounding the mystery of the assassination. Congress lied. And the leaders of Congress’s new investigation said that it would definitely be the last investigation. That, finally was the truth. I believe there will never be another official government investigation of President Kennedy’s assassination.”

Marie should be credited in large part for convincing Antonio Veciana to come out and make a rare public appearance and said, “Gaeton wasn’t very pushy, I’m more pushy than he was,” and she helped get some things done that might not have otherwise. [I will be writing another separate sidebar on Veciana-Fonzi and will post it soon.]

In the main room Dr. Donald Thomas (“Hear No Evil”) gave his talk on the acoustical evidence from the Dallas Police dictabelt tape, and  is in his element here. While he was a little off base trying to figure out the Tippit murder, he is on more firm ground with “JFK Acoustical Evidence:  Challenge and Corroboration,” which reviews the efforts to determine how many shots are captured on the Dallas PD dictabelt tape.

While I was in the Breakout Room giving an Update on the Air Force One radio transmission tapes, [See: Links], Temple University professor Joan Mellen (“A Farewell To Justice” and “The Great Game in Cuba”) was in the center ring giving a much talked about presentation on the “CIA and the HSCA:  How CIA Controlled the HSCA and the Writing of its Final Report.”

I call Joan Mellen the “Unsinkable Molly Brown” of JFK researchers because of her flamboyant manner and style, and unceasing critique of others and their theories, she has a pin to pinch everybody, but then, behind your back, she will say something nice about you, even if she doesn’t agree with you.

People at my talk were getting tweets on the fireworks at Mellen’s talk upstairs, and I look forward to seeing the video of what she had to say. She later told me she was unhappy not being able to make her case the day before, when the HSCA investigators Lopez and Hardway were on, as what she had to say complimented what they were talking about.

Professor David Kaiser (“The Road to Dallas” 2008) updated his book with a talk on “What We’ve Learned Since The Road to Dallas,” and while he believes Oswald was the shooter who killed JFK, his belief that the conspiracy was based in a Mafia related plot has been expanded somewhat, and he seems open to persuasion that other factors contributed to the conspiracy.

Meanwhile, in the Breakout Room, a disenchanted Jim DiEugenio (“Reclaiming Parkland” / “Destiny Betrayed”) would have preferred to be under the Big Top upstairs, rather than a sideshow in the Breakout Room, but he gave a very persuasive presentation on JFK’s foreign policies: “Who Was John F. Kennedy, and Why Was He Murdered?”  Jim reportedly was later given time to talk under the Big Top.

William Paris, my ride to DC, brought along his father, a retired US Army Colonel, who served during the Kennedy administration and he said he was especially impressed with DiEugenio’s talk, and learned some things that he didn’t know when they were actually going down.

SCIENCE AND COVER-UP: NO MORE LONE ASSASSIN

Cyril Wecht, who also spoke at the other conference on the other side of town, regaled us once again in his talk “Two Autopsies. Two Cover-ups – JFK, RFK,” and explained how relevant the proper RFK autopsy is in trying to understand the botched autopsy of JFK.

Also on hand was Cyril’s son Ben, an administrator at the Cyril Wecht Center for Forensic Science and Law at Duquese University in Pittsburgh, and organizer of the October conference. I have suggested to Ben that he consider holding a special symposium focused on the topic of the increasing use of acoustical evidence in high profile cases such as JFK, RFK, Kent State, Trevor Martin, etc., and he said he is seriously considering it.

After so many years Dr. Wecht can give his talk in his sleep, as can Gary Aguliar, whose talk was on “Junk Science and the Death of JFK – What We Now Know that We Didn’t Know Then.”

Eric Hamburg (“JFK, Nixon, Oliver Stone & Me” / "Bond of Secrecy" by St. John Hunt) was supposed to give his talk on   “Conversations with Fabian Escalante and E. Howard Hunt — Two views of the Kennedy assassination,” but I didn’t catch it and couldn’t find him in the revised program.

I attended the Breakout Room report on “The Raleigh Call and the Fingerprints of Intelligence” by Dr. Grover P. Proctor Jr. Dr. Proctor gave a clear and concise report on the evidence and witness reports on the phone call Oswald tried to make while incarcerated in the Dallas jail, a call that could have led to a former US Army counter-intelligence officer who was living in North Carolina. Without speculating or embracing any conspiracy theory, Dr. Proctor just laid out the facts and allowed for you to make up your own mind, and he promised to keep everyone updated on any future developments at his web site.

On the other hand, there was more speculation in Dr. Randolph Robertson’s talk “The JFK Assassination – 5 shots + 3 shooters + 3 sniper’s nests = CONSPIRACY.” Robertson, a AARC board member, made a study synchronizing the acoustical evidence with the Zapruder film and concluding there were five shots from three different directions. “There is no longer a debate over the fact that there was a conspiracy, only a debate over how many shooters fired from how many locations.”

Dr. Robertson then joined Dr. David Mantik in a discussion of the “Harper fragment,” a chunk of JFK’s scull that was found in Dealey Plaza and not seen by either the Parkland or Bethesda doctors. Dr. Mantik later gave a Breakout Room session on “JFK autopsy X-rays, photographs and medical evidence,” and when I sat with him at dinner that night, he expressed interest in the Valkyrie plot as it relates to Dealey Plaza, so I sent him the relevant links. [JFKcountercoup: Valkyrie At Dealey Plaza - Updated ]

                                                         Professor G. Robert Blakey 
                                                                 Photo Brent Lyons 

In the early afternoon session miss titled THE CUBNS, THE CIA, AND THE COVERUP Prof. G. Robert Blakey, who had missed his scheduled session the day before, made it in time to talk on “The Culture of Secrecy and Democratic Accountability,” which touched heavily on his role as the second chief counsel to the HSCA.

After his talk I sat down with Blakey and told him how I had obtained Jim Braden’s Camden NJ arrest report and gave it to him when he requested it while writing his book on the mob. I also told him how I had given a copy of that report to Richard Sprague, who didn’t turn his records over to the HSCA when he was fired, but kept them and took them back to his Philadelphia law office, where they reside today.

This is the case even after I told the ARRB in my public testimony that Sprague had his HSCA papers, but they never obtained them, and the NARA are only just now getting around to asking Sprague for his HSCA files that according to the law should be included in the JFK Collection and open to the public. Blakey just shrugged.

David Kaiser (“Road to Dallas” 2008) followed Blakey and gave his talk on “What We’ve Learned Since The Road to Dallas,” while in the Breakout Room Lisa Pease talked about her special interest, “James Jesus Angleton and the Warren Commission,” and detailed there interesting relationship.

THE MEDIA AND THE JFK ASSASSINATION

A panel discussion on “Why Won’t the Media Cover the Story?” pretty much repeated what has been said before, over and over again, at almost every previous conference, including the Wecht Conference, where there were two panels on the subject. Afterwards, Jeff Morely said it would be last panel on the media and JFK that he would participate in, and I agree, it has all been said before and there’s nothing new here under the sun.

At some point in the proceedings,  during a panel discussion, David Talbot called in to talk and answer some questions about his current research on Allen Dulles, the former CIA director and Warren Commissioner - “the chairman of the board,” who Talbott said, had connections “everywhere,” never considered himself retired and continued to connect with operational people in the CIA long after he was fired.

Dulles, said Talbot, was not motivated by money, but power, and we look forward to his upcoming book “The Devil’s Chessboard,” which will be published in 2015.

Andrew Kreig (“Presidential Puppetry: Obama, Romney and Their Masters”), who assisted Policoff in the preparation for the conference, did a talk on “The JFK Cover-up’s Long Shadow.”

Walt Brown (“The Warren Omission” and JFK Master Chronology) was supposed to give a talk on “The Dulles Commission – the 50th Anniversary,” but since he was relegated to the Breakout Room, he decided to pass and didn’t bother to show up at all. He apparently does have a scheduled appearance at the Mob Museum in Las Vegas on November 22, 2014, which should be interesting.

Russ Baker (“Family of Secrets”) was very convincing in his talk on “The Role of the WC Staff in the Cover-Up,” which has direct implications on the recent discovery of new Warren Commission documents among the personal papers of a former WC attorney, documents that apparently are not part of the JFK Collection at the National Archives.

It wouldn’t have been a conference without Robert Groden (“The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald” / “The Killing of the President” / “Absolute Proof”) who did his talk on “A View From the Grassy Knoll,”  a view that he now knows intimately from being there a few days every week. Robert’s new book “Absolute Proof” is one of the best of the new books, over 1,000 photos, every one clear and glossy, and with explanatory captions that make it worthwhile, and not overpriced at $75. 

                                                                  Robert Groden 
                                                                Photo Brent Lyons 

I asked Bob about a new reference in his book and he explained that he had interviewed a former TSBD secretary Geneva Reid, who told him that she was with Oswald handing him change when the shots rang out. Reid had requested this not be published until after she died, and she has since passed away, so Bob included this new story in his latest book.

Meanwhile, back on the main stage, a most interesting dialog was acted out on stage by eight professional actors – a dramatization of the remarks of Warren Commissioners at a special, secret meeting at which they discussed the rumor that Lee Harvey Oswald was an undercover FBI agent, a unique and effective way of understanding the issues that were brought up at that important meeting. The audio recording of this reading should make a good radio program.

For the record, the professional actors who played out this vocal dramatization were recruited by Ed Ashner were: John Heard (complete with bow tie) portraying Allen W. Dulles, John Lescault – Chief justice Earl Warren, Michael Quinlan – Gerald Ford, Michael Willis – John Sherman Cooper, Dave Fendig – Hale Boggs, Ed Lieberman -  John J. McCloy and Andy Brownstein as Richard B. Russell. Brian Conners played Commission Chief Counsel J. Lee Rankin, and Robert Conners stood by to fill in if necessary.

This recording should make a good FM radio program if formatted correctly.

The Saturday night banquet speaker Dr. Peter Kuznic (“The Untold History of the United States”) is the American University history professor who has collaborated with Oliver Stone in producing a series of a dozen one hour historical documentaries, of which we viewed the one about the Kennedy administration, which puts the assassination in its proper, historical cold war perspective. [Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick Discuss "The Untold History of the United States" - YouTube / Oliver Stone: The Untold History of JFK's Assassination - YouTube]

Stone came on a video remote to talk briefly and to say hello to many of his friends who were there, and Stone’s primary researcher for the JFK movie, Jane Rosconi, gave a brief talk, but Kuznic said it best when he mentioned that we must get this information out to the schools and to young people in order to get a new generation interested in these subjects and pursing this research into the future.

At the banquet I sat with Joan Mellen, Malcolm Blunt, two young professionals from Cleveland, Mike Nurko and a gentleman from Belgium - Flip De Mey, who gave us each a copy of his new book “Cold Case Kennedy,” which takes the proper forensic investigative approach to the assassination – the only way that works.

Ed Lopez, Russ Baker, Marie Fonzi and Veciana's translator Fernando 

                                                                  Photo - Brent Lyons 

AARC Bethesda Day 4 Sunday

SUNDAY - September 28, 2014 

THE GOVERNMENT ASSASSINATION RECORDS – WITHHELD IN FULL

Jesus said: “For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing that will not be known.” 

Thanks to David Kaiser for calling attention to that quote (Luke 8:17).

Although not as popular a subject – the final day’s theme focused on the records, probably the most important but popularly neglected part of the conference. 

Bill Simpich, who has been pouring over many of the released records and posting some of his analysis on line [See: State Secrets – Maryferrell.org] hit the nail on the head when he said that while the withheld records are important there have been so many records released we haven’t yet looked at them all – or “processed them,” as he put it.

There’s still plenty of unread documents in the Archives that await the intrepid young researcher to find some gems that have yet to be unearthed.

The prolific and insightful Lamar Waldron (“Legacy of Secrecy”) stayed on topic by doing his talk on “Withheld in Full,” and has generated some public interest in the still secret records, and his arguments must be made in order to get a Congressional hearing and oversight of the JFK Act.

As an example of how the NARA is just ignoring Congress and the law - According to the letter of the law – the JFK Act of 1992 – Congress directed the Archivist of the United States (AOTUS) himself to compile and publish a Finding Aide to the JFK Collection so those interested citizens could easily navigate the huge collection to find what they are seeking.

JFK Act 1992 reads very specifically : “Section 4 (a)….The Collection shall consist of record copies of all Government records relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which shall be transmitted to the National Archives in accordance with section 2107 of title 44, united States Code. The Archivist shall prepare and publish a subject guidebook and index to the collection. ..”

Section 2107 Title 44 United States Code – there it is – along with the specific instruction for the Archivist to “prepare and publish a subject guidebook and index to the collection.”

Prepare and publish – guidebook and index – period.

Instead the NARA say they consider this section of the law fulfilled when they posted what they call a “searchable data base” on line, a data base that doesn’t work.

“We know how well the electronic data base works,” said Joe Backes, “not at all.”

According to Malcolm Blunt: “The searchable data base is basically unusable.”

In response to my question about the legal requirement for the AOTUS to “prepare and publish a subject guide and index to the collection,” the Archivist David Ferriero had Martha Murphy, responsible for the JFK Collection, to respond, and she said they are preparing to update the searchable data base, and will have a guide and index, but it won’t be ready until 2017, when the remaining sealed records are scheduled to be released. [See: Martha Murphy on the JFK Collection Guide and Idex]

CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT HEARINGS?

In order to get that printed JFK Collection Guide and Index Finding Aide, and get the number of documents still being withheld, and find the missing records, and question those officials who intentionally destroyed assassination records, we will have to get a Congressional Hearing and oversight, something that hasn’t happened in over fifteen years.

The JFK Act specifically stipulates that: “Oversight – The Committee on Government Operations of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Government Affairs of the Senate shall have continuing oversight jurisdiction with respect to the Collection.”

As James Douglas said, in order to get those Congressional Hearings on JFK Act oversight we will have to generate the same public outrage and response that was sparked by Stone’s movie JFK that got the JFK Act passed in the first place. Not easily done.

Those who want to try to get the responsible Congressional Committees to do their duty and oversee how the government is upholding the JFK Act – can contact the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs – Sen. Tom R. Carper (Del.)  Chair, Sen. Tom Coburn (Ok) Ranking Member - 340 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 20510 (202) 224-2627 [ ]

In the House of Representatives – Committee on Oversight and Government Reform – Subcommittee on Government Operations (includes JFK Act and FOIA) is led by Rep. John Mica (Fla) Chair / Rep. Gerald E. Connally Ranking Member - 2157 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington D.C. 20515 (202) 225-5074 Fax: (202) 225-3974 [ ]

Without Congressional oversight, without a JFK Collection Finding Aide, with a NARA Searchable Data Base that doesn’t work, John Newman, Bill Simpich, Stu Wexler, Larry Hancock, Malcolm Blunt, Rex Bradford, Joe Backes and others are finding their own way around the collection and are preparing their own Finding Aide.

Rex, who scanned the Mary Ferrell collection and put it on line, in partnership with AARC, scanned over a million pages of JFK Assassination documents that are on a CD and will soon be indexed for instant access.

Joe Backes gave his straightforward report on the “JFK Records Withheld until 2017. Joe had been following the work of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) closely and attended many of their meetings. At first the Review Board was required to publish a list of documents being withheld in the Federal Register including the RIFs –Record Identification Form - the 13 digit ID number of each document, the first three of which is the agency of origin. That at least gave us an indication of how many records were being withheld and who was withholding them, but there were so many that in April of 1998 they just began posting summaries.

Although the government and the NARA won’t do it, Joe has been compiling a list of these records withheld and he will soon be able to tell us exactly how many – he says it will certainly be in the tens of thousands of documents, which means there are hundreds of thousands of pages of government records on the assassination that are still being withheld for reasons of national security.

So far Joe’s has over 700 pages of list of docs withheld, 26,904 documents, of which 12,531 are CIA, and he says we will even have the total number of pages when he is finished. 

Backes calls special attention to the Pike Commission records, as well as the Califano papers, the Secret Service and the ONI records, making special reference to my work (thanks Joe) [ ONI ]

John Newman stepped to the mic to also note the records of the Pentagon office of Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) are also significant, and indeed, if there are any smoking files in the records the smoke will be coming from the ACSI files, which are about as hot as you can get.

I’m sure one of the highlights of the conference, for the people who were there was a Question and Answer session with researcher Malcolm Blunt, who came to America once again to pour through the JFK Collection to find special and important documents that have been missed or ignored by other researchers. Blunt, Rex Bradford and Jerry Shinley have taken over the roles previously played by the late Mary Ferrell and Harold Weisberg, by sharing their knowledge of the JFK records with others.

While Malcolm didn’t want to deliver a formal presentation, he was convinced to do the Q & A session in the Breakout Room, and fielded the questions admirably.

“We need a decent finding aid to the records, “said Blunt, “It’s hard to make sense out of it without a finding aid.”

The electronic JFK Collection searchable database is basically un-useable he said.

One of the reasons is that in 2003 the CIA released 36 boxes of material in an accelerated release that had been scheduled for 2010 – records released that were not entered into the data base, so there are many files still marked “Withheld In Full” that are in fact entirely released.

Of the important things Blunt said, it isn’t the smoking documents in the files, but rather the files that are missing, and he gave some examples – for fifteen years he tried to access the papers of Edward Jay Epstein at Georgetown University library, but was denied access to them even though he had the proper permissions. Epstein interviewed many of the marines who served with Oswald and it was those raw interviews that Malcolm was after. But when they finally handed over the box it was empty.

Blunt also complained about the IRP – Interagency Reclassification Project – who apparently oversee the practice of reclassifying previously released records.

“They do make mistakes,” said Blunt. Records are misfiled, whole boxes of documents are unlabeled and in the case of the CIA, he thinks it direct obfuscation – and not due to simple human error – which does happen. He was once given two carts of file boxes on the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, all unredacted and apparently unprocessed, and he got to read them for two days before they realized their mistake and took them back.

"My beef with NARA," says Blunt, "is they dumped (in their parlance 'interfiled') thousands of documents into the Warren Commission files and provided no index whatsoever, although to do this they must have had THEIR OWN INDEX in order to do this." 

Blunt also said he learned about a special IDN system that was set up parallel to the CIA’s 201 file, but focused on individuals associated with targeted organizations – such as the FPCC.

Upstairs Rex Bradford stayed on the topic he presented at the Wecht Conference – “The Church Committee and the CIA Assassination Plots,” a neglected area of research, especially considering how most of the Church Records are still being with held.

The esteemed Professor Peter Dale Scott came on the big screen via live remote and delivered an important essay on “Dallas and Other Deep Events,” focusing especially on the Continuity of Government (COG) operations as they unfolded during crisis, and pointed specifically to a number of important suspects who were at the COG controls at the time of the assassination. His talk is now posted and archived at Russ Bakers’ web site [ WhoWhatWhy   ].

In the end, our gracious host Jim Lesar pulled out all the stops in his talk on “The CIA and NARA Thwart Congress and the JFK Act,” which should wake up anyone who thought this subject was not relevant today.

“The NARA can’t tell us how many documents are still being withheld because they can’t count,” Jim Lesar deadpanned.  

WHERE TO FROM HERE?

In the end, Rex Bradford, Joe Backes, Lamar Waldron, Jim Lesar and Marie Fonzi conducted a panel discussion on the topic of “Where do we go from here?,” a topic that I too have some thoughts that I will bring up later, after all else is digested.

As Backes said, the first thing we need is Congressional oversight, Congressional hearings, but we also, as others have pointed out, need to make the October 2017 date set by the ARRB a campaign issue in the next presidential race because the next president, whoever she may be, will either release or postpone the remaining sealed records and we have to get them all to come out for release of the records before the election.

Then there is this November 22 – 51 year anniversary. There will be a gathering of Free the JFK Files agitators at the JFK Center for the Performing Arts [   ], and I don’t think one person should be responsible for this. Perhaps others will join the fray and from the JFK CPA march on the NARA, where the real holdup is happening.

There will also be a JFK Lancer min-conference in Dallas this year, and Dallas COPA members will lead the moment of silence at the Grassy Knoll and continue the tradition begun by Penn Jones on November 22 1964 and continued by John Judge.

In the conference book stall, forensic investigator Sherry Feister gave me a copy of her book – “Enemy of the Truth – Myths, Forensics and the Kennedy Assassination,” and a tote bag that quotes JFK as saying: “A man may die, nations may rise and fall - but an idea lives on.”  

I think the Bethesda conference will be the Last Hurrah for such serious JFK Conferences, though there may be another important one just before or after the October 2017 release of the remaining records.

As the Last Hurrah for JFK, it is the end of a 50 year era, but that also makes it the beginning of another era, one that has yet to happen, one that we can try to use the knowledge we have gained to shape and direct to make a better society, or as the case may be, to become better assassins.  

Bill Kelly

Browns Mills, NJ

BillKelly3@gmail.com

Note: Some of Bill Kelly’s research on the assassination of President Kennedy was supported, in part, by a grant from the Fund For Constitutional Government Investigative Journalism Project. Many thanks to John Judge, Fred Prinz, Cyril Wecht, Conrad Martin, and everyone who has supported my JFK research over the years.

Bill Kelly Notes: On Style. Since I read most of the news and feature reports on the Conference, I didn’t want to duplicate them, so I wrote what I think is a comprehensive summary of what happened, and while I don’t touch on everything, I get to as much as possible, and focus on what I think important. While it may seem a little too wordy, I have tried to adopt some of the style Rob Walker used when he covered the Formula One Grand Prix circuit for Road & Track Magazine – and try to make the reader feel like they are there, going behind the scenes to get the most critical and important information and adding enough color and commentary to keep the reader’s interest. I hope it works, let me know, as well as any mistakes, typos, spellings or other corrections since the beauty of the internet is you can correct it.

The Air Force One Radio Tapes Update - The Story Thus Far

The Air Force One Radio Tapes Update - The Story Thus Far -

Synopsis of September 2014 AARC DC Conference Presentation on the Air Force One radio tapes.

by Bill Kelly

I was honored to be asked to give a presentation on the Air Force One radio transmission tapes from November 22, 1963 at the Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC) conference in Washington D.C. on the 50^th anniversary of the release of the Warren Report.

Boston Globe Report: http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/09/27/skeptics-gather-years-after-warren-commission-report-about-jfk-assassination/IrTSgQgrKGXHU2bjw0kRnM/story.html

Given my forty-five minutes in the smaller Brakeout Room, and the fact the Pittsburgh Conference presentations from last October were recorded and archived on line, I was going to just focus on the latest state of the quest for the Holy Grail of the JFK Assassination evidence – the complete Air Force One radio transmissions. But because there were new people in the audience, I decided to rehash the events as they have occurred so far, state where we are today and where we are going in the way of legal appeals and cases, play the Jeff Carter 50 Reasons video tape and then answer questions.

             The Cyril Wecht Center for Forensic Science and Law Conference October 2013

I began by recalling how I was drawn to this line of inquiry in the streets of the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas where Wes Wise - former TV newsman and Mayor of Dallas told me about J.D. Tippit’s good friend Carl Mather who owned a car the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald reportedly was seen driving around that very neighborhood at the time of the Tippit murder. Carl Mather’s alibi, that passed muster, was that he was at work at Collins Radio in Richardson, Texas at the time of the assassination and of the murder of Tippit. Mather then visited and consoled his good friend and Tippit’s widow, Marie Tippit.

Wes Wise and Carl Mather: JFKcountercoup: Wes Wise and Carl Mather
Carl Mather and Collins Radio: JFKcountercoup: Carl Mather & Collins Radio

That was the first I ever heard of Collins Radio. Later, while reading George deMohrenschildt’s manuscript, “I’m a Patsy,” published in conjunction with the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) report, I discovered deMohrenschildt introduced Oswald to retired Admiral Chester Brouton, a senior executive at Collins Radio. Brouton declined to hire Oswald even though, as deMohrenschildts points out, the Marines trained Oswald in electronics and he worked at a radio factory in Minsk after defecting to the Soviet Union.

What if Oswald were working for Collins Radio at the time of the assassination? Would Kennedy still have been killed?

Manuscript of George deMohrenschildt HSCA Appendix: I'm a Patsy

A November 1, 1963 New York Times front page report on the CIA raider ship the Rex, stated  that when the ship dropped off anti-Castro Cuban commandos  it was officially leased to the Collins Radio company of Richardson, Texas to do electronic research.

The Rex and Collins Radio - New York Times: FKCountercoup2: Castro Says CIA Uses Raider Ship
Also see:  JFKcountercoup: The Rex Blows Collins Radio CIA Cover

I began a file on Collins Radio, which is now very thick with informational tidbits related to the company and the assassination. For example the widow of the accused assassin subsequently married Kenneth Porter, who worked at Collins Radio. Also, a Cuban executive of the company was murdered in Miami. I delivered a talk on the Collins Radio Connections at the 1992 COPA Conference in Washington and published an article on the subject in Backchannels Magazine (Vol. 1 No.

Backchannels: JFKcountercoup: The Collins Radio Connections

Following the assassination Collins Radio merged with industrial giant Rockwell International to form Rockwell Collins, and with increasing interest in this company I wrote to them and asked for copies of the annual reports for 1962-63-64. From these reports I was intrigued to learn that Collins Radio had a contract with the government to supply the radios for Air Force One and other VIP planes as well as to the Strategic Air Command (SAC) bomber fleet. Collins also coordinated these radio communications from a special radio relay center set up in a glass building at their Cedar Rapids, Iowa headquarters they called the “Fish Bowl” which was known over the airways as “Liberty” station.

JFKcountercoup: Collins Radio Connections

My research into the history and background of this company indicated that it was founded by Arthur Collins, who as a young lad built his own short wave radio receiver in his garage. Young Arthur’s receiver was able to pick up the radio communications being sent by U.S. Navy Admiral Byrd from his expeditions to the arctic when the Navy’s radios couldn’t, so they depended on young Collins to relay Byrd’s reports and messages to them.

JFKcountercoup: Arthur A. Collins & Collins Radio

This early connection with the military allowed Collins, when he set up his new radio company, to receive orders from the government, especially during World War II, after which Collins received the contract to supply radios to the Air Force, especially the SAC bombers and Air Force One and other high priority executive planes.

Collins’ military contracts were probably facilitated by Air Force General Curtis LeMay, a personal friend of Collins and a HAM radio buff who was head of the SAC and later chief of staff of the Air Force during the Kennedy administration. 

According to Art Collins they opened a new plant in Richardson, Texas “for security reasons” at the request of the military, who wanted many of the major defense contractors to have special factories separate from their main facility and located in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where Collins became neighbors of General Dynamics, Bell Helicopter and Halliburton.

Collins Radio Official History: History / pages.ripco.net/~ormos/pat/20121112a-collins-radio-company-history.pdf

Once located in Texas however, these major companies discovered that there was an insufficient technical labor pool and they had to recruit engineers and technicians from out of state. The problem was remedied by forming an advanced graduate research center to train students for the jobs they had available.

When President Kennedy was originally invited to Dallas, LBJ had arranged for him to receive an honorary degree from Texas Christian University (TCU). However, after it was announced, the TCU trustees rescind the invitation, much to the embarrassment of LBJ and the city of Dallas, whose civic leaders invited the President to address their previously scheduled meeting that was to honor those who founded the graduate research center. The first director was Arthur Collins, who relocated to Dallas and was probably in the audience at the Trade Mart futilely waiting for the President to arrive.

If you read Kennedy’s Undelivered Speech, his copy now stained with his blood, his remarks are clearly aimed towards the people who run these defense industries, and he mentions Collins’ graduate research center in the opening paragraph of his remarks.

JFK’s Undelivered Speech stained with his blood: http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/03/jfks-undelivered-speech.html?m=1

JFK: “I am honored to have this invitation to address the annual meeting of the Dallas Citizens Council, joined by the members of the Dallas Assembly -- and pleased to have this opportunity to salute the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest.”

One of the first things Kennedy did as President was to order the recording of all radio communications made from Air Force One when it was in the air as well as the ability to record his telephone calls and Oval Office conversations, recordings he said he would later use when it came time to write his memoirs.

Although not reviewed by the Warren Commission, three reporters – William Manchester, Theodore White and JFK’s press secretary Pierre Salinger were permitted to read and quote from a transcript of the unedited Air Force One radio transmissions. In the late 1970s taped copies of an edited version of the Air Force One radio conversations were quietly released by the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas.

I obtained my copy from Larry Howard at his Assassinations Information Center, which he ran out of a storefront on the third floor of a mini-mall in an old warehouse in the West End, just behind the Texas School Book Depository. Howard gave it to me in exchange for a promise to give him a copy of a transcript I agreed to make of whatever was on the tapes.  

The nearly two and a half hours of radio communications were on five sides of three cassettes – and had varying levels of clarity. But the official transcript, and one later transcribed by an independent researcher proved unreliable, inaccurate in places and in some cases wrong – for instance they identify the “Liberty” station as the White House, when we now know it was the “Fish Bowl” radio relay station at the Collins Radio headquarters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

So over the course of a few months in my spare time, I wrote out my own transcript of what we now regard as the LBJ version of the tapes because other, longer tapes were discovered among the personal effects of the late General Chester Clifton, the President’s military advisor.

There are two exact copies on single reel-to-reel tapes – closer to the original, unedited version than the LBJ Library cassette tapes, but still not the complete unedited version that was known to exist, and because there were two, they decided to donate one to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and sell the other for $500,000. 

The Raab Collectioin:  Full Audio for the Lost JFK Air Force One Tape | The Raab Collection

Downloading this new version from the NARA web site, I once again began the tedious task of transcribing what is said on the tapes, and took notice of the differences between the Clifton and the LBJ Library versions of the tapes and note the differences – the Clifton tape is of better sound quality, but begins a few minutes into the LBJ Library version, so while the Clifton tape is of better quality and longer, both tapes contain unique information.

The Clifton Tape at NARA: Post-JFK Assassination Air Force One Flight Deck Recording

Wikimedia: US National Archives turns to Wikimedia to help release new JFK assassination discovery « Wikimedia blog

So I then began the task of combining them in the correct chronological order so that the transcripts of both tapes flowed together into one seamless copy to create a combined transcript.

Media reports on the Trevor Martin murder case in Florida quoted an acoustical forensic specialist called to testify about the cell phone conversations. I contacted Ed Primeau, a Michigan forensic specialist and asked if he was interested in assisting in helping me combine the two versions of the Air Force One radio transmissions from November 22, 1963.

                                                 Acoustical Forensic Specialist Ed Primeau

Primeau Acoustical Forensics: http://www.primeauforensics.com/

He agreed to look at it, so I sent him a copy of my combined transcript and links to the two taped versions of the transmissions and he over the course of a few months he combined them and did so pro-bono because he said he recognized their historical significance. Primeau and his staff not only combined the two tapes but also added my transcript to a new audio-video version that was premiered at the October 2013 conference at the Cyril Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.

October 2013 Wecht Institute: Passing the Torch | 13th Annual Symposium | Duquesne University

Washington D.C. based reporter Jeff Morley thought it newsworthy and immediately blogged about it at his JFKFacts.org web site, and then mentioned it in an Op-Ed article he wrote for the Dallas Morning News.

The Detroit Free Press also published a lengthily article focusing on Primeau’s work that was picked up by the USA Today and run nationally, which resulted in the CNN broadcasting a news report that included live interviews with Ed Premieu, Jefferson Morley and John McAdams, a lone-nut professor who is routinely brought out by mainstream media editors in order to give any conspiracy theories “balance” and to present and represent the official and wrong version of events.

Democratic Underground: JFK Conference: Bill Kelly introduced new evidence - adding Air Force One tape recordings - Democratic Underground

Jeff Morley: JFKfacts » Nov. 22 tapes: ‘Somebody made decisions about what they wanted the public to know and hear ‘ /  JFKfacts » Audio engineer on the trail of a missing JFK tape from 50 years ago /  JFKfacts » What’s the most important piece of new JFK assassination evidence?  /   JFKfacts » Enhanced Air Force One tapes capture a top general’s response to JFK’s murd

Dallas Morning News: Jefferson Morley: What we still don’t know about JFK’s assassination | Dallas Morning News

Detroit Free Press: JFK's last day: Rochester Hills audio expert's care, tapes reveal info, hint at more | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

But I was left out entirely, despite the fact I originated this line of research, and complained to McAdams that he has no expertise in this area and that if a lone nutter was required he should recommend that Max Holland, who has written a book on the subject – The Assassination Tapes.  

Ed Primeau then ran the combined tape we had produced through a computer that reduced static and noise so the conversations could be more clearly heard and we now refer to this as the Audio-only Hi Fi version that will be used for forensic study. 

Hi Fi: http://www.audioforensicexpert.com/jfk-air-force-one-clarified-recording-new-updates/

It was first broadcast over WLFR (Stockton College, NJ) for the first time on the afternoon of Friday, November 22, 2013, fifty years to the hour it was actually broadcast. We have since edited this Hi Fidellity version down even further, eliminating dead air time in which no one is talking, and broke that down into less than 15 minute parts that are suitable for FM radio broadcasts, sections we will introduce with explanations as to who is talking and what they are saying.

We hope to get this version on the air this November, and have already have commitments from some College radio stations, including WLFR, but possibly others in a new network we are establishing.

Len Osanic, a Canadian who operates Black Ops Radio on line, collaborated with Jeff Carter to produce a fascinating audio-visual series 50 Reasons – that includes Episode 47 on the Air Force One radio tapes, which I played at the end of my presentation at the AARC conference and took questions afterwards.

Jeff Carter – Black Op Radio Special video on the AF1 Radio Tapes: http://vimeo.com/85667076

Since then Jeff Carter broke the Hi-Fi audio only version into eight - less than fifteen minute episodes that we will preface with introductions as to who is talking and what they are saying, and try to get them broadcast over FM radio this November, possibly on a network of college radio stations.

This new Hi-Fi broadcast quality FM radio version of the Air Force One radio tapes should reach a whole new audience, and appeal to more than just JFK assassination researchers and take it to a new level of public interest.

I have also filed a FOIA request with the Air Force that was denied, and my appeal to the Secretary of the Air Force is still pending, an appeal that I hope will get the Air Force to at least make an attempt to locate the JFK Assassination records in accordance with the JFK Act, as it is bound to do by law.

Stay tuned, there is more to come on this work-in-progress.

Bill Kelly

Appendix Links:

Jack Valenti Memo on AF1 Transcripts: http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2014/06/jack-valenti-memo-to-lbj-on-af1.html

ARRB Final Report on AF Compliance: http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2014/08/air-force-non-compliance-with-jfk-act.html

MATS: http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2014/07/military-air-transport-service.html

Flight from McGuire?: http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2014/07/flight-from-mcguire.html?m=1

Oswald takes Macs flight to defect?: http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2014/06/oswald-takes-macs-flight-to-defect.html?m=1

Negative Response to FOIA Request: http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2014/07/negative-foia-response-from-usaf.html

Appeal to Sec of AF will be posted soon:

Air Force One Radio Room 

AARC Conference on Warren Report - 50 Years

I have been to many conferences over the past 20 years but this one has been one of the most extraordinary experiences in my life, not only for the quality of the presentations by the researchers, reporters, journalists and historians, but because a number of witnesses have participated for the first time, especially anti-Castro Cuban Antonio Veciana and Buell Wesley Fraser, who gave Lee Harvey Oswald a ride to work on the morning of November 22, 1963.

Fraser said that it seemed an ordinary day that morning, but before the day was out everything had changed, and it is still effecting us today, and will continue to affect us for a long time into the future as we continue to learn more about what occurred that day and since then.

I gave a presentation on the continuing research into the Air Force One radio transmission tapes, and will post a synopsis and update on that soon, and over the next few days, as I review my notes and the photos I have been taking, will post a number of separate blog entries on the various presentations and issues addressed at this conference.

This final day of the conference - Sunday, cannot be as intense and interesting as the first few days, but will be confined to the state of the JFK assassination records and the questions of where do we go from here? What do we do next?

For many, this is the Last Hurrah, the last conference on this subject, which is fading from an unresolved cold case to history, but for others, we look forward to October 2017 when the last of the sealed government records on the assassination are scheduled to be released, and the upcoming presidential campaign, when the files will be made a campaign issue because the next president, whoever she may be, will have the power to keep these records concealed from the public or to release them as the JFK Act law has directed.

In the meantime, we must keep the pressure on to enforce the JFK Act, see to the release of the remaining records, and continue to fill in the missing pieces of the Dealey Plaza puzzle, which we now have a good picture of but there are still many blank holes that have to be filled in.

This conference has brought us a long way towards that goal, and hopefully, we will come up with a plan to finish the job.

Stay tuned, as the situation continues to develop.

          Antonio Veciana and AARC Executive Director Jerry Policoff, who organized the conference

MORE TO COME ASAP - BK 

AARC - Warren Commission Conference

The Warren  Commission - 50 Years After

Earl Warren hands :LBJ the Report on the Assassination of President Kennedy - September 24, 1964

It wad 50 years ago when the Earl Warren Commission met President Johnson in the Oval Office of the White House to present him with a copy of its Report on the assassination of President Kennedy.

Johnson held the 800 page book and said, "it's heavy," though he meant its weight and not the Sixties cleche that means deep and meaningful, as histoey has revealed it to be shallow and wrong in many respects, eespecially its primary conclusion that the assassination was carried out by a deranged loner without any apparent motive.

Tha accused assassin - Lee Harvey Oswald, haelf murdered in police custody, was identified as a former Marine defector to the Soviet Union and Fair Play for Cuba spathiser and agent probvacteur who was arrested in New Orleans for fighting anti-Castro Zcjban members of the DRE  - a CIA backed group and fit the criminal profile of a covert operative [JFKcountercoup: Covert Operational Profile].

While it wasn't until a decade later, after Watergate, that such opreratives were engaged in such activities, it was quicklly apparent to those intelligence analysists who had access to Oswald's military and CIA files records now incomplete, but it doesn't take.much to fill in the gaps.

This week's Time Magazine.has pronounced the Warren Report was correct and there were no major mistakes or corrections, quoting former editors and writers who merely reprinted the official version of events and failed in their journalistic duty to uncover the truth and expose the Warren
whitewash.

Time publishes a picture of a perplexed Oswald under arrest quotes the Warren Report's description of the accused assassin as seeking notorious fame despite denying the deed.and claiming he was framed as a patsy as the facts of the case bare out.

For more on Oswald's innocence see Howard Roffman's Presumed Quiilty [Complete Book: "PRESUMED GUILTY, How and why the Warren Commission framed Lee Harvey Oswald, A factual account based on the Commission's public and private documents", by Howard Roffman / JFKcountercoup: HOWARD ROFFMAN’S “Presumed Guilty” ] and Anthony Summers' Not In Your Lifetime [  Books / Not in Your Lifetime : NPR / Not in Your Lifetime: The Assassination of JFK Audiobook | Anthony Summers | Audible.com ].

Summers will be at the Assassination Archives and Research Center AARC conference in Bethesda this weekend where I will be giving a presentation on the Air Force One radio transmission tapes, while Summers will evaluate the recent admission by Antonio Veciana that his CIA case officer "Maurice Bishop" was actually CIA spymaster David Atlee Phillips, an associate of Oswald, the accused assassin.

For more on the conference see: AARC web site.   Conference Program

More to come- BK

              The Warren Commission meets at the Washington DC Veterans of Foreign Wars Post

Double Identities in Historical Research and the HSCA Records of Richard A. Sprague, Esq.

Double Identities in the JFK Assassination

Independent JFK Assassination Researcher Richard E. Sprague 

         Richard A. Sprague, Esq.- first Chief Counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations

Double Identities - The Bane of all Historical Research and how it has affected the disposition of the official records of the First Chief Counsel to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA)

By William Kelly

As anyone who has done historical research knows, many people have the same name and such double identities are the bane of historical research, especially when working with official records, so it’s very easy to get confused and it’s important to make sure you’re dealing with the records of the person you think you are.

JOHN BARRY

While researching the background of John Barry, the first flag officer of the U.S. Navy, I found another John Barry who was also born in Ireland, lived in the same Philadelphia neighborhood, went to the same church, belonged to the same Irish Hibernian society and knew many of the same people, but rather than a sea captain he was a school master and author of the first book copyrighted in the United States.

John Barry – Father of US Navy

John Barry – Schoolmaster

JAMES FRASER

Fathers and sons with the same name are often confused – as is the case of James “Jolly Jim” Fraser, an early Scottish-American golf professional and his son, amateur golfer and politician James “Sonny” Fraser, as Jim Finnigen, known for his attention to facts and details, confuses them in his encyclopedic History of the Philadelphia PGA.

James “Jolly Jim” Fraser – Father of Sonny

James “Sonny” Fraser – Son of Jolly Jim

WILLIAM GULLEY

In the course of a Watergate era inquiry I called a retired military officer who was identified as William Gulley, a former White House Communications Agency (WHCA) officer, but Mr. Gulley told me that was his name and he was an military officer of the same rank, but a different guy, - he never worked for the WHCA. But that, he said as an afterthought, explains how he got all those invitations to White House social functions.

William Gulley – WHCA officer

William Gulley – US military officer

BILL KELLY

There’s another Bill Kelly, besides me, who lived in Ocean City, N.J. when I lived there, and I’m lucky he is such a nice guy and now a Facebook friend, or I could blame him for getting me in trouble all the time.

There’s also another Bill Kelly involved in the investigation of the Kennedy assassination, a Florida policeman who is prominently mentioned in the book “The Tomali Squad,” because of his work with the Cuban refugees, and indexed in Vincent Bugliosi’s Reclaiming History.

Bill Kelly – Journalist

Bill Kelly – Florida Cop

JOHN JUDGE

My long time college mate and research associate John Judge – the director of COPA, once met another John Judge – a heavy metal rock guitarist, and they both looked remarkably alike, similar to the ZZ-Top guitarists.

John Judge – COPA Director

John Judge – Guitarist

DOUBLE IDENTITIES AND JFK RESEARCH

The idea of double identities in historical research is an important issue that I’ve never seen realistically discussed before, so I am going to address it in relation to one specific area of historical research – the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Believe it or not, there are over a dozen examples of more than one person with the same name among the characters that populate the JFK Assassination story, and I will mention the most significant ones and how having the same name has confused researchers and officials and impacted what is included and not included in the JFK Assassination Collection at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

JACK DOUGHERTY

Someone recently posted a document at the Education Forum that indicates former CIA director Allen Dulles was in telephonic communications with one Jack Dougherty. Now there was an assassination witness and often a suspect, but there’s apparently another Jack Dougherty, a businessman from California. The Jack Dougherty who testified before the Warren Commission talked about his presence on the fifth floor of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) at the time of the assassination, while the guy Dulles was in communication with was a San Diego businessman, and therefore not the Jack Dougherty who worked with Oswald moving books around the TSBD. But it still confused some researchers.

Jack Dougherty – TSBD employee

Jack Dougherty – California businessman

BETTY MCDONALD

Then there’s Betty McDonald who worked at Magnolia Oil company and was at the party set up for the Oswalds to meet the Paines in February 1962, who I have interviewed, and the first thing she said to me was she wasn’t the Betty McDonald who worked as a dancer for Jack Ruby at the Carousel Club, who she is often confused with.

Betty McDonald – Magnolia Oil employee

Betty McDonald – Ruby Dancer

JACK REVILL/REVELL

Although their names are spelled slightly different, they have a similar law enforcement background so at first I was confused by Jack Revill, the Dallas police officer in the Special Services Squad who worked informants, and Jack Revell, the ex-USMC and FBI agent who became the head of the Dallas FBI office for many years. 

Jack Revill – Dallas Cop

Jack Revell – FBI Agent

DON NORTON

Some people believe Don Norton was one of the guys who intentionally impersonated Oswald, and I met him one night in a Dayton, Ohio parking lot, introduced to him by Mae Brussell. This Don P. Norton, who claims to have met Oswald in Mexico, and worked undercover for the US military intelligence, is often confused with another Don O. Norton, an elusive fisherman investigated by researchers as a possible Oswald impersonator who have different middle names. Yet another Don Norton wrote a book on the history of a defense contractor.

Don P. Norton – Claims to have met Oswald in Mexico

Don O. Norton – Fisherman investigated by researchers

Don Norton – Author of history of defense contractor.

JACK MARTIN

There are so many Jack Martins that I can’t even count them all, but a few stand out, especially the “Jack Martin” who worked for Guy Bannister, the character played by Jack Lemon in the movie “JFK,” whose real name is Edward Stewart Suggs.

There’s also the Jack Martin who was an early suspect in the assassination, a religious fanatic from northern Louisiana who the Dallas Secret Service sent Special Agent In Charge (SAIC) of the New Orleans Secret Service office John Rice to investigate immediately after the assassination.

Jack Martin – aka Edward Stewart Suggs

Jack Martin – Northern Louisiana early suspect in assassination

Then there’s:

Jack Martin – Took films of Oswald handing out leaflets in New Orleans and Walker

Juan Martin – South American arms dealer in Dallas

John Martin – Chicago Union officer affiliated with Jack Ruby

John Barlow Martin – Interviewed RFK for JFK Library

There’s also a “Mr. Martin” who was frantically looking for Ruby on the night before the assassination, and a few other Martins turn up as well.

JOHN RICE

To confuse matters even further there were two Secret Service Agents in New Orleans named John Rice, John W. Rice, the aforementioned Special Agent in Charge and another federal agent involved in the assassination - J. Calvin Rice.

John W. Rice – SAIC New Orleans SS

J. Calvin Rice – SS Agent

ROBERT MORROW

There’s two Robert Morrows, one a former covert operative crank from Baltimore who wrote two books on the assassination, and the other a Texas assassination enthusiast who promotes the idea that LBJ was behind the assassination.

Robert Morrow – Baltimore, Maryland

Robert Morrow – Texas

PRISCILLA JOHNSON

From the files alone there are a number of cases of mistaken identity - including two Priscilla Johnsons, one the reporter, a CIA asset who knew both JFK and Oswald and another of the same name who got entwined in OSS intrigue during World War II.

Priscilla Johnson – American CIA

Priscilla Johnson – OSS Europe

CHARLES FORD

The OSS files also indicate there may have been two Charles Fords, one from Atlantic City who attended Princeton and became a CIA training officer, except for a stint as RFK’s liaison to the mobsters working with the CIA to kill Castro, and another Charles Ford who served in the OSS in China, though it’s possible, and intriguing they may be the same person. The Charles Ford who served in the OSS was sent to China with J. Walton Moore, who went on to be the CIA’s Domestic Contacts officer in Dallas for many years.

Charles Ford – CIA Training Officer

Charles Ford – OSS in China with J.Walton Moore

JOE CAMPISI

There may be two Joe Campisis, one who served in the OSS during World War II and the other who owned a Dallas restaurant frequented by Jack Ruby, though it’s possible they may be one and the same person. If a researcher with the time could straighten that out it may prove worthwhile.

Joseph Campisi – OSS

Joseph Campisi – Dallas restaurant owner

GORDON CAMPBELL

When it was alleged that former JMWAVE CIA officer Gordon Campbell was at the Ambassador Hotel the night that RFK was assassinated, David Talbot and Jeff Morley determined that Gordon Campbell died in 1962, so it couldn’t have been him. But Army Ranger Captain Bradley Ayers remembers Gordon Campbell at JMWAVE a year after his death certificate says he died. Then I found another Gordon Campbell who worked for the Wright Company and had served in the Navy, so there were two Gordon Campbells with similar backgrounds.

Gordon Campbell – CIA JMWAVE

Gordon Campbell – USN

ROBERT STEEL

There are two Robert Steels among the Kennedy assassination records, one Navy Commander Robert Steel of San Diego who investigated Oswald’s defection and role in the assassination and Robert Steel from Pennsylvania, who reported on his sister’s neighbor Julio Fernandez, a Cuban newspaper editor who was acting suspiciously. When the HSCA asked the CIA for files on Julio Fernandez, they sent the files of twelve individuals with that name, but not the one they wanted.

Robert Steel - USNR ONI investigator in San Diego

Robert Steel – Pennsylvania neighbor of journalist Julio Fernandez

JULIO FERNANDEZ

The CIA responded to a request from the HSCA for the CIA files on Julio Fernandez, they came up with a list of a dozen Cubans in their files named Julio Fernandez, except the two the HSCA were interested in – both anti-Castro Cubans, one being a former newspaper editor who immediately left Martinsburg, Pennsylvania as soon as he was questioned about the assassination, and the other being an JMWAVE trained maritime commando known to both Army Ranger Capt. Bradley Ayers and Clare Booth Luce, who financially supported his commando boat team.

RICHARD SPRAGUE

This brings us to Richard A. Sprague, the Philadelphia attorney and first chief counsel to the House Select Committee on Assassinations who was relieved of his job after it was realized that he was conducting a real investigation, and the case of mistaken identity that sparked this essay.

Richard A. Sprague, Esq. may be the most significant case study, and the one related to the assassination that deserves the most attention, because two official bodies – the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) and the National Archives (NARA) apparently confused him with Richard E. Sprague, a JFK assassination researcher who collected photos, assisted New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison in his investigation and contributed articles to Computers and Automation magazine in the 1970s.

And the result of this confusion has led to the fact that the files of the first chief counsel to the HSCA are not among the assassination records of the JFK Collection at the NARA, as the JFK Act of 1992 intended and requires.

Richard A. Sprague, Esq. – First Chief Counsel to the HSCA

Richard E. Sprague – Researcher – Photo Collector

Unlike the massive files of his replacement G. Robert Blakey, there are no personel records on file in the JFK Collection at the NARA Archives II regarding Richard A. Sprague, Esq., first chief counsel to the HSCA. When Blakey took over he was determined to write a “final report,” and then declared his HSCA records “Congressional Records,” not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOA) saying, “I’ll rest on the judgment of historians in fifty years.” This required Congress to pass the JFK Act to spring them.

When he left Washington Richard A. Sprague, Esq. took his HSCA files with him back to Philadelphia, where they remain part of his private records, not open to the public as the JFK Act requires.

So while the complete record of Blakey’s tenure at the HSCA is pretty much open for the public to read, there are no records for Sprague’s tenure at the HSCA among the JFK Collection at the NARA, even though I called attention to them in my testimony at the first public hearing of the ARRB. This clearly indicates that the Review Board members and its staff did not listen closely to those who testified at the public sessions and certainly their staff did not follow up on what was clearly presented to them. This was not an isolated case.

When I more recently notified the NARA that I couldn’t locate Sprague’s records among the JFK Collection today, I was politely referred to the records of one Richard E. Sprague, but as I responded to them, that Richard Sprague was not a lawyer but a researcher from New England whose extensive photo collection and papers are included in the JFK Collection at NARA.

The NARA archivist wrote to inform me that: “Mr. Kelly, Thanks for bringing Mr. Richard A. Sprague’s files to our attention.  We searched the collection and concur that the collection does not contain a record series of Sprague’s files as Chief Counsel of the HSCA.  We also searched the records of the ARRB and did not find evidence that the review board discussed acquiring his records.  We’re contacting Mr. Sprague at the address you provided regarding a potential donation of his files.”

-           Best, A. D.  Archivist Special Access and FOIA Branch

Since I was previously referred to the records of independent researcher Richard E. Sprague when I requested the records of the chief counsel to HSCA Richard A. Sprague, Esq., it is apparent that the ARRB and NARA staff checked the name file and found the quite extensive records of the independent researcher Richard E. Sprague, and assumed they were the files of Richard A. Sprague, Esq., the first chief counsel to the HSCA, but in fact they are the files of the researcher, not the lawyer.

Despite the passage of the JFK Act and fifteen years after the ARRB disbanded, Richard A. Sprague, Esq. still has his HSCA files because historical archivists were confused by the files of someone else with the same name.

The NARA then politely asked Mr. Sprague about donating his HSCA files to the JFK Collection, and Sprague was also contacted by a group of independent researchers who requested that Sprague allow them to copy the relevant records and release them to the public, but Sprague has not yet responded to either request.

Bill Kelly - Billkelly3@gmail.com